Des lurched to the opposite side of the room and vomited onto the crumbing concrete floor.

  By the time he’d recovered and rinsed his mouth with a swig of bottled water, Kurt had wrapped the box completely in the shirt and retrieved his tools. “First we need to get the fuck out of here, and then I’ll destroy this. We’ll be sleeping in Arkansas tonight.” He made a face as if there was something distasteful about that.

  Des didn’t want to see the box again; it brought up too many memories of horrific things he’d seen. No. Of horrific things he’d done. Larry had asked him to do these things and had lied about why, but Des chose to do them. Screams. Crying. The scent of fresh blood in the air, cloying and metallic.

  He was grateful that Kurt was the one who carried the wrapped box as they left the building and, later, kept it on his lap in the car. First, though, they stopped at the second cottage, where Kurt did a quick wash and put on a new shirt while Des tossed their newly purchased belongings into the Walmart suitcases and tucked them into the back seat. Des then checked them out of the travel lodge, sliding the key across the counter at the pleased-looking clerk. Des couldn’t stop himself from glaring at the man.

  “You know, racism’s an ugly thing. Thinking yourself superior to other people just because of the color of your skin or where your ancestors came from, that makes you ugly too.” He was going to end on that, but he realized it was nothing more than an insult. He could do better, couldn’t he?

  He looked the scowling clerk in the eyes. “I’m sorry. That was mean. I’m sorry someone hurt you or raised you wrong. I reckon you feel frustrated, maybe wishing your life had turned out differently, and I’m sorry for that as well—believe me, I know the feeling. I’ll tell you, though: hate shrivels the heart and burns you from inside. I think if you find a way to let go of it, you’ll be happier.”

  “Fuck you,” the clerk said. But there was no heat in it, and his gaze was uncertain.

  Des smiled at him. “Good luck to you.”

  * * *

  Kurt drove until after nightfall before pulling off the highway and into a dense forest, traveling on a series of progressively smaller and bumpier roads. Des thought they might be lost, yet Kurt seemed confident. Finally, as if he’d received some hidden signal, Kurt stopped the car. He kept the engine running, with the headlights cutting into the gloom. They got out of the car, Kurt cradling the shirt-covered box in his hands.

  For a few minutes he simply stood there, half illuminated by the headlight beam, half in shadow, staring at nothing Des could see. Something did a constant rush and tumble nearby, sending shivers down Des’s spine. “What’s that noise?” he asked, just loud enough to be heard over the idling motor.

  “Mississippi River.” Kurt jerked his chin forward, in the direction the car faced. Des couldn’t see the river but he could smell it, muddy and alive, like a great creature emerging from the Earth’s depths to slither across the land. He wondered what creatures lived in that river and in these woods—the sort of creatures the Bureau dealt with—and he shivered. Maybe he’d ask Kurt later.

  “Why are we here?”

  “To destroy the box.”

  “It’s bloody spooky here.”

  Kurt glanced at him over his shoulder. “It’s best done where I can draw on the power of the four elements. The river’s pretty damned powerful.” He shrugged. “And nobody’s likely to be spying on us here.”

  “Are you certain you know how to get rid of the thing without killing us or anyone else?” Larry had never mentioned destruction of the boxes, of course.

  “I’ve been briefed on it.”

  Lovely.

  As Des watched, Kurt carefully uncovered the box, tossed the T-shirt wrap onto the gravel road, and placed the box in a shallow puddle left by the earlier rain. He removed a small item from his front pocket; leaning close, Des saw that it was a matchbox. Kurt took out a single match and then began to recite some words in a singsong voice, repeating the same passage over and over.

  Des didn’t recognize the words or the language, but it made the hair on his nape rise and his skin tingle. A bitter taste settled on his tongue, remaining no matter how often he swallowed. His cock hardened, which was uncomfortable and strange and would have been embarrassing if Kurt had noticed. Among the trees, far past the beam of the headlights, things seemed to be moving. Like smoke or a roiling mist, except Des was certain that these things were alive. And he did not want to see them.

  It was the most terrifying experience of Des’s life, even worse than being captured by the Bureau, hearing Larry die, and being certain he was next. Yet Kurt remained strong-voiced and straight-backed, staring into the forest as if daring it to fight him.

  Suddenly the unlit match in Kurt’s fingers burst into flame. Des lurched back, startled, but Kurt didn’t move. He kept on chanting as the flame grew stronger and stronger, much brighter than a match should burn. Des had to squint. And then Kurt shouted one more word and tossed the match into the puddle.

  The water burned as if it were oil or gasoline, and although the box didn’t move, it seemed to be actively resisting the flames. Standing along the roadside in a wavering line was every man, woman, and child that Des had murdered, each of them exquisitely distinct yet insubstantial. Larry was there too, staring expressionlessly at Des and lifting one hand to gesture coolly, the same motion he’d made whenever he wanted Des to lift or move something heavy.

  Des’s legs shook. He was supposed to obey Larry’s command—or the command of whatever it was that impersonated him—and kick the box out of the puddle, saving it from the flames. Then, he knew, all the power that thrummed through the air would settle within him. He could overcome Kurt, take the car, and zoom away. Disabling the bloody tracking device would be easy with the magic running through him. He would be free. He could find the rest of the boxes. He could finish the plans Larry had begun, and then—

  “Stop it!” Des cried. “I won’t do that!”

  Kurt swung around to stare at him in shock, and as the puddle burned more fiercely, the flames overcame the box and destroyed it immediately.

  The fire rapidly died out, leaving Kurt and Des in the glare of the headlights with the Mississippi River calling out from beyond the trees.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Logically, the events of the past couple of days should have caused Kurt stress. And they did. He was particularly concerned about Des, who’d had some sort of crisis in the woods before staggering to the car and collapsing into the passenger seat. He’d fallen asleep even before Kurt was buckled in. Now Des’s snores punctuated the hum of the engine, the beat of the wipers, and the swoosh of the tires on damp pavement.

  Kurt thought about his parents, who were from a small town in Phillips County, in the heart of the Arkansas Delta. They’d never spoken much about their past except to say that both sides of the family rejected them after the couple ran off to California and married. There’d been no reason for them to return, not even after the threats of prison and violence had faded. So to Kurt, Arkansas was a mythical place where true love was rejected and where people like him weren’t supposed to even exist. So maybe it was no wonder that, as he crossed the border into Arkansas for the first time in his life, it was with tense shoulders and a tight chest.

  Also, he was really fucking exhausted.

  At least tonight they’d sleep farther west than his ancestral homelands, in a little town called Demeter. According to Des and the briefing files, he and Krane had spent two weeks there in a rented mobile home. It was the first place they’d used one of the boxes, killing four patrons inside a bar. Everyone else in the establishment had survived, although they’d been traumatized. After Demeter, Krane and Des had moved around in Arkansas and Oklahoma, killing eight more people along the way before being caught in Kansas.

  But now Krane was long dead, one box was destroyed, and Des was fast asleep in Kurt’s car.

  Demeter was too small for lodgings, so Kurt continued along the highway for several miles until he came to a larger town with a bland chain hotel. Des didn’t wake up when Kurt parked the car near the lobby, so Kurt let him sleep while he went in to request a room. “Two beds,” he told the friendly young man at the desk—firmly, but with regrets. He’d enjoyed sharing a bed with Des despite the temptation to do more than sleep.

  He moved the car, parked, and carried their bags into the room, all without Des waking. Kurt finally gave him a hard shake, making Des alert enough to stumble blearily into the room, where he stood blinking and yawning near the dresser.

  “Get into bed,” Kurt said gently.

  After a few slow flutters of his eyelids, Des shuffled to the closest bed and fell onto it without bothering to pull back the bedspread. He fell immediately asleep, still fully clothed.

  Kurt had lengthy notes to write up. With a sigh, he started up the coffee maker, pulled off Des’s shoes, and settled in with his notebook and pen.

  * * *

  Kurt woke to the scents of coffee and sausage. He sat up in bed to find Des grinning as he set a plate on the coffee table. “They have free breakfast. Wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I brought you a bit of everything.”

  They’d missed dinner the previous night, and Kurt was ravenous. He hopped out of bed, crossed to the coffee table and armchairs, and set on the food like a starving wolf, heedless of the sugar and fat. Man, his diet had gone to shit on this mission. He was going to have to put in a lot of extra laps when he returned, and Edge was going to totally kick his ass on the track.

  Only when his plate was clean did Kurt address Des, who sat in the other chair with his hands on his lap. “Want to tell me about last night?”

  Des looked down. “Not really.”

  But he must have known this was inevitable. All Kurt had to do was wait him out, and Kurt was good at that. After a few minutes of silence, Des began to fidget, his fingers tapping and his knee jerking, until finally he sighed and looked up. “You’re good at the… the magic shite.”

  “Part of my training.”

  “Bureau training must be intense.”

  “You have no idea, man,” Kurt said with a chuckle. Months of exercise and study and very little sleep, being pushed beyond reasonable limits to learn strange concepts and react to the unimaginable. It had made boot camp seem like kindergarten. Except Kurt hadn’t hated it. Newly sober, he reveled in the chance to feel competent and to work toward a goal he believed in. But that wasn’t the point right now. “What happened to you last night?”

  “I….” Des laced his fingers together and gazed at his restless thumbs. “I’m not sure. The box… called to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wanted me to save it. I know that sounds stupid. How can a chunk of wood want anything? But it did. Larry was there—only I know it wasn’t really him. And all the people I killed were there and they were….” Des shivered violently before continuing. “I thought that if I saved the box, I’d be incredibly powerful. And I’d be free of prison forever. Is that true?”

  Kurt was so busy processing the implication of these words that he didn’t answer. Instead, after a few moments he asked a question. “Did Krane take blood from you?”

  “Blood?”

  “The stuff in your veins, Des. Did he cut you or use a syringe?”

  “No.”

  Des appeared genuinely mystified, but Kurt was going to push for an answer anyway—until another thought struck him. It didn’t have to be blood, did it? The briefing papers had said blood, but he knew from his training that when it came to magic, sometimes other body fluids worked just as well. “Your come.”

  “What?”

  “When you fucked, did he collect your semen?”

  The crease between Des’s eyebrows deepened and then his cheeks took on a slight flush. “He…. He liked to work me with his hand while he fucked me. After I finished he’d hurry to the bathroom, sometimes even without coming himself. I thought it might be a cleanliness issue. He was weird about some of those things.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Kurt growled. The Bureau had assumed Krane used his own essences, because that was the usual way with wizards. It hadn’t occurred to any of them that Des had been so directly involved.

  “What does this mean?” Des had shrunk back against the chair cushions and the blush had faded, leaving him ashy white. “What did he do?”

  Fuck. He probably owed Des an explanation.

  “There are certain requirements for magic to work. It has its own laws, just like physics or chemistry. One requirement, especially for strong magic, is blood. It’s… not a fuel, exactly. More like a catalyst. It ties the magic to the person who uses it so they can draw on each other.” That was a simplistic description but good enough. Honestly, Kurt didn’t understand the mechanics of it that deeply either. He was a field agent, not a lab guy.

  “Larry used my spunk….”

  “Instead of blood. Easier to collect without having to explain himself, I guess. And it works just as well. HIV can be spread via semen as well as blood. Magic can too. It’s just rare for wizards to do it.”

  “But… why?”

  “Why you? Dunno. You were younger and stronger.”

  Des was pulling on his hair so hard it must have hurt. “He told me he was infertile. He had the mumps when he was a teenager. Do you think that’s why he… it was me?”

  “Maybe.” That was an interesting theory—one that Kurt would bring up while he was throttling the Bureau wonks for overlooking this entire facet.

  “Oh, God.” Des’s eyes were haunted. “I killed those people. Not just by helping Larry when he was on the run, not just by putting the boxes where he told me. I… I allowed him to use me. I let him make me into a weapon.”

  Kurt didn’t argue, mostly because Des was right. Even if Des hadn’t known the specifics of what Krane was doing, he knew enough that he should have backed off. He let himself become the bullets, just as Kurt had let himself shoot the gun in Vietnam. But there was one important point he had to make.

  “Last night when the box called, you said no, Des. I think it took a good deal of strength for you to resist, but you said no.”

  Did some of the horror in Des’s face lighten? Maybe. But he remained stricken, and Kurt realized that aside from the little scene in the cemetery, it had probably been a very long time since anyone had offered Des comfort.

  Sometimes a single course of action could be both very foolish and the absolutely right thing to do. Kurt stood and walked around the table to Des, then offered him a hand. As soon as Des was standing, Kurt grasped his upper arms and pinned him with his gaze. “You made mistakes once. Big fucking mistakes. But last night you could have killed me and run free, and you didn’t. You steered your ship well, Desmond Hughes.” Then he wrapped Des in a tight embrace.

  Des immediately clutched back, a low moan escaping him. “I wouldn’t have killed you,” he whispered.

  Oddly, Kurt believed him.

  It was funny how good a simple hug could be. Letting someone lean into you, feeling his heart beating so close to yours, smelling the hotel shampoo in his hair. Unlike Des, Kurt had friends and family to draw on when he needed them—and Christ, they’d truly been there for him when things got dark—but he didn’t get much physical contact. Now he closed his eyes and drank it in, taking as much from Des as Kurt was giving to him.

  Des moved his head slightly and so did Kurt, their lips aligned for a kiss.

  No, dammit. Hadn’t he been lecturing nonstop about control and responsibility? Own up to it, Powell.

  But then Kurt found himself kissing Des. Softly, because Kurt wanted to savor the moment. Des threw himself into it at once, cradling Kurt’s skull with his palms and brushing the pads of his thumbs across Kurt’s cheekbones and up to his temples. They continued like that for a long time, leisurely enjoying the taste of each other. Heat built slowly, beginning in Kurt’s belly and spreading up his spine, making him woozy as it reached his brain. Or maybe that was just a lack of oxygen.

  And then for reasons Kurt couldn’t fathom, an invisible switch flipped somewhere inside him, and he suddenly needed Des—as desperately as he’d once needed booze and pills. Kurt made the kiss more urgent, tangling his tongue with Des’s and moving his hands down to grab Des’s wonderfully meaty ass.

  Des pushed against Kurt, using his greater mass to propel Kurt backward until he was pinned against a wall. Willingly trapped by his own desire.

  They never broke the kiss for longer than a second, and now Kurt’s attention was split between the soft pressure at his lips and the hard, urgent one at his groin. The thin fabric of their pajama pants provided no cushion between their rigid lengths, but it was still a barrier.

  Skin. Skin would be so much better. Kurt worked his hands under Des’s waistband and yep, that was infinitely better. Hot flesh, solid muscles. It was almost too much. Kurt wanted to urge Des to slow down but couldn’t find the words, not when his body was urging more, more, more.

  “Des,” he gasped, “I need—”

  Before he could finish the sentence, Des dropped to his knees and pulled Kurt’s sleep pants down to his thighs. He wrapped one big hand around the shaft of Kurt’s cock, leaned in close, and—

  The phone rang.

  “Mother fucker!” Kurt shouted, meaning it most sincerely.

  Des sat back on his heels with a laugh. “You’ve quite a mouth, Agent Powell. But I agree.”

  It was Townsend on the phone, of course. Who else would it be? “It’s been a few days since an update, my boy.”

  Shit. Now Kurt felt guilty as well as frustrated. “We’re in Arkansas. Yesterday we found the box in Roebuck Springs, and I destroyed it per instructions.”

  Townsend paused very slightly before responding. “You had no problems?”

  “No.”

  “And what have you found in Demeter?”

  “Nothing yet. It was late when we got here, so we’re in a hotel about twenty minutes away. We were just about to head over there.”