Chapter Eight
“So this demon, Khain, controls spiders.” Ivy shook her head. “This is completely crazy, you know.”
“Butyou’renot,” Rory said. He was sitting beside her on the couch, so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “And yeah, controls them, or manifests as them…either or both. And he likes to play with fire.” The expression on his face was grim. A little muscle twitched in his square jaw, and Ivy wondered if he was remembering the fire he’d pulled her from.
But of course he was a fireman. A hero. Burning buildings were just part of the working day to him, so that couldn’t be what was upsetting him.
Ben put a big scrapbook on the table and opened it, displaying headlines and stories cut from newspapers and pasted in. “Thewolvenhave a much bigger collection,” he said. “This is just a handful of the crimes and disasters we’re sure Khain had a hand in.Shiftenlaw forbids us to write down our history, but it doesn’t say anything about scrapbooking.” He grinned, and she couldn’t help smiling back.
Growing up in group homes, she’d developed a knack for spotting “types”. The leader, the follower, the peacemaker, the shit-stirrer. It was a quick way to get a read on group dynamics, andthatwas a survival skill. She’d pegged Ben right away as the trickster – the class clown who had a smart mouth and an attitude that belied his loyalty and generosity of spirit. She thought that she could trust him…insofar as she trusted any of them. Her vision kept rising in her mind. The animal scent and the feeling of fear, of evil.
She leaned forward and examined the headlines displayed on the page.
FIRE KILLS 12
FREAK EXPLOSION LEVELS CITY BLOCK, 20 MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD
NEW, PLAGUE-LIKE DISEASE EMERGING
SARS EPIDEMIC FEARED
SWINE FLU PANDEMIC SPREADING
EXPLOSIVES FOUND IN TOY, PROMPTING MASSIVE RECALL
BATTERY PLANT EXPLODES, ENTIRE CITY EVACUATED
TERRORIST BLAMED FOR EXPLOSION THAT BROUGHT DOWN CHICAGO SKYSCRAPER
POISONED CITY: FLINT WATER CRISIS GROWS DEADLY
“And he burned the shop specifically to kill me?”
“Maybe,” Rory said. He pressed a little closer to her, and she thought she felt him shiver. “Or maybe he would have snatched you at the last moment and…done something worse.”
She didn’t have to ask what that meant. Growing up in group homes also meant she had a sound working knowledge of all the horrible things people did to each other. Did especially to the vulnerable and isolated.
And that was why, however nice these men seemed…
“The little golden angel,” she asked abruptly. “The one I found just before the shop burned. Is it magic? What does it do?”
“Yourshiftsegen,” Rory answered. “It was left for you by your father. We know they’re powerful, but they’re also unpredictable. Did anything…happen when you touched it?”
They’d heard rumors.
“If it had,” Ivy said, playing her cards close to her chest,” should I trust it?”
“Yes,” Rory said at once. “Your father wanted only the best for you, forshiften, and for humankind.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. Because that meant her vision could be trusted. And that meant that Rory could not.
* * * * *
Ivy let her head drop back as the warm water ran over her aching muscles. Ben had agreed to run out and fetch a pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts and some underwear in her size. She hadn’t been able to persuade Rory to go with him – “Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you here alone. Fifty-two percent of accidents happen in the home!”
She’d argued that yes, they’d already established that she might be crazy, and anyway this wasn’t her home, but he’d been adamant about staying with her. She’d made it clear, though, that if he insisted on guarding her, he could do it fromoutsidethe locker room while she took a shower. She was smeared with stinking ash and sticky with fear-sweat, and she desperately wanted to feel clean.
She sighed as she squirted a pool of liquid soap into her palm. There was no separate shampoo – she guessed firefighters didn’t go in for coconut-scented, salon-perfect curls. She sighed again as she ran her soapy hand over her breast, her nipple perking to life against her fingers. Her mind wandered to Rory; his big, muscular body and his intense blue eyes. She let herself imagine it was his large hands running over her body, one cupping her breast and the other trailing down over her belly to the water-beaded curls between her thighs.