He finally cracked a smile. “We’re a bunch of old scribes, too. We just don’t look it.”
And suddenly, she was wondering just how old he was. “I’m almost afraid to ask. So, you really think there are answers there?”
“There’s a greater chance of answers there than here. The library of Cappadocia has been preserved for hundreds of years. And it would also be for your safety. To get you out of the city. Damien will continue to investigate why the others are looking for you. But in the meantime, you’d be somewhere much safer.”
“I don’t know…”
“It’s also very unusual.” His tone was more coaxing. “You could visit the underground cities and churches. There is nowhere else like it on earth.”
She narrowed her eyes, knowing that he was tempting her curiosity, but unable to argue against his reasoning. “I suppose… there’d be lots of time for pictures?”
“As much time as you want.”
“So you and me—”
“It won’t be just me,” he said in a rush. “Rhys will go with us. He’s our resident researcher and scholar. He’s the one most familiar with our history.”
“That’s the black-haired guy by the computer, right?” The lanky one with the vivid green eyes.
“Rhys is also a very fierce warrior if he needs to be.”
“So Rhys and you and me?”
“I know I’m asking you to trust me. Trust others you don’t even know.” He cleared his throat. “But I promise you have nothing to fear. You are… a miracle, Ava. Any one of us would guard you with our lives.”
A memory of Malachi came to her. Rough and angry. Standing at the door of the bar with a bandage across his abdomen. Ava shivered, knowing there was far more to that story than she’d been told. “I don’t want anyone hurt because of me. I’m not worth that.”
“Of course you are,” he said roughly. “You are Irina. We know how precious you are.”
Ava took a deep breath. What were her options? Stay in Istanbul and continue seeing a psychologist for voices that never went away, or go to some place in the middle of Turkey with tattooed people she barely knew in order to research whether she was some obscure form of angel spawn.
Well, she couldn’t call it a boring vacation.
“Okay. Why not?”
Chapter Nine
Malachi was glad they had decided to drive but wished Rhys hadn’t insisted Ava not be left alone in the back of the car. Because of that, he was forced to sit next to her, keeping his hands clenched tightly at his side to avoid touching her as Rhys drove. The old landscape whipped past, familiar and foreign at the same time. So much had changed since he was young.
Ava was napping across from him, and her leg slipped from her side of the Range Rover, stretching out to brush his as they bumped over the eastern roads.
His fingers itched to touch it. The memory of her skin throbbed in his mind, but so did the warning his watcher had given him.
“No, Malachi. Would you take advantage like a Grigori? She has no idea what it means to be an Irina. She has been thrown into this world.”
“But—”
“We do not know what any of this means. And neither does she. Any Irina, deprived of an Irin family, would have reacted the same way.”
The thought had floored him. Had he taken advantage? Were his feelings an illusion? Perhaps she would have reacted to any man’s touch the same way. The memory of her lips haunted him. The memory of her skin underneath his hands was a silent torture.
“What’s put you in such a bad mood?” Rhys asked from the front seat.
“Nothing.”
“You’re a bad liar.” Rhys switched to the Old Language. “Tell me, what is wrong. Is it the woman?”
He didn’t reply, because Ava shifted and her eyes fluttered open. A beautiful smile spread over her face.
“You guys have no idea how amazing that is.”
“What?” Rhys asked from the front seat.
“Hearing it?” Malachi asked. “Out loud, instead of from our minds?”
She nodded, closing her eyes again as she turned her face to the sun.
“I’ve never understood how Irina handled that,” Rhys said. “Hearing the soul of every person you meet? I’d think it would drive me mad.”
Malachi smiled. “More mad than seeing the shadows of every word written on something?”
“That’s different.”
“Is that what you can do?” Ava asked. “You can see writing? Even if it’s erased?”
“Erased. Painted over. Plastered over.” Rhys glanced at Ava over his shoulder. “An Irin scribe can see beneath the layers to every word ever written. Like your gift, it’s a blessing and a curse. We’re graffiti experts, I tell you.”
Malachi added, “It’s also very useful when preserving and copying ancient documents, which is what most of us are trained for. All Irin magic is controlled and practiced through the written word.”
“That’s why you call yourself scribes?” she said with a smile. “I was wondering.”
“Wonder no longer, my dear,” Rhys said. “You may ask us anything.”
“Really?” She glanced over at Malachi, but he only shrugged.
“Anything you’d like. If we don’t want to answer, we won’t.”
“Oh, that’s helpful.” She sat up and brushed her hair back from her face. “Okay, my voices. You’re telling me the voices I hear are actually souls.”
“Yes,” Rhys said. “What other explanation would you have for every person on earth speaking in the same language? Humans speak in many languages, but the soul…” Malachi saw his friend’s eyes light up in the rearview mirror. “Our souls are the same. All of humanity, Irin, Irina. Even the Grigori have souls, though they’re black as night.”
“The Grigori are the bad guys, right? The ones who were following me before Malachi found me?”
“Yes, those are the Grigori.”
“They sound scratchy.”
Rhys laughed. “What? I’ve never heard that before.”
“You Irin guys sound different than humans. Your voices are… bigger.” She glanced at Malachi from the corner of her eye. “More layered, somehow. But you all—well, most of you—sound similar. And the Grigori voices sound the same, except scratchy. Like they’re out of tune.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Malachi said softly. “Every light casts a shadow. The Grigori are ours. We are the children of the Forgiven. They are the children of the Fallen. Our purpose is to protect humanity and preserve its knowledge. They are predators who have no purpose but to gain power for their masters and indulge their own perverse appetites.”
Rhys said, “And reproduce, of course.”
Ava paled. “What, really?”
“Grigori will procreate with human women, though it generally doesn’t end well.”
“And they were after me?” Her voice held a slight note of panic that infuriated Malachi.
“They won’t get you,” he said. “And they weren’t acting normally with you. They were tracking you, but not attacking.”
“And by attack, you mean…”
“Not rape the way you’re thinking,” Rhys said. “They don’t have to be violent. Leo said you saw them in the bar. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Handsome blokes, aren’t they? Charming bastards, every one of them.”
“They seemed a little full of themselves, if you ask me.”
Rhys burst into laughter. “That’s because you’re not human. Grigori seduce. They don’t have to attack humans. Women find them naturally appealing—well, unnaturally appealing, really. They go with them by choice. When a Grigori sets his sights on a human woman, she will go willingly.”
“So…” Ava frowned. “I’m confused. I thought you said they attacked women. I mean, they sound like jerks, but that’s not really an assault.”
“It is when the women don’t have a choice,” Malachi said. “Human nature draws them to the Grigori, and the monsters take advantage. Is that any worse than drugging someone? To take away their free will? Take advantage of them?” He broke off when he caught Ava and Rhys’s shocked stares. “It’s wrong. That’s all. The Grigori use women and leave them for dead most times. Most don’t survive, and if they do, they become infatuated with the very thing that seduced and almost killed them.”