Page 78 of Night in a Waste Land

He studied her a moment, lips pressed thin. “What else did she tell you?”

She’d never given him credit for being brilliant, not like she had Beck, but he wasn’t an idiot. But she couldn’t tell him everything – not about Beck possibly coming back…changed.

She said, “It takes a generous offering, and a very strong will. The person who makes the request has to want the soul back very badly.”

The corners of his mouth twitched in an attempted smile. “Well, you won’t have any trouble with that.”

“Lance. I’m nottryingto hurt you.”

“I’m not hurt.” He was a terrible liar.

“Still. I’m not trying to. Our backs are against the wall: you know that. Morgan will keep helping, but she has her limitations.”

He tilted his head.Come on. “Let’s not pretend this is about you being patriotic.”

“Have I ever denied that I wanted to find a way to save Beck?” she challenged.

He glanced away from her, throat jumping as he swallowed. “No.”

“That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about–”

He silenced her with a raised hand, one that trembled faintly. “Don’t,” he said, voice thick.

Rose knotted her fingers together in her lap, torn. She really didn’t want to hurt him – but she wouldn’t bury the idea of saving Beck, not even for him.

Finally, she stood, crossed the small space between them, and carded a hand through his thick, dark hair.

He tipped forward so he could press his face into her stomach, breath rushing against her skin through the fabric of her shirt as he let out a gusty sigh.

She kept petting his hair. “You don’t have to come with me. No one does. Bedlam will send me on my own.”

“No,” he said, after a minute. “No, I’m coming. We’ll all come.”

They took a vote the next day, and everyone votedyea.

They left for Wales a week later.

~*~

The Present

“Where is Shubert now?” Beck asked. He paced slowly down and back the length of the table, tail twitching behind him, wings mantled above him with the little thumb claws hooked together.

“He’s taken over the top floors of one of the gardening high-rises,” Lance said. His voice was hard and flat, too-professional, and simmering with badly-disguised distaste. It had occurred to her more than once that, had they known one another as mortal men, they still wouldn’t have liked one another – Beck would still have had the upper hand, all sharp smiles and coy manipulation.

Manipulation. The thought shocked her. She’d never thought of Beck asmanipulative. He certainly never had been with her.

Of course he hadn’t.

Of course.

“Hmm,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully with one claw. “Rooftop access?”

“For you, maybe,” Gavin said with a snort. “But there’s no scaling it, and we don’t have a helo at our disposal, not that deep in. He’d hear us coming a mile away.”

“Right, right.” More pacing. A pause. Beck turned to them with the air of a man who’d made a decision. “We’ll just have to walk in the front door, then.”

Lance made a rude, dismissive noise. “Right. Straight in the front door.”

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