Exasperated sigh. “Get
out
already!”
I left. By now my feet felt like a couple of cooked meatloaves. I was surprised they weren’t smoking. But I had farther to go, so I went. Clear to the storefront where I’d first met Asha Vasta.
I didn’t expect to find a visual sign of him, so I wasn’t disappointed when the whole street was empty. What I hoped for was a trail, like the one Vayl had left. I stood in the shadows of the bakery’s doorway and opened my mind. Nothing beyond a hint of the reaver I’d allowed to pass unharmed.
“He went to Channel Fourteen,” I murmured. “Gotta remember that.” Right now Uldin Beit’s team was out in force, pretending to be reporters and cameramen, trying to track me down. While I, on the other hand, couldn’t find one large and rather conspicuous looking
other
. Well, if I were him, would I want to be found by a woman who’d held a knife to my throat? Hardly. By golly, I’d be covering my tracks like they used to do in the old Westerns, with a well-branched limb and a roundabout path home.
Wait a minute. The knife!
I pulled the bolo out. Pressed the point, which had touched Asha’s throat, against the tip of my nose. And drank in his scent. With no
others
around to distract me, I was able to mentally tag the unique identifier that surrounded him wherever he went. Call it an aura. Or charisma. The essence that gave a person presence — so even if no one heard or saw them enter a room they still knew they’d been joined — had lingered on the steel of my blade.
“Gotcha,” I breathed. I sheathed the blade. Took another breath. Concentrated, narrowing my eyes to focus the trail, and moved.
Chapter Nineteen
I found Asha at a black-fenced cemetery, the stones of which all laid long and flat like legless benches. I liked the idea. This way there was never any debate about whether or not you were stepping on hallowed ground. He perched on top of a gatepost like a gigantic statue, watching a group of people huddled together inside.
“Were you going for an übercreepy vibe?” I asked as I came up to him. “Because, actually, it’s working. And how do those guys not see you?” I pointed to the group of half a dozen black-suited men gathered around the candlelit, petal-strewn tombstone maybe fifty yards in.
Asha hopped down. “They are too busy with their own business,” he said. “Note the gentleman standing between the two largest candles.”
“I see him. Is he . . . signing?” I looked at Asha. “He’s a medium, isn’t he?” All others who could communicate with the truly dead were deaf. Many were mute as well.
He shook his head. “This word. Medium. Does it mean the same thing as Spirit Bridge?”
“Yup. So is this a séance?”
“Of a sort. These men have just lost their father. And they wish to talk to his spirit to find out why he committed suicide.”
“That seems reasonable. Except you’re here. Which means this particular Bridge isn’t nearly as upright as he seems.”
Asha stared at me like I’d just announced that the city fathers had agreed to allow a Gay Pride parade down the main thoroughfare of Tehran the next morning. “You know what I am?”
Was he pissed? Or just extra depressed? At this point, I didn’t really care. I was here to get what I needed from him and to hell with his feelings. “I have an idea. And I need to talk to you about how, being who you are, maybe you could lend me a hand with a little (huge!) problem I have when you’re done here.”
“All right.” He moved toward the gate. Paused when he realized I hadn’t followed him.
“Aren’t you going to stop this first?”
“What do you mean?”
I could feel my anger rise. Though some clinical part of my brain understood it was closely tied to my worries over whether or not my dad would ever wake up again and if my brother would survive past tomorrow, it still managed to focus purely on Asha. “I thought you were supposed to police the others. Isn’t this guy committing some sort of offense?”
“Yes. In fact, he is telling the men their father’s spirit is here, speaking to him, explaining that he could no longer stand the pain of his cancer and the knowledge that he would soon become a complete invalid.”
“And that’s not true?”
“I doubt it. If the father’s spirit is present, it is howling. Because one of his sons, one of these men, killed him.”
Okay, Jaz. The shaking is not a good sign. Usually that means you’re about to hit something. Or somebody. And you need this dude’s help. So don’t break his nose. At least not until after you get the favour. I really should listen to myself more. I often have good intentions. But when I opened my mouth, the words that came out were “And you’re leaving?”
“Would it be better to reveal the truth? To let these brothers kill their own kin even as the mahghul drink their emotions like the finest wine?” Did I detect a trembling in his voice when he mentioned the murder monsters?
“Are you afraid of the mahghul, Asha?” Pressing his lips together, he turned his back on me. Strode out of the cemetery. I hurried after him, my mounting rage burning my brain like a fever. “So you’re letting a charlatan help a man get away with murder. Wow. I’m so bummed I left my autograph book in America,” I drawled. “I bet you’ve decided to let the whole Vayl/Zarsa travesty play out too, haven’t you? Because you’re afraid to step between them. Scared Vayl will get violent and the mahghul will want to join the party before you can dive for cover.”
“You have no idea what it is like!” he hissed, his pace increasing so much I had to trot to keep up.
“Tell me!” I demanded.
He didn’t. Not right away. We walked until I was so damn tired I just wanted to lie down. Even the gutters began to look inviting. Then he stopped in front of a six-foot-high arched gate painted salmon to match the wall that fronted the two-story house behind it. The house was well enough lit outside that I could see many of its accents, including balcony railings and window trim, also painted salmon, which complemented the natural stucco color of the rest of the place.
Asha keyed open the gate. As I stood on the sidewalk, wondering if I’d just blown my only chance to save this mission, not to mention David, he finally turned to meet my eyes. “Six hundred years ago I was a different creature. I pursued wrongdoers with a singularity of purpose that would allow no deviation from my goal. I dealt with the Nruug as I had been taught by my predecessor.”
When he fell silent I said, “And how was that?”
“Usually a draining of the Gift. Either temporarily, or permanently, depending on the severity of the crime. But sometimes even that was not enough. Sometimes only a Nruug’s death would protect his next victim. You understand this?”
I nodded. Only too well.
“It was during one such battle that a powerful Nruug brought the mahghul against me. He was a sorcerer, steeped in dark powers, and his influence had spread over the land like a poisonous cloud. I killed him. But the mahghul remained even after the battle, covering me like a blanket. Their fangs sank into the skin of my back, my legs, my chest, even my skull. I imagined I could feel their tongues like probes inside my brain, sucking out every last emotion until, when they finally left me, nothing remained. I lay like a husk for days. Perhaps I would even have died, but an old couple found me and took me in.”
He gazed at me with his forlorn eyes and asked, “Do you know what it is to feel nothing? I did not miss so much the anger or the hate. But I found I could barely move without the hope.”
“You’re moving now.”
“Yes,” he said, almost eagerly. “Eventually I realized the Council of Five must soon replace me. All I had to do was write the names of the Nruug in a book for the next Amanha Szeya. He will be filled with the passion I have lost. He will fight the mahghul and win.”