Splinter (Reliquary Series Book 2) Read online

  I grabbed his wrist. “Not tonight, okay? I’ve had a really long day.”

  His hand stilled, but he continued to nuzzle the side of my throat. “I’d be happy to relax you.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to summon my desire, but all I could find was a wary exhaustion. “You’re so sweet, Ben, but I’m just not up to it.”

  “I’ll do all the work—I promise.”

  While I lay like a rag doll beneath him? The idea—just another reminder of how much I’d changed—made my stomach turn. “No.”

  His tongue slipped along my skin. “Come on. It’s been months . . .”

  I leaned away from him. “It hasn’t been that long.”

  He pulled me against him, letting me feel his arousal. “It’s been twelve weeks and three days.”

  “You’ve been counting?” I ducked under his arm and took a few steps back, crossing my arms over my chest.

  He ran his hands through his light-brown hair, shot through with golden strands. “Can you blame me? I’m dying here, Mattie.”

  “You’re dying? Way to make me feel guilty.”

  He let out a long breath. “I only meant that I want you. I miss you. I love you, and I want to be close to you. Can you blame me for that?”

  “No,” I said quietly. “I love you, too. But I haven’t felt like myself lately, okay? Just give me a little time to pull myself together. I’m getting there. And you deserve the best of me.”

  “I deserve all of you!” He moved toward me, his arms out as if to enfold me, but I put my hands up to keep him back. He stopped and his expression hardened. “Goddammit, Mattie, what the hell is wrong with you? It’s like you want to be sick. Like you’re using it to keep me at a distance. Why don’t you just admit it?”

  “Because it’s not true! I’m trying to get better.”

  “Oh, really?” His honey-brown eyes flared, and he walked over and opened the cabinet above the coffeemaker. He reached in and took out a pill bottle. “I counted these. You haven’t taken a single one in the last two weeks.”

  “Because they don’t help. The attacks still come. And they make my thoughts all fuzzy.”

  He slammed the bottle onto the counter. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to get better if you’re not even willing to follow your doctor’s advice.” He grimaced. “Especially after what we’ve spent on copays and prescriptions over the last nine months.” When he saw my stunned look, his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. That came out all wrong.”

  “Or maybe you said exactly what you meant.”

  “I’m just tired. Maybe we can talk about this tomorrow when my head’s on straight.” He turned and trudged toward our room, but paused and looked back before he entered. “I’m going to make it an early night. Join me?”

  “I’ll be there soon.”

  His jaw clenched, but he nodded and disappeared into the room, leaving me standing in the kitchen. I carried the pills into the living room and sank into the couch, cradling the gently rattling bottle to my chest. The eerily familiar noise was like a fuse sparking to life, burning down until it triggered the explosion of memories.

  Pockets full of magic disguised as the most mundane things—floss, baby oil, Pez. They rattled when he walked, when he ran, when his legs flopped to the bed the one time he was too sick to take care of himself and let me do it for him.

  Come with me, Mattie. We’re a good team. We can figure this out. Together.

  I hadn’t asked him just what he wanted to figure out. How to get away from Frank Brindle, the boss of the West Coast? How to get Ben free without giving up our freedom in return?

  Or how to figure out the tangled, messed-up, inevitably doomed thing the two of us were together?

  “You know very well what I meant, Mattie,” Asa whispered.

  My eyes flew open, and there he was, sitting on the rug, a lean arm slung around his bent knee, looking relaxed even though he’d apparently just broken into my house.

  “I don’t have any idea,” I replied. “And how did you get in here?”

  “You let me in.” He rolled his eyes. “How is it that you can deal with a shitload of ancient Strikon pain magic inside your chest but not be able to deal with your own heart?”

  “You helped me with the magic. This is different.”

  He crawled toward me, predatory and smooth in the darkened room. My heart lurched as he came closer, but I was like prey, paralyzed by the look in his eyes. He stopped only when his face was an inch from mine. “No, Mattie. It’s exactly the same.”

  His mouth descended on mine, and a flash of relief lit me up.

  But the moment our lips touched, the pain stabbed straight through my chest, from my breastbone to my spine and everywhere in between. I gasped, jerking up, my eyes flying open, air squeaking from my throat in hitching breaths.

  I was alone in the room, alone with myself, alone with so much hurtful truth that I couldn’t contain it all. I doubled over, desperate to stay quiet so Ben wouldn’t hear. But it was all I could do not to scream as the agony radiated down my spine and up my neck, threading searing pain across my breasts. I clamped my hand over my mouth and drew my knees to my chest as a dark knowledge shifted and turned inside me, cutting my insides with its jagged edges, forcing me to look, as much as I wanted to go on pretending it didn’t exist.

  I hadn’t let go of Asa. Somehow, he’d stayed with me, haunting me. Because I’d let him. Because a part of me missed him, wondered where he was and what he was doing, wondered if he ever thought of me, wondered if the life he’d offered was something I should have explored. And it was ruining me, body and soul.

  I managed to sit up. Fumbling, I unscrewed the cap of the pill bottle and let two pale blue ovals fall onto my palm. I tossed them into my mouth and swallowed, then winced as they slowly slid down my dry throat. “I made my choice,” I whispered.

  Yes, it had been tempting. And yes, so was Asa himself. Painfully so.

  But I was never meant for a life like that or for a man like him, both endlessly complicated in ways I’d only just begun to understand. And if I didn’t move on, I was going to lose the life I had.

  “I’m not going to let that happen.” I pushed myself off the couch and headed for the bedroom.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ben pulled in behind my father’s Volvo and squeezed my hand. “You think Grandpa’s forgiven me yet?”

  I squeezed back and held on, loving the solid feel of him. “I’m more worried about whether he’s forgiven me. I haven’t come to visit him in weeks.” I hadn’t wanted to scare him.

  “It’s kind of amazing he’s held on this long. He’s obviously a strong old man.”

  “That he is,” I murmured. And way too perceptive for my comfort. “I told him you’re clean, by the way—that you hadn’t touched magic in months.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  Ben paused with his fingers wrapped around the door handle. “I know it takes time to rebuild trust. But I can accept that, as long as I know there’s still a chance.”

  I leaned over and kissed his cheek, inhaling the astringent scent of his aftershave. “Thanks for holding on this long, then.”

  “Worth it,” he said with a smile.

  We got out and headed inside, where Mom was rolling out dough in the kitchen. “Come on in,” she said, her tone ever cheerful. “Grandpa just ate some lunch, and his nurse will be here in a bit to bathe him, so it’s a good time.”

  Ben walked over to give my Mom a one-armed hug. “Mattie, do you want to have some time with him before I come in? There’s something I want to talk to Kat about.”

  Mom saw me narrow my eyes and laughed. “Oh, get in there, Mattie. I promise we’re not scheming.”

  Ben arched an eyebrow. “Well, maybe a little. All good stuff, though.”

  “Okay.” I pulled my cardigan tighter around my body as a gust of cool wind came in off Lake Michigan. “But for the record, I’m not in the mood for surpr
ises these days . . .” I swallowed, my toes curling in my sandals, and then pasted a smile on my face. “Never mind. Surprise me!”

  Reclaiming my life, dammit. I whirled around and headed for the library, Grandpa’s domain. My heart kicked into a higher gear, a hammer pounding splinters of glass a little deeper into my chest wall. I rubbed at the pain and was wondering if I should take another Xanax when Grandpa’s frail voice reached me.

  “Kat told me you were coming today. I said I’d believe it when I saw it.” He turned his head. His eyes were watery, red rimmed, and he was thinner than when I’d last seen him, but otherwise, he looked nearly the same, though he was months past his predicted expiration date.

  “I know it’s been too long, and I’m sorry.”

  He frowned. “You look nearly as bad as I do, Mattie.” He returned his gaze to the view of the lake beyond the window.

  I leaned my forehead against the steel railing of his bed. “It’s been a bit rough lately.”

  His shaking hand settled on my nest of curls. “Is that boy treating you all right?”

  “Ben’s been great. I’m the problem.”

  “I suspect you’re being way too hard on yourself. You risked everything to save him. Are you sure you aren’t having buyer’s remorse?”

  “I made my choice!” I raised my head to find him looking at me. “I risked everything because I love him. I just . . .” I sagged a little. “Grandpa, was it hard to leave that world, once you knew about it?”

  “Ah. Well, I was in that world for nearly fifty years. And as for my retirement”—he chuckled, a rattling, phlegmy sound—“let’s just say it was only partial.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He laid his knobby hand on his chest. “Ever carried a secret inside you for so long that it eats away at you? Physically, I mean.” His gaze skimmed over my face, and I wondered if he could see past the undereye concealer, the luminizer, the powder, or if he could just tell that my cheeks were less round, my collarbones a little sharper. “Looks like you might know what I’m talking about.”

  “Pretend I don’t.”

  “I don’t really have cancer.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You mean you’re not—”

  “Oh, I’m dying. No doubt about that. But it’s the magic that’s killing me. Lung cancer just seemed like an easier explanation. A little Knedas juice was all it took to convince the docs.”

  “Working as a reliquary for all those years made you sick?”

  “Oh, no. Never had a problem. Pretty easy job, apart from a few Strikon relic transactions. Those were the worst.”

  “Tell me about it,” I whispered, even as the memory of Asa rose, leaning over me, his eyes hard on mine. Focus on what you have to do, because you know I’m handling the rest. And he had, and I was grateful, and I’d let him go. End of story. “So what happened then? After all those years of jet-setting and doing your thing, how did it all end?”

  “Jack and I were in Russia, and we’d gotten ourselves into a bit of trouble.”

  A lump formed in my throat at the mention of Jack. The old conduit had helped me and Asa out of a dire situation—at the cost of his own life. “Jack seemed like he could handle just about anything,” I said quietly. Right up until the moment a sniper’s bullet shattered his skull.

  “Oh, we were old hands by that time. It was hard to surprise us. But Volodya, the Russian boss, was a crafty bastard who employed even craftier henchmen. Crazy time in Russia, less than ten years after the fall of the Soviet Union. We were trying to smuggle a valuable relic full of Ekstazo healing out of the country to save the life of a client’s daughter, and we got caught by the nastiest pair you’d ever want to meet.” He shuddered. “Lishka—she was a Strikon—and Arkady, a Knedas. I’d heard of them, of course, but meeting them . . .”

  While Grandpa wrestled with his memories, so did I. I’d met a couple of nasty operators myself last summer, and I’d felt what they could do. “Did they torture you?” I whispered.

  Grandpa started, like I’d just wrenched him from a dream. “Oh, they were going to, but all of a sudden, in walks Theresa. She was a pretty young thing, but always sweating like she was in Death Valley. Still, she acted like she owned the place. Claimed Volodya wanted us to take the Ekstazo magic as a gesture of goodwill, and if those two interfered, they’d have to deal with him. Moment I saw her, I knew we were saved.”

  “So they believed her?”

  He nodded. “Practically left a smoke trail, they cleared out so fast. They’d probably been trying to skim some off the top, you know? Going into business for themselves. That was happening a lot.”

  “So, Theresa . . .” I bit my lip. “You’ve mentioned her before—she was a magic sensor.”

  Even if I hadn’t recognized the name, Grandpa’s description of her would have given it away. Every time Asa had been close to powerful magic, he’d sweated like crazy, his body reacting violently. I had ached for him.

  I was aching now.

  “Yeah,” said Grandpa, his tone turning wistful. “I think I told you how hard it is for those magic sensors to survive in this business. And Theresa was one of the best. We’d worked together in the past. She belonged to Volodya. He depended on her.”

  “Was she . . . normal? I thought that magic sensors couldn’t hang on for very long when they’re constantly surrounded by magic.” Asa had been willing to die rather than let himself be captured by either of the two mob bosses who wanted to force him into their employ.

  “Normal?” Grandpa shook his head. “Heartbroken, more like. Saddest lady I ever did meet. She wouldn’t talk much about her past, but I had the impression she’d lost someone she loved. Maybe she was even trying to get back to him. She was determined to escape Volodya. In fact, she asked for our help. And considering that she’d just saved our skins, Jack and I were happy to step up.” Grandpa let out a rattling laugh. “Had no idea what I was in for. Original magic is nothing to mess with.”

  It felt like all my blood had drained to my feet as I remembered what Jack had said before he’d helped extract original Strikon magic from the little vault I had inside me—this isn’t my first original-relic rodeo. “She wanted help getting one of the four relics?”

  Grandpa’s filmy eyes widened. “How do you know about the original four?”

  “That’s what I had to exchange for Ben’s safety. I smuggled it out of Thailand and delivered it to the West Coast boss.” And Frank Brindle had kept up his end of the bargain, thank God.

  Grandpa blinked at me. “And did you—?” His fingers clutched at the front of his undershirt, right over his heart.

  I nodded. “It went okay.” Because Asa had gotten me through it. I’d had to give him a little piece of my soul in exchange, though, one I now knew would be forever his. “I got through it.”

  “Which one was it?”

  I gave Grandpa a tremulous smile. “Strikon.”

  He looked me over. “And is this the result?”

  “No, it’s not that at all. It wasn’t inside me for even twenty-four hours before we got it back into the relic, thanks to Jack.”

  “Good thing,” Grandpa said quietly, now rubbing his chest. “A very good thing.”

  “What did Theresa want you to do?” I was eager to shift the topic away from myself.

  “What? Oh! Oh, yes. She wanted to get out. And to do that, she had to pull off the biggest theft in the history of thefts . . .” He chuckled again. “Until the one you pulled off yourself, that is. She wanted to steal the Sensilo relic from Volodya—and replace it with a fake.”

  “Why?”

  “She wanted to exchange it for her own safety. She never said what she was going to do with it—maybe sell it to the highest bidder, maybe hand it over to the Headsmen in exchange for protection from Volodya. All she asked of me and Jack was to help her get it out of the country.”

  “So you know what it feels like.”

  Grandpa closed his eyes. “Jack had to carry me out of
the safe house where we did the transaction. Never felt such an overwhelming sensation in all my life. But I was back on my feet quickly, and it was a good thing. We were only about two steps ahead of Volodya’s people. Theresa covered for us yet again. She’d told us to meet her in Saint Petersburg, at a club right on the Neva. We planned to sneak out of the country and travel together back to the US.”

  “I take it something went wrong?”

  “I guess you could say that. She never showed. Jack and I waited as long as we could, but the relic was so hot that we knew we had to get out.” Grandpa sighed, bowing his head to stare at his own bony, concave chest. “I kept it hidden for her, just in case, but she was gone for good. Never saw her again. No idea what happened to her.”

  My heart dropped. “Are you telling me the magic is still inside you?”

  “Yes, the magic is still with me.” He reached over and picked up the small locked wooden box he kept by his bedside, bringing it over to cradle in his lap. One of the few things he’d brought with him from his home in Arizona, it was about six inches on a side, and its top was an exquisite riot of carving: twisting branches and leaves, with an elephant’s head at the center. “But the relic itself is in here—”

  I made a face at the box. “Which body part is it?”

  “Viscera.”

  I grimaced. “Like, guts?”

  “Preserved and covered in gold. All of them are. Blood for Ekstazo, bone for Strikon, brain for Knedas, viscera for Sensilo.”

  “So gross,” I muttered.

  His unsteady hand closed over mine, his touch cool and dry. “When I’m gone, I want you to take the empty relic to the Headsmen. Let them know the magic died with me.”

  “Grandpa, this is what’s killing you?”

  “Magic has a cost, Mattie,” he said quietly, his eyes meeting mine. “Especially magic like this.”