just sex. But the reality of it had been even better than he had imagined. And he had been imagining it. A lot. Making love with Lucy had felt natural and easy, as instinctive as breathing—and yet at the same time exciting and thrilling almost beyond endurance. He liked sex with her. He liked holding her and kissing her. He liked her, period, and he thought it was mutual. But he was already sensing that she was…pulling back. Withdrawing from him. And he didn’t know why.
She didn’t have a clue what a gorgeous, sexy woman she was, he thought. She saw herself as the nerdy, buttoned-up professor.
Clueless to her own charms, really.
And right now she wanted to ask him not to do what he was about to do. But she was trying not to. He wondered if she knew how much he appreciated that.
It was quiet on the Nightshade. Dark. They’d turned off all the lights, except for a soft yellow night light, and shut down the engine, so they wouldn’t draw any attention that might evolve into an interruption at the crucial moment of this miracle he was about to try to perform. Well, partly that. It was also partly a precaution to ensure that Utanapishtim wouldn’t be startled if and when he woke up.
He knew that the ancient one would. His only fear was that he would raise some kind of mindless monster, like the corpses back in Byram.
He picked up the statue’s head and shook it, to ensure any bits it might contain joined the rest. As he did, the wind picked out outside, howling past them and heaving the boat without warning. Lucy grabbed the table, and James grabbed Lucy, as they both lost their balance.
Then the boat stilled again, and she met his eyes, her own wide as she whispered, “What the hell was that?” She looked around as if expecting to see a ghost.
“Just a gust, Lucy. Just a gust. We’re fine.”
“Are you sure?” She looked at the ashes. “I mean, I didn’t think I believed in gods and curses before now, but hell, I’ve been living with vampires for the past week. I’ve seen the dead raised and your sister blowing things up with her freaking eyes. Are you sure someone’s not trying to tell you not to proceed?”
He drew a deep breath and opened his mouth to say of course he was sure, but then he didn’t. Couldn’t. “No,” he said at length. “No, I’m not sure at all. But you know I have to do this, right?”
She drew a steadying breath and nodded once, firmly. “Yes. I know.”
“Ready?”
She had painstakingly drawn lines of cuneiform on a piece of paper, spelling the words Friends and Safe, to show the Ancient One when he awoke, but James knew she couldn’t hope to write out entire conversations without several hours—if not days—and a half dozen reference books by her side. This was going to have to do until they managed to get the Old One to Gilgamesh, which they could do in less than an hour’s time.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” she said.
Nodding, James opened his hands and extended his arms, holding them palms down over the small pile of ash and bone fragments. He stared at the dust on the table, and he willed the power to rise up from within him, to surge up from the earth far below, up through the ocean water, up through the hull of the boat, into the bottoms of his feet and up through his body. He willed the power to rain down from the white light somewhere in the universe, through the atmosphere and the sky, through the boat’s cabin and upper deck, and to enter through the top of his head to beam down into his body. He visualized the energies meeting in his solar plexus, swirling together and blazing ever more brightly, shooting as one up to the very center of his chest and then splitting into twin beams that shot into his shoulders, down his arms and into his hands. He visualized portals opening in his palms to let that light out, and he felt his palms heat and tingle in response.
And then the glow began to emanate from his hands.
He watched, unable to look away as the ashes seemed to absorb the light. To glow with it themselves, and then to demand more. It felt as if the ashes were sucking the light from his hands, rather than simply