Page 46 of Taken By Raider Kings
“Oh, you know.”Cullen set the bottle down.“The air talks, we listen.”
“No.I don’t know.”Sophie shut her mouth, took a deep breath.Zach’s knee bumped hers.A wave of heat slid up her neck, filled her cheeks.“I don’t know at all.”I know nuh-thing,a mad voice from childhood reruns ofHogan’s Heroescrowed inside her head.
Lucy did a great Sergeant Schultz impression.It had cracked them both up to no end.
Wet heat filled Sophie’s eyes, blurred the whole bar.She blinked furiously, forcing the tears away.
“Well.”Cullen didn’t take offense, but also didn’t drink his next dose.“You’ll find out soon.When you’re ready, the air will talk to you.”
You know, that really isn’t comforting at all.“Like the faces?”she hazarded.“The ghost faces?”
“Exactly.”A pleased nod, as if she’d passed some kind of test.“Themajir.”
“Right.”I am handling this very well.She stole a glance at Zach.He was looking at her like she’d just won a prize, too, and there was something else about that smile that made her breath hitch.Something warm and interested, adding to the musk threading through his scent.I am handling this very, very well.Even if it’s weird as fuck.
“Well, if you’re seeing them now and you were just triggered a couple days ago, you’re going to be one hell of a shaman.I’ll bet you’ve always heard weird things, seen things out of the corner of your eye.You were a big daydreamer when you were a kid, right?”Cullen outright grinned, thankfully different from the feral baring of teeth aimed at Zach.
She gave a half-guilty start.“How did you—?”Well, that’s a useless question, Sophie.
“I was the same way.It about knocked me sideways when the old shaman from our sleuth found me.Kind of a relief to find out I wasn’t crazy.”He tapped his fingers on the bar, meditatively.
“So you were normal?Before?”This was the most information she’d gotten fromanyone.
“Yeah, sort of.Nobody’s really normal.”A shadow crossed Cullen’s broad face, quickly submerged.“Being a shaman, though, it’s a lot of fun.Wait until you take your first run.”
Is that like taking a bowel movement?“A run?”
“I hate to interrupt.”Zach’s knee bumped hers again; Sophie realized he was trying to be comforting.“So that firstupirwe killed was a Puppet?Armitage’s?And there was a?—”
“Right.”The bear-man gave his shotglass a quarter-turn, returned to tapping his fingers in succession.“He was spitting mad about it, too.Or so I heard.I guess there was something about the target not being hit.”
“Wait.”This just kept getting more outlandish; Sophie’s knuckles were white as clutched at the edge of the bar.“Target means me, right?The vampire wanted to killme?”
“It’s certainly looking that way.”Zach tried to shift closer, his knee hitting hers yet again, and Sophie hopped off her barstool.“Hey.Sophie?—”
“No.”She took two quick, nervous steps backward.Her legs turned to rubber, threatening to give out completely.“It was after me, right?And it killed Lucy.That means?—”
“I’m notsureyet, and there’s other questions to answer.”Zach slid the barstool a hundred-eighty degrees and leaned back against the bar, eyeing her.“I’m guessing you didn’t spend a lot of time out partying, right?”
“I… no.It was the first time I’d gone out in ages.Lucy said I needed to have some fun.”She said she was going to get me to have fun if it killed her.
I guess it did.
“So maybe they were watching your friend—the only friend you had—and waiting for you to show up someplace out of daylight.”Pitiless logic, in a soft, musing tone.“And the?—”
“Hold on,” Cullen said.“Can I get a word in edgewise?The target wasn’t hit.Only one of the two people they were looking to kill ended up dead, then a shaman somehow got mixed up in it.That’s what I heard.”
Despite his posture, she realized, Zach was tense.Ready to snap, maybe.“What exactly are you saying?”
Sophie stared at the bear-man.Cullen held her gaze; his expression was kind, but also honest.
Nobody here was lying.The whole thing was crazy, yet she had to accept every bit as some kind of reality.
Her heart dropped; she was surprised it didn’t splash into her stomach, where the burn of booze had faded.“He means someone wantedbothme and Lucy dead, and they just waited until we were together.”I knew it was my fault.
“Maybe it was efficiency.”Did Zach actually soundtentative?Wonders never ceased.“You were pretty hard to find.I’ll bet you were even registered under a different name at school.”
“My mother’s maiden name,” she whispered.“The degree would have been issued in mine, though, when I finished.Because of the domestic, ah, the divorce.”Because of the police reports and the pictures.Lucy went in with me, and the Dean said they saw so many others like me, that things could be done.And that once I got my degree I could get a job and move, and I’d be safe.
