Then the reason clicked. Anger surged, so fierce and bright, and the man on the bed stirred.
God, I thought, I'm an idiot.
Lucian was the connection. He had to be. He'd been my father's chrání, so it was more than possible his Razan bore the same markings as my father's. And he was also involved with a woman who was a dark sorceress. She might not be the one we were after, but the odds were that she at least knew him. After all, how many damn dark sorcerers could there be in Melbourne?
The man on the bed rolled over onto his back and flung his arms wide. I waited for him to settle again, then drifted forward. It was a risk, because Razan were sensitive to the presence of Aedh. There was every chance my being in his room would tug at his awareness and subsequently wake him. But it was a risk I was willing to take, if only to confirm my suspicions about Lucian.
Not that they really needed confirming, but there was still some tiny, ever-hopeful part of me that wanted to believe I'd read the connections wrong, that I really hadn't been as big a fool as it was beginning to appear.
This room, unlike the previous one, was an utter mess. There were clothes strewn all over the carpet, shoes kicked into haphazard mounds, and piles of men's magazines opened to revealing images scattered everywhere. None of which told me much about the man's identity. But there was also a stack of change on the bedside table, and beside it were his wallet and watch. Unfortunately, the wallet was closed, and in this form I couldn't exactly change that situation.
Or could I?
If, as a half-breed Aedh in human form, I could reach inside a man's body, wrap my fingers around his heart, and squeeze the life from him, why couldn't I extract a driver's license from a wallet in this form? Or at least use the energy that was inherent in this form to open said wallet to get a better view of the contents?
It was certainly worth a shot.
I stared at the wallet and imagined the thing opening. Energy rippled along the length of my particles, then spun into a thin rope that glistened like lilac-tinted sunshine in the semidark confines of the room. I envisaged it wrapping around the wallet and, after a moment, the wormlike slither moved forward and did just that.
Pain ran through me, a sharp reminder that I wasn't anywhere near full strength and probably shouldn't be trying this if I wanted to function afterward. As ever, I ignored the warning and imagined the wallet flipping open. After a slight pause, the energy again reacted. The wallet flipped into the air, did a three-sixty, and dropped with a splat on the exact same side it had started on.
It certainly didn't open.
The man on the bed stirred, muttering something under his breath. I froze, ready to flee should he show the slightest hint of actually waking.
He reached down his body with one hand, roughly hauled the blankets over himself, then settled back to sleep. If I could have sighed in relief, I would have.
I glanced at the wallet again and tried opening just one side. All I achieved was flipping it completely over—but it was then I finally noticed the sturdy little press stud holding the wallet closed. Until that was undone, I didn't have much hope. As hot lances began to stab through my particles, I concentrated the energy on the press stud and somehow managed to undo it. I quickly flicked the wallet open—and none too soon, because the hot lances exploded into agony, and it was all I could do to maintain Aedh form.