Before I can type out an answer, my phone pings again.
Where are you?
My eyes narrow. The man is in serious need of a lesson, but now is not the time or place for me to give it to him. Especially since the compulsion’s getting worse, the electricity zigging and zagging through me in an effort to hurry me up. Too bad it can’t clue me in, because I have no idea where to go from here.
I text Declan back quickly, telling him where I am, and then I head over to the ornately carved bench Lily is standing beside.
The closer I get, the more the pain eases off, thank the goddess. “Did you find something?” I ask.
“No,” she says with a shake of her head. “But I just remembered something I heard in a class once. I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, figured it was just a wild-goose chase.”
A sliver of unease works its way down my spine. “What is it?”
“You know how nobody knows where the ACW’s headquarters is?”
The sliver becomes an avalanche. “Yeah?”
“There are a few main theories, right? Alexandria, Cairo, Paris—”
“So what? What does that have to do with this?” I know I sound impatient, but the compulsion hurts. I just want to find this body, call Nate and let him deal with it.
“Well, my professor said that some people think the ACW’s headquarters is in Austin.”
“Yeah, and some people think it’s on the moon. But we all know it’s in the Egyptian desert somewhere, probably close to Luxor.”
“Well, what if that’s just what they want us to believe? My professor said that the Council moved to Texas over a hundred years ago, when the whole witch-hunt thing started to heat up over there.”
“I didn’t realize they had.” I can’t help looking at her a little askew. Lily’s read a book or taken a class on just about everything at least once, which is one of the reasons I usually pay close attention to what she’s saying. But this doesn’t make any sense. The Egyptians, while definitely monotheistic now, have a deep and abiding pride in their heritage. I can’t imagine that changing if they found a few practitioners of Heka.
Lily shrugs. “Me neither, but supposedly there was a rash of killings a number of years ago that sent the whole Hekan community scrambling for cover. The perpetrators were eventually found, and condemned to death, but by then a lot of the witches and wizards had gone underground.”
“Underground,” I repeat. “Not moved to Texas.”
She holds up her hands. “I’m just telling you what I heard—that the ACW moved their headquarters to Austin and hid it somewhere downtown.”
“Downtown. As in the Capitol grounds downtown?”
“You’re the one who brought us to this little patch of grass. You tell me.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” I throw my arms up in defeat. “But if you think you can find it, who am I to stop you?”
“I didn’t say I could find it. Just that it might be here.” Still, she squats down, starts poking around. “What do you think an entrance to the ACW’s headquarters might look like?”
I have no idea. But if Lily’s right, we need to find it soon. Before I end up electrocuted by all this damn energy inside me. “Shouldn’t it be big and decked out in gold and powerful stones or something? They aren’t exactly the kind to hide their lights under a bushel.”
“They are when they’re being hunted.”
It’s a good point. So even though I’m pretty sure it’s a waste of time, I start to look. But ten minutes later, we’ve still had no luck and I’m in worse shape than ever. The compulsion is riding me hard, ripping me apart from the inside out until I feel like I’ve been scraped raw, right beneath the skin. It’s a weird feeling, an excruciating one, and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it without screaming.
I must look as bad as I feel, because Lily is suddenly by my side, easing me down onto the closest park bench. “You okay, sweetie?” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small bottle of water. She hands it to me.
I take it gratefully, but before I can do much more than twist off the cap, Declan steps out of the shadows and into the glow of the nearest streetlamp.
“What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing. Here?”
Nine
He looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him. Which is fine, because I’m pretty damn pissed myself. After the night I’ve had, the absolute last thing I need is for him to come in here and play the big alpha he-man with me. I know he warned me not to go wandering off without him right now, not when things with the Council are so uncertain, but he knows I can’t control the compulsions. Besides, if he wanted to come with me, he shouldn’t have snuck out of my bed the second I fell asleep.
“I could ask you the same question.” I keep my voice deliberately calm, refusing to give him the response he’s looking for.
Declan’s eyes narrow and Lily sucks in a loud breath. I half expect her to run for cover—which is fine, I’ve got this—but instead she puts a hand on my shoulder in obvious solidarity. And people wonder why she’s my best friend? There’s nobody else I’d rather have at my back. Except the enraged man in front of me, but he pretty much screwed that up when he left without so much as a note letting me know what was going on.
“I came because you told me you were here.”
“Hmm, that was nice of me. Telling you where I was so you wouldn’t worry. How very mature of me.”
His jaw clenches and I can all but hear his teeth grind together, but I’m not backing down. Not this time. “This is really how you want tonight to go?” he asks, coming closer in what I can only assume is an attempt to intimidate me. Too bad it isn’t working.
“You don’t get to blame me. This is your choice, not mine.”
“I told you. I had something to do.”
“Yeah, well, now I have something to do.”
“Right here?” He crouches down on my right side, and with a quick squeeze of my shoulder, Lily steps back. I don’t blame her. It’s all I can do to hold myself up to the crushing dominance of his personality right now. Lily doesn’t stand a chance, especially considering she doesn’t have the same soul-deep belief that he won’t hurt her that I have.
“It appears so.” I’m not giving an inch.
He reaches out, gently circles my right wrist with his fingers. Then slides his hand—slowly, slowly—up my arm and shoulder, until he reaches the bend where my neck meets my shoulder. He rests his hand there for long seconds, before continuing the journey up to my cheek. He strokes his fingers softly over my jaw, his eyes ablaze with emotion, and for the first time I realize it’s not anger motivating him. It’s fear.
That knowledge brings my own anger down a few notches as I try to put myself in his place. After everything that’s happened to me in the last couple of weeks, is it any wonder he freaked out when I wasn’t at home? Yes, it could have been avoided if he’d just answered his phone—or if he hadn’t left to begin with. But that doesn’t mean I can discount his concern.
“Look at me, Xandra.”
It’s no less a command for the fact that he whispers it, and while I might have ignored him just a couple of minutes ago, understanding tempers my reaction. Besides, if I’m honest, I want to look at him. I want to see in his eyes the truth of where he’s been and what he’s been doing. I don’t have a claim on him, I know that, but I’ve also spent the better part of the last couple of hours worrying if he was injured or dead. Common courtesy doesn’t take much.
I turn my head, finally prepared to explain what is going on, but I never get the chance. Because this time it’s Declan who loudly sucks air in through his teeth.