Chapter Nineteen

??ran?: two weeks later, December 22nd

Faith's insides slipped sideways anda lump pushed into her throat. "What did you say?"

"You heard me," Kacie returned. "I said the community has offered to ship our goods here from New York, and I think we should take them up on it. I want all of my clothes and my ballet gear, some of our furniture…or all of it. I think it's time to give up the Soho apartment."

"Give it up?" Faith's voice nearly squeaked. She wasn't hearing this. She absolutely couldn't be. Faith had only stayed in ??ran? because she'd assumed that after several weeks without New York's culture and fast-paced lifestyle, Kacie would be begging to leave. Her sister was supposed to be coming to her senses, dang it, not growing more attached to this hick town. "You can't do that!"

Kacie's chin came up. "The lease is in my name."

This was a nightmare. "But what if we want to go back?" When we go back.

Kacie expelled a long, hard breath. "I'm not leaving here, Faith. I've been trying to tell you that. I wish you'd listen."

Faith clasped a hand to her throat. Her sister had gone utterly insane. "You've only been here two weeks, Kacie. How in the world could you possibly know if—"

"I know," Kacie insisted, her jaw set mulishly. "I've never been happier than I am here. I belong. I'm making friends. I firmly believe you'd be happy, too, if you'd get off your butt and give this place a chance instead of holing up here in your room and"—she flung a hand at Faith's television set—"watching old videos of yourself dancing while feeling sorry for yourself. Real productive, Faith."

Faith's chin trembled. How could Kacie, of all people, not understand what Faith was going through?

Kacie leaned forward, her voice growing earnest. "Do you know that no one around here has accidentally called me by your name, not once—at least not the Varcolac. To them, I smell like me and no one else. It's amazing. For once in my life"—she threw out her arms and tossed back her head, as if soaking up accolades on stage—"I'm unique!"

Tears burned Faith's eyes. "I didn't realize being my twin was such a trial."

Kacie slapped her arms back to her side. "That's exactly the problem. I've always been your twin; the sister of the ballet superstar. I love you, Faith, but I haven't loved not being my own person. The second people see you and me, everything is instantly about you and me. Those Teague twins. It's robbed me of the chance to have my own space in this world. I don't even get to have my own birthday. When we were kids, we always shared the same cake, the same party, and even today I have to remember to buy you a gift on my day."

Faith bowed her head, tears falling. She couldn't believe this. She'd always thought Kacie had found comfort in being a twin, same as Faith did. To her, their sameness grounded her with the confidence that there was always one person on earth who knew her down to the kind of impossible depths that only came from sharing matching DNA.

Kacie's voice softened. "Don't cry, Faith. Listen, I'll make you a deal. Go out on a date with Nyko, and I won't get rid of the New York apartment."

Faith whipped her head up. "Nyko!"

"Don't say his name like that. He's a great guy, and you're the only type of woman who a half-R?u like him can have children with. Or Shon, but he's—"

"Children!" Good God, Faith couldn't fathom seeing that monstrosity naked, much less having intercourse with him. "He's not my type, Kacie. Not at all."

"How could you possibly know that? You've never even talked to the man."

A quiver stole across Faith's lips. Because her type was someone who could live topside, in the sun, in a city, where she could dance. "He hit a woman. Have you forgotten what you saw in the garage the day we arrived?"

Kacie brushed that aside. "If you'd bothered to find out about it, you'd know that woman was a prisoner trying to escape and one of the half-R?u enemy who'd been part of the plot to kidnap us. Nyko was doing his job, that's it." She headed for the door, pausing there, her hand on the knob. "If you're so miserable here, then go, Faith. But I'm staying."

Faith held herself very still as loneliness tried to suck her into a black hole, like the time when she was eight and her parents had come up with the bright idea to send their twin girls to different summer camps for "individuation." Faith had cried for twelve hours straight and was finally sent home—where Kacie was already waiting. "I can't leave without you."

"Then stay. And make an effort." Kacie turned and left the room.

Faith stared at the closed door, her insides slipping sideways again. A moment later, she heard a male voice downstairs call, "Hey, Kacie," not an ounce of doubt or confusion in his tone.

Faith pressed both hands to her face and fought back more tears. I'm unique! Why was Kacie so overjoyed by that? Faith truly couldn't understand it. If they weren't the Teague twins, who in the world were they?

Swallowing and sniffing, Faith dropped her hands and walked over to her DVD machine. She would watch as many videos of herself dancing as she wanted, and this town could go hang. She pressed play. The picture flickered once, then the machine made an ill-omened zuzzz sound and the TV screen went blank.

She dug her fingernails into her palms. On top of everything else today! She disconnected the DVD from the TV set, then jerked the electrical cord out of the wall socket and scooped up the machine. Scowling, she left her bedroom in high dungeon. She didn't know which hillbilly around here did the repairs, but the computer command center was on the first floor. As she turned down the main staircase, she screamed and stumbled back, nearly dropping the DVD player.

Nyko reached out a hand to steady her.

She lurched back another pace, her heart surging into a runaway beat.

Nyko quickly dropped his hand, his face flushing scarlet.

Her own face heated on a rush of embarrassment. Her method of greeting him was really quite awful…and probably getting tiresome. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

The door to Vienna opened and the warrior with the disarming cowlick poked his head out. Seeing it was only Nyko, he went back inside.

"You, uh, startled me, is all," she lied. He scared the unholy pants off her.

His size went beyond anything she felt capable of dealing with. She was a woman of small stature, but being around him made her feel miniscule. He was like Popeye OD'd on spinach, minus the comic charm of the quirky sailor man. No corncob pipe protruded from his mouth, rather fangs, and instead of anchor tattoos on his arms, this giant was marked all over with swooping black teeth, a hideous array of them even surrounding his neck. She couldn't get used to the sight of him, although—if she were going to quote her annoying sister—she hadn't exactly tried, either.

"Do you need help with that?" Nyko pointed to the DVD machine. "Is it broken?"

"Oh." She hugged the machine closer to her chest.

"I can fix it for you." Nyko speared a hand through his black hair, sending a ragged clump of it flopping forward onto his forehead. His hair stylist must be a lawnmower with the DTs.

"Thanks, but… I was about to go down to the—"

"They'll only send you back to me." He ascended one more stair, bringing himself up to her level, a mighty colossus looming over her, blocking out light and life. "I have all my tools right here in my room. It'll just take a sec, no problem." He reached out and eased the DVD player out of her arms.

She immediately let go, not about to let him touch her breasts inadvertently. Or on purpose.

He started down the hall.

She dropped her eyes to the knife strapped to his hip. A waste of weight and space, that. Here was a man whose entire body was a weapon, from the incredible rack of shoulders stretching his T-shirt to near seam-splitting limits, down to his mountainous biceps, and thighs that were each as thick as her waist. Thicker, probably.

Nyko disappeared into Amsterdam.

Should she follow him? She bit her bottom lip. He'd absconded with the DVD of her premiere performance as a prima ballerina—she'd brought an entire collection with her to show to Raymond Parthen—and she definitely wanted it back. She glanced around. She was alone, but noises were coming from Oslo and Vienna. She could scream if Nyko tried anything. The cowlicked fellow had come to her rescue once, and he surely would again.

She entered Nyko's room and stopped inside the door. Squinting, she—goodness. She'd never seen so many shelves. Every wall was covered with them, top to bottom, and there were even several shorter ones placed around here and there. More amazing, every shelf was weighted down with a staggering array of tools and other doo-dads related to the trade of handyman.

A workman's table, high and long, was stretched out in front of the longest line of shelves, directly across from the door, with three stools placed randomly around it, a couple of metal boxes on top. To the left, a super-sized bed was jammed into the corner. The bedspread was a shade of plain dark brown, as austere-looking as the lone lamp sitting on the single wooden nightstand and the picture-less walls. No frills around here. The room radiated as much unpretentious masculinity as its occupant.

"I guess you are the fix-it guy around here," she said.

A smile touched the corner of Nyko's mouth. "What gave me away?" He picked up a screwdriver and peered at the back of the DVD set in front of him on the work table. "Single guy, no girlfriend. You can imagine how it is. I have to do something to keep from getting bored."

"Your job doesn't do that?"

"Job's a job, hobby's a hobby." He concentrated on his task, twisting the screwdriver to take out one screw, then the next.

Faith watched the ropes of muscles flexing along his forearm as he worked with the tool. She swallowed. "Why are you carrying a knife?"

He carefully removed the plastic back of the DVD player. "The warriors are always armed. It's only a precaution against trouble." He flashed a glance at her. "Don't let that scare you. You're safe in ??ran?."

"I don't feel scared here." Bored and depressed, yes. She flitted a hand over her bun, found a hair pin sticking halfway out, and pressed it back in.

Another small smile crossed his mouth. "Just scared of me."

"No."

He snorted softly.

Guess he'd seen through that lie. "Well, a bit."

"Try to think of me as a Clydesdale." He slipped a tray full of copper innards out of the back of the DVD player, like a sheet of cookies from an oven. "Those horses are huge, right? But the nicest animals there are. They're even called gentle giants. That's me."

Gentle? The image rose again of Nyko punching Pandra's jaw off. Faith gripped the doorjamb, a cold shudder rippling down her spine.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Your scent just changed."

Faith placed a hand to her breast and frowned. How…vulgar was it that he could tell that?

Nyko went back to his task, poking around the gizmo board. "Looks like you've blown a fuse," he told her, as if she cared or understood.

"I was remembering," Faith said in a rush, "about you punching that woman in the face."

Nyko's hands froze momentarily. "I'm sorry you saw that." Throat moving, he rummaged through a box of tiny thingies. "Even more sorry that I had to do it. I don't hit women, Faith," he added quietly. "I think women should be treated like…women need to be…they just shouldn't ever be hit."

Faith watched Nyko pick up one of the thingies and examine it. She would've expected someone of his size to have sausage-like fingers, but, although his hands were definitely large, his fingers were nimble. It didn't seem to fit who he was, but then—to go back to her sister's rebuke again—she had no idea who he was, did she? You've never even talked to the man. "Um, Kacie said you were doing your job, so, uh…I'm sure you were."

Nyko tossed the thingy back in and continued his search. "Kacie's real nice."

And I'm not? No. I'm the twin with bats in her belfry who can't stop screaming and cowering around you.

Nyko picked up another thingy and snapped it into the gizmo board. He slipped the guts back in and screwed the plastic cover in place. "This ought to work now."

"Thank you."

"I'll hook it up for you." As Nyko picked up the machine, he knocked a file folder off his work bench. "Let's go back to your—" An 8x10 photo shot out of the folder, skidding across the floor and landing at Faith's feet.

It was a picture of a dead man, his bloody forehead scored with some kind of design. "Oh!"

"Crud. Sorry." Nyko set down the DVD player and bent for the photo. "Here, let me—"

She picked it up before he could and frowned at it. Something about the design on the corpse's head was ringing a bell of familiarity. "What is this?"

"A serial killer's handiwork." Nyko grimaced. "I usually don't have gross stuff like this around, but the special operations team I've been assigned to is working on catching this guy." He reached for the photo again.

She angled it away from him, focusing more intently on the mark. "It's a quaternary knot."

"That's right." Nyko gave her a curious look. "How did you know that?"

"My Aunt Idyll, the woman who raised me and Kacie, is an expert in Celtic lore. She's a shaman and Pagan priestess, a Tarot Card reader, and an all-around nut. Esoteric symbols like this were lying around the house all of the time." Faith gestured at the photo. "The quaternary is a symbol of protection."

Nyko's brows lifted. "Really? I think you need to tell Toni about this, maybe get her in touch with your aunt, if you wouldn't mind? We don't know squat about this case and could use any and all help."

"Okay." Why not? She had nothing else to do. "I'll make an appointment with Dr. Parthen for today."

"Great." He picked up her DVD machine again. "I'll hook this up for you back in your bedroom."

Faith blinked. My bedroom?