It hit me then. I was beginning to accept the idea of Harmony with a givnomai, beginning to think of her as a young Amazon, and not just the little girl I’d spent the last ten years protecting from everything that even hinted of Amazon.
Peter had pulled on his pants, stood barefoot and bare-chested while he answered. The lynx on his shoulder seemed bigger now, impossible to ignore. I forced my eyes to look away.
“We don’t know, but since she’s second generation, we think it’s possible-or it might be a trait that’s gender based. There’s no way for us to know.”
Standing there, he was glorious, all male with his long firm muscles, even his tattoos had a masculine look that the same animal and scenery wouldn’t have had on a woman. I couldn’t put my finger on what the difference was, but it was there-and I was drawn to it, but I was still angry too, and wary.
“What other skills do you have?” I asked. I had to check.
His shirt bunched in his hand; he frowned. “I’m an artisan. I figured you knew that.”
“No…” I twisted my mouth to the side, not sure of my word choice; finally giving up, I went on, “Priestess skills?”
“Magic?” He lowered the shirt, frowned. “You have both, don’t you? And not just shades of both. You can truly use both-compete as either.”
He seemed fascinated by me again, watched me like I’d just shared some new pain-free technique for tattooing.
“Are you sure you don’t shift? Have you tried?” he continued. The expression in his eyes was so intense, I couldn’t help but place my hand over my givnomai. Even through my shirt, I could feel the power that had been put in the little creature pulse.
“No. I don’t shift and I wouldn’t even know how to try. I never realized…” I let the words drift off. I had never realized the possibility existed.
The creature under my fingers seemed to move, swish its tail. I curled my fingers over it, silenced it…or more accurately, my imagination gone wild.
Peter wanted to know if I’d tried shifting. He didn’t know how useless shifting into my givnomai would be. I wouldn’t gain any great strength or athletic prowess, but then…I’d be able to blend anywhere, hide out in the open.
Again, I wondered what Harmony had chosen.
“Did you tell her? Tell Harmony? Or does she think she just got a tattoo?” I asked.
He finished tugging the shirt over his head. “Just a tattoo. It’s not my place to tell her about the Amazons. I can’t imagine she would have believed me if I had. But I did tell her she had to keep it secret, that no one could find out she had one…that you could lose your business.”
I shook my head. Oh yeah, my daughter wouldn’t tell anyone she had a tattoo. I believed that. Obviously, Peter had no experience with teenage girls, especially one who would see a secret tattoo as some kind of victory over her too-protective mother. Which brought me right back to where I started. Harmony had a givnomai and there was a killer somehow connected to me, or drawn to me, who was collecting them.
Peter was dressed now, but his feet were still bare. He lounged against my desk, relaxed, apparently willing to stay there all day and chat. Seemingly unaware that he might have put Harmony in the path of any danger.
But then, while he knew about the killings, I didn’t know if he had realized the victims were Amazons. And he couldn’t know what I’d been hiding-their delivery to my door, or their missing givnomais. Couldn’t know unless he was the killer, and frustrating as the realization was, I didn’t think he had killed anyone. I really thought by giving Harmony a givnomai he believed he had been helping, doing what was right.
Not his choice to make for my daughter or my family, but I couldn’t fault his motives. Truth be told, Mother and Bubbe would have applauded his motives, maybe even his actions-if he hadn’t been a man.
Looking up at him was beginning to make me uncomfortable. I stood. “There’s something you don’t know.”
“There are all kinds of things I don’t know.” He shoved a piece of broken pottery across the floor with his foot. It came to a rest next to mine.
“The girls, the ones found dead near Milwaukee? They were Amazons.”
He looked past me, to a spot on the wall.
He knew.
“The girls on that site you showed me? The one of the tattoos? Two of them were the victims.”
Again, nothing.
I picked up the pottery shard and threw it at his feet. “What don’t you know? What else have you been doing besides tattooing my daughter and-” I clamped my lips shut before “tempting me” could come out.
“You asked why I came here. A big part was Harmony. We hadn’t been able to get close to her before, at least not as close as we wanted, and with her age and the need for a givnomai…well, when you advertised for an artist, we couldn’t let it pass by.”
“How did you know she didn’t have a givnomai?” Ugly scenarios were playing out in my head. My hand tightened on the tattoo machine I’d thrown earlier. This time I’d figure out a way to use it more effectively.
His brows lifted. “We didn’t for sure, but we’d been in your shop, heard the two of you arguing. It seemed pretty obvious.”
I pressed the tattoo machine against my leg, felt my heart slow a little.
“But after I was here, I noticed things. Things that worried me. That’s why I called in Makis.”
“Makis? The art teacher?” The art teacher…“The wheelchair? You don’t mean…?” The mutilations. They’d been horrifying enough when they’d just been in theory, something that had happened long ago, but to realize someone I’d met…“He’s a son,” I finished, unable to say more.
“The son or our leader anyway. Makis is one of our oldest. Both of his legs were broken, then he was left on a church doorstep. Medical care wasn’t much back then, and no one wanted a crippled baby, but he survived. As he grew, he realized he was different, started finding others like him, and slowly pieced together who we were, where we came from.”
“He must hate us.” I said the words without realizing their significance at first, just voicing what I felt.
“You would think, but he doesn’t seem to,” Peter replied, but I barely heard what he said.
“He must hate us,” I repeated. I dropped the machine back on the floor, took two giant steps forward, crushing another chunk of pottery under my boot as I did. “Is he a priestess?” I was too focused on my suspicions to worry over terminology this time. “Can he do magic?”
Peter lost his casual posture, stood erect. “Yes, but he doesn’t hate Amazons. I don’t know why he doesn’t. He has every reason to, but he doesn’t.”
“He’s a priestess and an artisan.” Again, to myself. I headed for the exit.
“Where are you going?” I could feel Peter moving behind me, heard him curse as he stepped on another shard of pottery or some other debris left on the floor. Still, he followed me.
I raised my left hand, blew air over my shoulder, and slammed the door in his face, mumbled a spell and twisted my fingers-using compressed air to turn the lock.
He’d get out eventually, but at least I had a head start. I didn’t think Peter was involved in the killings, but I didn’t need him arguing with me, slowing me down.
My life was a mess, but none of it mattered-not compared to stopping this killer.
I met Reynolds on the steps. I tried to walk past him. He stepped in front of me. My body shook with the need to get past him, to shove him out of my way and sprint down the stairs.
“I didn’t give you permission to come in here,” I said.