“This is my suite,” he said roughly. “Doona worry, you’ll be safe here wi’ my friends. All the glass in the house is protecting everyone inside. The forces again’ us canna attack in daylight any more than we can go out in it so we should be safe … unless there is a human attack. But I doona think they would dare. As long as we’re behind this glass we’re too powerful for them by far. These are my private rooms and I want you to sleep here today. Come the night I’ll be regenerated and back to my normal self and I’ll be able to protect you myself.”

“You said yourself your friends will be here. I’ll be more than safe enough. They are amazingly powerful.”

“Aye, but so are our enemies.” He ran an anxious hand through her hair, fingertips touching her face so delicately. But she could feel him shaking hard. He was using everything he had to stay in his flesh state.

“Go,” she said on a soft breath. “I’ll be fine. Please go.”

He did, reluctant the entire time, but eventually went for the stairs and hurried down. As soon as he reached the ground floor, Jackson was there. He had Ahnvil’s touchstone in his hands. Ahnvil took it, the sudden wash of relief he felt nearly bringing him to his knees. But he wouldn’t be safe until he had regenerated with his stone for several hours. He opened the front door and walked out into the rising sun. His landing, what they called the place they chose to sit on while they turned to statues and regenerated, lending a sense of normalcy to their appearance by making them look like any other normal statue, was a thick shale slab reinforced by concrete beneath him. It was still cold from the night, but he hardly felt it. What he felt was the clawing pain of turning to stone. He settled down onto his hands and knees and as his wings burst free and his touchstone was absorbed into the flesh of his hand, he moved as if to lunge forward, so that when he froze into his stone visage at last, he looked like he was a Gargoyle statue ready to leap free at any moment.

Kat watched all of this from above, and even for many minutes longer after that. She knew she couldn’t truly relax until he’d been out there several hours. She wouldn’t until she could see him move again. Until she could be certain he wasn’t permanently turned to stone.

Jackson found her there, with her hands pressed against the glass, staring down at her Gargoyle worriedly.

“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “He has his touchstone now. He’ll be just fine by the time the sun sets. Now come with me. Before we sleep I would like you to meet my wife and the others who reside here. I don’t know how much Ahnvil has told you …” he hedged a bit awkwardly.

“Everything,” she said. “I know you’re a Bodywalker Pharaoh. I know there’s a Djynn living here and that he or she would turn to smoke in sunlight. I know you are all called Nightwalkers and that you can’t live in the sun any more than I can.”

“You’re right,” he said with a bemused smile. “He has told you everything. But we know nothing about you, will you help us get to know you?”

“Of course. And then … I’m very tired …”

“We’ll leave you to sleep. You can use Ahnvil’s bed until we can get rooms set up for you. You’ll have your own by night’s end tomorrow. Come. Come meet everyone.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Bella was chewing on a nail anxiously as she waited for her husband to check them into a hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Portales was apparently another three and a half hours away by car. Luckily they didn’t need a car. Jacob could just turn them to dust and they could ride the currents of the wind. But it was daylight now and he was severely weakened in daylight. So they had decided to wait until dusk before finishing their journey.

“I don’t understand it,” she said for the thousandth time. “I know what she did. She pulled that man aside and asked him to describe me. Which meant he could see her as well. So what that means is …”

“Only we cannot see her,” Jacob said. “I cannot even see her written responses to you. So what makes it possible for you to communicate with her? And why can we not see her in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” she said in exasperation. They had gone over and over this and still they couldn’t figure out a solution.

“I cannot believe we have come all this way,” Jacob said. Bella knew it wasn’t a complaint. He was more perplexed than anything. They wondered what it was that coming here was supposed to do for them. Who were these people that the mystery woman was supposed to know? How were they supposed to help them?

The only way to know was to see this task through to its very end. Jacob didn’t know how he felt about all of this. He thought he should feel uneasy, but he didn’t for some reason. Probably because Bella didn’t seem to feel that way. If she didn’t have a sense that there was any trouble, then there probably wasn’t any reason to feel that there might be something to worry about.

So here they were, close to their goal, hindered only by the light of day.

Some vacation this was turning out to be. But, on the plus side, he’d never been to the Southwest before. He was finding it to be quite beautiful with its low scrubby vegetation, the large dark mountain in the distance that signified the tail end of the Rocky Mountains, the sweeping roadways and overpasses done in soft pinks, and the adobe houses. There was nothing but wild country in any direction outside of Albuquerque.

“Come on. Let’s get a little bit of rest,” he said, drawing his wife beneath the wing of his arm. She raised a brow at him.

“Only a little bit?”

He grinned, unable to help himself. “Well, you have to help me salvage this vacation somehow.”

“Oh. I see,” she said with a laugh. “So you want me to use my body to mollify you for dragging you around all over creation when you’d much rather have been making love to me?”

“That about sums it up,” he said, his grin full of bold mischief.

“You know, I’m all right with that,” she said with a grin of her own.

They headed up to their room.

The hotel staff couldn’t figure out why the lights, the heat, and the elevators suddenly decided to go on the fritz, seemingly at the same time. They had no idea that Demon physiology was playing havoc with them.