Page 61 of Stone Cold Touch

Lifting my gaze, I realized the web would be approximately where the hole in the floor above was—where I’d been tied down and that drop of blood had hit the floor.

“That’s what my blood is capable of?” I asked.

“I’m guessing it is under certain circumstances.” Roth walked forward. “Pretty cool if you think about it.”

I wrinkled my nose. “There is nothing cool about my blood creating a pod that looks like something straight out ofAlien.”

“Great movie, by the way. Not the sequels, though.” When I groaned, he sent me a wicked grin over his shoulder that, in spite of everything, made my tummy flop. “Obviously, this is where our whittle baby Lilin grew.”

“From a pod?”

He nodded. “No one knows a lot about the Lilin. How it matures, what it looks like or anything like that. But what else could this be?”

“There has to be something out there that can tell us.” I didn’t walk closer because being in the room with this thing was bad enough. “What about the Seer?” I asked, thinking of the kid we’d met before who communed with Xbox and angels...or something.

Roth chortled. “This time, I think it’ll take more than a Perdue chicken before he gives us that kind of information.”

“Then what does he want?” Frustrated, I shifted my weight. “We don’t know anything. Again. And all this little field trip proves is that my blood had the ability to create a gross-ass pod.”

He turned, head cocked to the side. “What it does prove is that the Lilin came from here—that the Lilinwashere, shortie.”

I raised my hands. “Didn’t we already know that?”

There wasn’t a response as he turned back to the cocoon. “Thishas to be proof of the Lilin, because I don’t know—”

“Who’s in here?” A voice boomed throughout the shower, whipping me around. “Who’s down here?”

My eyes widened as I whirled back toward Roth, who shrugged. Real helpful there. Before I could even decide what to do, a shadow fell across the wide doorway and my breath caught as a man stepped into the room.

He was middle-aged with coppery hair and a smattering of freckles. I didn’t recognize him, but the dark blue uniform and ring of keys around his belt gave him away. He was a janitor.

As his gaze flicked behind me, I felt Roth move close. Without looking, I knew when he’d walked to my side it was with pure, predatory grace that would make any human or nonhuman wary.

The janitor folded his arms across his chest.

Roth dropped his arm over my shoulders and hauled me up against his side. I stiffened as he slid his hand up my back, balling his fist in my hair. “We were looking for a private place...you know, so we could be alone.” He dipped his head to mine, sending raven-colored locks across his forehead. “Then we saw all of this and kind of got distracted by the weirdness. Isn’t that right, baby?”

My jaw ached from how hard I was squeezing it. What Roth was doing was totally unnecessary. I’d seen him get in people’s heads and send them scurrying in the other direction with a few well-placed words. Hadn’t he just done exactly that with Mrs. McDaniel? Touching me wasn’t needed.

But since he’d started this game...

I slipped my arm around his waist, digging my fingers into his side. When a low rumble of warning radiated from his chest, I smiled brightly. “Yes. So right,honey.”

The janitor snorted. “Yeah. Okay.”

Not exactly the response I expected. I started to pull away, but Roth’s hold tightened. As the janitor unfolded his arms, I finally saw a name stitched onto the front flap of a wide pocket. Gerald Young.

“No need to make up stories.” Rolling up his sleeve, he revealed a tattoo in black ink—four loops joined by a small circle. It reminded me of a pinwheel, and something about it was vaguely familiar. When he looked back up at us, his eyes were the color of warm cherries. “It’s about time someone checked out the mess down here.”

Roth sucked in a breath and muttered, “Witch.”

16

Witch.

I gaped at the janitor. If my ability hadn’t gone all wonky, I might’ve known that something was different about him because the auras of witches—real, honest-to-goodness witches—had to be different. Because a real witch was capable of some really rad things—spells, healing charms, creating fire from air and general badassery that made me envious of, well, all that badassery. But I’d never seen a witch before. The likelihood of seeing one in this day and age had to be equal to winning the mega-jackpot lottery or actually spotting the Loch Ness monster.

“You’re really a witch?” I said, sounding kind of stupid. “I thought most of your kind had died off.” Like during the Middle Ages...

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