Epilogue

Chancy is bouncing up and down with a combination of anticipation and impatience, pacing all around my room instead of just waiting for me. Raziel leans on the doorframe watching him get in my way, with the same half-smile on his face he always gets. It reminds me of the very first time I met them, as Chancy bounced everywhere in the old apartment and Raziel looked on, as though he were so much older and wiser.

I can’t figure out if I want to smile or not from this memory, so instead I make a frustrated sound, again. “Would you just sit down, Chancy,” I sigh, pointlessly. He lights for a second obediently, then looks around, and stands on my bed to see if he can touch the ceiling. “You’re so ridiculous,” I say rhetorically, then get on my hands and knees to look under the bed. I have been looking for my car keys for about twenty minutes by now, and am going insane. Raziel has figured out that helping me look never helps, since he then becomes something I can blame for myself being stupid enough to lose things.

Interested again, Chancy drops to his stomach and peers over the side of the bed with me. He hits his forehead on the bedside table, but doesn’t do more than give the furniture a dirty look. When I tell him that he’s in the way like that, he begins examining the table to see if he can fit his hand between it and the wall. I discover a dozen missing items of clothing, and a dollar, but nothing else under my bed. Raziel says, “At least you have a dollar now.”

Chancy has fit his entire arm between the two pieces of furniture and is now bored with it. He moves to a new spot and sees how far behind the desk he can reach.

“I move the furniture one time and lose everything,” I sigh. After shifting things to be more aesthetically pleasing, the bed is now in the corner and following the back wall, the dresser remaining in its original place, and a desk perpendicular to the bed. Chancy suddenly makes a strange sound. “Did you get stuck?” Raziel laughs, moving to help him.

“No,” he says sullenly. “I found something.” He pulls his arm out very hard, shaking the desk and bruising himself, again. “Not keys though,” he adds, disappointed.

“What is it?” I ask, getting up, having not found my keys under the dresser either. He gets up and hands me a jewlery box.

“I don’t remember this,” I mumble to myself, wondering where I could have gotten jewelry that didn’t have a manufacturer or brand name stamped anywhere on the box. The ring inside is something I have never seen before; solid black, carved from one continuous piece of stone that wraps around your finger and holds what looks like some kind of black pearl in two tiny, detailed clawed hands.

“It’s creepy,” Raziel says aptly.

“Where’d ya get it?” Chancy urges, bouncing again.

“I don’t...” I start to say again. And then I remember. “Saxon gave me this,” I whisper.

Now, neither of them know what to say. At least Chancy stops bouncing. I take it out of the box. It is definitely some kind of stone, but not cold as it should be; it pulsates an alien warmth. “He gave me a ring right before I told him to get out and leave me alone. I never opened it, though...” My organs are numb, which is okay, I don’t want to cry.

Still, silence. Chancy looks worried, and Raziel looks scared enough to sweat. He’s trying to think of something to say and failing. “I wonder where he got it?” I think aloud. “It fits perfectly...” It slips on my ring finger over my knuckle with enough difficulty where it won’t fall off. I study it on myself, and can’t decide if I like it or not.

Chancy says, “It looks expensive,” but makes it a question, somehow.

“It’s magic. Feel it, it’s hot,” I gesture my hand at both of them.

Chancy shakes his head. “It smells like magic too.” Raziel nods in agreement, but does touch it with one finger.

“It’s hot like blood,” he says, “and that’s what it smells like.”

“It must be some vampire thing,” I sigh. “And I was too stupid to look at it when he gave it to me. I’ll bet it’s something important. Maybe if I’d just listened to him then—”

“Don’t start on that again,” Raziel says.

“But it’s magic, you said so. For all I know, I could’ve used this to make mincemeat out of Xander. Maybe he was counting on me using it.”

“Stop it,” Raziel insists. “If you want to know what it is then go ask someone, but don’t second-guess yourself even more, all right? Don’t get upset,” he adds, worriedly.

“I thought you two were all waiting on me so we could go out and have fun. Now you’re telling me to go find Logan?” Logan is obviously the only person he could mean, since he’s the only other person I can go talk to.

“I’d rather wait so you find out than have you worry about it all night and not relax.” He says, reasonably. Chancy nods, his yellow eyes sincere.

“Why would Saxon give me something right when I’m going to leave him? It’s not like he couldn’t tell how I felt,” I play with the ring, not looking at either of them. “Why does he have to be so confusing and such an idiot?”

I go downstairs to find Logan, but he’s not answering the door. No one expected this, he was supposed to be home, so they’re worried and I’m just tired of thinking. I take the ring off and put it back in the box, leaving it for later.

Chancy has insisted that nothing will go wrong if he comes with me and Raziel to have fun, so I’d agreed to a movie and some other miscellaneous activities. Chancy likes doing everything so we just let him decide when he gets there what he feels like doing, otherwise he dwells on it all day.

We get home at eleven and I go looking for Logan again. Chancy has fallen asleep already, and Raziel is showering, so the house is big and dark and quiet. With the ring in one hand I go back down to his door, and knock a little harder than usual. He better be home, I think, I’m tired of only finding him when I don’t want to.

In another moment, he answers. I can tell he was asleep; not only does he look half awake, but he is wearing a black undershirt and some unbelted black pants. I wonder idly if he always puts clothes on before answering the door or if it’s just for me. “I am sorry I missed you earlier,” he says first. How did he know I was here? I wonder, but don’t ask. “What is it?” He beckons me inside. His room is so insanely dark it feels like a pit has opened and swallowed me up. He turns on a desk lamp, because I’ve voiced similar analogies in the past, then sits down on the bed, rubbing his eyes. I haven’t seen him this tired before, and it’s almost amusing. Because his other, limited, supply of furniture is covered in clothes, I sit down on another part of the bed. “Saxon gave me this,” I start. He looks a little more interested, wary, like he always does when I mention Saxon. “Chancy found it in my room earlier— I forgot to open it until tonight.”

He beckons me hand him the box, so I comply. He smells the box, frowns, and opens it. Then he shouts, “Holy mother!” and drops it, giving me a heart attack. It’s the first time I’ve ever even seen him surprised.

“What? What?” I’m saying.

He picks it up again, and doesn’t look embarrassed, which means something’s strange. “It’s... Nicci. Where did you get this? Exactly how did you get it?”

“Saxon gave it to me the last night he came to see me before Xander. It was right when I told him that... it was over.”

He glances at me with a distracted look, because as usual it’s hard to say things about Saxon, and I sound unstable. “What did he say?” He presses, gentler. “Exactly?”

“Uh... I don’t know,” I shake my head. “It was months ago and I was upset. I don’t remember anything.”

“Try and remember.” He is very serious and suddenly not forgiving at all. Usually he spends at least two-thirds of our conversation trying to seem attractive in one way or another. This genuine and intense stare is distracting. Just as I think this, he adds, “Please.”

“Well...” I think back. “I guess he didn’t give it to me right at the end. It was... the second to last time I saw him, that’s it. I was arguing with him about... um. Something bad.” I laugh shortly, suddenly. “No. He wasn’t arguing. He’d come up with this plan of making me believe he cared about me... something where he went and fought off a bunch of werewolves without using any power. Some macho thing like that to prove that he really did care for me. I told him it was a stupid idea.” I pushed my fingers through my hair. “I don’t... I don’t remember any other conversation. He gave it to me right before he left.”

“Good,” he praises me, but seriously, like a parent.

“What is it?” I insist.

“I find it hard to believe he would simply hand this over,” he begins, slowly. He is staring at it, and not at all at me, which is also frightening. Logan always tries to keep his big ominous eyes latched on me. “I have never seen something like this before, but before you ask, I still know what it is. Honestly, though, I can only give you a crude idea. It is nothing I’m well-versed in.”

“All right,” I agree, so he’ll continue.

“Vampires... are supposed to be able to create things with their power,” he starts, with a strange, deep breath. “Permanent, material things, if they try very hard. For the most part, vampires create charms of some sort and give to others to inflict something on them. I say, inflict, because the items are usually... they usually carry hazardous things in them. It is what began the idea, of an item being cursed. Do you understand?” He looks at me, and his eyes are serious in a different sort of way than I’m used to. I nod agreement. “This is one of those items, as in, he’s created it purely from his own power. He also put quite a lot of it inside. I wouldn’t imagine he made it look like this for any specific reason— in fact, it’s rather strange. The power itself creates the item, so its appearance is fairly randomized, but typically they are figures of whatever animal the vampire is most closely affiliated with.”

“So it should be a panther?”

“Right.” He looks at me for a second. “What exactly this will do, I am not sure. But it is very powerful. I am willing to bet he created it just for you, so it is unlikely to be harmful. But vampires never make things with just benefits; they can’t. If it gives you something, it will likely also take something away.”

“I hope you know how vague this is,” I say, gone numb again.

He nods. “For once it has nothing to do with my feelings. It’s all that I know.”

“Okay,” I take it back from him. He seems reluctant to hand it over.

“Nicci, don’t wear it without knowing what it does,” he says.

“Okay,” I say again.

“Where is Aisling?” He asks, which is the first time he has ever changed the subject to anything about any other man.

“He said he was doing a delivery job for someone, I don’t know what. He said it wasn’t dangerous. I don’t know anything except he should be home by three.” I study the ring. “Why would he give me this?”

“We won’t know that until we know what it does,” he answers, reasonably.

I spend a moment thinking, and he studies me, which is typical. Finally I think of a question. “I wear a charm Aisling gave me. Will it conflict with this?”

“Won’t know that either,” he sighs, which I’d expected. “I’ve never seen a charm on you. What is it?”

A rather direct question, I think. “It’s something that locates him no matter what’s going on,” I answer softly. “A ring that disappears when I don’t need it. It never really appears, I’ve never had to use it.” My hand strays to my collarbone, which is bare of any necklace. He doesn’t answer, and I remember getting the necklace, the weeks where we didn’t know what was going on, why we were being sent severed hands. I ask him another question so suddenly he looks almost startled. “When we first came to meet you. You remember, underground?” He nods, but looks somewhat defensive or paranoid. “When you were making your sales pitch to Saxon, you said... you said, for him removing the werewolf problem, your pack would accept him as... as ‘subsequent leader and master.’” I look at him, and he has schooled his face blank again. “Did he not do the whole job?”

“No, he didn’t,” he says after a very long pause. He looks away from me and continues. I’m unnerved by this. “I asked him for more and he refused. He said he couldn’t risk any more involvement or the police would call in the national guard. That, he’d been chased by the government before and didn’t think he could get you away if they came after him again.”

“He said that?” I ask softly, a whisper. He nods, still studying something in front of him other than me. “So why the hell would he run off and die if he was so worried about keeping me safe?”

“Maybe he thought, you were safer here with all of us, Aisling included, and that you didn’t actually need his protection anymore.”

“But that’s stupid,” I say, my voice choking off. “Why would I not need his protection? His power’s so insane, you know that.”

“If he thought that, it would make the most sense with his actions,” he says, touching my face lightly. “Don’t cry, Nicci, it doesn’t bring him back to you.”

“I just want... I want to know what happened to him,” I say unsteadily, and hating it. “How am I supposed to get over anything if he could come home tomorrow, or never? What am I supposed to do?”

He touches my cheekbone for a moment, studying me, then sighs, pulling back. “There are ways to find him, Nicci. I’ve already started people looking into it. In return, all I ask is that you find yourself, and your own power. If you do that for me,” he glances at me with a strange, crooked smile. “If you do that, then I’ll get you anything you want.”

“In exchange for whatever I can do for you,” I return, still scared and breathless at the idea of what I’ve gotten myself into.

“That is the idea,” he smiles wider, delighted with himself.