Chapter 37
Ligat wasn’t a jealous man. He’d taken a fairly modern view of romance in life—occult circles exposed one to a number of unorthodox perspectives—and although the subject hadn’t arisen since he’d entered Perthrux’s service, he didn’t see any reason to change those opinions.
If Hazel was having it off with her lawyer, she had every right to do so.
It might be bad legal practice on his part, but Ligat wasn’t a magistrate, and it certainly wasn’t his place to object on that or any other grounds.
As the police left, he went around to the side of the house, where Perthrux’s minion had torn up earth and knocked down small trees.
That merited a better look, it gave Hazel and the other man what privacy Ligat could manage, and it meant he didn’t have to watch them. He was old enough to admit that last.
Uprooted plants lay dead or dying across churned dirt beside Hazel’s bedroom, and a jagged hole had replaced the window.
Ligat wondered at first if Hazel or the police had picked up all the glass, since he didn’t see any, then realized that it would have all landed on the floor inside.
The monster would have burst in. He could picture it clearly.
The thing failed, he told the iron weight in his stomach. Hazel was—well, fine was probably stretching a point after such an attack, but she was alive and apparently had no severe injuries.
Getting upset under those circumstances, so long after the fact, was the height of absurdity.
Very good advice did very little good.
Ligat wanted to go and find her, to hear her voice and see her look up at him with that deliberate, clear-eyed regard he’d become almost used to but thought could never grow ordinary, to put his arms around her and feel her breath and the warmth of her skin.
He wanted to ask about the night before if she wanted to talk and to sit and pet her absurd dog together if she didn’t.
The lawyer partly prevented him from doing so, but only partly.
Whatever Ligat wanted, he was still Perthrux’s servant, the right hand of the demon who’d sent the monster after Hazel.
If she had decided to trust him as far as a few conversations and her metaphorical bed, that didn’t mean she’d welcome his comfort or even his company.
Ligat couldn’t even say she was missing out on either.
What did he have to offer? An alien perspective, an understanding of her world that was patchy at best, and the constant reminder of her enemy and her fate.
The lawyer could talk to her about normal subjects, defend her against everyday threats, perhaps spend the night without the danger of being yanked away by her enemy.
Jealousy hadn’t yet become a significant part of his nature. Envy, on the other hand, had started to make a very strong showing.
* * *
Plywood over the broken window helped, even though it gave Hazel’s bedroom the vibe of a starving artist’s loft in a nineties movie.
Renewing the wards helped too. Three hours of sleep in a bed, with the midafternoon light seeping in around the plywood, was the most helpful of all.
It didn’t set up a mystic shield or make the blood in the yard vanish, but Hazel woke up feeling much less like a cracked Christmas ornament.
Brandon had sent her an email during her nap, she discovered.
The cops wouldn’t be investigating, but animal control would be coming out soon to see if they could find the bear in the woods, and was she absolutely sure she didn’t want to get a room at a hotel in town?
She could probably do her ward things there. The local hotels had seen much worse.
Hazel had rested enough just to roll her eyes. She even managed a rueful grin as she sent back thanks and refusal.
Her bruises were darkening—she’d look like an overripe banana by the next morning, she was sure—and her muscles stiff and achy, but lying around wouldn’t make either go away.
Besides, she wanted the damn blood off her porch, or as close to it as she could manage.
She poured enough bleach into a bucket of soapy water that she suspected she’d take off a layer of wood, decided that cleanliness was worth it, and started on the side where Gordon’s leg had landed.
In theory, there were special services to clean up crime scenes.
One of the police had given Hazel a card.
In practice, the address on that card was about an hour away from her; the town didn’t really offer a huge market.
That was fine. The last thing she wanted was more strangers hanging around, putting themselves at risk.
She dunked the mop in the bucket, wrung it out, and watched the water turn dull red. As she started to lift it out, she heard somebody in the yard clear their throat.
“Miss Lewis?”
Even though the voice was unmistakable, she spun around with the mop in front of her before the speaker got through his first syllable. A spray of red water landed just short of Maxwell Redfern’s shoes.
He looked from it to her, not at all shocked. That surprised Hazel at first; she knew he wasn’t normal, but her subconscious seemed slow to catch up. “Hi,” she said cautiously. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here again.”
Maxwell had the good manners to flush and look away. “I’d imagine not. I—” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I came to apologize and to explain, but I can leave if I’ve come at a bad time. Or I can pitch in. I’d be glad to.”
“I won’t say no to the help,” she said. Accepting gifts from mysterious, possibly inhuman strangers was almost certainly a dubious idea, but none of Hazel’s training had ever warned her against getting them to mop the porch. “As you can see, it was an eventful night.”
“I heard a few rumors.”
Hazel raised her eyebrows. “Oh? Where did you hear those?”
“It wasn’t exactly quiet,” said Maxwell, shrugging off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. His outfit was even more incongruous in the bloodstained landscape than it had been when her yard had been normal. “I’m glad to see you’re in one piece.”
Hearing that shouldn’t have felt good, knowing what she did, but Hazel found herself smiling at Maxwell anyhow. “Thanks.” She handed him the mop and retreated to lean against her doorway, aware of all the space she was putting between them.
He got to work right away, though he was a little clumsy at first. The thickest patches of blood had started to vanish when he cleared his throat. “I didn’t—I did enjoy talking to you. And I did—I do—find you very attractive. I should have tried to explain my situation earlier, but—”
“But you’re at least ninety years old, you haven’t apparently aged since your thirties, and you don’t live anywhere near here,” said Hazel.
If she were wrong about the first two items, she would feel awkward, but it wouldn’t be the first time and it wouldn’t kill her.
She really didn’t have time to beat around the bush.
Maxwell had stopped mopping when she’d called him on being ninety and had turned to meet her gaze, a little startled. Hazel would have expected much more consternation just from finding out what she knew. “Indeed,” he said, and stood there waiting.
The posture looked familiar. Hazel couldn’t place it just then, especially when she was trying to figure out where to go from there.
If she’d had time to predict Maxwell’s reaction, it would have been either denial or a full confession, not calm and terse affirmation.
He even sounded slightly different—almost hopeful, though Hazel couldn’t imagine why.
She decided on bluntness again. “What are you?”
“A man,” he said. “One who made some damned bad decisions.”
“Involving the occult.”
His lips twitched. “What other sort would bring me to this time in this condition? Traditional science isn’t responsible, I assure you.”
“No, you don’t seem like a cyborg. Not that I’d know.
” Hazel studied him, taking in the rumpled brown hair, the glasses, the slightly out-of-date clothing.
None of it told her what she wanted to know, not even in context, but they all stirred something in her mind, some insight she couldn’t quite pin down yet.
“Why did you come here? Why did you start talking to me?”
“I wanted to be helpful,” Maxwell said, “in the limited way I could manage.”
Hazel lifted her eyebrows again. “What, you’re my guardian angel?”
Maxwell’s laughter in response was the bleakest sound she’d ever heard from him. “I wish I were,” he said. “It would have been much simpler.”
“Simpler than what?”
“I’m—” He stopped, and Hazel didn’t think it was entirely out of awkwardness. “I had to be here, and I saw you with Gordon. I didn’t want to let him bullyrag you. I really can’t explain further.”
I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Ligat said in her memory.
I made a bargain. It turned out to be unwise echoed as well. A man, she heard Maxwell say a few moments ago. One who made some damned bad decisions.
Hazel kept staring at him, taking in the long, slim lines of his body, the grace with which he moved, the quirk of his smile. She remembered his kiss.
He’d heard about her battle, she thought. Granted, that had probably been obvious in the ethereal for miles around, but it fit into the rest of the puzzle. “You had to be here,” she repeated slowly.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you.” He faced her without apparent impatience, but he was barely breathing, like he was in front of a judge and waiting to hear his sentence.
Carefully, he went on. “I promise I wasn’t trying to exploit you for any reason when I confronted Gordon, when I gave you the wine, or now.
I can’t promise to answer more questions, but I’ll try. ”
Hazel nodded and met his emerald gaze squarely. “One question,” she said, deliberately choosing wording she’d used before and calling up all her knowledge of magic. “Maxwell Redfern, are you the being who calls himself Ligat?”
The whole yard fell silent. Energy filled the air like the moments before a thunderstorm, though the sky stretched clear and blue above them Hazel felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck.
Red sigils flickered to life on Maxwell’s face, then subsided, just as light flared behind his eyes. Hazel gathered the strength she had left in case she’d just made a very stupid mistake.
Nothing moved.
Then Maxwell opened his mouth. “Yes.” He pronounced the single syllable like it might explode, paused, and then said it again. “Yes. I am.”