“Does Tameri know any obfuscation spells, by any chance?” he asked after a few minutes, as if he’d been debating whether to voluntarily ask for that kind of help. Strangely, she was kind of proud of him for it. There was no contempt or even judgment in the request. No sign of prejudice other than his initial hesitation.

“No. We don’t have much access to those simpler magics. Ask for something grandiose or complex and we are very well versed, but something so simple?” She shrugged. But it made Docia wonder. “If the Politic don’t use magic, how have they held their own against the Templars for so long?”

The smile that turned wickedly over his lips and into his eyes made her heart flutter and her whole body go warm. There was something so deviously sexual and potently male in the expression. It was the face a man made when he had no doubt of his own prowess.

“Just because we don’t use magic does not mean we do not have power,” he said mysteriously. Instantly she began to internally hound Tameri for the answer he was withholding, but she was keeping silent.

“Great. My Bodywalker can choose sides and gang up on me,” she muttered.

“Not for long,” Ram assured her with a chuckle. “Relax. Let her have her moments of independence while they last. She is only ever truly herself when confined to the Ether or first resolving into the Blending.”

Docia had not thought of that. And because he said it, those parts of her that had been fretting over never being her independent self again quieted down and relaxed. Sure, she was going to lose her original self to some degree for the rest of her time here on Earth, but at least she would regain it when she left it, and at least she would be allowed to move on peacefully to what was next instead of being forced to recycle over and over. She had already died once. She was happy to draw the line at twice.

SingSing led them about a half mile toward a second building. A large garage of sorts. And once she opened the door, she revealed a shiny new SUV in a startling but beautiful green color. Docia was beginning to get the idea that the Djynn were fond of bold colors. Which, when she thought about it, very much suited the ballsy little genie.

Then the Djynn turned around and smiled at them, putting her hand on each of their arms.

“This is for the best,” she said. “Woof!”

And with a purplish poof, there were two dogs standing where her guests had been.

Two poodles.

“Oh, don’t look at me with those glary eyes, Body-walker,” she said, smirking at Ram. “How else do you expect me to get you past any Templars in the road? Just hang your head out the window and drool. Really sell it. We’ll be fine if you do.”

She opened the rear door and gestured for them to jump in. They did so, if a bit awkwardly. After all, they weren’t used to using four legs. SingSing hopped into the front seat and buckled in.

“All right! Here we go! And no butt sniffing back there, you two!”

Ram lay down on the backseat and did a contemptuous doggy eye roll.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was dark. And cold. Bitterly cold. That was the first thing that plagued Jackson’s awareness as he walked out to his car, fumbling for car keys with fingers that refused to work right. Not that the weather would have bothered him any other day, but all he could think of was … what if Docia was out there somewhere, lying in the cold? Needing him? His only reassurance that she was fine was the word of some very weird rich guy whose promise of having her call him had not panned out as yet and who had let half his house blow up while she was supposedly in his care.

Jackson had bashed his head against stubborn walls all day, trying to convince people that something wasn’t right about all of this. Eventually his credibility dissolved as he grew more tired and lost his temper with them, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. His brothers in blue had then forcibly kicked him out of the station, sending him home. Leo was off somewhere supposedly following something in his gut, which was the only source of comfort Jackson had … but that left him at loose ends with nothing constructive to do. No way of convincing anyone something was wrong. No way of finding Docia.

Or so they thought. Screw them. Screw all of them. He was going back up to Windham and that wealthy fucker was going to tell him where Docia and this supposed friend were or he was going to blow up the other side of his goddamn house.

“Jackson.”

He dropped his keys in the snow at the sound of her voice. That sent him off into a blue streak of cursing that would have made his grandma slap him upside the head if she were still alive. But like his parents, like Chico, like everyone, she was dead.

“What the f—” He broke off, growling and hissing as he restrained himself. “What? What do you want, Marissa? Seriously? What? What? What!”

He was explosive, not giving her so much as a breath in which to answer him. But she was patient, waiting for him to steam down a little, which he did after a moment spent snatching his keys out of the cold slush. Still, he was breathing bullishly through his nose, as though all it would take was a single spark and he’d be breathing fire on her.

“I know you. I know you aren’t going to just go home, take a bath, and curl up with a good book. Where are you going?” She moved closer to him, and he noticed that a cute pair of polka-dot snow boots had replaced the tried-and-true CFM heels she usually wore all day long.

I mean, seriously, he thought, how does she wear four-and five-inch heels all day long without keeling over at the end of the day? And she has to know they accent her legs and ass until grown men are left crying in her wake. She has to know that, doesn’t she? That’s what the damn things are made for! It certainly isn’t because they’re soft and comfy! And now those boots, like something a kindergartner would wear … so … frickin’ … cute! Damn her.

“I’m going home, Doctor, like a good boy,” he said, purposely throwing her the most insincere smile he could muster.

“You aren’t. Where are you going?”

“Like I would tell you?” He snorted out a laugh and unlocked the car.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, hurrying around him. She snatched the keys from his hand and body blocked him from getting in his car.

“Oh, hell, no,” he growled, glaring at her. Yet he didn’t make any aggressive moves toward her. “Give me my keys.”

“Letting you drive home would be like putting a .2 BAC on the road. Not happening. Friends don’t let friends drive on the verge of a sleep-deprived coma.”

“We’re not really friends, though, are we,” he reminded her, making a lame attempt to reach for his keys.

“Fine. Colleagues, then. And while I could give a rat’s ass about you, Waverly, I’m not letting you get in this car so you can fall asleep at the wheel and run head-on into some nice family with boys who’ve been raised to be polite, like to shop, and are good listeners. God knows the women of the future can’t afford to lose any of those.”

“Yeah, well, the women of the future are screwed either way, because those guys … those polite good listeners who like to shop? They are also really, really gay.”

She rolled her eyes and dropped into the driver’s seat. She started the car and turned on the heat, leaving him standing there with two choices. Either he removed her bodily from the car or he gave in and trotted over to the passenger seat like a good boy. He spent an embarrassingly short amount of time making the decision, and his ego took a bit of a hit for it. Still, that was better than making a brutish ass of himself twice in a row with her. He shuffled around to the other side of the car, muttering, wondering when exactly it was that he had lost control of his life.

He slid into his seat, slumping down.

“Where to?” she asked.

“Windham. I’m going to interview dear old Henry myself.”

“I suppose I’d be wasting my breath if I brought up issues like jurisdiction?” she asked archly, one of her fine red brows curving upward.

She took his silence as an affirmative, then turned to look over her shoulder in order to back the car out. Habitually, her arm went to the right, touching the back of his seat.

She hesitated when she saw the safety bars between the front and rear seats, meant to keep a dog contained and away from the driver. She reached with three fingers to touch them, probably thinking he wouldn’t notice. But he did. And as she touched them in homage to his lost friend, Jackson finally felt the empathy she had for him, the empathy she kept contained because it was her job to do so.

Grudgingly, Jackson found himself liking her for it.

“We’ll have to go to the safe house in Windham first,” Ram explained when Docia uttered a protest at passing the exit to Saugerties and thereby passing her brother by. SingSing had deigned to return them to their human forms a little while ago … although she’d waited much longer than was necessary, because it seemed she had forgotten that they weren’t actually dogs for a while there. “I’m going to need some reinforcements before we bring you to your brother. I need Asikri. Others. Just in case there is an ambush lying in wait around him. I don’t want either of you in any kind of danger without support and an escape plan.” He touched a finger to her cheek. “You wouldn’t forgive me if anything happened to him. And I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about me,” Docia said with a grin. “That spell kicked ass! I am officially an ass kicker! Woot!” She pumped an arm in delight. “Let’s see them try and push me off a bridge now.”

“Docia, be steady,” he warned. “Don’t get cocky. Her power will still be weak and limited until the Blending is complete. With the strain and draining effect of merging two disparate personalities into something harmonic and cohesive … it doesn’t leave much energy for anything else, never mind power on the scope of what a Templar like Tameri uses.”

“Did you know her name means My Beloved—”

“Beloved Land.” He raised a brow at her, all but smirking.

Docia reached up and smacked herself in the forehead. “Duh! Of course you know what it means.” She flushed with embarrassment. “I was just excited I knew that. I like her name. I’m thinking of using it. But I like my name, too.”

“Docia is very lovely. And there will come a time when you will need to change your name. Be patient. You will live quite a long time, and in this era of Big Brother following your every move, it’s best to pull away from your old life and start a new one after some time.”

The understanding brought him her full, wide-eyed attention. “You mean, I’ll … No. Wait. I was going to say, I’ll have to leave my brother, but if what you say is true, it will be worse than that.” She lifted wounded eyes to his. “I’ll have to watch my brother grow old and die.”

“You would have to anyway, even if you aged alongside him. You can’t qualify life and time in the moments of its ending. Life is so much more than it cessation. Trust me. This is one thing I know. As does Tameri.”

“I don’t know about that part of her yet.”

“I wish I could spare you from it when you will,” he said with a grim sadness pulling at the edges of his mouth. “But as I said, it does us best to remember the fullness of our lives and leave the dying as the brief footnote it deserves to be.”

Docia thought about it and nodded. Then he saw her pupils widen a bit. She turned her face away, instinctively trying to hide whatever she was thinking. She didn’t realize it was already too late. Although he couldn’t perceive the exact nature of her thoughts, he could sense her distress and even her intent to deceive.

Given their conversation, it didn’t take much thought to divine her reasoning, or at least the core of it.

“Docia, you cannot tell your brother the truth of what you are,” he chided gently. “Surely you can figure out the reasons why that would be a bad idea.”

“I trust Jackson,” she said, her sweet bottom lip pouting out stubbornly whether she was aware of it or not. He wondered if she had any idea how readable she was.

“Jackson is a lawman. They tend to be rigid and bound by a very specific code of ethics,” he tried to warn her.

“He is my brother before he is a cop,” she insisted, her eyes filling with anger that he would suggest otherwise.

“If he is a good cop, Docia, then he is a cop before he is anything else.”

“He’s a great cop!” she spat defensively. Then she realized that by his logic, that only weakened her argument. “But he would do anything for me. I know it.”

“Would he murder for you?” At her visible resistance, he pressed on. “Would he steal for you? Jaywalk for you? Where’s the line, in your mind? And then ask yourself if that line comes before or after locking you up in the mental ward when you start claiming there’s someone else living inside of you.”