“I’ll stay, do some research into how I can destroy the skull.”
“Excellent, I’ll have Legal email you a new contract to sign,” Major Grendel stood and headed around the table toward the door. She stopped by his chair and pulled a phone from her pants pocket. It wasn’t his, but rather a generic smartphone. “Here’s a phone you can use to contact me. It’s unlocked, and has my number, and both Sergeants Brown and Owens in as two and three on the contacts list. They’ll be your point of contact if you can’t reach me directly. Both sergeants are tasked with getting you around Edmonton, helping with whatever you need, and can bring you to the MERS base any time, day or night, to check on the artifact. I’m the only one who can access it on the base, so they’ll call me regardless. Try not to wake me up unless things go sideways.”
He reached out and took the phone, and felt the need to be brutally honest. “Thanks. I’m sure my own phone is dead by now. I always forget to charge it. This won’t be any better.”
“I’ll tell the sergeants to remind you to keep this one charged.” She refilled her travel mug from the carafe on the table. “Staying here? Or we can get you a room on base. Barracks and officer housing only, but it’s not bad.”
“I’ll stay here for now. Maybe the university library has some information I can use. And Lilith hates moving too much onassignments. I tend to get a room and keep it for the entire contract. Not a lot of moving around. Most of my really bad jobs are cursed objects that kill a bunch of people in a small radius, and I shut it down within a day or two of arrival.”
Major Grendel eyed him like she had no idea if he was joking or not, and then she shrugged. “Take the day to rest from burnout. The sergeants will bring you a MERS laptop with access to our archives to help you out tomorrow morning. Keep me updated daily.”
“Um, okay.” He would do his best to remember to fill her in on his progress. And that laptop would gather dust. Ezra was not tech savvy at all. He preferred books. “Skip the laptop, or give it to the sergeants to use. I won’t touch it.”
She squinted at him, but nodded after a minute, and he took that as agreement.
“Rest up.” She paused on her way out of the room. “You did a good job out there in the forest, Redmayne. Keep it up.”
He really had no idea how to respond to that so he just nodded, eyes wide. She saluted him with her travel mug and left the conference room, the huge space suddenly feeling empty. Lilithmerpedinquisitively as she set down her paw, done with her bath.
“Daddy is gonna finish eating, then let’s grab a nice, long nap. Can’t save the world again if I stay this tired.”
She slow-blinked in approval, her soft purr warming him as she kept him company while he ate.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EZRA
His dreams woke him early, just before sunrise, and he lay in bed, face smooshed into his pillow, wondering why he dreamed about that particular event in his past. It wasn’t overly traumatizing, but it was horrible, so it made sense he supposed. Especially after restoring Monica Blevins.
The first and last time he healed a mortal dying was with Lilith, the day he decided to get a familiar. He was looking for a suitable choice at the local shelter, tired of living alone, when a breeder came in with a litter of unwanted, ill kittens. The breeder surrendered the cats without qualm, saying they were too sick to sell, then walked out, leaving a handful of scraggly Lykoi kittens mewing pathetically in a cardboard box.
Ezra had been standing at the glass wall of the kitten room in the main lobby, and the staff at the front desk were worried about one kitten in the box in particular—limp, barely breathing, and Ezra had seen the death magic gathering. The kitten was dying.
He was young, stupid, and reckless in his desperation to stop the inevitable.
Ezra at the time was untrained in his necromancy. He knew he could heal mortal illnesses and wounds, reverse death as ittook life, but he had never done it before. He had no idea what he was doing, but he immediately went to the front desk, took the limp body from the box over the protests of the staff, and closed his eyes.
Knowing that the gods were real meant praying was a dangerous endeavor. One never knew how they would respond to a prayer, if they responded at all.
Hecate, help me.
The phrase was meant more as a means to focus; he did not expect an answer. What care or concern would a goddess spare for so tiny a life, for a halfhearted prayer from a necromancer who never did any necromancy?
He felt the flutter of a failing heart in his hands. The final breath. The tiny blip of living energy converting to death magic as he clutched the small body to his chest and prayed to an ancient deity for the first time.
I don’t know what to do. Please help me.
Death was moments away.
Time stopped.
She came.
Not in a thunderous explosion of power or devastating glory—no, She came with quiet grace, with power unlike anything he’d ever felt before, a flow of energy, dark and beautiful, surrounding him, cradling his arms, his hands.
It felt like his heart was going to stop, his mind frozen in awe, but She enveloped him in power that blew apart his nascent terror and left no room for doubts. She was within his mind, his soul laid bare, every facet of who he was open to Her knowing gaze and perusal.
There was nothing of him She did not see, and She answered his prayer.
