Kiss Me Deadly Page 9

  “Don’t try to follow me,” Adam says, his voice suddenly less confident. He sounds terribly alone. “I have to use the book.”

  Now it’s my turn to look confused. “You know what it’s for? How can you ‘use’ it, anyway? I thought it was written in Arabic.”

  “It is.” He is backing slowly up the stairs, almost to the corner where the narrow staircase turns and heads up the final short flight onto the main floor of the shop.

  “So you can read Arabic, now, as well as do impressions of Houdini?”

  “I can read it well enough,” he replies, stumbling on the uneven shape of the step that curves around the bend.

  And there’s my lucky break; that minor slip is sufficient. I suddenly burst into action, bolting up the staircase and reaching toward him. I move so quickly that everything around me seems to happen in slow motion. My hand is stretching, fingers fully extended; the book is almost in my grasp. Adam is still wobbling, one arm flailing for the banister, the other trying to tuck the book inside his jacket.

  But I am fast. Faster than him. As my fingers brush the old leather of the cover and I feel the grit of almost a century on my skin, Adam disappears.

  I scream with frustration—I was so close! What will I tell Theo? How will I ever track down a kid who can teleport, seemingly at will?

  I stop freaking out when I realize that I am holding the book after all. Adam has gone, and the book is in my hand. I’m so surprised that I almost drop the stupid thing, juggling for a moment to retain my grip on one corner of the slim volume.

  Running to the top of the stairs I gaze around the store, my night vision not necessary up here thanks to the miniature display lights lining the bookshelves at intervals. Not to mention the added illumination provided by the streetlamps outside the huge front windows.

  I can’t understand where he’s gone. Why would Adam just ... leave? Especially without the book he claimed to need so desperately. I’d believed him when he said how important it was. I’d actually felt guilty. But he flipped out the minute things got tough. Okay, so it wasn’t like we were best friends after a few minutes of brawling in the basement of an occult bookshop, but he’d—

  Something flies at me from the shadows, and I feel a bone-crunching impact on my right shoulder. My quick instincts save me from broken bones as I throw myself out of the way just in time. I still get walloped, but it could have been a lot worse.

  Rubbing my arm and cursing because I’ve dropped the freaking book, I face off with Adam. Again.

  So the kid isn’t giving up. He’d simply teleported farther into the shop and waited for me to come up the stairs. It was simple enough for him to hide behind the counter cash register; there are no lights in that area, and I was distracted by his supposed “disappearance.” He is holding a heavy wooden tube of some sort. It looks like a bizarre musical instrument made of bamboo. It’s big, and I can certainly attest to the fact that it is heavy. The feeling is only just beginning to return to my right hand after Adam smashed his makeshift weapon into my shoulder.

  The book is on the floor between us. Someone is going to have to make a move for it, and then the other will have an opening to attack. I eye him with irritation verging on respect, and I can’t help noticing that he no longer looks afraid. He looks kind of pissed.

  “I told you, I’m not leaving without the book. Why can’t you just let me have it? What do you want it for?” His voice trembles with barely suppressed rage.

  This has possibilities, I think. Maybe I can get him so angry he’ll slip up. “I have to give it to my employer. It belongs in a collection overseas, not here in London.”

  “What collection? What are you talking about?” His fingers twitch convulsively around the wooden baton, and he raises it as though he might attack me again.

  “I’m retrieving it,” I say. “That’s what I do. Retrieve things and return them to their rightful owners.”

  I watch the delicate flesh of his throat move as he swallows. “Maybe we can make a deal,” he says.

  This surprises me. I like deals; deals can be good, so long as I end up getting what I want out of them. “What kind of deal?”

  “Let me use the book tonight, and I’ll give it to you afterward. I won’t need it after that.”

  I snort. “Right. And I have reason to believe you’ll actually give it to me because...?” I let the words trail off and can’t help smiling at his nerve. This kid certainly has balls, I’ll give him that.

  “Because...” His face creases in frustration, and then his expression clears and turns triumphant. “Because you can come with me and keep an eye on it. If you don’t let me—and the book—out of your sight, then you’re not risking anything.”

  “How do I know you won’t just pull a disappearing act again?” I don’t know whether to believe him, but Adam has something intriguingly sincere about him. He’s either an excellent liar or he’s telling the truth.

  “Well, I suppose you don’t know that I won’t disappear, but at least you’ll know you won’t lose the book.”

  I raise my eyebrows, silently encouraging him to continue.

  “Why do you think I dropped the book on the stairs when I teleported? I can transport myself and anything I’m wearing—as long as the clothes are made of natural materials—but I can’t take man-made objects with me.”

  This would make a lot of sense, except for one little problem: “The book is made of leather. That’s a ‘natural material.’”

  He looks vaguely embarrassed. “I thought so too, but either there are other materials used in its construction, or it has some sort of magical protection on it. Maybe both.”

  I let my eyes leave his face for a moment and glance down at the book. It doesn’t look very magical. I shrug and meet his almost desperate gaze again. What do I know about sacred Arabic texts? It’s all Greek to me; I’m just an Irish-American girl brought up in Boston. This was my first trip out of the country since I was a child, back when we’d gone on regular trips to Ireland to visit Dad’s family. Mom’s had disowned her after she’d gotten pregnant with Sinéad out of wedlock and then dared to marry the man who was responsible. Bad enough to be a slut, worse still that she’d lived with the consequences and made a life with Rory O’Neal—a man my mother’s family had considered far beneath her.

  “Okay.” I square my shoulders and meet his gaze. “Say I believe you. What then? What exactly do you need this thing for?”

  Adam is staring at the book again. There is a muscle flickering in his smooth cheek. “I have to help my girlfriend move on,” he says. His voice is almost too quiet to hear.

  “Move on?” I’m confused. A crazy image of a young couple clinging together flashes into my mind. Is he having trouble shaking loose an unwanted girlfriend? Surely that can’t be what all this is about.

  “Her soul is trapped,” he says. “I have to free her, otherwise she’ll never find peace.”

  My mouth is suddenly dry. “Is she sick?” It sounds like maybe she’s in a coma.

  “No,” he replies, and I realize that he is crying. “She’s dead.”

  ***

  We are sitting in a café at Victoria Station. Adam has been as good as his word and hasn’t tried to disappear on me. Not yet, anyway.

  I’d insisted on being the one to hold the book, just to be on the safe side. I tucked it inside my messenger bag and kept a tight hold on it as we walked along St. Martin’s Lane, heading for the bus stops beyond Trafalgar Square. Before I arrived in London, I had only ever seen those four huge lions in movies; the statues are even more impressive in the “flesh.” I wonder if it’s true that they are called John, Paul, George, and Ringo, or if that is just one of Theo’s little jokes.

  The bus ride—my first ever on a double-decker—should have been more exciting, but I felt nothing but a heavy sense of melancholy. I rested my cheek against the window as I looked out at the familiar-yet-strange city streets from the top deck of the red monstrosity, and wished I was back h
ome in Boston. I was glad when we reached our destination after the short journey, and I steered my new companion into the comforting warmth of the first coffee shop we saw.

  The rain began to fall as I closed the door behind us.

  I am nursing a mug of hot chocolate, and Adam is absentmindedly stirring packets of sugar into his black coffee. I wonder how much sugar will be enough for him and begin to make bets with myself on whether he will go back to grab more of the brown paper packets. He takes a sip and doesn’t even flinch.

  “So tell me,” I say, sticking my finger into my drink and popping a scoop of cream into my mouth. “Tell me about your girlfriend.”

  Adam smiles wistfully and puts down his cup. “Hasna? She’s the most ... was the most beautiful girl you’ll ever see. I loved her the minute I saw her. She started in Year Twelve after her family moved to the area. I was assigned as her ‘buddy,’ and I had to show her around. We had so much in common: both of us from Moroccan families; both struggling with learning Arabic to make our fathers happy, but really just wanting to fit in with our friends.”

  He goes quiet for a moment, and I don’t say a word. I want to ask if “Year Twelve” is the same as junior or senior year in high school, but it’s like there’s a magic spell on our table. We’re tucked against the window with a view of a line of black cabs like giant beetles crouching outside the station.

  “Meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Adam says. He’s not smiling any more.

  This is all very moving, I want to say, but what about the book? Why were you stealing an ancient text from a bookstore, and why were you willing to risk getting your throat torn out by me to keep it? And how the hell do you do that cool disappearing trick?

  I don’t ask any of these things. Instead, I push away my mug of delicious but empty calories and put my hand over his. “How did she die?”

  He swallows and tears well up in his eyes again. For a moment, I consider taking the book and running. Just leaving this kid and his tragic life behind—he is nothing to me. What do I care about a so-called magical book and a dead girlfriend? My shoulders slump and I stay put.

  Who am I trying to fool? I’m still me; still Marie.

  “Tell me,” I say, giving his cold hand a squeeze. I wonder if he notices that my hands are even colder than his. I haven’t taken blood in too long and already knew it was going to be a problem on this trip. Theo gave me a list of “safe donors” before I left, including the contact details of the head honcho vampire in London. Like he actually thought I’d use any of those lifelines? Forget it, Theo. No way you’re making me more of a monster. If I can’t feed from blood banks or from my Maker, I won’t feed at all. The longest I’d gone was six days, and I still remember how weak I’d been when Theo finally found me, curled up and whimpering with hunger and misery outside Subterranean.

  I swallow and drag my mind away from those memories, not wanting to remember how Theo had force-fed me. Instead, I listen to Adam as he tells me about his lost love and why he needs Arabic magic to free her soul.

  “She was murdered not far from here,” he begins. “We were at the theater; I’d saved up for weeks. Hasna wanted to wait at the stage door after the performance, try to get her program autographed. We ... took a wrong turn, somehow. I don’t know what happened, but we went out of a fire exit and ended up all turned around. I took us down an alley that I thought must come out behind the theater but...” He shakes his head, unable to continue.

  Giving him a moment to collect himself, I listen to the busy sounds of the coffee shop. There’s music playing, not the usual musak like in my local Starbucks back home but something funkier, something I haven’t heard before. The murmur of voices reaches me from the surrounding tables along with the familiar hiss of milk being steamed at the counter, just across the aisle. It’s late, but people are still walking in and placing orders. I pull my china mug closer toward me, wondering how much longer the café will stay open.

  Adam fixes me with those disturbing hazel-gold eyes. They are more hazel again, as though being out among the masses forces him to blend in and look like the human being that I initially took him for. He still smells 100 percent human to me, but now I know different. I want to know what he is, how he can do what he does. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen some weird crap in my life.

  He says, “It was over before I knew what was really happening. I can move fast when I have to, and there’s the whole teleportation thing ... but even with all that, I couldn’t save her. I would’ve done anything to save her life—even if it meant revealing my powers.”

  My internal bullshit detector beeps. “Wait,” I say. “You mean she didn’t know?”

  He looks embarrassed and squirms in his seat. “We hadn’t even been together a year. I was going to tell her.”

  I can’t stop the snort that escapes me. Sure, I think, knowing I’m being uncharitable. A guy insisting that he was going to “tell his girl the truth.” I want to shake this kid and tell him I know a thing or two about that line.

  He is angry now, and I think I prefer that to the broken young man who was sitting here only moments ago. “I was going to tell her. You don’t know anything about me, Moth.” He makes my name sound like a curse. “I loved her. Hasna was my whole life.”

  “Keep it down, Romeo,” I say, my gaze darting around the café. Adam is almost shouting, and we’re drawing attention. “I’m sorry, okay? Just tell me what happened so we can put it right.”

  “We can’t ‘put it right,’” he replies, but at least he isn’t yelling at me. “She’s dead, I already told you that. She was murdered. It wasn’t until after that I found out it wasn’t quite the random act of violence that I thought it was. We were an unlucky statistic according to the police.” His lips twist with disgust. “Useless bastards.”

  I wonder how fair it is to blame the police for not being able to deal with a supernatural crime but keep my mouth shut and wait for Adam to continue.

  He tells me about the murder; about the knife in the dark and the bearded man who spoke Arabic while he sliced Hasna up like she was nothing more than meat at his dinner table. The man had been tracking Adam for a long time, attracted by his unique biology and magical heritage. And yet it was Hasna who turned out to be the victim—the human companion of a half-human boy, sacrificed in order to summon a dark spirit. Adam tells me that he couldn’t move—not even to teleport—and how he had to watch his girlfriend die.

  “But what are you?” I finally ask. I can’t resist butting in anymore, and he is taking too long. “You look human.”

  “So do you,” he counters.

  I shrug. “You even smell human.”

  “I’m half-human. That might explain what you’re sensing.”

  I nod slowly. “So, you’re also half...?”

  “Djinn. On my mother’s side.”

  “Gin?” I can’t stop the sudden image of a dark green bottle of alcohol superimposed over Adam’s face. “ What? ”

  A slight smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “Djinn, Genie ... you know.”

  Oh. I lean forward, interested despite myself. “Like in Aladdin?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, just like that.”

  I still can’t shake the Aladdin-connection and realize with a jolt of misplaced humor that I wasn’t so far off with the imaginary bottle. Aren’t Genies kept in bottles?

  Adam frowns. “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing,” I say, too quickly. I feel guilty for making light of things. This kid has lost someone he loved, and that’s something I understand. I take a steadying breath and think of Mom.