“How long can we stay in this place?” Vani said, prowling around a Chippendale sofa where Nim lay curled up. The T’gollimped slightly, favoring her injured leg. The nurse–there was always one on duty at the Charterhouse–had cleaned and bandaged the wound.
“You can stay as long as you need to,” Deirdre said.
Vani gripped the laminated ID badge that hung from a lanyard around her neck. “And we can leave at any time?”
“Of course you can leave,” Anders said, hanging his torn suit coat on the back of a chair. “Not that I’d recommend it. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not exactly safe out there.”
Vani spun around, advancing on him. “You Seekers are arrogant fools. I have watched you. You believe you know everything, yet there is so much you cannot understand. Is it truly so safe here?”
“Not if you keep talking like that, it isn’t,” Anders growled, cracking his knuckles.
Vani treated the Seeker to a scornful look. “If you think simply because you have large muscles that you have any chance against me, then you deceive yourself.”
“It sounds to me like you’re the cocky one,” Anders said. “Just because you’re some superspooky assassin type doesn’t mean you know every trick in the book. I worked security long before I became a Seeker, and I don’t need muscles to take out the likes of you. Go on, Deirdre. Tell her how I aced all those logic tests the Seekers gave me.”
Beltan interposed himself between the Seeker and the T’gol. He faced Anders. “I doubt I’d do very good on those tests, but my logic tells me you’d better back off if you want to keep your brain inside your skull.” He glared at Vani. “You, too. Do you think this is a good example for Nim?”
Vani’s scowl became a worried expression. “She is asleep.”
“Not anymore,” Travis said.
Nim was sitting up on the sofa, her gray eyes wide. “Are you going to hurt the bad man, Mother?”
Deirdre pushed herself from the chair, then knelt on the carpet next to the sofa. “Don’t be afraid, Nim. Anders isn’t a bad man.”
“Yes he is. That’s why Mother wants to hurt him.”
“No, he’s my partner, and he helped us get away from the monsters. Don’t you remember?”
Nim hesitated, then nodded.
“Anders and your mother are just a little tired, that’s all. We’re all tired.” Deirdre smiled, touching the girl’s chin. “You, too, I bet. Why don’t you go to sleep?”
Nim held her hands out before her. “No, I don’t want to sleep. I won’t see the gold men if my eyes are closed. They want to take me away from my mother because I’m a key. That’s what they tell me, only their mouths don’t move.”
“Hush, daughter,” Vani said, sitting on the arm of the sofa and stroking Nim’s dark hair. “There is no need to fear. You are safe here.”
“That’s right,” Deirdre said, doing her best to sound convincing. But they weresafe there. Underneath all the rich wood paneling, every door in the Charterhouse was made of tempered steel fitted with electronic locks. This parlor was like a bank vault. Nothing could pass the doors. Or the windows. “Show her, Anders.”
The Seeker moved to one of the windows. “See that little beam of green light here? That’s a laser. Look what happens if something gets in the way of that beam.” Anders stuck a finger in the path of the laser beam–then snatched his hand back just in time to keep it from getting smashed as a row of gleaming metal bars whooshed into place, covering the window.
Nim clapped her hands. “Again!”
After several more demonstrations of the automatic safety features of the windows and doors, Nim was finally content to lie down on the sofa. She yawned and stuck a finger in her mouth, and her breathing grew slow as her eyes drooped shut.
Deirdre would have liked to curl up herself, but there was too much to try to understand. They moved to the other side of the parlor and spoke in low voices so as not to disturb Nim. A sleepy‑eyed butler brought coffee, and Deirdre helped Anders pour cups for all of them.
“It’s not fair,” he grumbled in a low voice as they stood at a sideboard, backs to the others. “I get the train rolling along, smash all the baddies, and somehow I’m still the bad man.”
“Don’t worry about Nim. She just doesn’t know you like I do. Remember, I didn’t exactly trust you at first, either.”
However, in the time since, Deirdre had learned that she could rely on Anders in any situation. In fact, she trusted Anders more than she had ever trusted Hadrian Farr. With Farr, she had always felt there was some deeper agenda she didn’t know about, that if he ever thought he needed to, he would abandon her in an instant. Then he had, and now she knew why. Somehow he had found a doorway to Eldh, and he had taken it, leaving her behind. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for that.
Only she did. Farr had found what they had always sought together, and he had gone on without her. Something told her Anders wouldn’t do the same–that if he found a portal to another world, he would hold the door open like a gentleman and let her go first.
“You trust me now, don’t you, mate?” he said, pouring cream.
She laid a hand on his broad shoulder, drawing closer. Anders wasn’t handsome, but damn if he didn’t always smell good. . . .
Stop it right now, Deirdre.
Her hand pulled back. She wasn’t certain when she realized she could fall in love with Anders if she let herself. It wasn’t at all like what she had felt for Farr when she first met him. Back then, she had been as infatuated with the idea of the Seekers as with Farr’s film noir good looks. It was hard to say which of them had seduced her.
With Anders, it was different. There had been so much to get through: her mistrust, the fact that he had worked security, and the realization that underneath that heavy Cro‑Magnon brow lurked a sharp mind. Even then she probably wouldn’t have realized the truth if it hadn’t been for Sasha.
“Quit glowing,” Sasha had said to her one day.
“What?” Deirdre had said, utterly confused.
“I said quit glowing. You’re like a night‑light.”
Deirdre was scandalized. “I don’t glow.”
“You do when you look at Anders,” Sasha had said with a wicked grin. “Grant you, we’ve all gotten rather attached to the big lug, and not simply because he makes heavenly coffee. But it’s best to keep one’s professional relationships from becoming unprofessional. And by that I mean personal. I know you agree, darling.”
Just to confuse things, which Sasha had a great fondness for, she gave Deirdre a warm kiss on the lips before sauntering away on her lanky supermodel legs.
Ever since then, Deirdre had been careful, and as far as she knew Anders didn’t suspect anything. Which was good. Deirdre valued him too much as a partner and a friend to ever do anything to jeopardize their relationship.
“Come on,” she said, leading the way as he carried a tray of coffee cups to a table in the corner. While Nim slept, the adults gathered around the table, trying to make sense of everything that had happened.
“So it was me they came looking for,” Travis said, looking at Vani, “not you and Nim.” He touched the bandage on his arm and winced.
Vani circled her hands around her cup. “Yes, but it does not matter, for they have learned I brought Nim to Earth. There is nowhere I can take her now that will be safe from them.”
“But why do they want us?” Travis said, his gray eyes serious. For the first time Deirdre noticed that they were flecked with gold, just like Nim’s.