Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
GABE
“Magnify them? Tom, no,” I protest as he drags me through the doorway and closes it behind us. “I don’t want—” The first humid, scent-laden waft of air slaps me in the face, and I shut up and breathe it in.
“Oh good,” Tom says. “It would have been bad if that had gone the other way.”
I ignore him and wander a few hesitant steps farther in. “God, what is this, and why hasn’t anyone ever told me about it before?”
“Because Daniel’s fanatical about letting people in here?” Tom jokes, even though I know he knows that’s not what I mean. There’s something about the combination of humid air—not too hot—and the smell of dirt and growing things that’s just incredibly relaxing. Who knew?
“Okay, so… what’s what?” I ask, looking around. Daniel has everything super organized on stands and racks and tables, plants lined up in little containers.
“Most of this stuff is vegetables,” Tom says, gesturing, and I shoot him a wry look.
“Really? I never would have guessed that lettuce is a vegetable.”
“Is it, though?” he wonders. “Or is there another category for leaves?”
I reach out, grab the front of his shirt, and yank him close enough for a kiss.
We’ve hardly had any time together since Thursday night, what with the boys being here and him having to work at his family’s restaurant for most of the weekend.
Just being able to be close to him, to kiss him, just us, no interruptions… it’s heaven.
If this is how I feel after just a few days, I’ll never be able to let him go after a few months.
We ease the pressure of the kiss, and Tom smiles against my mouth. “If that’s how you react to questions about vegetables, just wait until you hear what I have to say about fruit.”
Laughing, I pull back and lightly slap his chest. “Idiot.”
He captures my hand and kisses the palm. “Join me in my idiocy.”
“What does that even mean?” I lean in and kiss him again, quickly, because I know what he’s doing. Tom’s fun, but he’s not a joker. He’s trying to distract me from my worries, and it makes me fall for him a tiny bit more.
He shrugs. “No idea. Okay… what other vegetables make you want to kiss me? I wonder if Daniel’s got any eggplant around here.” He laughs with me, then grabs my hand again and guides me along the aisle. “Come on… let me show you the frivolous section. Well, kind of frivolous.”
“Frivolous?” I ask, intrigued.
“Well, as frivolous as Daniel gets when it comes to growing things.” He stops in front of a table holding dozens of small jasmine plants in colorful pots. Most of them are in flower, and I draw the heady fragrance in through my nose.
“I should have guessed that’s what I was smelling.” There are two massive planters of jasmine by the barn, and sometimes in the summer evenings I bring my books out there.
“These get sold in the gift shop spring through fall,” Tom tells me. “Daniel wanted to sell vegetable seedlings, but people would smell the jasmine while they were walking around and ask for that instead.”
“How do you know so much about this?” I demand. I live here on the estate and didn’t know half of what he’s been telling me.
He grins, brown eyes warm. “Skye’s been low-key obsessed with Daniel for years, and as his best friend, my job was to listen, be supportive, and occasionally make an inappropriate comment.”
I laugh. “Yeah, that checks out.”
“So…” His lips quirk into a secret little smile. “Tell me, how’m I doing right now? Are you feeling relaxed, happy, and slightly horny?”
“Definitely relaxed and happy,” I tease. He steps closer, until our bodies are brushing against each other and I can feel the puff of his breath against my skin. The sweet, heavy scent of jasmine wafts through the air, and my head spins with the overload of sensation.
“Two out of three isn’t bad,” he whispers, moving even closer, until we’re pressed together from chest to knee. His lips skim along my jaw as my arms reflexively come up to close around him. “But I feel like going for the trifecta.”
The shrill sound of my phone ringing slices through the sexual fog. I drop my head to rest my brow on Tom’s shoulder. “Noooo,” I whine.
He kisses my ear. “We have time.”
Sighing, I straighten and take a step back. How does he always know exactly what to say?
I fish my phone from my back pocket. It’s Connor, and fear arrows through me. He was the one who said to take Tom for a walk somewhere private and “get my pipes cleaned.” He wouldn’t interrupt if it wasn’t important.
“Con?”
“I’m sorry,” he starts, and I relax a little. If it was really urgent, like someone being dead, he wouldn’t have bothered with the apology. “The team from the Collective has come back.”
“Are you at my place?” We made the decision this morning to bring them in.
Marc and his friends spent the weekend hunting down information about others in the Collective who might be involved in Cato’s plan, and while he did have a few more names for us, the three who are here in Illinois at the moment weren’t on the list. There’s still a risk, but we desperately need the numbers.
“Heading there now.”
I nod, even though he can’t see me. “I’ll meet you there.” Ending the call, I look at Tom. “I’m so sorry.”
He’s not mad, though. He just pulls a commiserating face.
“I get it, Gabe. I’m in this situation too, remember?
Sure, it sucks that we’ve barely been able to spend any time together, and I really want to get my hands all over you, but I get it.
And I’d rather we save the world and then have plenty of time to explore this”—he gestures between us—“than that we have five rushed minutes now and end up dead… or in perpetual slavery to a demon with an ego problem.”
Grinning, I steal a quick kiss, then turn and lead the way back to the door. “Fifteen,” I say over my shoulder.
“Fifteen what?” His hand grazes very lightly over my ass, so lightly that at first I think I imagined it. The look I give him promises retribution.
“Fifteen rushed minutes, not five. At the very least.”
“Oooh, a whole fifteen minutes,” he teases. “Tell you what: let’s save the world, and then we can take five hours.”
If that’s not incentive, I don’t know what is.
We’re still a good fifty feet from my place when Tom says, “Uh-oh.”
“What?” I look up, abandoning my study of the way my shoes swish through the ankle-length grass—it’s kept that way on this part of the estate to discourage visitors from coming down here—and glancing toward the cabin. “Oh, fuck.”
Con and the others are there already, but so is Marc. And while we may not be able to sense Marc from a distance unless he turns the fear factor on, face-to-face, there’s no mistaking what he is. Not for a hunter. Hence the standoff on the lawn in front of my porch.
I break into a jog, Tom half a step behind me. Connor’s fully aware of what’s at stake here, but it doesn’t seem fair to make him defend the demon who nearly killed him.
“Hey, you’re here,” I call, making my voice all chirpy. “Great! There’s a lot to catch you up on.”
Jill glances between me and Marc, her face like stone. “I’ll bet.”
“What have you told them?” I ask Connor, who winces.
“Nothing. They happened to arrive just as Marc and I were leaving the main house. It was nearly a disaster.”
Three hunters seeing a higher demon at a tourist destination while surrounded by civilians? Yeah, that could definitely have been a disaster.
“Does Kieran know?” The last thing we need is for him to develop an ulcer.
Connor shudders. “Nope.”
“Connor said he could explain. Then he said to wait for you,” Randy says coldly. “We waited.” Unsaid but heavily implied is that they won’t wait for much longer.
I scrub my hands over my face and pray that Marc continues to keep his mouth shut. It’s a miracle that he hasn’t said something provoking already.
“You know most of the story,” I start. “But last week—” I stop when I remember they came by on Thursday. Shit. “Hear me all the way out,” I ask. “Please. Wait until I’m done, and then you’ll understand.” I wince, because that sounds very “please convert to my cult.”
Nobody says anything, but Jill’s head tilts slightly in a nod.
“Okay. Last Wednesday night…” I tell them everything, leaving out not one single detail.
I even take out my phone to show them the picture of the list. I could have asked Marc to go get the original, but I don’t want to direct attention to him just yet.
Plus, he would probably have spoken, and I want them solidly on our side before that happens.
I explain the significance of the paper, and when they look at the names and make the connection, I see the first cracks in their anger. The sympathy that peeks through makes me falter, my voice going rough.
A hand comes to rest lightly on the small of my back, and I suck in a deep breath. Tom. He always knows just what to do.
When I finally finish speaking, Randy clears his throat. I can see on their faces what they’re thinking. They don’t want to believe any of it, but… “You’re sure that list couldn’t have been faked?”
“As sure as I can be,” I say honestly. “I’ve been through a million different scenarios. There were only a hundred sheets of that paper, and Dad used it all before June that same year.”
“He wouldn’t have kept a sheet out of sentimentality?” Jill asks, then grimaces. She knows my dad. He’s not the sentimental type. I answer anyway.
“No. Not stationery. He might have kept a report card or something, but paper? No.”
She exchanges glances with Randy and Mart, then clasps both hands at the back of her neck and turns in an aimless circle. “Fuck, Gabe.”
The sound that breaks from my throat is almost a sob. “Yeah.”
“So what’s the plan?” Mart asks.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We’re still working on it, and we could really use your help.”
“Our help? Gabe, we’re hunters. I don’t know anything about the barrier between worlds.” Randy would have sounded less shocked if I’d asked him to stand on his head and sing the national anthem while eating watermelon.
“You know more than you think,” Connor tells him. “We can all open and close gateways, which means we’re all capable of manipulating the barrier energy.”
“I think I understand the theory behind rebuilding the barrier,” I admit. “I think. There’s not really a way to test it out without the barrier being destroyed.”
“Yeah, that’s a theory I would be fine not ever being able to test,” Jill says. “Let me guess: the bigger problem is power?”
I nod. I should have known she’d get it. She was always the smartest one in our classes. “Yeah. I have the strength to guard a pretty big gateway, but there’s never been a gateway that big.”
“Plus, it usually takes hours, if not days, to build a guard,” Connor adds. “Who knows how long it would take to build a barrier this big?”
“And Cato won’t wait.” All eyes turn to Marc as he speaks for the first time. “The instant the barrier comes down, his forces will strike. We won’t have days, or even hours, not unless we want the Earth overrun.”
A muscle flexes in Jill’s jaw, and he didn’t even say anything annoying. It’s just the idea that a higher demon is existing in our space that infuriates her, and I get it. I really do. I even feel the same way. But we don’t have time for those feelings right now.
“Okay,” she says at last. “You need help. It’s still too risky to go to the Collective.
” Her voice shakes a little on that, and I can’t blame her.
It’s not easy coming to terms with the fact that the one thing you were sure you could rely on…
isn’t. “I’m in. I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll do it. ”
The tiny bubble of hope deep down inside that’s refused to die suddenly starts to expand. “Really?”
She nods. “I can’t pretend I’m not deeply uncomfortable with… him.” She doesn’t even look toward Marc, but we all know who she means. “But I trust you both. I’ve seen the evidence. We need to stop this.”
“I’m in too,” Randy says.
Mart sighs. “Me too. But god, I wish there was a plan.”
“You and me both.”