Page 66 of A Shade Too Far
“Hunters,” Laurent said grimly.
Hiram nodded. No wonder he gathered all the information he could. Forewarned was forearmed. I understood it, though I didn’t forgive it.
I grabbed the arm of the love seat. “That’s why we were killed? Because Ohrists couldn’t stand us being more powerful?”
“What did you expect?” Ephraim’s weary voice swirled around us. “You arm one side with a nuclear bomb, the other will find a way to defuse it. By whatever means necessary. It’s not right but it’s human history.”
He wasn’t Banim Shovavim, and this genocide wasn’t part of his past, so why did he sound so resigned to that facet of humanity? What was he arming himself against that he’d partnered with Hiram and gone to all this effort?
Or what was he atoning for?
“Ephraim, were your people hunters?”
“Did you just win a round and I missed it?” he snarked.
“I’m old enough to remember the tail end of the slaughters,” Hiram said. “They’d kill any Banim Shovavim, just in case. Until the slaughter became too much for even the Lonestars to cover up and they put a stop to it. Too little too late.”
Any shadow of a doubt about who’d attacked me in Gargoyle Gardens vanished. This ability was so rare nowadays that the person who’d killed Torres, gone after me, and placed the curse on Tatiana were one and the same: the woman from the island. If her victims piled up, would she unleash a new wave of hunters determined to end those of us left?
I shot a sideways glance at Laurent, my heartbeat stuttering. Had it already?
Was death the only possible outcome regardless, be it hers or all Banim Shovavim? Tatiana’s? Laurent’s? Mine? My anxious thumb rubbing should have worn a new groove in the domino.
More than anything I longed to ask Laurent what was going through his mind, because I couldn’t read his expression and he’d grown stiller and stiller.
At that moment, the theme song blared, its jauntiness jarring and unwelcome. Ephraim ordered us to resume the game.
We won the fourth round and the category of Nighttime Haunts of Paris, but I couldn’t tell you what questions Hiram had asked. Our host clearly had no heart for this anymore, and even Ephraim’s joviality had a forced determination to it, but for whatever reason, we were stuck on this ride until its final destination.
My question to the Wise Brothers landed a second before Laurent’s inquiry about the woman’s name.
“Did that Banim Shovavim put a curse on me? I didn’t get a letter, but she sent her dybbuk after me.” Its behavior made sense now that I knew it was the woman’s familiar.
The shifter turned his head to look at me for the first time since the Banim Shovavim had been confirmed. His expression softened for a moment, and he reached out a hand but curled it into a fist and dropped it in his lap before making contact. “That wasn’t our final question.”
“I deviated from the script. Sue me.” We’d have to make sure we won the last round to ask that all-important final query about her name, but I had to know if I had a target on my back. Or would soon.
Hiram replied that only one Pulsa diNura could be placed at a time, but she could send the dybbuk after me at any point. It just didn’t ensure my death, especially since I saw the familiar and could fight back.
The woman hadn’t let the dybbuk kill me, but she’d been in Blood Alley. She’d watched the battle and known I was like her. Was that why I was alive? The thought of meeting another woman like me was like seeing the sun after a long, dreary winter, but my excitement shattered under the ugly truth.
This wasn’t the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I swayed closer to Laurent, despite his hostility, and crossed my fingers that it wasn’t the end of one either.
At long last, we came to the final round. My stomach was a hard knot and Laurent was practically MIA even though he sat right beside me.
The only remaining category was Days of the Week, all the questions unasked.
Hiram picked up a card and widened his eyes theatrically. “It’s an all or nothing question!”
There were big whoops and claps from the audience or whatever annoying magic or sound effects program Ephraim was fucking around with.
“In our final round, one of you must answer a single question worth the usual three,” our host said. “Get it right and you receive your final answer. Get it wrong and you walk out of here with your memories wiped clean of everything you’ve learned.”
I rose in objection like a TV trial lawyer, but barely got my butt a half inch off the love seat before I was hoisted back down by the magic invisible seat belt. “That’s not fair. You said if we won each round, we’d get answers.”
“And you did,” Hiram said.
“We never promised you’d remember them,” Ephraim added to audience laughter.
