Page 11 of Reap the Night
“No, he um…I think he wanted to kiss me.”
Edwin choked on his coffee. “You didn’t tell us that part.”
Her cheeks grew pink, eyes bright with annoyance. “Yeah, well, I’m telling you now. Anyway, when he leaned in to…His grip loosened, so I managed to break free and grab my sword. I hit him on the head with the hilt, and then he…he vanished.”
But Holly hadn’t detected anything to indicate that something arcane had occurred in this room.
I could understand Edwin’s doubts now. If Padma hadn’t been infected, if she hadn’t been changing into something we didn’t understand, then this story, however crazy, would have been easily believed. But the fact was she was infected, and we had no idea what effects the mullo infection was having on her mind. What she saw could have been a hallucination.
But this was Padma. Pragmatic, logical, get-shit-done Padma. We owed it to her to consider the possibility that what she was telling us had truly happened.
And I couldn’t discount my reaction, or lack thereof, to the teapot. I’d felt protective of it, and now I didn’t.
“Say something,” Padma said to me. “Do you think I’m going mad? That this is all in my head?”
“No. I think there was something in that teapot. I think I sensed it somehow, which is why it was so attractive to me, but that feeling…that possessiveness is gone now.”
Padma stared at me. “Because the thing inside is gone.”
“Yes.” I pulled my dead mobile phone out of my pocket and stuck it on charge on my desk.
Edwin looked from me to Padma. “So what do we do now?”
“Nothing.” I sat back and sipped my coffee.
“Nothing?” Edwin looked scandalized. “If there’s a…a thing on the loose, then surely we need to catch it? ItattackedPadma.”
“And tried to kiss her,” Merry pointed out.
Edwin pursed his lips. “We need to kill it.”
“We don’t know it’s a threat,” Merry said.
“You think it will come back?” Padma asked me.
“Yep, I do. And when it does, then we’ll be ready.”
“How?” Merry asked.
“We have a mageri on our team, and I’m sure Holly can come up with a way to trap this thing. Whatever it is.”
Padma groaned and covered her face with her hands. “I was horrible to her.”
“I’m sure she understands,” Merry said.
“You were upset,” Edwin added. “Give yourself a break.” His jaw worked. “I should apologize for questioning your account. I trust you, Padma. You know that, right?” He sat forward in his seat, his expression earnest.
Padma lowered her hands and smiled weakly. “Course I do.”
“Good.”
“I’ll speak to Holly later,” Padma said. “Apologize again.”
In the meantime, I needed a debriefing. “What else did I miss?”
It was time to step into Order work mode, because being busy was the only thing that was going to save my sanity now.
My phone began to buzz, several times in succession, indicating text messages as they came through now that the thing had enough charge.
