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Oh.

There it was. “You think it was a one-night stand.”

“I—certainly it was an aberration, a product of stress, and alcohol, and—”

Yanking him down by that damn silver tie of his, she kissed him. It was the only way she knew how to really shut him up. When she broke the kiss, she glared up at him as best she could. He looked suitably stunned. “I told you last night. I can’t love you until I know you. And I can’t forgive you until I know what you’ve done. I can’t offer you either of those things in any kind of honest fashion. But I can offer you whatever this is. Affection. Fondness. I don’t hate you, Gideon. Damn it all, I think I actually care about you. I want to be whatever we can be until I can either forgive you and-or love you, or not. And if you’re all right with that…I certainly am.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. After a moment of searching her eyes for something, he nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Now let’s go the fuck home. I need new clothes. Now. And some of us can’t just freaking do that.”

“You could, you know, if you learned magic.”

She froze. “Wait. Wait. You can teach me magic?”

“Of course. What kind of terrible lich would I be if I couldn’t—ow! Ow, ow!” He ducked as she began smacking at his chest and arms.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”

“You never asked.”

“That’s a terrible excuse!” She smacked him in the arm one last time. “Home. Now.”

He chuckled and shook his head, clearly not offended by her outburst. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Such a bossy little thing you’ve become.”

“Complaining?”

“I think I like it.”

“Play your cards right, necromancer, and maybe later we’ll learn exactly how much you like it.”

His neck turned red just a moment before he dissolved into the dark specter of his true form, and she was once more whisked away.

* * *

“Gone.”

“Gone!”

A sigh on the other side of the phone. “How many have we lost, Father Lenci?”

“None.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Lots of injuries. Lots of broken legs, stabbings, a lost hand, a shattered femur, bruises, concussions…nobody’s dead.” Rinaldo slumped against the wall of the van. He had a splitting headache. The lich had thrown him into a tree, and he was definitely on the list of those with bruises and a concussion. “He left us all alive.”

“Thank God Almighty. But that makes no sense. Why would he do that?”

“I didn’t stop to ask him, Bishop.” He winced in pain as Ally dabbed a pad of gauze with alcohol on a deep slice on his arm, trying to clean the wound as gently as she could. “We had the cemetery surrounded. He didn’t get out. They must have gone to ground. I didn’t think he’d hide. Didn’t sound like him. I walked the grounds, trying to see his aura, but through the storm I couldn’t see shit.”

“Language, Father.”

Come over here and stop me, Bishop. He kept that bit studiously to himself. “What’s our next move?”

“If Marguerite has agreed to help Raithe discover the pieces of the talisman, then I expect they’ll tell us where you are going next. Rest, do what you can to recover. We will not approach them again in London.”

“Yes, sir.” It was a bit disappointing, to be honest. He officially had a score to settle with Raithe. He wanted to punch the man in his smug, stupid face, just once. He knew he couldn’t give a creature like that a concussion, but he hoped he could at least bloody the bastard’s nose. Pain was pain.