No. There was amusement in Azriel’s mental tone. Although that can be arranged if you so wish.
If you get naked for her before you get naked for me, I’ll be more than a little annoyed.
I have already been naked with you.
Not nearly enough, I’m afraid.
“How can I help you?” the receptionist said.
“I need to speak to Charlie Tan,” I said, a touch more tartly than I probably should have. “We’re trying to trace the location of a woman who was recently a passenger in his cab.”
She frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t—”
Azriel made a small movement with his hand. “It is vital we find her.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Hang on a sec.”
She spun away and picked up the phone. I glanced at Azriel. And just what happened there?
I made her believe we were police.
I didn’t think you reapers were supposed to intervene in the thoughts of others.
We aren’t. But I am Mijai, and we do whatever must be done.
Something ominous crawled down my spine at the emphasis he placed on “whatever.” I shivered but refrained from saying anything as the woman turned back toward us.
“If you just go through the door to your left, Francis will be able to help you.”
Azriel gave her a high-wattage smile. “We appreciate your help.”
She blinked and all but stammered, “My pleasure.”
He turned and walked toward the indicated door. I followed, torn between amusement and annoyance. You handled that a little too well. Done it before, have you?
As I said, I do what must be done. In this case, it’s getting the information we need quickly so we can solve this and move back to our real quest.
Then why not just pluck the information from her mind? Why flirt? And why flirt with a damn stranger and not with me?
Because she does not know where the cabdriver is, nor can she connect us to him.
He opened the door and ushered me inside again, one hand pressed against my back. The light contact chased away the ominous sense of trepidation that still lingered, but did little to ease the niggling annoyance.
A woman—Francis, I gathered—glanced up from a com-screen as we entered, and gave us a pleasant smile. And once again, it was mostly aimed at Azriel.
“Sue says you need to speak to Charlie urgently.” Her gaze swept him, and interest sparked deep in her brown eyes.
I felt a sudden urge to grind my teeth. The only reason I didn’t was because it wouldn’t have done any good.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, yes,” Azriel replied, his voice warm enough to melt ice.
If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I grouched silently. Good grief.
Azriel glanced at me, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. And you were accusing me of jealousy?
I crossed my arms and regarded him steadily. It’s not.
In the same way as mine is not?
This is different.
I do not believe it is.
You’d believe the sky was green if it suited you.
That is an incongruous statement.
But true.
His smile increased, but he returned his attention to Francis as she pressed several buttons, then swished a finger across the screen. The face of a man appeared. He was bald and chubby, with red cheeks and merry blue eyes.
“What can I do for you, officer?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Azriel beat me to it. Perhaps he thought politeness wasn’t in my current repertoire given my sudden bout of grouchiness. And to be honest, he might have been right.
“We believe you picked up a woman in Gable Street a day or so ago. Can you remember where you took her?”
He frowned. “Listen, I get a lot of passengers—”
“This woman was regal-looking, with silver hair, a thin face, and a hooked nose,” I interrupted. “She might have appeared high on something.”
He grunted. “Yeah, I remember that one. She smelled funny—like old paper. I dropped her at some abandoned industrial building in Brooklyn. I did ask her if she had the right address, being a woman and alone and all, because it wasn’t a nice-looking place.” He looked suddenly worried. “Has something happened to her?”“No,” Azriel said, in a reassuring voice. “We simply need to talk to her. Can you give us the address where you left her?”
“It was Cawley Road. I don’t know the actual number, but the place had a stack of old shipping containers on the premises. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr. Tan.”
“My pleasure,” he said, and then the screen went blank.
Francis swiveled in her chair and gave Azriel a somewhat sultry look. “Anything else I can do for you, officer?”
I rolled my eyes and left him to it. I gave the woman at the desk a nod of thanks, but she was paying as little attention to me as the woman in the control room had. Which I could totally understand, but it still rankled.
I waited outside in the cool air, and Azriel appeared a few minutes later.
“So,” I muttered, “you all set for later tonight?”
He raised his eyebrows. “I do not understand what you mean.”
My ass he didn’t. That was obvious from the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. But I bit back my annoyance and my reply, and glanced at my watch. Even though he’d zapped us here, we’d still lost valuable time inside, and the clock was ticking down. Time to stop being so idiotic and start concentrating on what really mattered—saving a woman’s life. A reaper who was becoming more and more of a frustration could be dealt with later.
“We need to get moving.”
He nodded and stepped close, but this time he didn’t immediately wrap his arms around me and dissolve us into mist. Instead, he caught my chin between his fingertips and said softly, “You are an idiot, Risa Jones.”
Then he kissed me.
It was fierce yet gentle, everything and yet nothing. It was energy and spirit and desire, and it made me soar even as it made me hunger for things I knew could never be.
And it was insanely, infuriatingly brief.
His lips left mine and he wrapped his arms around my waist, but I barely even saw the gray fields as we zipped through them. My head was still dizzy from the power and the promise of the kiss. From the knowledge that it would never go any further unless he wanted it to.
What I wanted apparently didn’t matter.
We reappeared in the middle of a road. He released me and stepped back, his expression restored to its usual distant self. Like we hadn’t just kissed. Like the kiss meant nothing.
And yet I knew, deep down, that was far from the truth.
“Damn it, Azriel—”
“There is magic here,” he cut in, obviously not wanting to discuss his actions. He indicated the high wire fence to our right. Behind it stood dozens of old shipping containers in various states of repair. “Over there.”
Fine. Play your games. But don’t expect me to be happy or to play along.
Once again, he gave no indication that he’d heard the somewhat surly thought. I released a frustrated breath and reminded myself yet again that there was a life at stake here. “Can you sense anything behind it?”
“No life, if that’s what you mean.” His gaze met mine. “But no death, either.”
I frowned. “If you can’t sense any life, maybe she simply met our killer here and they went elsewhere.”
“No. There is something here. It is similar in feel to the magic near Dorothy.”
I swung around and studied the battered, abandoned containers. I couldn’t see anything that jumped up and screamed magic, but then, I wasn’t as sensitive to the stuff as he was.
“Where, exactly?”
He pointed down the road, to the right. “It appears to be located near the containers behind that warehouse.”
The warehouse in question was big, old, and had been in disuse for some time if the state of the place was anything to go by. The remnants of the sign over the main entrance said HARTWELL SHIPPING in what must once have been bold red lettering.
“This is definitely the place.”
“It would seem so.”
We hurried toward the entrance. My shoes clicked noisily on the road surface and the sound seemed to echo across the odd hush that held the immediate area. It was almost as if the old buildings around us were holding their collective breath, waiting for something dramatic to happen. Trepidation continued to crawl across my skin, and I slowed.
“What?” Azriel said immediately.
“I don’t know.”
The nearby cyclone fence was topped with razor wire, which seemed a little extreme given the state of the entire area. It wasn’t like there was a lot here beyond rusting remnants, but maybe they were simply left over from the days when this was a thriving business park. There didn’t seem to be any other security measures present, either. And yet something about the place still felt off.
I heard a slight tick-tick, and walked closer to the fence. A piece of razor wire had been cut and swayed regularly in time to the breeze, and every time it touched the fence, it ticked. The damn fence was electrified. I walked down to the main gate. It was similarly protected.
“The gate doesn’t provide much of a barrier for the likes of us,” Azriel commented.
He touched my arm and drew me lightly toward him again, but this time I resisted. “Thanks, but I’ll get in there under my own steam.”
“I do not mind—”
“Yeah, but I do.” I wrapped my fingers around my purse and phone—they wouldn’t change unless there was skin-on-skin contact. “Especially if you’re going to keep using those moments to steal kisses.”
“That was wrong of me—”
“Yes, it was,” I cut in, then closed my eyes and called to the Aedh within. I was still pushing my limits strength-wise, and this was really the last thing I needed to do. But I wasn’t about to keep relying on Azriel to zap us around. Enough was enough. If he wanted distance, he was damn well going to get it.