I think your imagination is working overtime.”
Melina studied her for a long moment, then seemed to accept her words with a nod. “Will you help me?”
“You keep your word and tell me all you know—and I mean everything, Melina—and I’ll do my best to find and…acquire the ring.”
Melina smiled. “Thank you, Stormy. Thank you so much.” She clasped Stormy’s hands briefly.
Stormy felt a little guilty accepting such senseless gratitude from the woman. After all, she hadn’t said anything about giving the ring to her. And she didn’t intend to.
When the sun went down, Vlad rose from the crypt where he’d spent the day. The crushing devastation that returned the moment his mind cleared of the day sleep was nearly enough to send him sinking to his knees. But he fought it. All was not lost. It couldn’t be.
To be so close—so close to having the ring—and then to lose it that way…
He could only reach one conclusion. Tempest. She must have the ring. She had come for it, just as he had. And she’d beaten him to the theft.
So there was still a chance. He need only find her and—
She’s gone.
The knowledge seeped into his mind, as real and as palpable as air seeping into a mortal’s lungs. Tempest had left the city.
No matter. There was nowhere on earth the woman could go where he would be unable to follow. To find her. To feel his way to her. She would never escape him.
So he followed the trail she had left. A trail of her essence, woven with her yearning for him. And he found her.
She was behind the walls of a mansion, beyond a stone barrier and an iron gate marked by the word ATHENA.
He recognized the place for what it was—it wasn’t the first he’d seen—a base for the Sisterhood of Athena.
They were involved with Tempest? With the ring? By the gods, how? Why? Why would Tempest entangle herself with the likes of them?
Vlad planted himself outside the tall stone wall that surrounded the place, though he could easily have leapt it. He didn’t need to. His power over Tempest was strong enough that he could crawl inside her mind, see everything she saw, hear everything she heard. He could feel her thoughts.
And damn the repercussions. She’d stolen the ring and…what? Brought it to these meddling mortals? How dare she betray him that way?
No, he would do whatever was necessary to get to the bottom of this, to find the ring and get it back. So he made himself comfortable in the darkness beyond the walls of the mansion, and he slid as carefully as he could into his woman’s mind.
3
Dinner was late at Athena House, but well worth the wait: a tender glazed pork loin with baby carrots and new potatoes. Enough side dishes to satisfy anyone, and the promise of dessert later on.
As she ate, Stormy tried to match the names she’d been given to the faces around her, but she determined she would never keep them all straight. There were three she knew for sure. Melina, of course. Then there was Melina’s apparent right-hand woman, Brooke, with sleek, shoulder length red hair parted on one side, as straight as if it were wet. She looked as if she’d stepped off the set of a Robert Palmer video and was so thin Stormy wondered if she ever ate anything at all. She wore a tweed skirt that hugged her from hips to knees, with a buttoned-up ivory silk blouse. And third was Lupe, a shapely Latina who reminded Stormy of Rosie Perez every time she opened her mouth. She was five-two, way shorter than her two cohorts, and curvy as hell. She had full, lush lips and copper-toned skin. Her hair was longer than Brooke’s, jet back, and curled as if it had been left out in a wind-storm, and her brown eyes were like melted milk chocolate. She wore designer jeans and a chenille sweater that had probably cost more than Stormy’s entire wardrobe.
Those three she remembered. And those three were the ones who went with her into the library when the meal had ended. And yes, Stormy thought, Brooke had eaten—about enough to feed a baby bird.
A fourth woman brought a china tray with matching coffee pot, cups, cream pitcher and sugar bowl into the room, set it down and left without a word.
“This place is…odd,” Stormy said.
“Is it?” Melina poured coffee into four cups, took one and sat down. She took it with cream, no sugar, Stormy noticed. Smooth but strong.
“It feels like a cross between an army barracks and a convent.”
“Because that’s what it is,” Lupe said with a grin and a combination Spanish-Brooklyn accent. She took her own cup, added four spoons full of sugar and sat back. Hot and sweet, but dark, Stormy thought.
She eyed the room. It was large, a towering ceiling and four walls lined with books and bound manuscripts, many of which seemed very old. The scents of old paper and leather permeated the place. At the farthest end of the room there was a table that stood about desk height. It might have been a desk, for all Stormy could tell, since it was hidden under a purple satin cloth. Antique pewter candle holders with glowing tapers stood on top, to either side of an aged leather book.
Stormy eyed the book, watching only from the corner of her eye as Brooke took her own cup of coffee, adding nothing to it at all. Dark and bitter.
She took her own with just enough cream to mask the bite, and just enough sugar to lull her into forgetting that caffeine could kick her ass. She smiled a little as she fixed it and thought that you could tell a lot about a person by the way they took their coffee.
Melina said, “We first learned of the ring in 1516, when a member of the Sisterhood acquired the journal of an alleged mage who’d lived a century earlier.”
“The Sisterhood of Athena is that old?” Stormy asked.
“Older.” Melina watched her staring at the book.
“So this is the one? The old journal?” Stormy asked, stepping toward the book on the table.
“Yes.”
She set her coffee cup down and moved closer, then reached for the book, only to pause when Brooke put a surprisingly chilly hand over hers. “It’s very delicate. Be careful.”
“Like she’s planning to rip off the cover?” Lupe asked with a toss of her head. “Give it a rest, Brookie.”
There was no question, the nickname was not a term of endearment.
Stormy looked from one woman to the other. They were opposites and maybe equals. There was tension there. But that wasn’t her problem. She steadied herself and touched the book with great care, opening its leather cover and staring down at the brittle, yellowed pages within.
Words flowed across the pages in some foreign script, where words were even visible. Many had faded to mere shadows. She wanted to turn the page, but didn’t dare, for fear it might disintegrate at her touch.
“It’s not in English.” After she said it, she realized she had stated the obvious.
“No,”
