Sunroper (Goddesses Rising) Read online

He stripped off his boots, jeans, and shirt and went into his own, much more pedestrian bathroom. He didn’t need all the fancy stuff. The hot water alone was enough to make him groan. He let it pound on his head and aching shoulders, soak his hair, and revive his brain.

  If it felt this good to him, he could imagine how it felt to Marley.

  He braced his hands against the wall of the shower and leaned into them, blowing out water that dripped into his mouth. Had it really been less than thirty-six hours since he first laid eyes on her in the club Friday night? Yesterday she’d thwarted what appeared to be an attack at a church—he’d have to ask her about that—and then nullified the flux in two Deimons who’d obviously tried to stop her. They’d traveled three hundred miles, and though Marley was the only one who’d slept, it didn’t really count given the knife wound and his not-so-gentle stitching. The three hours of sleep they’d scheduled weren’t going to take any of them far.

  He stayed that way, leaning against the tile, for god knew how long, unable to work up the energy to leave the shower. His mind drifted through images of the past two days until he wasn’t sure he was fully awake. His mind became full of Marley’s ivory skin, his hands stroking it and his mouth tasting it, her moans in his ear.

  No. Not moans. Groans, and not human ones. That was the pipes. And apparently they’d tested the limits of the hot-water tank after all because his shower had gone cold. Probably a good thing since he’d dreamed himself into a decent hard-on.

  He twisted off the water and stepped out onto the thick bath mat, dripping. After a few quick swipes with a towel, he took half-a-dozen steps into the bedroom and fell onto the bed naked. Hopefully no emergencies would come up before his alarm went off.

  …

  Gage dragged himself from solid darkness, through a fast-forward surge of dreams, and into bleary awareness. He cursed his noisy watch and the sadist who’d selected the alarm sound. It wasn’t easy to turn off, either. He peered at the time while fumbling for the button. They’d be meeting in the kitchen in ten minutes. Marley was probably out there already, and he should scrounge up something for them to eat.

  God, he was tired. But if he had any hope of finding Aiden and helping Marley stop the goddess, he had to get moving.

  The alarm finally stopped attacking his eardrums. He dragged himself out of bed, pulled on jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, and headed for the kitchen. The tile floor was cool on his feet as he crossed the foyer. It was too silent, though, making him wonder if the other two had skipped out on him. Then he swung around the archway into the kitchen and relaxed. Anson wasn’t there and the stainless-steel appliances appeared untouched, but Marley sat at the breakfast counter, a steaming mug of coffee next to the laptop in front of her.

  Drawing in an appreciative breath of the strong brew, Gage crossed the spacious pentagonal room to the coffeemaker and poured his own cup. “Thanks for making this.”

  Marley gave an absent nod but didn’t look up from the screen. Gage watched her, trying to decide if she was actively ignoring him or simply engrossed in whatever she was looking at. He gave her a few minutes while he let the coffee perk up his system.

  He needed to call his father, to update him on what he’d learned, but he wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. Gage had nothing new about Aiden. The goddess was far more powerful than his father had anticipated, and she was passing on that dangerous power to Numina. But that wouldn’t give him the leverage he was looking for, because it looked like other Numina were involved in the enterprise.

  His stomach rumbled. He turned to open cupboards and check the food situation. “Where’s Anson?”

  “Out.”

  “Out where? I thought he was sleeping.” He found a couple of unopened boxes of cereal, but they had no milk. No eggs or bread, either. Pancake mix—but again, he found when he checked the instructions, no milk or eggs. Up on a top shelf he found a red box that triggered memories of his childhood. He pulled it down and checked the directions. It just needed water for a “hot and hearty breakfast.” Behind the box was a sealed bag of raisins. That’d work.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked Marley.

  “I’m making a list of all the occupants of this building.”

  “All of them?” He set a saucepan on the stove and measured out water for two servings.

  “What I can find.”

  She still sounded distracted, so Gage drank his coffee while he waited for the water to boil, added the grainy cereal, and stirred with a whisk until it thickened. He poured the contents of the pan into two bowls, added a handful of raisins and a sprinkling of sugar to each one, and carried them to the counter. He set one next to the laptop. After a few seconds, Marley looked down at it and frowned.

  “What’s this?”

  “Cream of Wheat.” He held out a spoon and waited for her to take it. “Healthy, hearty, and reminiscent of easier times. My mother made it when I was little.”

  A smile flickered across her mouth, and she took the utensil. “So did mine. Exactly like this. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He dipped his spoon into his bowl. “Is she involved with the summit? Your mother.”

  “Hell no.” Marley blew on her cereal before taking a bite. “She was never into that kind of thing. She has far too much to do being the woman behind the man.”

  That sounded familiar. “Your dad’s a politician?”

  Marley’s whole face lightened, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “I guess you know what I’m talking about. Your mother must have a similar duty. Mine has her own business and interests, at least. What about yours?”

  Gage shifted on his stool and studied the furrow his spoon made through the cooling cereal. “She used to. She, uh, died when I was almost ten.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. “I guess that means Aiden was just a baby.”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed the heel of his hand against his breastbone, but the ache under it didn’t dissipate. He took a deep breath and straightened, about to turn the conversation to something else. But the warm compassion in Marley’s eyes caught him. He hadn’t talked about this in years, but now, while they shared a meal their mothers used to make, it seemed natural to continue.

  “It was postpartum depression. She drowned in the bathtub. We’d have thought it was an accident, that she just fell asleep, but she left a note.”

  Marley let out a small gasp. “Oh, Gage. How awful. Who found her?”

  He laughed, the humorless sound cracking hard in the air. “A maid. That was always the best and worst thing. I was at school, and my dad had taken the day off to take Aiden out of the house and give her a break. He was strolling around the park with him while she did it. The maid got worried when she couldn’t hear anything from the bathroom, but she went in way too late. She called the police and they had her body taken care of before my father even got home.”

  His eyes stung as he remembered being called to the school office, the guidance counselor meeting him in the hallway. She hadn’t said anything, and he wouldn’t have known from her expression that there was anything wrong. But the arm she’d put around his shoulders, the squeeze so full of tenderness, and the gentle way she spoke had scared him.

  Marley’s hand touched his knee, offering tentative comfort. He dropped his spoon in the bowl and laid his hand over hers, his fingers curling under. “I wasn’t surprised when he came to get me from school. I’d had this sense of dread for months. She was just all wrong, you know? Dad told me new mothers cried a lot, but I knew it was more than that. She didn’t want to hold the baby or hug me. There was no laughter or togetherness. Except…God, I forgot.” The bowl clattered onto the countertop. Pain burned in his throat, his chest, his head. He ground his hands against his eyes. “That last morning. She made me Cream of Wheat with raisins before I went to school.”

  A thunk on marble must have been Marley setting her own bowl down. A second later she stood in front of Gage, nudging under his hands to hug him t
ighter than he thought possible. He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair. She still smelled like fresh air and sugary goodness. “I’m sorry. This is…insane.”

  Her body twitched, but she stroked a hand down the back of his head and rested it on the nape of his neck. “No. It’s okay. Never apologize for missing her.” She continued to soothe him, her hands soft and comforting on his shoulders and back, but it didn’t take long for Gage to pull away from the old grief and refocus on what he held.

  His arms were wrapped so tightly around her torso that one hand gripped her waist, the other her ribs above the bandage. Half an inch from the curve of her breast. Her raised arms lifted her chest against his, and her skin was warm on his cheek, close enough to taste.

  He cleared his throat and loosened his arms. “Thanks. Sorry.”

  Marley eased back but didn’t step away. Her eyes were damp. “I don’t want to sound critical, but didn’t anyone get her help?”

  She was too close, seeing too much. “Oh yeah.” He rotated on the stool to retrieve his now-cold cereal and shoved a spoonful in his mouth. Marley settled a hip onto her own stool but kept watching him. “They put her on antidepressants, and she was scheduled for counseling, but she didn’t go most of the time. My father…” He trailed off. His father had been at a complete loss. He’d struggled to take care of sons of very different ages and needs and still do his job well enough to keep them going. Back then the companies had been in a growth cycle, with a lot invested and not much leeway for a leave of absence. Gage hadn’t understood it then, but his father had no idea how to help his wife—or at least no true awareness of how deeply troubled she was.

  But Gage wouldn’t tell any of that to Marley. She was still a stranger, however much she didn’t feel like one. “He did the best he could. It wasn’t enough. He made up for it afterward, at least with me and Aiden. We’re a lot closer than a lot of broken families.”

  He grabbed both their bowls and carried them to the sink, running water in them before he pulled out the coffeepot to top off both their mugs. “Anyway. That’s not exactly relevant.” He set the pot on a trivet built into the counter. “Let’s talk about the barn.”

  “Yeah.” She sounded resigned but more about the topic itself than Gage changing it. She stretched and sat fully on the stool. “Where do we start?”

  “How about with the goddess. Cressida Lahr—you said that’s her name?” Gage took a deep gulp of coffee, hoping the caffeine hit would give him back his equilibrium. “Man, I didn’t think goddesses had that much power. She put them under some type of spell and then raised that kid off the ground.”

  Marley pressed her lips together, her hand tapping a pen against the counter. “Some of that is beyond the scope of what I believed goddesses to be capable of, too.”

  “Explain it to me.” He cradled his mug and leaned an elbow on the counter. “How does it work? It’s very different from—” Wow, had he really almost talked openly about the qualities inherent in Numina? He needed to get some control. The mother thing shouldn’t have cracked him open that much. He’d been trained his whole life not to talk about his heritage, and for a second it almost came pouring out of him.

  Numina power was subtle and inherent. Most of his peers took it for granted, but Gage had actually read the Numina manifesto and the book of history his people had begun centuries ago, wanting to understand where he came from.

  During early American settlement, as descendants of the gods emigrated from all over the world, they’d drawn together Numina as a secret organization. The history was updated constantly, as the power of influence was explored and tested and honed. But it remained a quiet power, invisible and undetectable, and able to achieve only as much as the man was willing to invest. The stronger his influence, the greater his success, but that was about as far as it went.

  Very different from what they had witnessed, however briefly, in the barn.

  Marley was staring at her laptop, but her eyes were unfocused. Finally, she slapped it closed and faced him with folded arms. She didn’t look like she wanted to share goddess secrets any more than he wanted to share Numina ones, but in the end, they were probably both going to have to give a little.

  “Look, whatever they’re doing, it’s putting both sides at risk,” he pointed out. “Goddesses and Numina. Just help me understand what we’re up against.”

  She nodded. “I know. It’s just…not an easy topic.”

  He wondered if she was referring to whatever had happened to take her own power. Leeching, Anson had called it.

  “Each goddess has a source that serves as a conduit for a supply of energy. Sources vary widely, so how strong a goddess is varies, too. And we all have different…talents, I guess. Some goddesses are better at healing. Some are strong telekinetics or can affect electronics or sense and communicate with life forms. Cressida Lahr’s source is apparently the sun.”

  She paused, and Gage understood why. “Which is the greatest source that exists, I’d imagine.” She nodded, and he asked, “How many of you have the sun as a source?”

  “Only two that I’m aware of. And one died a few months ago.”

  “What’s your source?”

  Her brows tightened with clear annoyance before she said, “It was crystals. Amethyst, quartz, aventurine, stuff like that.”

  So probably nothing that allowed the kind of access the sun did. He didn’t miss her use of past tense, and was careful when he said, “Could you store it? The energy?”

  “Some. That’s probably why she was able to bestow it at night, even though her source wasn’t directly accessible.”

  Gage drank some more of his coffee, thinking. “Are we sure it’s not? There’s ambient energy passing the Earth constantly, even when the planet is blocking the visible light.”

  “I’m not sure of much.” Marley sighed. “I do know that what she gave them last night would only last a little while. It doesn’t give them her ability to use the sun. When they want more, she’ll have to give it to them.”

  But that wasn’t completely true. He still couldn’t remember exactly where he’d heard about leeches, but more of the information was popping up in his brain. They had to have power before they could take power. “Does it allow them to get more from someone else? To leech them?”

  Her expression tightened. “It can, if she gives them enough.”

  “And then they’d have the ability to do…what?”

  She shrugged. “Pretty much whatever a goddess can do. And I would guess that it boosts your influence.”

  He jolted a little at hearing her use of the word. He’d only ever heard Numina—in other words, men—use the word that way. “Because of Vanrose, you mean? The producer?”

  “Yeah. The football player has physical ways to use it. The producer is convincing people to make his movies, and making sure they do well. I’m not sure how, but that’s gotta be an enhancement of his natural ability.”

  Gage agreed, and it gave him new insight into what may have caused Aiden to abandon his assignment. Too many Numina had no patience for the slow growth their grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and so on had been used to. Aiden wasn’t a bad kid, but he’d had trouble figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. It made Gage a little sick to think his little brother may have been enticed by the kind of thing they’d witnessed in the barn last night.

  “Why Numina?” he demanded, frustrated. “Why is she preying on us?”

  Marley glared into her mug, maybe to keep from glaring at him. “It’s the bloodline. Goddesses can’t bestow power on a normal guy, only the son of a goddess. Numina are descended from the same ancient races we are, so the genetic similarity must be strong enough.”

  “What’s your involvement in this?” Gage jerked his chin at Marley. “Why do you care about guys using a drug to make themselves better?”

  “Because the power isn’t theirs!” Marley slammed her hand on the counter. “They’re not supposed to have it. Nothing good comes fr
om such transfers.”

  “Ever?” Gage had fallen into playing devil’s advocate. He couldn’t imagine justifying the use of something like flux, even for beneficial outcomes, but maybe others could. “It doesn’t have to be used for robbing casinos and coercing women in clubs. Pettle and Vanrose aren’t hurting anyone, and someone could use the enhancement for charitable or philanthropic purposes.”

  This time Marley’s glare was directed at him. “Do you see me going after Pettle and Vanrose? They’re not a danger to anyone. Now. When that changes, I will.”

  Gage went cold. “What do you mean, when that changes?”

  She blew out a breath. “There’s some talk that the flux is more than just ready energy. It may affect them in other ways. Make them more aggressive, maybe. I’m not sure if that’s universal, but it’s an even greater incentive for me to do this.”

  Gage gripped the edge of the counter so tightly his knuckles cracked. She was telling him that his brother could be mentally or emotionally damaged by flux. And what about when there was already a genetic predisposition? Aiden was the moody, broody one. Their father had watched him closely his whole life, made him undergo more than the basic medical exam every year, and even had him assessed periodically by mental-health professionals. So far, everything had been fine, but it could be lurking, waiting. Just like his mother had been triggered by pregnancy and childbirth. Flux could be the trigger that activated mental illness in Aiden.

  No. It was not going to happen. Gage wouldn’t let it, and Marley seemed the only way to guarantee it. If Aiden had taken flux, she could nullify him. If he hadn’t, then they had to stop Lahr before he did.

  But Gage didn’t understand why Marley was their only hope.

  “Why you?” He stood and spread his hands. “Why have you taken on the responsibility of nullifying everyone?”

  She whirled off her stool and paced to the other side of the island attached to the breakfast bar. “Because I can. I don’t think there’s ever been anyone else who could.”

  “So how can you?”