“Right. You're after immortality now.”
Lee Dae-hyun locked stares with me. “How do . . . ah, yes. Your husband is . . .” His eyes shivered (really creepy). “He has the talent of psychometry.”
I grunted, taking a tip from him.
“Yes,” Lee Dae-hyun went on. “I wish to be immortal like all of you.” He paused as if waiting for me to dispute it. When I said nothing, he yanked the bandage off my leg and grinned at the whole skin he revealed. “Immortal,” he declared as if giving a diagnosis. “And those cuffs are suppressing your magic. Even you, whoever you are, are not immune to them. So, I have time to study you. I think you may be the key to learning the secrets of immortality.”
“Duh-duhn-duhn,” I intoned dramatically, then laughed at him. “You are so fucked.”
“Pardon me?” Lee Dae-hyun cocked his head at me.
“Have you heard stories about normal people performing incredible feats?” I casually asked him. “Like a soccer mom lifting a car to get her child out from beneath it, that sort of thing?”
He grunted.
“Ordinary people can do extraordinary things to save the ones they love.” I grinned at him. “I have a lot of people who love me, and none of them are ordinary.”
That finally seemed to get through to Lee Dae-hyun. He sat down on a rolling stool and stared at me. “I was an ordinary man. Perhaps a bad man, but ordinary. Then a woman kissed me, but not with passion. She kissed me to steal my life.”
“She wasn't going to kill you. Just take a sip to sustain herself.”
“Yes, I learned that later. But her people have killed mine in the past. I don't know what prompted me to swallow the fox bead. I think it was the old stories my mother used to tell me. The beautiful women with fox tails, who drained the life from their victims and stored that power in pearls they kept inside their chests. When that first Kumiho slipped her bead in my mouth, I remembered what my mother said. That if you were fast enough, you could swallow the fox bead and save yourself.” He paused, his stare going distant. “I didn't know it would kill her. But what did I care when I thought she was trying to kill me? I swallowed the bead in self-defense, and it didn't just save me. It opened my mind. Everywhere I looked, secrets were revealed to me. The earth, the trees, the very sky whispered wisdom. Then, as the Kumiho withered before me, magic rushed through my body, and I became more than an ordinary man. I don't have to love anyone to do the extraordinary.”
I stared at Lee Dae-hyun. If he hadn't been such a terrible person before he took the pearls, and if he hadn't knowingly killed two more Kumihos after the first, I might have sympathized with him. I might have tried to help him as I had tried to help the Pearl Thief. Now,hehad been a good man. The Pearl Thief, the one who took the Cintamani, had the best of intentions. But even the best, most honorable plans can get fucked up when humans mess with magic. And this guy didn't have any altruistic motivations.
At least he wasn't going to torture and rape me. That was a relief. I mean, Lee Dae-hyun might dissect me, but he wasn't going to do it for fun. Why that was comforting, I had no idea.
“You are correct,” I finally said. “You have stolen knowledge and magic, making you extraordinary. But the knowledge you've gained must have told you that—”
An alarm went off. Just a steady beeping, but enough to make Lee Dae-hyun swivel on his rolling stool.
Speaking in a rush of Korean to himself, Lee Dae-hyun ran to a laptop and brought up a security feed. I grinned when I saw a corridor filled with hunters, extinguishers, an ambassador, an Angel, and the King of Hell. With our bonds, both Sever and Star could laruk or lalek to me. The only question was, why were they in the corridor and not in the room with us? They should have come directly to me.
“How did they find us?” Lee Dae-hyun demanded.
I just grinned at him.
He focused on the laptop, then his eyes widened. “There is a connection between you and two of these men. They aredrawn to you like magnets. But my shield is working. They can't pass through it.” He grinned back at me.
“Shield?” I asked. “No shield can keep those men out.”
“It's a mix of magic and science.”
I went still. That combination was the very thing Gentry Technologies, my father's company in San Francisco, studied. It was the basis of the company's creation. It could be a powerful combination.
I knew better than to ask this man to give up his secrets and tell me exactly what combination he'd used. But I also knew men.
“Not possible. There's no combination that could defy them.” I lifted my chin. “They will be inside momentarily. I would run now, if I were you.”
Lee Dae-hyun chuckled. “So sure of yourself. Science is a type of magic. Human magic. It blends well with elemental magic as long as you know which to put together. Like electricity and Water Magic.”
“Water conducts electricity. Not a good match.”
“No, not if you don't want to get electrocuted.” He grinned.
“So, you what? Created a wall of water and filled it with electricity?”
“No. I created a fairy ward of Water Magicovera metal fence that I electrified.”
