Sunroper (Goddesses Rising) Read online

His obvious, simple question hung between them. Anguish darkened Marley’s eyes to ivory, and for a moment he thought she was going to run from the room. But then the anguish hardened, her shoulders straightened, and calm seemed to saturate her.

  “Do you know why the summit is happening? Between the Society and Numina?”

  “Yes,” he said cautiously. The party line was that the time had come for the related groups to recognize each other and find a way to come together. But Gage’s father had told him about the splinter groups that didn’t like the way things were traditionally done. Some of the men in those groups had overreached and come crashing down. They wanted back whatever they’d lost—money, respect, position—and weren’t necessarily picky about how they got it.

  Since he didn’t know how much Marley knew, he wasn’t going to spell it out. She didn’t ask him to.

  “Do you know that members of Numina paid the leech to do what he did?”

  “I—” Totally clueless, Gage shook his head. “What do you mean? What he did to you?”

  She pushed away from the island and started pacing. “Down-and-dirty summary: Numina hired an ambitious young son of a goddess to collect power. A woman fell in love with him and bestowed enough power on him that he was able to leech four other goddesses—five, counting me—before he was stopped. He was jailed for two years, which put a crimp in the Numina splinter group’s plans, but they’re nothing if not determined, so they set him on another path earlier this year. That’s when the Society found out about Numina and began making efforts toward the summit.”

  “Okay…” Gage folded his arms and braced his feet wide, watching her pace. “That doesn’t explain why this seems to be a personal quest that you’re on alone.”

  She stopped moving, took a deep breath, and plunged both hands into her hair, pushing it all back off her face. “All of this is my fault. This goddess, Cressida Lahr, disappeared years ago. She didn’t start handing out flux until after the leech was created. They got the idea of the bestowments from me. No one would ever have known it was possible if I hadn’t fallen in love with an asshole and given him what I thought was a gift.”

  “It was a gift,” Anson said as he entered the room, his arms full of bags, folders, and a large cardboard tube. “He was just too stupid to recognize it.”

  Marley didn’t look at Anson, but his words resonated between them. More than a reassurance. An apology. Why would he apologize, unless he was the one too stupid to recognize her gift? Which meant…Anson was the leech?

  Gage reeled, but the math fell apart after that conclusion. If he’d leeched Marley, why was she working with him now? Was she still in love with him?

  Anson deposited everything on the counter and started emptying the bags of food. Gage couldn’t ask her with the other guy in the room. He struggled to get back to the reason they’d been talking about leeches in the first place, and he remembered his original question. “So you feel responsible,” he said to Marley, moving closer. “But that doesn’t explain how you can nullify them. Why you’re the only one who can.”

  She shook her head, her shoulders slumping. “Bestowing the energy isn’t natural. It damaged the part of me that holds it, and the leeching made it irreparable. But it also created something like a void. When I come in contact with the energy, it goes inert—almost like someone flips a switch, rendering it completely inactive—and transfers from them to me. We don’t have record of those two things ever happening before, and definitely not in modern times. So as far as we know, I’m the only one.”

  “Was that what you were doing at the church yesterday?” He grabbed the empty coffeemaker and dodged Anson on his way to the fridge with a gallon of milk and a six-pack of beer. “Was that guy on flux?”

  “Yes, but that wasn’t…” She pressed her mouth together, and he wondered if she regretted how much she’d already told him. “He was an assassin. It was my friends’ wedding, and I didn’t want him to ruin it. So I stopped him.” She grabbed the cardboard tube Anson had brought in and yanked the plastic cap out of the end.

  “Who was he?” When Marley acted like she was completely engrossed in rolling out what looked like blueprints, he said, “He had to be Numina if he had flux. Why would he want to kill your friends? Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “I left him for Quinn. She brought him to your father and the other leaders. It has nothing to do with us now.”

  He had a feeling it had a lot to do with her personally, but he recognized when it was time to let something go. He finished setting up the coffeemaker to brew another full pot, then turned to Anson. “I made some hot cereal. I can make more if you want some.”

  Anson shook his head and stuffed all the loose plastic bags into one. “No, thanks. I grabbed a McMuffin while I was out.” He opened a cabinet under the counter and tossed the bags in.

  Marley spread the papers out on the island.

  Gage rinsed out his and Marley’s mugs and took a third one down for Anson. “Is that this building?” He motioned to the sheets. “Where did you get that?”

  “Hall of records.” Anson settled against the counter next to the stove. His posture was watchful, ready. No wasted movement, though one could also assume he didn’t have any energy to waste. He couldn’t have slept very long before he went out for groceries and building plans.

  “The hall of records isn’t open on Sunday,” Gage said.

  “Open to the right people with the right resources,” Anson responded.

  “What kind of resources?”

  Anson smiled, perhaps the first one Gage had seen from him. It deepened the shadows around his sunken eyes and crumpled the skin that was stretched too tight over his bones. But there was still a glimmer of something that the right person would probably see as a “rescue me” kind of challenge. Heat rushed up through Gage. Barbed, bitter heat that it took him several heartbeats to recognize as jealousy. Until now, he hadn’t detected even a hint of anything romantic between Marley and Anson. But he knew women were supposed to go for that wounded-hero stuff, and Marley had extra motivation if she blamed herself for everything that had happened. He’d seen twisted logic used to justify feelings before, and the pink tint on Marley’s cheeks right now made Gage grind his teeth.

  He barely knew her. He had no business being jealous.

  Marley came around the island to lay a 3-D architectural rendering of the building on the wide granite counter. She left a few rolled pages on the breakfast bar that Gage assumed were more detailed blueprints.

  “Can you help me label this?” She pointed to the drawing and tapped the list she’d been making earlier. Gage and Anson moved in on either side of her. With a few quick notes, she marked companies on the lower floors and the residential business office for the top fifteen floors. Finally, she scrawled “here” in the apartment on the ninety-eighth floor and leaned back. “Who am I missing?”

  “This is Aiden’s. And here’s Chris’s.” Gage pointed, and Marley marked them. But his brain was working faster than her hand, so he plucked the pen away and quickly scrawled the names of other residents and businesses he knew off the top of his head. “I don’t know how much good this will do us. There are a lot more that I don’t know.” He finished the last one he could think of and handed her the pen.

  “It’s good to know the lay of the land,” she said. “I can walk by these apartments and see if I can sense them inside.” She tapped her finger on Chris’s and Aiden’s boxes, which were in the same hallway but not right next to each other.

  “Sense them how?”

  She tensed. A small movement he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been standing right next to her. Was it because of his question or because their bodies were touching?

  “I can recognize a Numina signature, as well as whether or not they have flux.” She waved a hand over the page. “Anywhere else you think is a possible place they’d stage a meeting or something?”

  Gage studied the rendering and tried to think. None of the
businesses or public areas would do. There were conference rooms and hospitality suites that could be rented, but they had to be registered, and he doubted they’d take that risk. Some would be cautious about getting caught and others wouldn’t want to “share” what they saw as an exclusive group.

  “No, the apartments are the most likely places, I think.”

  “The guys you asked me about at the club. The friends of Aiden’s. They were all there last night, right? Brad, Tony, and Chris.”

  “Yeah, but Brad and Tony don’t have apartments here in the city at all, as far as I know. Their fathers are partners and headquartered in Chicago with no branches here. So they just crash with Chris or Aiden when they’re all in town.”

  Marley tilted her head and studied him. “Why do you think Aiden wasn’t there?”

  Gage had no clue. He hadn’t told Marley about his father sending Aiden to join the Deimons to get inside information about the goddess, and he wasn’t going to. He’d already gone further than his father would have sanctioned. He had to keep some family business private.

  “How long has he been out of touch?”

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “A couple of weeks.”

  “Doesn’t he work? He’s out of college, right?”

  “He doesn’t need to work.” He failed to keep the resignation out of his voice. “A trust was set up in his name the day he was born, and he got access to an income as soon as he obtained his bachelor’s degree.” He leaned against the side of the island. “If he gets a master’s or goes to work for Samargo United or any other legitimate enterprise—or turns a profit on his own business—he gets full access. Otherwise, he can’t touch the bulk of it until he becomes a father or turns thirty.” He shrugged. “The income is more than enough for him to ignore all the rest of that. He doesn’t need the full trust.”

  “Yet,” Anson pointed out. “We don’t know the nature of his involvement with Cressida. If he’s on the investment side, he might need more money.”

  Marley was still looking at Gage. “You didn’t get this trust setup?”

  Gage flushed a little. “I did.”

  “But you work. Hard, from what I can tell.” She flicked a finger at the laptop, so Gage knew she’d researched him.

  “I prefer to earn my own way. I’ve used some of the trust money. I’m not a saint, but most of it gets reinvested or donated to charity and stuff.”

  Marley’s mouth curved and her eyes lightened. “It embarrasses you,” she observed. “I like that.”

  Anson cleared his throat and pulled the 3-D drawing away. “So what’s the plan?”

  Marley tucked her fingers into her jeans pockets and settled on her heels. “First, I go scope out the hall outside their apartments. How big are they, compared to this?” She indicated the room they were standing in.

  “About half the size.”

  “Should be well within your range,” Anson said.

  Marley nodded.

  “You can’t be seen,” he said. For the first time, Gage heard a note of concern in the man’s implacable, almost android-like tone. “They saw you this time. They know who you are. The word will have spread.”

  “I know. Don’t worry.” She folded up the drawing and shoved it into the rear pocket of her jeans.

  “I should go with you,” Gage called out as Marley exited the kitchen. He followed her down the hall, where she paused in front of the master suite, one capable hand gripping the molding around the door.

  “That was my intention.” She jerked her chin at him. “Is that how you usually dress?”

  He looked down at himself. The cuffs of his jeans were frayed above his bare feet, and his T-shirt had a half-inch hole near the hem. He grinned. “No.”

  “Get changed. We’ll head out in five. Anson will monitor us on comms.”

  “You have comms?” His only answer was her door closing, but when he said, “Cool!” he was pretty sure she laughed.

  Chapter Seven

  Uneasy times can lead to uneasy alliances. Use instinct—if a gut check makes you hesitate, seek a second opinion before shaking hands or signing on the dotted line.

  —Protectorate monthly newsletter

  M

  arley strode down a hallway with Gage at her side, swamped in déjà vu. Six months ago she’d traveled similar hallways with Sam while he’d tried to sense Riley and Quinn in the apartments they passed. At the time, she’d struggled against self-pity and regret for losing her own ability to do the job. Now it was the opposite. She was seeking Numina, and Gage was just along for the ride.

  She wished he wasn’t. She couldn’t block out her awareness of his Numina signature, but she’d work around that when they got closer to the apartments. No, it was for purely unprofessional reasons that she was regretting not going solo.

  He smelled good. He hadn’t shaved so it wasn’t aftershave or cologne. He must use some masculine-scented soap. It came to her in waves and threw her off every bit as much as his Numina identity did.

  Since changing his clothes, he looked good, too. Not that he hadn’t been sexy in ratty jeans and a T-shirt, but he’d changed into expensive black pants with cordovan shoes and a barely gray dress shirt that was obviously custom tailored. He’d rolled the sleeves and added a loosely knotted tie. Combine that with the stubble on his jaw and hair that hadn’t been combed after his shower so it was a little bit wild, and he bordered on devastating.

  He stayed silent as they walked, his hands in his pockets, and moved with an easy, rolling gait. He never touched her, asked her questions beyond what was necessary, or otherwise got in her way. In spite of that—or maybe because of it—he distracted her like crazy.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have hugged him when he was talking about his mother. The contact hadn’t been sexual in any way, but it was like every cell of her body had been put on alert, waiting for an appropriate moment.

  Marley slowed her steps as they approached Aiden’s apartment. They were starting here because Gage had a key. Before she let him use it, she closed her eyes and focused to her left. Awareness flashed immediately, but too close. She opened her eyes and motioned Gage behind her. He complied, and she tried again. Nothing. Since her leeching, she’d lost the common goddess ability to tell the difference between goddesses and regular people, so she didn’t know if there were any in the apartment. She only knew that there were no Numina.

  She was still unsure why she could detect the Numina signature or the flux itself. Her first nullification had been Sam, and the power in him had been almost completely hers. He wasn’t Numina—Riley, the only other person Marley knew of who was aware of the Numina signature, had made that clear. Anson had been next, and they’d established that he had no Numina blood, either. So why didn’t those nullifications allow her to detect the people she’d nullified? Anson was as blank in her awareness as any person on the street.

  But as she’d told Sam and Riley last night, this was magic, not science. What she’d become shouldn’t have been possible at all. So who cared if the rules didn’t make sense? Maybe she just didn’t know enough to understand them.

  She stepped back and shook her head. “No one’s in there. Not Numina, anyway.” Gage stepped forward and knocked hard, his easy stance gone. They waited. Nothing. He knocked again. A minute later, still nothing, and tension had slithered up Marley’s body. “Go ahead,” she encouraged. “Even if he’s not there, we might find something that will tell us where he is.”

  “I was already here,” Gage said. “I took his laptop, which was where he had information on the Deimons, but there wasn’t anything else.” He unlocked the deadbolt and handle lock and opened the door.

  Marley paused at the doorway to tap her comm. “We’re going into the apartment,” she told Anson. “I don’t think anyone is here.”

  “Roger that.”

  But Gage had frozen just inside the door. “There’s a light on,” he said in a low voice, both in front of her and in her ear. He’d activated his comm, t
oo. “And the alarm’s off.”

  Marley waited while he locked the door behind them and called out his brother’s name. No answer, and she still didn’t sense anything. So he either wasn’t here anymore—assuming he’d been the one to leave the light on—or he was dead.

  Despite the lack of communication, they had no reason to think he could be dead. But if he was, Gage shouldn’t be the one to discover his brother’s body. After what he’d told her about his mother, Marley couldn’t let that happen. He took a step, but she caught his arm at the elbow and tugged him back.

  “Let me.” She slid Gashface’s Ruger from the back of her waistband. As soon as Gage saw it, he eased back without protest.

  How about that? A man who didn’t let protective instincts overwhelm his intelligence. Marley’s respect for him kept climbing.

  She swept through the living area and a den set up as a game room. “Clear,” she murmured to Anson on the comm and to Gage on her way back through the living room. She moved toward the light in the kitchen and stepped carefully through the door, making sure the gun pointed in every direction she looked. All one movement. All one axis.

  This kitchen was a lot smaller and less elegant than the one upstairs, with laminate instead of marble. There was a side dining area with a wood-laminate floor and a country-style table and chairs. A lamp mounted on the wall over the table cast a golden glow on the area. Marley made sure no one hid in—or was hidden by—the kitchen’s shadows. She glanced at the papers spread across the table next to a closed laptop. Her exposure to financial reports was limited, but these appeared to be projections and proposals for something.

  She made quick work of the two bedrooms and central bathroom. None held any sign that someone had been there recently. The towels and sink were dry, the bed professionally made. No one had slept in it since the last time housekeeping was in. No twenty-five-year-old guy who didn’t feel it necessary to work would bother with hospital corners and precisely tucked pillows.

  She secured the Ruger and called to Gage after returning to the kitchen. “All clear. And there’s something in here.”