He frowned. “Listen, I get a lot of passengers—”
“This woman was regal-looking, with silver hair, a thin face, and a hooked nose,” I interrupted. “She might have appeared high on something.”
He grunted. “Yeah, I remember that one. She smelled funny—like old paper. I dropped her at some abandoned industrial building in Brooklyn. I did ask her if she had the right address, being a woman and alone and all, because it wasn’t a nice-looking place.” He looked suddenly worried. “Has something happened to her?”
“No,” Azriel said, in a reassuring voice. “We simply need to talk to her. Can you give us the address where you left her?”
“It was Cawley Road. I don’t know the actual number, but the place had a stack of old shipping containers on the premises. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr. Tan.”
“My pleasure,” he said, and then the screen went blank.
Francis swiveled in her chair and gave Azriel a somewhat sultry look. “Anything else I can do for you, officer?”
I rolled my eyes and left him to it. I gave the woman at the desk a nod of thanks, but she was paying as little attention to me as the woman in the control room had. Which I could totally understand, but it still rankled.
I waited outside in the cool air, and Azriel appeared a few minutes later.
“So,” I muttered, “you all set for later tonight?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I do not understand what you mean.”
My ass he didn’t. That was obvious from the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. But I bit back my annoyance and my reply, and glanced at my watch. Even though he’d zapped us here, we’d still lost valuable time inside, and the clock was ticking down. Time to stop being so idiotic and start concentrating on what really mattered—saving a woman’s life. A reaper who was becoming more and more of a frustration could be dealt with later.
“We need to get moving.”
He nodded and stepped close, but this time he didn’t immediately wrap his arms around me and dissolve us into mist. Instead, he caught my chin between his fingertips and said softly, “You are an idiot, Risa Jones.”
Then he kissed me.
It was fierce yet gentle, everything and yet nothing. It was energy and spirit and desire, and it made me soar even as it made me hunger for things I knew could never be.
And it was insanely, i ks in as it nfuriatingly brief.
His lips left mine and he wrapped his arms around my waist, but I barely even saw the gray fields as we zipped through them. My head was still dizzy from the power and the promise of the kiss. From the knowledge that it would never go any further unless he wanted it to.
What I wanted apparently didn’t matter.
We reappeared in the middle of a road. He released me and stepped back, his expression restored to its usual distant self. Like we hadn’t just kissed. Like the kiss meant nothing.
And yet I knew, deep down, that was far from the truth.
“Damn it, Azriel—”
“There is magic here,” he cut in, obviously not wanting to discuss his actions. He indicated the high wire fence to our right. Behind it stood dozens of old shipping containers in various states of repair. “Over there.”
Fine. Play your games. But don’t expect me to be happy or to play along.
Once again, he gave no indication that he’d heard the somewhat surly thought. I released a frustrated breath and reminded myself yet again that there was a life at stake here. “Can you sense anything behind it?”
“No life, if that’s what you mean.” His gaze met mine. “But no death, either.”
I frowned. “If you can’t sense any life, maybe she simply met our killer here and they went elsewhere.”
“No. There is something here. It is similar in feel to the magic near Dorothy.”
I swung around and studied the battered, abandoned containers. I couldn’t see anything that jumped up and screamed magic, but then, I wasn’t as sensitive to the stuff as he was.
“Where, exactly?”
He pointed down the road, to the right. “It appears to be located near the containers behind that warehouse.”
The warehouse in question was big, old, and had been in disuse for some time if the state of the place was anything to go by. The remnants of the sign over the main entrance said HARTWELL SHIPPING in what must once have been bold red lettering.
“This is definitely the place.”
“It would seem so.”
We hurried toward the entrance. My shoes clicked noisily on the road surface and the sound seemed to echo across the odd hush that held the immediate area. It was almost as if the old buildings around us were holding their collective breath, waiting for something dramatic to happen. Trepidation continued to crawl across my skin, and I slowed.
“What?” Azriel said immediately.
“I don’t know.”
The nearby cyclone fence was topped with razor wire, which seemed a little extreme given the state of the entire area. It wasn’t like there was a lot here beyond rusting remnants, but maybe they were simply left over from the days when this was a t k th’hriving business park. There didn’t seem to be any other security measures present, either. And yet something about the place still felt off.
I heard a slight tick-tick, and walked closer to the fence. A piece of razor wire had been cut and swayed regularly in time to the breeze, and every time it touched the fence, it ticked. The damn fence was electrified. I walked down to the main gate. It was similarly protected.
“The gate doesn’t provide much of a barrier for the likes of us,” Azriel commented.
He touched my arm and drew me lightly toward him again, but this time I resisted. “Thanks, but I’ll get in there under my own steam.”
“I do not mind—”
“Yeah, but I do.” I wrapped my fingers around my purse and phone—they wouldn’t change unless there was skin-on-skin contact. “Especially if you’re going to keep using those moments to steal kisses.”
“That was wrong of me—”
“Yes, it was,” I cut in, then closed my eyes and called to the Aedh within. I was still pushing my limits strength-wise, and this was really the last thing I needed to do. But I wasn’t about to keep relying on Azriel to zap us around. Enough was enough. If he wanted distance, he was damn well going to get it.
The heat and energy that was my Aedh half surged with the defiant thought, numbing pain and dulling sensation as it invaded every muscle, every cell, breaking them down and tearing them apart, until my flesh no longer existed and I became one with the air. Until I held no substance, no form, and could not be seen or heard or felt by anyone or anything who wasn’t reaper or Aedh.
I swept in under the gate and headed toward the back of the warehouse building. Even though I had no flesh in Aedh form, I felt heavy and movement was slow. It was just as well I didn’t have far to go, because I wasn’t going to be able to hold this form for long.
I’d barely reached the rear of the warehouse when my energy gave out and I hit the ground with an undignified splat. I stayed there for several minutes, my head booming and my breath a harsh rasp that burned my throat. Azriel, wise person that he was, didn’t say a word, although he was standing so close that the heat of him washed over me, chasing the worst of the tremors away.
I took a deep, somewhat shuddery breath, then released my grip on my purse and phone and climbed slowly to my feet. The world did a couple of mad turns, then settled. I swept the sweaty strands of hair from my forehead and, with some determination, walked on.
Azriel followed closely. I had a suspicion he was ready to catch me should I fall—a distinct possibility considering how shaky my legs still felt.
My gaze swept the old building as we neared the rear entrance. It was covered in grime, and there were cracked and broken windows along its entire length, but the roof—or the bits I’d seen of it—seemed in far better condition than what I’d expected. Once again I couldn’t escape the notion that someone was using this place—and that there would be more than just electrified fencing waiting if we dared go inside.