Page 87 of A Shade Too Far
“Shitty. Hope they don’t eat the neighbors.”
Thank you for that. Now all I pictured was poor Luka, disemboweled, his blood splashed across his newspaper. My head throbbed, a tight ache that pinched down into the base of my neck. “Is there a guest room I can sleep in?”
Emmett led me upstairs to a small but lovely bedroom decorated in soft shades of cream and sky blue. While the furniture had clean, simple lines, everywhere the eye landed offered a visual treat in terms of a pop of color or a textured fabric. I wrangled my suitcase into the closet. “This is great, thanks. If I’m not up when Tatiana awakens, come get me, please.”
“Sure. Night, toots.” Emmett closed the door behind him.
I fell back onto the foam mattress with its extra cushioning and soft blanket with a sigh, my body exhausted but my brain unable to stop whirring.
Laurent was probably on his red-eye flight.
I curled into a tight ball, closing my eyes to lessen the headache. How messed up would this trip make him? I gasped. What if his magic returned while he was on the plane? Would I wake up to news of a slaughter and the exposure of magic? This summer’s next blockbuster: Wolf on a Plane. I pulled a pillow over my head. In giving Laurent the potion in the vial, I’d fucked up both his Ohrist magic and my own. Loath as I was to admit it, Zev was right. There was still so much I didn’t know about magic, and despite my good intentions, there were times I made things worse.
When I was in university, I’d discovered jigsaw puzzles as a stress buster, progressing through harder and harder ones over the years. My approach hadn’t changed though. First I laid down the corners, building a framework before moving on to large set pieces. Eventually I’d end up in the weeds cursing at some blobby color that didn’t seem to fit anywhere, but all it took was two pieces connecting and suddenly an entire section could fall into place.
If only life worked the same way. Instead, the pieces of my life were disjointed. I gave a resolved nod. I’d asked Naveen for help tonight and difficult as that conversation had been, I’d gotten it. Next time I’d remember that I had people in my life to turn to when I was lost, like Jude and Ava.
And Laurent? The one person who’d been by my side through all the crazy twists and turns since I’d reclaimed my magic? I sighed. Not having the energy to change or even brush my teeth, I wrapped myself in the blanket like a burrito, grabbing my phone so I didn’t end up sleeping on it.
My email showed one notification. It was from the Oxford librarian asking me to call her at my earliest convenience. While it was the middle of the night here, it was late morning over in the United Kingdom. I dialed the number she’d provided, nervous about what she might tell me about the Torquemada Gloves. Or worse, that she’d never heard of them. But she wouldn’t ask me to phone in that case, would she?
The woman who answered had a pleasant voice and an upper-crust accent similar to Daya’s.
“Hi. I’m phoning for Veronica Taylor. My name is Miriam Feldman.”
“Miriam, hello. This is Veronica. Let me just…” A door closed. “There. Now we have some privacy. I was very intrigued by the email I received from Franklin.”
“Had you heard of the Torquemada Gloves, then?” I crossed my fingers.
“No, but the idea that someone had either named a pair after the Grand Inquisitor or perhaps skinned him post-mortem in retribution was a terribly exciting prospect. Historically, this could have great significance.”
I thunked my head against the pillow. Could I be more of an idiot? Of course these gloves would make people take notice—and have Sapiens poking into things they shouldn’t.
“Franklin mentioned you said the gloves were old,” she said. “Did you have them dated?”
“No, and they aren’t in my possession. They might also have been given that name to make them sound evil.”
“Branding is important.” She laughed. “I put a few interested friends on the hunt with me.”
I smothered my groan with the pillow.
Keys clacked on a keyboard. “Sadly, none of us unearthed anything by that name despite our various resources covering theology and history.”
“Shame.” I modified my tone to sound genuinely upset. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“That’s the brilliant news. The name didn’t yield anything, but that mark you described?” She rustled some papers. “Right. The half circle. That turned up something fascinating.”
Nonono! That was a demon mark and I recognized that breathy excitement. She had caught the tail of something big and there would be no letting go. Not until, in this case, it swallowed her.
Visions of orange corrosive smoke belching in the sky over Deadman’s Island taunted me. Would I be penalized here in Vancouver for violating the Lonestars’ prime directive that magic must remain hidden, or was there some special hidden space in the Tower of London reserved for criminals like me?
I eyed the car keys I’d tossed on the dresser, considering driving home, lying down in the middle of my lawn, and letting the demons get me. I was so distraught that I almost missed what Veronica said next.
“…blood libel?”
I sat up, braced on an elbow. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”
“I asked if you’d ever heard of blood libel?”
