Morgead was so smart himself-he'd seen that flicker on the TV screen and realized what it was, when apparently none of the adults in the Bay Area had-but he thought she was smarter.
"Well, you seem to be doing all right yourself," she said.
She had been looking steadily at him, to show him no weakness, and she saw his expression change. His green eyes softened slightly, and the sarcastic quirk of his lip straightened.
"Nah, I'm just blundering along," he muttered, his gaze shifting. Then he glanced back up and somehow they were caught in a moment when they were just looking at each other in silence. Neither of them turned away, and Jez's heart gave a strange thump. The moment stretched. Idiot! This is ridiculous. a minute ago you were scared of him-not to mention sickened by his attitude toward humans. You can't just suddenly switch to this.
But it was no good. Even the realization that she was in danger of her life didn't help. Jez couldn't think
of a thing to say to break the tension, and she couldn't seem to look away from Morgead.
"Jez, look-"
He leaned forward and put a hand on her forearm. He didn't even seem to know he was doing it. His expression was abstracted now, and his eyes were fixed on hers.
His hand was warm. Tingles spread from the place where it touched Jez's skin.
"Jez... about before ... I didn't..."
Suddenly Jez's heart was beating far too quickly. I have to say something, she thought, fighting to keep her face impassive. But her throat was dry and her mind a humming blank. All she could feel clearly was the place where she and Morgead touched. All she could see clearly was his eyes. Cat's eyes, deepest emerald, with shifting green lights in them....
"Jez," he said a third time.
And Jez realized all at once that the silver thread between them hadn't been broken. That it might be stretched almost into invisibility, but it was still there, still pulling, trying to make her body go weak and her vision blur. Trying to make her fall toward Morgead even as he was falling toward her.
And then came the sound of someone kicking in the front door.
Chapter 11
Hey, Morgead!" the voice was shouting even as the door went slamming and crashing open, sticking every few inches because it was old and warped and didn't fit the frame anymore.
Jez had jerked around at the first noise. The connection between her and Morgead was disrupted, although she could feel faint echoes of the silver thread, like a guitar string vibrating after it was strummed.
"Hey, Morgead-"
"Hey, you still asleep-?" Several laughing, raucous people were crowding into the room. But the yelling stopped abruptly as they caught sight of Jez.
There was a gasp, and then silence.
Jez stood up to face them. She couldn't afford to feel tired anymore; every muscle was lightly tensed, every sense alert She knew the danger she was in.
Just like Morgead, they were the flotsam and jetsam of the San Francisco streets. The orphans, the ones who lived with indifferent relatives, the ones nobody in the Night World really wanted. The forgotten ones.
Her gang.
They were out of school and ready to rumble.
Jez had always thought, from the day she and Morgead began picking these kids up, that the Night World was making a mistake in treating them like garbage. They might be young; they might not have families, but they had power. Every one of them had the strength to be a formidable opponent.
And right now they were looking at her like a group of wolves looking at dinner. If they all decided to go for her at once, she would be in trouble. Somebody would end up getting killed.
She faced them squarely, outwardly calm, as a quiet voice finally broke the silence.
"It's really you, Jez."
And then another voice, from beside Jez. "Yeah, she came back," Morgead said carelessly. "She joined the gang again."
Jez shot him the briefest of sideways glances. She hadn't expected him to help. He returned the look
with an unreadable expression.
". . . she came back?" somebody said blankly.
Jez felt a twinge of amused sympathy. "That's right," she said, keeping her face grave. "I had to go away for a while, and I can't tell you where, but now I'm back. I just fought my way back in-and I beat Morgead for the leadership." She figured she might as well get it all over with at once. She had no idea how they were going to react to the idea of her as leader.
There was another long moment of silence, and then a whoop. A sound that resembled a war cry. At the same instant there was a violent rush toward Jez-four people all throwing themselves at her. For a heartbeat she stood frozen, ready to fend off a four-fold attack.
Then arms wrapped around her waist.
"Jez! I missed you!"
Someone slapped her on the back almost hard enough to knock her down. "You bad girl! You beat him again?"
People were trying to hug her and punch her and pat her all at once. Jez had to struggle not to show she was overwhelmed. She hadn't expected this of them.
"It's good to see you guys again," she said. Her voice was very slightly unsteady. And it was the truth.
Raven Mandril said, "You scared us when you disappeared, you know." Raven was the tall, willowy one with the marble-pale skin. Her black hair was short in back and long in front, falling over one eye and obscuring it. The other eye, midnight blue, gleamed at Jez.
Jez allowed herself to gleam back, just a bit. She had always liked Raven, who was the most mature of the group. "Sorry, girl."
"I wasn't scared." That was Thistle, still hugging Jez's waist. Thistle Galena was the delicate one who had stopped her aging when she reached ten. She was as old as the others, but tiny and almost weightless.
She had feathery blond hair, amethyst eyes, and little glistening white teeth. Her specialty was playing the lost child and then attacking any humans who tried to help her.
"You're never scared," Jez told her, squeezing back.
"She means she knew you were all right, wherever you were. I did, too," Pierce Holt said. Pierce was the slender, cold boy, the one with the aristocratic face and the artist's hands. He had dark blond hair and deep-set eyes and he seemed to carry his own windchill factor with him. But just now he was looking at Jez with cool approval.
"I'm glad somebody thought so," Jez said, with a glance at Morgead, who just looked condescending.
"Yeah, well, some people were going crazy. They thought you were dead," Valerian Stillman put in, following Jez's look. Val was the big, heroic one, with deep russet hair, gray-flecked eyes, and the build of a linebacker. He was usually either laughing or yelling with impatience. "Morgead had us scouring the streets for you from Daly City to the Golden Gate Bridge-"