There would never be another like Andrei Dachev. A true partner of the soul. Though only a supernatural shade-and from an inferior race, at that-he'd understood the power of death and chaos the way only a demon usually could. More than that, he'd appreciated the craft of chaos more than most demons, and he'd opened her mind to possibilities she'd never considered, to the true beauty of physical and mental suffering.
He'd been content to watch, but they'd always talked of finding a way, not only to bring him inside her partners, but to impose their will on those partners, to force them to carry out Dachev's visionary ideas. Had they accomplished that, the Nix knew she would have felt an emotion she'd never experienced: happiness. The happiness of complete satisfaction.
If only she hadn't betrayed him.
She betrayed all her partners eventually, for that final satisfaction of seeing them fall. She'd told herself that was the reason she'd turned on Dachev, because she was so accustomed to doing so that she had acted without thinking. The truth was far more unforgivable. She had betrayed Dachev because she'd tasted another emotion she'd never encountered before: fear.
While she'd been inside a partner, an angel had come for Dachev-the same one who'd taken her soul from the Marquise's body and transported her to hell. She'd recognized him, but when Dachev saw the angel, dressed in contemporary clothing, acting human, he'd mistaken him for a corporeal being. She could have warned him. All she had to do was jump out of her partner. But to do so would have meant exposing herself. Fear had paralyzed her, and she'd left Dachev to his fate.
She'd had time to repent her cowardice. Fifteen years of finding only serviceable partners, nothing like Agnes or Jolynn or Lizzie, and certainly nothing like Andrei Dachev.
The pub door opened, and a boy crept in. As he slipped over to a table to deliver a message to his father, his gaze darted about, taking in everything about this forbidden place. A young blond woman across the room watched the boy. Nothing strange in that-everyone had turned to look at the child, the normal curiosity of the bored. It was the way this woman looked at him that caught the Nix's attention. There was a glint in her eye, not the hunger of a perverse human who lusts after children, but the truer lust of the predator.
The woman said something to her table-mate, a lank-haired young man. His gaze slid to the boy, and he smiled, his eyes lighting with a dimmer spark. Another predator, but a follower, a willing disciple. The woman was the leader. Interesting.
The Nix slid from her seat and moved closer. She hesitated, dreading the rush of disappointment that would come if she was mistaken. Finally, she met the young woman's gaze. And after only the briefest dip into her thoughts, the Nix knew her luck had changed.
Chapter 23
ONCE BELOW DECK, WE DID THE SAME THINGS WE'D done almost every night for the past year-sat and talked. One would think that we'd have run out of topics months ago, but there always seemed to be something new to discuss, some subject, some opinion, some turn of mind left unexplored.
That night, a comment about the werewolf guard launched the discussion, which quickly led to an exchange of "werewolves I have known" war stories. Soon Kristof was telling me the long, convoluted tale of his encounter with a werewolf pack in Russia.
As I listened, my legs tucked under me and my head resting on my arm, the gentle rock of the boat and the familiar cadence of his voice conspired to tug me off to dreamland. Yet I resisted. Yes, my brain was in dire need of a sleep recharge. Yes, I could hear this story another time. And yes, it wasn't even all that interesting, but I could have listened for hours, curled up, comfortable, and sleepy, watching Kristof, his hands and eyes moving animatedly, voice rising and falling as the story slowed and restarted.
There'd been a time when I'd have given anything to be right here, listening to one of Kristof's stories. How many nights had I lain awake, just thinking of how good it would be to hear his voice? How many times had I considered picking up the phone and telling him about Savannah? Come morning, I was always horrified by the impulse, that I'd use my daughter as an excuse to get something I wanted. Now I could indulge myself without guilt or shame. So I stayed awake until the last bit of the tale was done, then let myself drift off to sleep.
When I awoke just past dawn, Kris was already on deck, navigating the boat to shore. We dropped anchor in a quiet cove and disembarked. We probably wouldn't need to use the boat again-our travel incantations would get us off the island-but it never hurt to have a backup plan. My guess was that all the pirates were back in La Ceiba. I never did figure out why they were guarding Roatan at all. A pretty enough island, but no different from a thousand other pretty islands in the ghost world. Maybe there was a hidden cache of treasure here somewhere… although I couldn't imagine what treasure ghosts would need to hoard. Or maybe it was simply a hideaway to protect, because that's what pirates did.
Following my directions, we found a vine-choked path heading into the jungle. From the hills, we could see a gorgeous white-sand beach hugging an aquamarine Caribbean sea, pink coral reefs visible beneath the crystal clear water… but of course, our path didn't take us anywhere near there. After about a quarter-mile of fighting through thick jungle, we came to an open stretch. I stopped and shaded my eyes to look south. There, on the other side of the clearing, was the next landmark, a huge slab boulder. An easier path wound past the boulder and through a semicleared gully.
A half-mile later, a simple white clapboard house came into view. Kristof waved for me to move in for a better look while he lurked in a coconut grove.
I circled the house and peered at the rear windows, invoking my built-in zoom. Once I was certain no one was watching from a window, I cast a blur spell and hurried onto the rear wraparound porch. With a combination of blur and cover spells, I was able to sneak a look in each window. It wasn't until I hit the last one that I found Luther Ross.
I had no physical description to work with, but I didn't need it. There were five people in the living room. Four of them were twentyish, female, and varying shades of blond. The fifth was a tall, dark-haired man in his early forties, with a Vandyke beard, mischievous gray eyes, and a hand planted on the ass of one of the blondes as he leaned over her shoulder and pointed at a vase. The girl's face screwed up in concentration as she tried to displace the vase. When it didn't so much as wiggle, he patted her rear and waved her to a chair.
Unbelievable. Give a guy the power to move objects across cosmic dimensions and what does he use it for? Screwing cute coeds. No wonder Ross hid out on Roatan-it wasn't so much about evading the Searchers as limiting his classes to a select type of clientele, those he could handpick and give the transportation code. He probably took on the occasional legitimate student, to maintain his reputation, but if this was an example of his average class, then I understood why he hadn't been more successful in passing along his skills. From the looks of these girls, they'd be lucky if they could pronounce telekinesis. Nymphs probably. If you'd asked me in life what a nymph's powers were, I couldn't have told you. And now that I'd met some in the ghost world, I still wasn't sure.