Until a dried pine needle, sharp as a dental instrument, jammed itself into her cheek when she hit the ground. “Ouch, shit!”
“Are you okay?”
Muffled footsteps sounded on the street, some distance away but gaining fast.
“Help me! Chresh!” The hysterical quality of Orion’s pleas made her jaw clench. She glanced around and saw another ball hit the fence and erupt into a shower of black sparks like the sequins on Justine’s dress.
“We have to help him!”
“This doesn’t concern us, those are—”
“Greyson! Ak vend retchia! Ak vend retchia!”
Maleficarum said something Megan was fairly certain he wouldn’t have said in her presence at any other moment, but the exact phrase was covered by Greyson’s much more concise one.
“Ak vend retchia—aaaaa!”
“Damn it!” Greyson paused for a moment, then shouted, “Retchia a capt.” Megan heard the footsteps outside getting closer, heard the front gate squeak then slam shut.
Greyson snatched her hand and yanked her toward a small side door she hadn’t seen until then. “Fuck.”
“What about—”
His face was hidden by shadows. “Mal and Spud have him. I gave the bastard sanctuary.”
“Call Tera.”
She actually stumbled. Words she never thought she’d hear Greyson say. “What?”
“Call her, now. Tell her we have Orion and he’s been injured, but convince her we’re not going to help him escape or anything stupid like that.” He paused and glanced at her shoes and purse again, his arms crossed over his chest. “Please, Meg.”
The blaze in the fireplace warmed her skin, but the phone was still winter-night cold in her hand. Tera picked up on the first ring.
“Megan, is Orion Maldon in that house? You need to send him out now, out front, unarmed—”
“Wait, wait, Tera, hold on. Yes, he’s in here. He’s injured. We’re not going to help him escape or anything, but we can’t—”
“Look, this has nothing to do with you or Greyson. This isn’t even me, I didn’t order this. This is Vergadering business, and they’ll storm that fucking gate if they—”
“Tera, please. Just listen for a minute, okay?”
She didn’t know if the silence was her invitation to speak or if Tera was simply too pissed off to continue. Hoping for the former, she plunged ahead. “Maldon has some information I need. About my father, remember I told you about that? About the hospital? He came here to give it to me, and I need it. Please. Don’t storm the gates.”
Greyson snorted. A chill breeze wafted over her skin, distracting her from the phone call. They were supposed to be celebrating right now. Snuggled up in his big bed with a bottle of champagne or something.
Instead they were here in the study, while someone who’d tried to kill them sobbed and bled just outside the door, a gang of witches waited on the street—presumably with battering rams—and Greyson knew she’d been about to run out on him when he’d come upstairs after the ceremony.
Finally Tera sighed. “Put Greyson on.”
Megan did.
“Hi, Tera. No. I had to, I didn’t want to. He invoked—No. No, I—no. I’m not going to, I give you my word. Yes. I swear it. Hey, I hate the guy, I don’t want to help him do—okay. Yes. Here she is.”
He handed Megan the phone and leaned toward her, as if to give her a kiss, but stopped himself. Okay, they were definitely going to have to talk about what had happened. Guilt made her duck her head and look away as she raised the phone to her ear.
It wasn’t that she didn’t still want him. She did, unquestionably. It wasn’t that she even thought of him differently—she didn’t, not really. It wasn’t as though what she’d witnessed was part of his everyday life or anything.
It was herself she saw differently, herself who seemed like some sort of monster, and she had no idea how to admit that to him. To anyone.
“I’m going to make some calls,” Tera said. “You should have the night free. But in the morning, you’re going to have to hand him over.”
Megan’s shoulders sagged. She hadn’t realized they were tense. “Thanks.”
“It’s okay. Call me tomorrow.”
“Okay. ’Bye.” The phone clicked shut. “What’s going on? What’s all this about sanctuary, and what’s Vergadering doing outside?”
He handed her a glass half full of bourbon. “What’s going on,” he said, “is that we’ve just interfered in a Vergadering arrest. Sanctuary—the retchia—is an ancient demon custom, which essentially has to be granted if requested. And I assume Vergadering is outside because they think Orion killed those witches Temp hired to kill me. Any more questions?”
“Why do they think he did it?” The whiskey burned going down her throat and brought tears to her eyes, but she felt better. Stronger. False confidence, but confidence just the same.
He shrugged. “Probably because some interesting clues to that effect have been planted around the city and the rumor mill is working overtime.”
“So you weren’t going to have him killed, you were going to have him arrested? Like T-Templeton?” That bloody heart…
“Oh, no. I definitely planned to have him killed. But this way when his body turns up, Vergadering will consider their case closed.” He left which means we’re both off the hook unsaid, but Megan knew it was there.
Damn it, how did he manage to do this to her? Put her in a position where his way seemed the only sensible and logical way, where it kept coming down to her life or someone else’s?
And make himself look magnanimous in the process, as well as right?
“Which reminds me…” he said, and picked up his own phone. “I have to call Winston. No point putting off until tomorrow what we can do today.”
“No! I mean, can’t we…you said we’d discuss it.”
“And we will. But Win needs to know he’s here, so he can come over if he wants. We might as well meet with him now.”
She nodded. It wasn’t like she’d be going to sleep anytime soon. If she even stayed here.
She was of two minds about that one. Or rather, two hearts and a mind. Both hearts wanted to stay. Her mind thought it might not be a good idea.
It might not be a good idea for her to be involved in any of this anymore. Despite what Winston said to her earlier about it being time for her to take charge, she had a feeling that, as much as the demons might like it, it would be the absolute worst thing she could do for herself. When she started thinking murder wasn’t such a bad plan after all, when she started thinking of people—even for a second—as problems to be dealt with and not individuals, that wasn’t good.
But hadn’t she been training herself for years to think of them that way? To see them in the light of their issues, and to use their lives and the events in them merely as stage settings to help her treat the problem?
Had her career been nothing more than a way to remove herself from people, all along, to let herself feel superior to them? Were these changes in her the result of the awakening of that piece of demon nestled in her chest, or were they simply her true feelings—as black and miserable as they were—finally being allowed to come out?
After all, she hadn’t had her own personal demon. Every shitty thing she’d done to other people in the last sixteen years had come purely from the depths of her one human heart.
Greyson looked at her oddly, and she realized she was standing in the middle of the room with her brow furrowed, biting her lip.
“I was just…thinking about something.”
“I’d never have guessed. Win’s on his way over, so let’s get Orion in here now. I want to have this done as soon as possible.”
“What about—are we going to decide now what to do about him? What to tell Winston, I mean?”
He finished his drink. “Why don’t we see what he has to say first. You might change your mind when you hear his story.”