Ryu's mouth tightened. “Yes. Anyan. Where did he run off to, by the way?”
“He took off after Con,” I replied, leaning back on the stairs and wearily shutting my eyes. “Okay, I need to swim. Recharge. Then we leave. Sound good?”
“We don't have to leave, honey. We can stay here, draw Conleth out, fight him here. We'll protect you.”
I cracked open one incredulous eye at Ryu.
“Are you serious? Hell no. Look at this fucking place, Ryu. I'm not sticking around, leaving the people I love vulnerable. What could a human do against Conleth? Even Iris wouldn't have lasted two minutes against him, and she, at least, has some power. Gods, if he'd come after Grizzie and Tracy, or my dad…” I shuddered, nauseated by the thought of what he'd do to my human friends and family.
“We're going back to Boston,” I concluded, using my “final answer” voice.
“Jane…”
“No, Ryu. We're leaving. And we're not coming back here till Conleth is found. I will not risk everyone by staying here.”
Ryu was silent, frowning at me as he thought through the logistics.
“You're probably right, Jane. You are safest with me,” Ryu said after giving it some thought. “And I have to admit, I like the idea of you coming home with me again. Although I hate that it's because of this attack. I never wanted you wrapped up with Conleth.”
I shrugged. “I know you didn't. But how the fuck did he find me?”
“When you left, we tore the city apart looking for Con, and we even found him a few times. Although he persisted on escaping. Then, a couple of days ago, Julian, he's our resident techie as well as our portable charger, went to put some new software on my computer. He discovered it had been hacked soon after that night in the Commons. I don't use it much, and never for work, so we didn't panic. Hell, we thought we could use it to our advantage. Use it to trap him, or something.” Ryu scrubbed a hand over his face before guiltily meeting my eyes. “But that's how he must have found your information and figured out who you were. E-mails and pictures and stuff.”
“Shit. He read our e-mails?”
Ryu nodded and I frowned, really uncomfortable. If Con had read my e-mails to Ryu, he would know pretty much everything about me. Ryu and I wrote each other a lot, and I told him everything about my life as it was at that moment. All of my friends were sort of divided: The humans knew nothing about the supes, and the supes didn't really care too much about my human life. Iris did, to be fair, but she was so scatterbrained. Only Ryu bridged that gap between my new supernatural existence and my more mundane, human life. I could tell Ryu about my father's health and about my training with Nell, and he seemed equally interested in both. Now I felt really vulnerable knowing Conleth knew so much about me.
“So,” Ryu said, “we figure he came out here thinking he'd get to me through you, not expecting to find you so well protected. But he got a nasty surprise instead. Too bad we never e-mailed each other about how Nell is secretly the Terminator in a tiny gnome shell.”
My frown deepened as I remembered Conleth reaching his hand out toward me. The more I thought of what had happened last night, the more questions I had. After all, if Con had just attacked from the other side of the field, closer to the house, he would have hit me first and I'd have been a goner.
I knew Ryu was right; Con would never have guessed how fierce was our resident gnome, and he'd thought I'd be easy pickings. But there was something about the way things had played out, and about the look in his eyes when he'd reached out to me, that caused my skin to prickle with unease.
I pushed away the feeling, standing up as I did so. I was just skeeved out, tired, and stressed. I needed a swim and some rest, and then everything would seem less portentous, less dire.
“Take me to the ocean, Ryu. Then take me home,” I commanded. “Your home,” I amended hastily when he cocked an eyebrow at me. His would have to do, for now, as I'd made my own unsafe.
A thought that made me sad, I realized, as Ryu slipped his arm around my waist and led me off to his car and away from the field of battle.
Very, very sad, indeed.
CHAPTER TEN
Ryu's tongue swiped over the pinpricks in my wrist as my orgasm subsided, sending one last, gentle spasm through my system. He pulled me down to his chest from where I straddled his hips, cuddling me close and tucking my head under his chin.
“Gods, it's nice to have you here, Jane,” he murmured, stroking idle fingers down my spine.
“Always happy to oblige, my sweet,” I drawled, kissing him with a loud smack on the neck. The part of me that continually gnawed at things it had no business gnawing at wondered whether he was referring to my company or my blood. For a second, I wondered whether, for Ryu, there was much of a difference. Not letting myself dwell, however, I nudged him aside so I could get up to take a shower.It was late, around nine. After leaving Nell's cabin, I'd gone for a quick swim to recharge and then we'd driven straight back to Boston. It should have been about a seven-and-a-half-hour drive, but Ryu the Rocket did it in six. I was still seeing flashbacks of my life spinning before me.
After we'd cleaned up and had a quick dinner of bacon sandwiches and bananas, Ryu's deputies arrived to talk strategy.
We were in the office, with Camille, Julian, Daoud, Caleb, and Ryu crowded around the table with a map spread out before them. I was curled up in Ryu's desk chair, listening closely to everything that was said while trying to stay out of the way. Julian, whose position as tech guru made him the one everyone seemed to communicate with, was relaying everything he'd culled from their various sources.
“We have reports of a firefight between Conleth and Anyan four hours ago, near Lebanon, Vermont. Barghest nearly got him, but Con escaped. And we have what sounds like a positive ID for Conleth, just about an hour ago, in Concord, New Hampshire.” I breathed a sigh of relief at Caleb's words. Con was moving away from Maine and toward Massachusetts. I wasn't entirely thrilled with the latter bit of information, but I was very happy about the former.
“He's coming home,” Ryu said. “We need to be ready. Have you made any headway in finding his base, Daoud?”
“No, I've got nothing. We thought he might have been holed up in a squat in JP, but that was a dead end.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Daoud pull out gum and offer it around the table. I could have sworn he pulled it from his pants, but I must have been seeing things. That said, everyone did decline the gum.
Ryu sighed, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “Well, the good thing is that he's not subtle, so we'll know when he hits town. The bad news is, he'll probably announce himself with death. In the meantime, we need to go back to the beginning. There has to be something we're missing, and in the meantime all we've got is that damned lab.”
Everyone straightened, so I stood up as well. I hated to admit it, but I was morbidly curious to see the place in which Conleth had been imprisoned. Everyone started to file out of the office, and Caleb ushered me in front of him with a gentlemanly nod.
I had just walked into the living room when I heard Ryu say, “Caleb, Julian, you're with me. Camille, Daoud, you stay here with Jane.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, causing Caleb to bump into me. Well, causing a specific part of Caleb to bump into me. Loincloth! I thought, even as my mouth said, “Um, Ryu?” I turned around to see the vampire staring at me, his mouth set in a determined little moue.
“Honey,” he said, affecting patience. “I know you don't want to hear it, but you should stay here.”
I stepped aside to walk back toward my lover. Who, by the way, was so not getting any later.
“Why should I stay here? That's dividing up your forces, which is silly. Plus, maybe I can help.”
Ryu's smile turned patronizing, at which my blood started to simmer.
“Honey, be realistic. How can you help?”
Okay, if I were honest, that wasn't an entirely illegitimate question. But it wasn't what Ryu asked; it was the way he asked. Like me helping him was the craziest, most preposterous thing he'd ever heard.
The simmer became a boil as I struggled to keep my voice under control.
“Well, first of all, I'm a halfling. Maybe I can understand Conleth a little better than you can.”
Ryu's patronizing smile shifted into full-on condescension and he actually snorted.
Oh, hell no, I thought as my anger-pot boiled right
the fuck over.
“Second, honey,” I said, through gritted teeth, “it appears to me like you need something to help you, since you don't have jack on Conleth after all this time. Maybe a fresh set of eyes is exactly what you need. And maybe you shouldn't underestimate me.”
Ryu's eyes snapped with irritation, but I already had that emotion monopolized, thanks.
“Jane, c'mon. You need to be kept safe. Just stay here, make yourself at home…”
Oh no, he didn't.
“Unfortunately, Ryu,” I snapped, “this is not my home. I had to leave my home because I was made a target because I visited you. And now I've had to leave my home, and my responsibilities, and my friends and family, so that they don't get killed by the insane firestarter who wants to use me to get to you. So can we quit acting like I'm not involved? Because I am really fucking involved.”