Jonah flexed his shoulders, feeling Fragarach’s reassuring weight. The sword might pry free some answers if all else failed. The Answerer, it was called. It was impossible to lie with Fragarach at your throat.
Jonah was so focused on the mission that he didn’t realize he was in danger until it was almost too late. A whisper of sound behind him was what saved him. Instinctively, he dove sideways, feeling the cold wake of the creature’s charge brush past him, hearing the clatter of claws on the sandstone pavers of the garden path.
Claws?
Jonah rolled to his feet, Fragarach already in his hand. All around the yard, spotlights kindled, flooding the garden with light. Motion detectors, no doubt. Two shades faced him across some hydrangea bushes, a man and a woman. In the dark, they could have passed for ordinary, except for the five-inch, razor-sharp claws that sprouted from their hands.
“So . . . let me guess,” Jonah said. “You work for Greenwood?”
“We work for Lilith,” the man said. “We followed you here from downtown.”
Jonah felt a prickle of unease. Even focused as he was now, there was very little scent. The host corpses of these shades were remarkably well preserved—no visible decay or stench of decomposing flesh.
This is what we’re facing from now on. Besieged at home, under attack out in the field. With no refuge from the ongoing war. Jonah could see why Gabriel always insisted on keeping their headquarters and their mission a secret.
Jonah feinted to the left, then charged right, putting the more substantial barrier of a stone bench between him and his pursuers.
“And you’re here because . . . ?”
“Lilith wants to see you.”
“It’s really not a good time,” Jonah said. “Could we set up something for next week?”
“She wants to see you now,” the man said.
“All right,” Jonah said, thinking fast, buying time. “Just let me—”
A long arm snaked forward, and a claw raked across his chest, ripping through his sweatshirt, drawing blood. Only his quick leap backward saved him from being disemboweled. Though Jonah answered quickly, the shade managed to evade his counterthrust.
“What the hell was that” Jonah demanded. “I thought Lilith wanted to see me.”
“Lilith wants you alive,” the woman said. “We aren’t that fussy. She warned you, didn’t she? She warned you to stop murdering us.”
“We’re looking forward to seeing how you’ll fare as a shade,” the man said. “Don’t look for a warm welcome from some of us.”
Thus began a nearly silent, macabre dance around the overgrown garden, Jonah’s breath pluming out in the chilly air, the only sound the crackle of leaves, the rattle of claws, and Fragarach whistling through the air.
Focus, Jonah thought. These are shades. They are quick, and smart, and they don’t feel pain.
That last part, at least, made his job easier.
Finally, he circled behind a small shed, leaped over the top, and landed behind the two shades. He cut one of them in half before either of them could get his body turned around.
Howling, the other shade charged forward, leaving herself open to Jonah’s two-handed swipe. When she went down, the now-disembodied shades fled. Jonah considered pursuing them, but as he’d said, it wasn’t a good time.
“Tell Lilith to leave me alone!” he called softly after them as they dissolved into the night.
Jonah wiped his blade on the grass, hurdled a boxwood hedge, and landed in the deeper dark next to the house. There he waited, watching to see if more shades appeared, listening to find out whether anyone inside had noticed the lights ablaze in the garden.
Though the exterior was well lit, much of the interior was dark, with no sudden activity suggesting that an alarm had been sounded. The shades were drawn, but light leaked from the living room windows and Jonah could hear music, amped up loud, the heavy thud of bass.
According to the online city directory, Boykin lived alone.
Gabriel’s rule was: no witnesses. So Nightshade operations would never be tied to the Anchorage. Maybe that didn’t really matter anymore, but still . . . old habits die hard.
Jonah pulled out the close-fitting black ski mask he’d brought along and yanked it down over his face. He didn’t want to have to kill Tyler Boykin if he were an innocent man.
For an innocent man, Boykin had a top-of-the-line security system.
Jonah entered through a basement window. After a quick visual check, he slid through, feetfirst, twisting to force his shoulders through the narrow opening. He landed in near darkness, in a fighting stance, breathing in the scent of mold and old paper, fresh sawdust and shellac. Then pulled his sword in after him.
The light from the window dimly illuminated the room he was in. It was a woodshop, with a workbench at one end, a Peg-Board with tools hung in neat rows. Wood shavings littered the floor, and sawdust coated everything. Jonah fought back a sneeze.
Large table-mounted tools lined one wall. Jonah didn’t know much about woodworking, but he recognized the lathe and the band saw. Lengths of fine woods hung in racks along the wall or stood in bins by the door. Was this Studio Greenwood’s new digs?
Light seeped under a door to his right, and muted sound. Somebody was working late in the basement.
Jonah soft-footed it to the door and cracked it open, noticing the thick padding on the inside. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword as he eased the door open and peered in.
It wasn’t Tyler Boykin at all. It was a girl. She sat on a tall stool, half turned away from him, head bent over her work, so he couldn’t see her face. She was tuning a guitar, swearing under her breath. Her hair was the color of scorched caramel, thick and wavy, tied back with a bandanna, her skin three shades lighter. She wore stained jeans, work boots, and a plaid flannel shirt two sizes too big.
Jonah searched for a Weirstone and found one, but his read on it had the muddled, diffuse quality he associated with savants.
A savant? Here? This wasn’t in the script.
Three unfinished guitars stood in stands, glued and clamped up. Posters of old blues singers lined the walls.
Her flat-top acoustic, he could see, had a sound-hole preamp installed. It was feeding into a mixer and then into a laptop on her workbench. What kind of guitar was it? The letters SG were blazoned on the fingerboard. He didn’t recognize the brand.
The girl twisted the tuning keys, plucked at the strings. Out of tune. Angry, discordant notes struck Jonah’s ears, nearly bringing him to his knees. His stomach churned, and he thought his head would split open. Another quick adjustment, and the notes that now cascaded from the instrument were perfectly in tune. Aligned like stars in a perfect universe.
She leaned forward, reaching for a flat pick on the workbench, and Jonah got his first good look at her face.
Her profile was less than classic: high cheekbones, her nose a bit overlarge for the rest of her face, lush lips, bottomless brown eyes. She was beautiful, and yet there was something feral about her, something enchantingly off-key. Hardwired wild.
Recognition flamed through him. He’d seen her before . . . but where?
And then it came to him. She was Emma, the pool-shark savant from Club Catastrophe. But what was she doing in Tyler Greenwood’s basement? Did she work for him? Had the sorcerer sent her to Club Catastrophe for a reason?
She began to play, bending her head over the fingerboard, eyes closed, silently moving her lips the way guitarists sometimes do. In that instant, Jonah was lost.
He had never heard music like this. It sluiced over him, carrying away every troubled thought, filling his heart with hope and joy. He forgot everything: the sorcerer upstairs, the mission, his own imperfection, and the shame and bitterness that came with it. Jonah listened, the music dripping into him like a mainline drug, until the song was over.
He rested his forehead against the doorframe. He wished he could leave her be. There was no need for this girl— whoever she was—to be involved in what was about to happen. With any luck, between the soundproofing and her own music, he could escape without her hearing a thing.
But leaving now would violate a cardinal rule of these operations: Secure the premises first. Avoid any nasty surprises.
Jonah took a breath. Let it out.
And pushed the door open, all the way.
Chapter Twenty-one
After Midnight
Emma heard her father’s step on the stairs. “Are you down here again, Emma?”
“I never left,” she said. “I’ll come up pretty soon. I need to let these set up a bit anyway.” She surveyed the guitars, lined up in stands against the wall—the first she’d produced in her new shop. They weren’t really guitars, yet—just tops and bottoms of maple and spruce, bookmatched and joined, then glued up and clamped. They didn’t have their songs in them yet, as Sonny Lee liked to say. Used to say.
“You do beautiful work,” Tyler said, now from the foot of the stairs. “And you have a great hand with the guitar. Your grandpa would be proud of you.”
“He was proud of me,” Emma said. This is the first thing— the only thing—I’ve ever been good at.
Tyler sat down on the third step, dropping his hands between his knees as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Emma knew she still made him nervous, but she just wasn’t sure what to do about it. “Didn’t you say you had some algebra homework?” he said finally.
“Come on, now, it’s Friday night.” Forcing away the mem ory of other Friday nights, Emma lifted the Oscar Schmidt Galiano twelve-string from its stand, and propped a foot on Sonny Lee’s stool. She brushed her fingers over the steel strings, and they harmonized—bold, bright, and brassy like a church choir.
Her fingers found the familiar chords of “Don’t You Lie to Me.” At least she could play the blues—the appropriate sound track for her life right now. All she had to look forward to was month after month of failure.
It just seems like there ought to be a place I fit into, where I can be myself.
She needed a world without so many standards and restrictions and expectations—one more friendly to a girl who thought differently from other people. I need a world with a frontier, Emma thought. A wilderness I can go to, when I need it.