Free Wicked Whispers by Nina Bangs Page B

him. Damn.
    She stopped in front of the wizard. “I want to talk to you for a few minutes.”
    Holgarth stared pointedly at his watch. “I suppose a few minutes spent in meaningless chatter won’t unduly upset my schedule.”
    “I don’t give a damn about your schedule.”
    The wizard blinked and glanced at Murmur.
    Murmur shrugged and hummed quietly to himself. He turned his head to stare at the workers so Holgarth wouldn’t see his smile.
    “If I’m going to work here, I want to know about everything that could impact my job. Sparkle and Asima are over in the candy store right now giving new meaning to the term cat fight.”
    “Really? I don’t know quite how to respond to that.” The wizard had lost his supercilious sneer.
    “You don’t need to respond. Sparkle said something that made me think you were involved, and since she’s my boss and Asima made it a point to visit me, I want to know the story.”
    For a moment, Murmur thought Holgarth wouldn’t answer her. Then he simply nodded.
    “The goddess Isis and I spent a brief time together. Since I knew she would never choose to stay with me, I left her first. For centuries I kept my whereabouts hidden from her.” His gaze turned distant. “I don’t know why. Fear of her wrath because I deserted her? Fear that my feelings for her would make me do something foolish? It’s quite amazing how much of what we do or don’t do in life is driven by fear.”
    He seemed to shrug off thoughts of the past as he focused on Ivy once again. “Asima met Isis and told her where to find me. The goddess showed up here and told me that I had a son. Zane.” His expression softened. Once again, Holgarth seemed lost in his own thoughts. “All those wasted years when I could have known him. I was so utterly stupid. So you see, I don’t know how I feel about Asima. She betrayed my whereabouts to Isis, but without her I might never have realized that Zane was mine.”
    The story wasn’t quite that simple, but Murmur wanted to get Ivy to himself, so he allowed the telling to stand. “Now that you know, we need to let Holgarth do his job.”
    Ivy seemed thoughtful as she followed Murmur from the great hall and down a long hallway lit by sconces with fake flickering candlelight.
    When they entered the small chapel, Ivy looked shocked. “A church? You can really be on consecrated ground without going poof ?”
    “Poof?” He couldn’t help it; he threw back his head and laughed. Murmur couldn’t remember the last time he’d allowed himself that much positive emotion. A sinister laugh was fine, and a wow-look-they’re-all-dead laugh even better. But this was neither. He hoped his master was listening. And when did you start developing self-destructive tendencies? “Yes, I can stay here all day if I want.”
    He slid into one of the pews, hooked his feet over the top of the one in front of him, and flung his head back so his hair trailed almost to the kneeler behind him. Ivy slid in beside him.
    “So what would you like to know? And, no, I can’t explain why I don’t want anyone to find out about the ogre. And, no, I won’t believe you if you promise not to tell anyone.”
    She watched him from eyes that measured, judged, and found him wanting. But that was okay because something else flared in those big brown eyes—sexual attraction. He could work with that.
    “When will you free me?”
    He could see how much she hated to ask that. “When it doesn’t matter anymore if everyone knows, or if I can’t keep Asima quiet.”
    She took a deep breath. Probably trying to control her temper now that he’d said he liked it.
    “What’re cosmic troublemakers?”
    “Exactly what they sound like. They’re supernatural beings who spread their own brand of chaos throughout the universe. For example: you met Edge back in the conference room. He was the cosmic troublemaker in charge of death.”
    She paled. “Then he was like you.”
    Evil incarnate. “Not exactly. He