“If they’re really my friends, they won’t care.”
Li looked up at him and her eyes shone wetly, breaking his heart. “I do love you, Cedric.”
“Then let’s be together.”
“I don’t know how to be serious,” she warned. “I get through life by smiling and laughing at all the dark things that surround us. If you want me to change, I’m not sure that can ever happen.”
“I don’t want you to change. I just want you to be with me.” Cedric gestured around them both. “Besides, do you really think I’m going to be spending most of my time with my old crowd from now on? When I’m in the office, everything seems so… gray. The only time I feel truly alive now is when I’m with all of you.”
Li’s face lit up and she bit her bottom lip, as if she were a naughty little girl. “I’m the same way! When we’re staring death in the face, I feel the most alive! It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“It’s insane,” Cedric admitted. “But I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
Cedric paused and when he spoke, he leaned forward so that his forehead rested against hers. “I love you and you love me. That’s all I ever wanted. Everything else isn’t important.”
A smirk played across her lips. “I think I may have infected you with my madness.”
“Oh, you have. I’ve got it bad.”
They kissed and the whole world felt like it had been made just for the two of them.
CHARITY SAT DOWN in Josef’s chair and threw her legs up onto the desk. Dressed in jodhpurs, leather boots and a white blouse, she looked ready to take off across the desert on the back of a camel. The frown on her face kept Mitchell from sharing any such ideas, however.
The big man drew up a chair and sat down in it, studying the woman whom he had grown to love. He knew how badly she wanted to catch Pandora because he’d seen it before: the intensity of the hunt was nearly overwhelming for her. Josef had sometimes gotten that same gleam in his eye but it had been rare for the Jew. For the most part, Josef had radiated calm, even when under the worst stress.
Charity, however, was like a cat on the prowl. She would not be deterred from her prey for more than a few hours and then tension would eat her up from the inside.
“You’re giving me that look,” she murmured.
“What look is that?”
“The one you get right before you tell me to relax and that everything is going to be okay.”
“Relax. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“See? I told you.”
Mitchell smiled. “Luv, you know me too well.”
“If I make it through these three years and get my new lease on life, I plan to get to know you a lot better. I want to get out of Sovereign and leave all this behind. We’ll travel the world, eat expensive food and just have a grand old time.”
“That sounds good.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I know that Josef never could put it all behind him. He wanted to, I think, but evil had a way of finding him even after his tenure was up. Truth be told, I don’t think he minded all that much. Once you’ve gotten used to this kind of life, it’s hard to go back to an old way of doing it. I’ve known soldiers who were the same way. You can’t go from living with danger around every corner and then suddenly kick back on a beach somewhere with no cares in the world.”
Charity regarded him for a moment before saying, “I’m sure you’re right. But I’m going to try, anyway.”
“What about the others? We packing them up and taking them with us?”
“Definitely Li. I feel responsible for her. Besides, she’d be good to have around. She could teach me how to be carefree.”
“Then that means Cedric is coming, too. They’re an item, after all.”
“Are they? I thought they were fighting or something.”
“They’ll make up.”
Charity gave a shrug. “Then I guess we should invite along Mortimer, too.”
Mitchell leaned forward. “So.”
“So?”
“What do we do now?”
Charity swung her legs back to the floor and stood up. She wore an expression that was close to smugness. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
“I had the chance to question Potter before we turned him over to the authorities. He said that Craig had this idea that he could use items that used to belong to Pandora to trace her movements. It was basically a form of ritualized magic and I happen to know of someplace that has some of her old belongings.”
“The Museum?”
“That’s right! I got a weird feeling when I was looking at the weapons display they had up and now that I’ve met Pandora, I’m sure I know why. She and I have some sort of weird connection.”
“Because she’s your… What did you call it? Other?”
“I think so. Or maybe she’s my Other because we have a connection. I don’t really know how it all works. Regardless, I think that I can do that ritual so I called Kelly before we left the airport. She’s going to drop off a couple of the weapons I felt the strongest connection to.”
“How does the ritual work?”
Charity walked over to one of the bookshelves, scanning several of the tomes that had once belonged to Josef. She grabbed hold of Tobin’s Spirit Guide and held it up. “I’m pretty sure this will tell me. It’s mostly an encyclopedia of various entities that can be summoned but it has a nice collection of spells, too.”
“Just be careful. It’s been my experience that magic can come back to bite you on the arse.” Mitchell moved across the room to her, playfully slapping her bottom. “And I’d hate for anybody else’s teeth marks to ruin that pretty rump.”
Charity laughed and leaned back against him. “You’re so crude.”
“Do you like it, luv?”
“Yes. But you know what I’d like even more?”
“What’s that?”
Charity tossed the book down upon a table and turned to face him. She stroked his cheek. “If you locked the door to the study….”
“I can do that.”
“Good. And then hurry back over here.”
MORTIMER CLOSED THE door to his room and smiled. His romantic senses were tingling and somehow he knew that he was the only person in the house not currently engaged in some form of lovemaking. The thought that he had somehow emerged as the bachelor of the grounds was amusing, given how many ladies he’d romanced in his younger days.
He wandered over to the window and peered out into the perpetual gloom that seemed to hang over Hendry Hall. He liked this Gothic monstrosity, as it reminded him of the past, when there were more of these sorts of homes. The architecture of today simply failed to grab his spirit in the same way.
The loneliness that he felt once again made him feel out of place, not just here but in this world. When his time as Gravedigger had concluded, he’d thought that he’d live out the rest of his life as a normal man. Instead, his aging had slowed to a crawl, at least physically. Inside, he was an old man, he realized.
“Why am I here?” he asked aloud. “What made me think I had anything to offer?”
Though there was no audible response, Mortimer jumped as something struck his window and flattened against it: a copy of The Sovereign Gazette. He unlatched the window, opening it so he could pull the newspaper inside. It was damp from the rain that had fallen earlier and the newsprint immediately stained his fingers.
Even so, he spread it out on the nightstand next to his bed, feeling an unmistakable pull to do so. He had seen enough supernatural events in his lifetime to know that there were few coincidences in the world. Demons, angels and The Voice (whatever that truly was) all moved human beings like chess pieces on the board of life. A man could resist such things but it was far easier to simply go with the flow and allow the river of life to carry you where it would. From there, of course, you could make your stand and refuse to do whatever was being dictated to you.