Alterant (Belador #2)(69)

So Tristan couldn’t transport a group, eh? She filed that away for later. “Okay. Never mind. We’re here. You’re here. Where are the other Alterants?”

Tristan shook his head. “They’re not where I left them in the maze.”

She checked Storm’s face, since he was the walking lie detector.

He gave a little hike of his eyebrow, which she took to mean that he’d heard the truth but had reservations about accepting that as the entire truth.

What might have happened to volatile Alterants in a place like the Maze of Death? She didn’t like the idea of being trapped with spirits from a hundred and fifty years ago, whom Grady had intimated were not necessarily friendly. “You left them in that maze for the past week with all those spirits? Maybe they freaked out and found some way to escape and got caught in the fog outside.”

Tristan put his hands at his hips. “Teleporting is the only one way in or out that I’ve found. None of my three Alterants can teleport. I don’t think they’ve left the maze.”

She said, “So you know about the fog.”

“I saw the yellow haze and all the crazies when I was topside.” He grinned with malice. “That should keep VIPER busy.”

Evalle chastised Tristan with her frown. “Did you get near the fog?”

“Hell, no. I don’t want any part of something that could force me to change.”

She kept it to herself about her encounter with the fog.

Storm asked Tristan, “Why’d you put the Alterants in that maze?”

Tristan just stared for an answer.

“I do not have time, Tristan,” Evalle said. “If you want my help, then you’re going to have to give both of us some straight answers.”

Storm helped not one bit when his lips tilted with a smile.

Tristan gave him a look that promised they’d have a chance to finish their discussion some day when Evalle wasn’t around to stop the bloodshed.

Storm’s smile broadened in an easy-to-decipher message of any time and any place.

Tristan answered Storm’s question, but he spoke to Evalle. “The maze was the only place I’d found where the Alterants couldn’t hurt anything if they turned into a beast and no one would find them there. At least, I’d hoped no one would find them.”

She sent a look of question to Storm.

He gave a little nod that Tristan was telling the truth. But from the closed look on Storm’s face, he’d figured out something else Evalle hadn’t picked up on yet. She stayed quiet to let him keep prodding.

Storm scratched his chin, pondering. “What do you plan to do when you find those three again?”

Tristan’s jaw shifted with a grimace. “I’m going to give them a better chance than I had.”

Tristan clearly wanted to save his fellow Alterants, which could mean he intended to work with her. Maybe.

Evalle asked Tristan, “Why are you here? You don’t need me to find those three.”

“That’s true,” Tristan agreed. “But I may need your help containing them and getting them out of there. I don’t know what kind of mental or physical shape they’re in since they’ve moved from where I left them.”

“Oh, hell no, Evalle.” Storm stepped in front of her. “He hasn’t told you the truth since you met him. He turned a demon loose on you in Piedmont Park—”

Tristan interjected, “That was before we knew each other.”

“—then he almost let the Kujoo kill you after you knew each other,” Storm continued. “Then he lies to you when he escaped and could have teleported you when the demons attacked. Now he’s here wanting you to walk into a concealed space where you have to fight three—or four—Alterants?”

Tristan deadpanned, “If I wanted to kill her I could have done it in South America.”

Evalle took into consideration all that Storm said, but actually . . . “He has a point, Storm. I landed inside his spellbound cage with no way to use my powers against him and he didn’t harm me there. If I want to find those Alterants, I have to go with him.”

“Evalle, don’t,” Storm said in a voice so close to pleading that it surprised her.

“She doesn’t have a choice,” Tristan pointed out.

She’d rather not ever see the Maze of Death, but Tristan had given voice to her thoughts. She could either go with him or wait until the sand ran out of the Tribunal’s hourglass. But the look of betrayal on Storm’s face sliced past her need to appease the Tribunal and her trepidation over entering the maze.

She didn’t want to part like this, so she told Tristan, “I need to talk to Storm.”

“Make it fast.”

Storm moved toward Tristan. She put a hand on his chest to stop him and felt his thundering heartbeat. Once Tristan had backed off, she told Storm, “Please don’t call in Tzader or Quinn.”

“If I agreed to that I’d double over in pain from the lie.”

That surprised her. “Is it because of your ability to tell if someone is lying?”

“Yes.” He brushed his palm against her face. “Don’t go somewhere I can’t get to you.”

Guess that cleared up any question about whether he thought he could get to her in the maze. There went her safety net if Storm couldn’t find a way in. “Then do me this favor. Give me two hours before you contact anyone.”