**NB. This story is as it comes – straight out of my head and may contain typos**
CHAPTER 19 – BLANE
“Is everything okay?” No, of course it wasn’t. “Forget I asked that. Is there a problem with the food?”
Wren’s light had dimmed the moment she walked into the dining room. But before that, there was a second of hesitation in the doorway when I thought she wouldn’t come in at all.
It reminded me of the very first time we’d met, in my office at Tilt. Barry McKee had interviewed her first, as he always did, but I insisted on having the final sign-off on all employees in a position of trust. If a dealer colluded with a player, the casino could lose thousands.
Wren had paused in the doorway, a deer in headlights, before taking a tentative step forward. I’d glanced at her résumé again. Technically, she didn’t have the amount of experience we were looking for, but Barry said she had the looks and the members would love her. Sweet, innocent little Wren. We could work on a person’s skills, but their aura was impossible to manipulate.
That little pause… Nevaeh had done the same thing seven years ago in Carpathia. I’d walked into a hotel courtyard with a struggling, muddy husky in my arms, and her eyes had widened as she exited the dining room. She’d frozen mid-step. A long moment passed. And then she’d begun laughing.
“If you train the dog to walk on a leash, you won’t get a mud moustache,” she said, and then Joseph started laughing too, the spotless asshole. I’d tried to delegate dog transportation duties to him, but the dog kept growling, probably because we’d only been in Plane Five for a year at that point, and Joseph hadn’t been so good at hiding the darkness back in those days.
“He’s not my dog,” I told Nevaeh. Wasn’t that obvious? We’d found the mutt hopping around on three legs during our hunt for lost werewolves. “Is there a veterinarian around here?”
“Uh… Let me check.”
She disappeared back inside, and the dog whined. There was a gate at the entrance to the courtyard, and after Joseph closed it, I set the mutt on the ground. It was surprisingly fast on three legs. I knew that because I’d already had to chase it down once, and the beast had bitten me when I finally caught up. Four neat puncture wounds in my right calf. I’d nearly left it on the damn mountain. But then I’d sighed because it clearly had a broken leg, and if Aurelia heard I’d left it there to starve—or become a snack for the werewolves, if they were indeed in the area—she’d either cry or whack me with a library book. Getting bitten again was more palatable than either of those options.
Nevaeh returned a minute later with a wizened gent in tow, five feet nothing of leathery skin, whiskers, and grumpiness. He didn’t speak any English, and Nevaeh was struggling with Ukrainian, so I stepped in. Languages were compulsory at the Celestial Academy—all of them, even the obscure ones only spoken by a waning handful of Nepalese elders who weren’t fond of strangers anyway.
There was a veterinarian in the next town. The old man had a truck we could borrow—for a fee, of course—but there was a problem. I didn’t know how to drive. Why would I need to? I was still using celestial transportation in those days, and on the rare occasions I needed to get somewhere slowly, I hired a chauffeur.
But there were no chauffeurs to be found in this desolate corner of Plane Three, and I couldn’t take shortcuts through time and space with the dog. Long-distance Energy Enhanced Physical Relocation, which everyone just called leepering, involved stepping between planes, and dogs weren’t allowed in Planes Two and Three without a permit. When they departed Plane Five, they went straight to one of the secondary planes, colloquially known as the Rainbow Bridge, and those in charge there had banned humans from visiting in case we messed up their home. Ditto for pretty much every animal plane, and having seen what humans had done to Plane Five, I honestly couldn’t blame the managers of the secondaries. Anyhow, the “no humans” rule peeved the Celestial Council, who introduced a convoluted system of forms and authorisations for animals who wished to be reunited with their humans in Planes Two or Three.
All that was to say, we couldn’t get the husky to the veterinarian without help.
“Can I hire you to drive?” I asked the old man.
“No, no, I’m waiting for a chicken.”
“I’m sorry?”
“My friend Balázs, he is bringing a chicken. For dinner.”
“He couldn’t just leave the chicken somewhere for you?”
“No, no, I have to wait.”
I turned to Nevaeh. “I don’t suppose you have a driving licence?”
She did, and a love of speed that would have scared a mere mortal. Somehow, we made it to the veterinarian in one piece, although the smell of smoke coming from the truck’s engine suggested it wasn’t long for this world.
From there, we had to go to the city because the local veterinarian wasn’t equipped to pin the dog’s leg back together. I’d toyed with the idea of trying Decima, but firstly, she didn’t have much experience with healing animals, and secondly, she hadn’t been fond of dogs since Lord Byron’s Newfoundland chewed up her favourite purse and then snapped at her when she tried to retrieve it.
The truck wheezed its last on the outskirts of Ivano-Frankivsk, and I dispatched Joseph to find a replacement while a kindly cab driver drove Nevaeh, me, and the husky to the animal hospital. That had been a long night. Someone found us blankets, and I tried to get comfortable on a hard plastic seat as we waited for news. Nev pushed a row of chairs together and stretched out, her head resting on my thigh as I gently probed for information. Why the hell was this sweet, beautiful woman festering on a Carpathian hillside?
The answer?
She’d been sent there by her family as a punishment. Nevaeh was meant to be proselytising to the locals, but instead, she’d abandoned her mission and holed up in the worst hotel in the history of Trip Advisor. From Colorado to Ukraine via rehab—quite the journey.
“Dad’s a pastor,” she explained. “You know the kind on TV with the 900 numbers? And I’m the black sheep of the family. I didn’t live up to expectations.”
“And what did he expect from you?”
“For me to toe the line. Join him in the family grift—sorry, the family business—and at least pretend to be following the word of God.”
It was tempting to explain that the man she thought of as God was probably sitting in the clubhouse at his favourite golf course, sipping a good aged Scotch and grumbling that the Opus Vi weren’t sending the grifting televangelists to Plane Three where they belonged. But she’d think I’d lost my mind, so I just made one of those sympathetic mmm-hmm noises that didn’t mean much.
“The Bible doesn’t do it for you?”
“It was more the hypocrisy. Men like my dad being all pious and telling people how to live their lives, but then doing the exact opposite. I mean, he cheats on my mom constantly, but she just carries on keeping house and walking two steps behind him as if none of that matters.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know?”
“He isn’t subtle about it. She must know. One time, a local reporter caught him in a strip club, and he swore he was just there to minister to those poor unfortunate souls who took off their clothes for a living.”
“And people believed him?”
“People always believe him. He has a degree in psychology, and he knows how to use it. Even my older sister falls for his bullshit.”
“But you don’t?”
Nevaeh gave a tiny, sweet smile, and that was the moment I realised the true purpose behind my trip to the Carpathian Mountains. I’d been destined to meet her.
“I decided that I prefer sin.”
After a widely publicised search, the husky had gone home to its Polish owners, who’d lost the mutt when it ran off after a deer while they were on vacation, and Nevaeh had come home with me.
Unfortunately, so had her demons, and I didn’t mean Joseph’s relatives.
Now she was gone, and instead, Wren Gilmore was in my life. The day we met, I hadn’t intended to hire her. Her résumé was filled with low-level positions, and she never seemed to last long in any job. But she’d gingerly sat in my visitor chair and bitten her lip, and I’d done what I had to do. I’d split her souls from her body and basked in the beautiful rainbow shimmer of her subconscious. [Check] Then, once I’d put her back together, I’d offered her a cup of coffee and a job.
Which brought us to the present moment, Wren inching toward me, staring at the flickering candles on the dining table as if they were the fires of Plane Three itself. At least she hadn’t seen me light them. The fact that I’d simply thought the flames into existence rather than using matches would probably have alarmed her.
“I…I didn’t realise… I thought Joseph would be here.”
“Someone has to ensure Tilt is running smoothly.” When she didn’t move, I added, “Do you want me to bring him back?”
Her gaze dropped to the table. “Why are there candles?”
Ah, she was upset by the ambience? I’d asked Joseph to arrange a cosy dinner for two, and perhaps he’d gone slightly overboard on the romance. The last thing I wanted to do was make Wren uncomfortable.
“We’ve had a few issues with the lighting lately.”
“The lighting?”
“Flickering, turning off, unexplained buzzing.”
“Really?”
The words came out sceptical, and as she tilted her head to one side and narrowed her eyes, the gesture was so…so Nev that my heart lurched. Wren couldn’t be Nevaeh. Lola was Nevaeh, I was quite confident of that. Yes, occasionally souls got cleaved in half, but they became twins. Wren and Nev had been alive at the same time, leading totally different lives. If Nev’s soul had been cleaved in Plane Four, Lola would have a sister.
So why did I get that feeling whenever Wren looked at me?
I didn’t know the answer, but I did know that Nev and I had promised never to lie to each other. Obviously, I’d left some things out, like the fact that I was immortal, but I’d never lied right out. Yes, yes, I realise I should have come clean about my origins, but thanks to her parents, she’d had a strong hatred of all things metaphysical, and I’d been terrified she’d walk away.
“No.” I sighed. “The electrics are fine. I just thought women liked candles. Around the bath, at dinner, fancy ones sitting on the shelf. Did you know there are whole stores devoted to scented candles?”
Nevaeh had patronised most of them. She used to spend hours in the tub, candles all around. That was where I’d found her. Floating, her pale blonde hair spread around like a halo.
“One of my foster moms had an asthma attack from a scented candle. She got taken away in an ambulance.”
“Was she okay?”
“I’m not sure. When she didn’t come back from the hospital after a day, I got moved somewhere else.”
My heart ached for young Wren. Which was surprising. I hadn’t known it could do that.
“Want me to get rid of the candles?”
She thought for a moment. “No, leave them.”
Wren took a seat opposite me at the dining table. Joseph had chosen it, a long, mahogany behemoth that seated sixteen. Once, I’d thought that a bistro set would have been big enough, but over the past few months, we’d hosted Vee and Callahan, Marianna, Lola, and Pablo. Myrtle joined us for dinner when she was in human form, and Aurelia leepered in occasionally too. I enjoyed the company.
“Are more people joining us?” Wren asked. “I mean, there are only two plates, but enough food to feed an army.”
“Joseph may have gotten slightly carried away with the ordering.”
“I have no idea how I’m going to repay you for all of this.”
“Repay me?”
“For the food I’m eating? Room and board?”
“Why on earth would you think you have to pay me?”
“Because…isn’t that usually how it works?”
No, not in my world.
“What skinflint made you pay for your own dinner?”
Her cheeks reddened. Yes, I’d hit the nail on the head. She’d dated a man who insisted on splitting the cheque instead of treating his woman like a queen. When she didn’t answer, I pushed a little harder.
“Did he tot up the cost of every item, or did he order the expensive stuff and then split the bill down the middle?”
Now her cheeks turned scarlet, and I knew he’d done the latter.
“You’re worth more than that, Wren. I hope you ditched him after the first date.”
“We were engaged,” she said, so softly I almost missed the words. And I’d been blessed with excellent hearing. Not quite as good as Joseph’s or Vee’s, but still far better than a mortal’s.
“Then I’d say you dodged a bullet.”
And the man who’d taken advantage of her had been a fool.
I wasn’t going to take advantage of Wren, and I was no fool. I was just very confused. There was something strange about this woman, and I was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.
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Go to Chapter 20
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