Rites & Desires Read online

  It wasn’t five minutes after she’d come up the elevator and deposited her keys on her marble-topped entry table that Ruby had changed into a favorite pair of silk chiffon lounging pajamas and a satin robe. She snagged a bowl of dates, a wheel of brie, and some almond crackers from her kitchen before settling down on her sofa. A carafe of burgundy and her computer were still there from Friday afternoon, owing to a standing instruction to her household staff never to disturb items on the coffee table. With the platter of fruit and cheese on the sofa beside her, Ruby poured herself a low tumbler of the unctuous red and absently flipped on the television. As the opening sequence of the Cobalt City Evening News began to fill the room, Ruby pulled her computer onto her lap, determined to plumb the depths of the internet for better information on the Eye of Africa and how she might go about making it do as she willed.

  She’d barely begun her online searching, and was already cursing her lack of technical prowess, when she heard a knock on the terrace door behind her. There was only one person who could possibly be there. She had to admit she was surprised not to have heard him coming. Either he’d made marked improvements to the noise level of his StarBoard, or the construction foreman had not been exaggerating when he’d told her about the noise-dampening properties of the glass walls of her penthouse. Either way, Ruby was pleased at Jaccob’s arrival. The news anchors were just getting into their top story--the theft of the Eye of Africa--when Ruby turned around and called out, "come on in!"

  Jaccob was shaking his head as he pulled the door open and came inside. "I hope I’m not intruding," he said as he carefully closed her terrace door behind himself. "I saw your light was on--"

  "No," Ruby insisted, turning down the television volume, "Not at all." She moved the tray of fruit and cheese from the sofa onto the coffee table and patted the now vacant seat beside her. "Come, sit," she invited.

  "You shouldn’t leave your doors unlocked," he chided as he crossed the room to sit beside her on the couch.

  "On the fiftieth floor?" she rebutted. "Really, Jaccob, who’s going to surprise me up here?"

  "In this town," he answered, "I think you’d be surprised."

  Ruby rolled her eyes and gestured to the wine. "Drink?" she offered.

  "Sure," He sat back on the sofa and looked somberly at the television. "This is the thing that was stolen last night," he told her, regarding the picture the news was showing of the case the Eye had been in inside the vault.

  "I’m surprised they’re giving up so much information so early on," Ruby commented, pretending not to know just how much wasn’t being said. It wouldn’t do her any good for Jaccob to figure out she knew more about the thing than either he or the CCPD did.

  As she poured her guest a glass of wine, Ruby caught sight of her still-open web search about the thing. Damn. She had been so pleased to see Jaccob at her door unexpectedly, she hadn’t thought to close either the tab or the computer. "I was just looking up what they were talking about," she lied, gesturing to her computer screen before he had a chance to notice and wonder. Stay ahead of the story--that was key to survival in entertainment as well as in relationships, apparently.

  "Did you find out anything interesting?" he asked as he took his freshly poured tumbler of wine and looked back at the television.

  "No." Truly, there hadn’t been much on the internet she hadn’t already known. And it just seemed like a better idea to play dumb on this particular subject. "You?" she asked, half-joking. "Any new and interesting developments since last night?"

  Jaccob took a sip of his wine and shook his head. "Not really," he replied. "It’s a magical thing nobody really knows much about--except everyone who knows anything about stuff like this is terrified that someone has it."

  Ruby nodded. Good. That was good. She was pleased to hear she seemed to have more information on the Eye than the people who were trying to track it down.

  "And no one has any idea who might have stolen it?" she asked, trying to make the question sound as idle as possible.

  Jaccob frowned and shook his head. "From what I’ve been told so far," he replied, taking another sip of wine and reaching for a cracker, "which I’ll admit isn’t much, this thing has a whole lot of power in it that nobody really understands. The people who know about these kinds of things say it’s dangerous. They tell me it doesn’t matter who has it, because even the most well-intended, careful, studied magic user isn’t going to be able to control this thing. The best-case scenario seems to be that the wizard or whatever blows himself up trying to figure out how to use it and leaves a hole in the ground large enough for the police to locate what’s left of the jewel."

  "Ouch," Ruby said, trying to hide her discomfort at the thought of being nothing more than a crater beneath her Regency Heights Mansion. There had been no mention in Loki’s note of a possibility the thing might explode. Then again, there was every chance that whoever had shared this idea with Jaccob had been talking out of his or her ass. Knowing Jaccob’s disdain for all things magical, he was inclined to believe the worst. And if the CCPD was really so terrified of the Eye falling in to the wrong hands, it would certainly behoove them to make him believe it.

  "Yeah," Jaccob affirmed, reclining a little in his seat and resting his arm along the back of the sofa in a gesture that reminded Ruby of the way a teenager might surreptitiously put his arm around his date at the movies.

  Pretending not to notice his boyish tactic, Ruby scooted closer and reclined a bit as well, resting her back against the curve of his arm and calling no attention to it whatsoever. "So we just have to hope the police find it before whoever stole it has a chance to use it." Ruby took a sip of wine and thought carefully about her next question. She couldn’t appear to know too much--neither about the Eye of Africa nor about magic in general. But she wanted--she needed to know if the police seemed to have any idea how its magic might be accessed.

  "Um," Ruby began, feigning confusion as she looked sideways at Jaccob, "don’t those kinds of things usually have--" She paused and furrowed her brow. "--I don’t know, spells on them, or something to keep people from using them if they’re not supposed to?"

  Jaccob took another sip from his glass and nodded his head. "I think so," he answered. "But I’m really not the guy to ask. I don’t know a damned thing about this kind of stuff, and the police didn’t say anything to me about it, probably because they know I don’t like magic and they could tell me all about it and it wouldn’t matter. It’s not my job to know that stuff. I just catch the bad guys."

  Ruby managed an almost girlish giggle at his assertion. How odd he was so straightforward about that. It was honestly a little bit adorable how cut-and-dry the world seemed to him. Magic was never a good idea, technology was as good or as bad as the people wielding it, and Stardust’s job was to catch the bad guys. She spared a moment’s thought for what it might be like to have an outlook so lacking in nuance. "I’m just trying to make you feel better," she lied, unable as she did to control the grin that had crept to her face at knowing his total lack of suspicion toward her. "Because maybe if it has some kind of spell on it then maybe the guys who stole it haven’t managed to use it yet." She patted him gently once on his knee, and left her hand resting there for a moment before withdrawing it again. She noticed a tension in him at her touch, and forced a blush to her cheeks in response. There was nothing to be gained by being completely transparent in her intentions; if he needed her to be a bit coy about things, she could manage that for a time.

  Jaccob swallowed hard and turned his body a little to face her. Ruby was surprised the movement wasn’t one of retreat. The television news had moved on to a story about a series of break-ins that they were positing may or may not be connected to the theft of the Eye of Africa. Ruby knew, of course, that they weren’t, although there remained the possibility that the Blights might be behind some or all of the mayhem without her having known about it. She knew they were working some agenda for Loki while she had them here, and she hadn’t been
bothered to give a damn as to what it was. So there was every chance this series of break-ins was related to the theft of the Eye, even if only indirectly.

  "You know," Jaccob said, changing the subject as he inclined his head toward the television, "I mean it when I say you shouldn’t be leaving your doors unlocked. With so much crime in the city, I just don’t think it’s safe."

  "And I mean it," she replied, smiling wryly, "when I say I’m not worried. Who’s going to bother me fifty stories up?" She raised her eyebrows and took a sip from her wine. "With Stardust right across the way?"

  "I’ve been in this city for a long time," he answered, "and I can honestly tell you I have no idea." He smiled and shook his head. "But I know that stranger things have happened than a bad guy with the ability to scale buildings, or willing to drop in from a helicopter, or who can fly under his own power. Even the fiftieth floor isn’t safe from the worst of the city, Ruby, and I’m not always home. If you’re not going to put locks on the doors, will you at least let me install some sort of alarm system up here for you?"

  Ruby shook her head and frowned. "Oh, no," she answered firmly. "I only just got all of the workmen out of here. I’ve finally got a little peace and quiet. The last thing I’m about to do is invite a bunch more strange men to drill holes in my walls and bother me all hours of the day."

  Jaccob shook his head and chuckled, moving his hand from where it had been resting on the back of the sofa to her shoulder. "No, I mean, let me do it," he clarified.

  "Yourself?" she asked dubiously.

  He nodded. "You know, Starcom was a startup. I used to do all this stuff myself. And I don’t think I’ve forgotten how."

  "Oh, I’m sure you haven’t," Ruby affirmed. "I can’t imagine you trust many people with the Stardust suit. Clearly, that’s the kind of thing you’d want to do for yourself."

  "Exactly," Jaccob replied, grinning and waggling his eyebrows. "And you’ve got our security in the rest of the building, so it wouldn’t be hard for me to come in here and add a discrete system just for the penthouse wired in to the emergency power we’ve already installed."

  "And you’d do this yourself?" she asked him dubiously. "Just you? With no help?"

  "Sure. It could be fun. It might take a few days," he qualified, "with me doing everything single-handedly, but I could do it no problem."

  Ruby frowned playfully.

  "I think I’ll get you a personal alarm, too," he added. "A panic button so you can call me from anywhere if there’s an emergency."

  "And is this a service you offer to all of your top-dollar clients?" she teased. Ruby knew, of course, that there were special alarms and custom systems already in existence connected directly to Stardust. It had been one of those "special client" security measures that had almost foiled her plans to get away with the Eye of Africa. As much as Jaccob’s ostensible concern for her safety seemed promising, Ruby knew there was every chance he was just trying to sell her another fifty grand worth of security equipment. But, then again, he could have been flirting. And she wanted to know.

  Jaccob shook his head and smiled. "Free of charge," he insisted. "Friends and neighbors discount. And, I can promise you this is the only such offer I have ever made."

  Ruby felt a blush come to her cheeks that she chose not to even attempt to stifle. So he was flirting. Good. This was very, very good. She narrowed her eyes and grinned. "I’ll think about it," she said. And she would have to think, hard. On the one hand, there was something positively delightful about the thought of Jaccob rolling up his sleeves and putting in hours of work to wire up her penthouse to assure her safety. But on the other hand, any thoughts of alarms or surveillance in her private space made her shudder. And there was no explaining to Jaccob that the place was magically protected. Although the strength of the wards she’d managed to put in were paltry in comparison to what she had in her work space, there was still a layer of magical insulation about the whole building, one she meant to shore up firmly once she had the full power of the Eye of Africa at her command.

  And she certainly couldn’t tell him she’d given over the forty-sixth floor to Loki. The god, she was sure, had his own layers of magical protection--wards that would likely extend beyond his own little corner of the building. She couldn’t see his magic at the moment; without her powers, she could barely see magic she herself was casting. But she knew Loki. She knew him very well, and she was sure that any space he claimed as his own would be magically prepared for whatever purpose he might want to put it to. So even though there was no evidence he’d so much as set foot in her building, Ruby was sure the space was well-prepared and ready for the day he decided to make use of it.

  She really didn’t need a Stardust alarm. But she liked the idea of being able to summon him any time of the night or day. That could be fun. She winked at Jaccob over her glass of wine.

  "Will you at least agree to a panic button?" he asked, scooting a little closer, his arm now unabashedly draped across her shoulders.

  Ruby frowned, unsure as to exactly what he was describing.

  "It can look like an ordinary piece of jewelry if you want it to," he said, clearly aware she wasn’t sure what he was talking about. "But it’ll have a little transmitter in it. You press the button or flip the switch, or rip open the clasp--Chuck has one that works like that--and it activates a beacon and lets me know you need me."

  Ruby took a deep breath. She had to admit to herself she enjoyed being offered the level of personal protection tech that it sounded like he had only previously arranged for his immediate family. That was lovely. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to bring a homing beacon along with her everywhere that would summon Stardust double-quick were it to be improperly handled. It would do for now, she guessed, to accept the idea. She could manage the logistics of the thing after she had it.

  "I like diamonds," she half-kidded, "and I like you. So I suppose I’d be agreeable to a little bracelet, or a brooch, that would bring you to my aid should I ever find myself in need of rescuing."

  She thought back for a moment to the episode with the alien that had left her with her powers augmented. That night, she’d been freed by some no-name quasi-super who she’d never heard of, before or since. It had irked her at the time that none of Cobalt City’s A-list had come after her. Having a device on her person that meant Stardust would drop everything and come to her aid certainly meant she was moving up in the world.

  "I’ll get right to work on that," Jaccob said, bringing his wine glass around to clink against hers.

  Ruby smiled as she leaned in closer. It was strange, sitting on the sofa, drinking wine, and watching the news with Jaccob. There was something pleasingly domestic about the whole thing, and Ruby was a bit surprised she wasn’t at all disgusted with herself for liking it. She was looking up at Jaccob and wondering what in the hell was going on in her head when she saw him blanch suddenly. His body grew stiff, he withdrew his arm from around her, and he sat bolt upright on the sofa.

  Ruby’s first inclination was to wonder if he’d been shot. His eyes were wide and his hands were shaking as he stared straight ahead at the story now running on the evening news. Blast those damnable gossips claiming to be journalists! There, as big as life on Ruby’s 4k TV, was Elizabeth Stevens. The news anchor was going on about how, "once again, she was spotted flying solo at a charity event." They went on to mention "sources close to the noted philanthropist" who "would neither confirm nor deny that Cobalt City’s most notable power couple had split."

  Ruby was scrambling to find the remote control, nearly spilling her wine as her first grab at the thing missed and knocked it to the floor. She was practically on the floor herself by the time she managed to get hold of it and shut the television off. Before the picture blinked out, Ruby found herself pleased to have recognized Discontent in the background of the picture the newscast had splitting the screen with the co-anchor reading the story. It was good to know her bidding was still being done.

  Bu
t seeing it on television was decidedly not good for the mood in the room. "I’m sorry," Ruby offered with genuine sadness. "I wish you hadn’t seen that."

  Jaccob nodded. He finished the last of the wine in his glass and frowned. "Yeah," he replied, "me too. But the news was bound to get ahold of it some time. I’m actually surprised it’s taken them this long."

  "Still," Ruby answered, resisting the urge to reach out to him. There was something in his bearing that told her touching him right now was a bad idea. And even though she was without any magical ability to tell his mood, her finely honed people skills were enough to guide her. "You shouldn’t have to see your personal life broadcast to the public."

  Jaccob nodded. "In a lot of ways, I’m used to it. But this split with Elizabeth, this is all new territory."

  Ruby nodded. She didn’t like the idea of talking about Jaccob’s marriage, or his wife, but there was something that felt powerful in the way he seemed to be opening up. She decided she wouldn’t be the one to change the subject.

  "I’m sorry," she said again.

  Jaccob shook his head and stood up, setting his empty wine glass down on the coffee table beside the tray of crackers. "I should be going," he said.

  Ruby set her glass down beside his and stood to face him. "Okay," she answered softly, trying not to sound overly disappointed. She had to remember she was playing a long game here, and if Jaccob needed space to process things right now, then she’d give him that space. She would continue to play patient and supportive. It might be terribly frustrating today, but in time, she was sure, it would pay off. "I’ll talk to you soon," she said tentatively as she walked him to the door.

  Jaccob nodded somberly. "I’m seeing my kids tomorrow."