I reached for my cup of tea, but my hands were trembling so much that liquid splashed over the sides and scalded my fingers. Rory plucked the cup from my hand, discarded the tea bag, then, with a wry smile, brought it up to my lips. I took a sip, but it helped with neither the dryness in my throat nor the butterflies doing a tango in my stomach.
For several—very long—minutes, there was nothing but silence. Then came the sound of a click—the sort of sound that came from a light being turned on—and a muffled curse. The voice was Jackson’s. But the surge of relief was tempered by the knowledge that while he was alive right now, it didn’t mean he would be when the time for the exchange came.
“The lady of fire wishes to confirm you’re alive, Fae.” The vampire’s cool tones echoed slightly over the phone. Wherever they were, it was somewhere cavernous. “Please assure her that you are.”
His choice of words had alarm shooting through me. I glanced sharply at Rory and mouthed, “How the hell could they know what I am?”
But even as he shrugged, I remembered Rawlings, and the fire I’d encaged him with. Obviously, he’d reported events to the sindicati, something I hadn’t counted on but surely should have. And while it meant the sindicati now knew some of what I was capable of, they didn’t know it all. Didn’t know I was a fire spirit and capable of a whole lot more than just calling forth fire from the earth itself.
Unless, of course, they’d beaten the information out of Jackson. He not only knew what I was, but he’d witnessed my transformation from flesh to fire.
“Emberly,” Jackson croaked, “I’m alive.”
“And you sound like shit,” I replied, trying not to envision what had been done to him.
“I have had better days.” Amusement briefly overrode the pain so evident in his gruff tones. “But it’s nothing a good barbeque can’t fix up.”
“Except both of us know that controlling any sort of barbeque is not on the list of things you are currently capable of, Fae,” came the amused comment. “So let us not wish for something that cannot be.”
Once again his comment had alarm stirring. If the sindicati knew Jackson couldn’t control fire, then that could mean only one thing—PIT had been infiltrated. There was no way they could have known that otherwise.
“And you, dear Emberly, have your confirmation that the Fae still survives,” the vampire continued. “If you wish him to remain that way, you will meet—”
“No,” I cut in. “Sorry, but we’re back to that whole trust issue again. We meet at a time and a place specified by me, not you.”
There was a long pause. “When and where?”
“Hanging Rock, central parking lot, at dusk.”
After another long pause—during which I had no doubt he was consulting someone—he said, “As you wish.”
His agreement only ratcheted up my tension. I’d expected at least some argument, especially given they were vamps and night would suit them better than dusk. That there was none could only mean the meeting point suited them just as much as it suited us. Still, I had one advantage—they didn’t know about Rory.
Or at least I hoped they didn’t. The shit could really hit the fan if they did.
“Fine. I’ll see you then.”
“You will indeed,” he murmured, and hung up.
I breathed a sigh of relief, then plucked my tea from Rory’s grip and downed it in several gulps, hoping it would at least drown the butterflies. It didn’t.
I glanced at my watch, then met Rory’s understanding gaze. “We have three hours.”
“Which gives us time enough to eat before we have to head up to Macedon.” He caught my hand and kissed my fingertips. “You need to fuel this body, Em, not just the fire spirit.”
“I know.” I scrubbed a hand across tired eyes. After everything that had happened, I felt like shit, and I very much suspected it was a feeling that wouldn’t go away, even after I’d eaten. “It’s just that I’m—”
“Worried. I know. But it’ll all work out. I’m sure of it.”
I hoped he was right.
Hoped like hell that things didn’t go down as badly as I suspected they would tonight.
CHAPTER 14
I drove past the locked gates that led into Hanging Rock Reserve, then came to a halt in the shadows of several eucalypts farther down the road and climbed out. Dusk was just beginning to weave red and gold fingers across the cloud-held sky, and the air had a charged, electric feel to it.
Or maybe that was just me.
Fire burned through my limbs, a force so eager to be used that sparks danced lightly across my fingertips every time I moved.
I clenched my hands and tried to control the fear that was leading to the fiery output. I might have serious doubts as to whether the sindicati would uphold their promises and let us go free, but I couldn’t walk into this meeting so obviously ready for trouble. Any show of force, however small and bright, might just turn things down the wrong path.
I raised my gaze and scanned the sky. Rory was up there somewhere, but it didn’t make me feel any safer. We might have set this meeting for a time convenient for us, but the cool-voiced vampire was one of the old ones, and dusk provided little impediment. And they’d had several hours to prepare their net—if indeed it was a net I was stepping into, and not just old fears and prejudices raising their ugly heads.
I blew out a breath, wished the nerves could so easily be released, then leaned back into the car and plucked the laptop—now safely secured in a backpack—off the backseat. After locking the car and shoving the keys under the rear wheel arch to ensure I didn’t lose them in whatever mayhem might happen over the next half hour, I walked through the scrub that divided the road from the fence and climbed into the reserve.
It took about ten minutes to walk to the main parking lot, and sunset had taken full hold by the time I arrived. The power of it sang through me, a fierce, warm energy that—in any other situation—would have had me dancing.
I paused on the edge of the tarmac. There were several cars present, but no sign of the occupants. Given the reserve was closed for the evening, they had to belong either to the rangers or to the sindicati themselves. But if it was the latter, where the hell were they?
My gaze jumped to the ancient rock formation that loomed above the parking lot, but I couldn’t see anyone there, either. Not that I would. I mean, we were talking about vampires, and those bastards were well able to conceal themselves in shadows. And even with dusk in its full glory there was still plenty of those lurking about.
I resolutely took four steps forward—and suddenly felt horribly exposed. Keeping my fingers clenched, I said, without raising my voice, “I know you’re here. Reveal yourselves.”
For several minutes there was no response. Sweat began to trickle down my spine, and my heart felt ready to tear itself out of my chest. Which, no doubt, was precisely what they wanted.
Then, directly opposite me, a long stick of a man shook free of the shadows lurking under the trees and stepped into the sunset-bathed parking space. He had dusty blond hair, a thick, handlebar mustache, and was dressed rather like an old-style cowboy—complete with boots and hat. The telling thing, however, was that he didn’t even flinch when the waning sunlight hit him. He was one of the old ones, and possibly had been a cowboy before he’d turned.
He was not, however, the man I’d been speaking to over the phone—the one who’d tasted me when I’d been held captive in that place of darkness. Why I was so certain I couldn’t really say, other than the fact that the same sense of menace wasn’t emanating from him.