“And he could have killed you,” Henri reiterated. His handsome face tightened in agitation. “Last time … You have no idea what you put Tris through.”
Tris? Not him? “I’m sorry, but if I’d waited, that woman could have been seriously hurt.”
“What the hell would a rider want with a human when it already has a body?”
“I don’t know, but we have to find out. I’ll need to find the reaper and squeeze him for information. We have missing people and now riders attacking women in alleys, there must be a connection.”
“Reaper?” Henri released my elbow with a frown. “There was a reaper here?” His eyes widened. “He saw what you can do?”
His words sent an icy trickle down my spine, and my stomach clenched. My secret was everything, shared only by Gramps, Tris, and Henri. It was closely guarded for a reason.
I sighed. “Yeah, he got in the way when I was about to rip out the rider.”
Henri glared at me. “He saw what you can do,” he repeated slowly.
God, did he have to make me feel even worse? “He said he wouldn’t tell anyone.” Okay, that sounded lame. “What was I supposed to do? Kill an innocent reaper to shut him up. I mean, can they even be killed? He seems to think he saved me, but I had it under control.”
And I had. The final tug was supposed to be scary, but I’d have done it, and then I’d have questioned the fuck out of that spirit.
Henri sighed and closed his eyes. It was his job to guard me, to have my back, and if anything happened to me, all it took was one word to end him. One word and he would be nothing more than clay and metal. I knew better than to take unnecessary risks with my life, because his life was bound to mine.
I patted his arm. “I’m fine. I’ll find him, I’ll figure something out. Your job is secure.”
His hands were on my shoulders now, fingers digging into me. “You think I give a shit about this job? We’re fucking partners, Kat. You may be a pain in the ass, but you’re my pain in the ass.”
He released me and stormed off down the alley toward the street. He cut a fine figure, broad and powerful and angry.
“Hey.” I jogged after him. “What happened to protecting me? I could get attacked down here all alone. Hey!”
He shook his head and continued walking, but the tension in his shoulders dissipated, and I knew he’d forgiven me.
The Fiat waited but the night was still young, barely midnight. We may not have managed to talk to anyone at the club, but there had to be a late-night diner we could hit? Or maybe we could swing by the station and see if Kiran was on night duty. Henri started the engine just as my phone beeped. Gramps? Nope. SOS from an unknown number and the words Scorchwood cemetery?
“What is it?” Henry asked, pulling away from the curb.
“You know where the cemetery is? I got an SOS.”
“Mai and Kris?”
“Must be.”
He hit the gas.
* * *
The cemetery was a perfect replica of a spooky horror movie haunt. Iron fences, mist clinging to the ground, and shadowy, crumbling gravestones.
I slipped behind a mausoleum and then jumped out as Henri passed. “I vant to suck your blood.”
He shook his head in resignation. No sense of humor that one. Next time, I’d ask the weaver to put in some humor.
Next time.
No.
Don’t think about that because that means Henri will be gone.
I fell into step beside him, eyes scanning the night for Mai or Kris, but it was my ears that alerted me to their presence.
“I sent a text.” The male voice was followed by a thud.
“Should have called.” This was Mai’s voice. Whizz, thunk.
“We can handle this. What can she bring to the group that we don’t have?”
Something screeched and then gurgled. Aw, shit. I knew that sound. Hugger demons. My dagger was in my hand as I broke into a jog with Henri close behind. We rounded a large granite tombstone and came to a skidding halt at the sight that faced us. The ground was littered with gray, slimy bodies with twitching, suckered limbs, and in the center stood Mai and Kris, both covered in the opaque, milky slime that for all intents and purposes looked like—
“Spunk.” Mai shudder-shimmied and then whirled to lop another hugger in half. “Jay said she had spunk.”
Gray forms crested the mausoleum behind Kris. “Watch out?” I blur-moved and nailed the critter to the wall. Goop spurted out of the protrusion on its head. It was literally a dickhead, and the stuff painting the ground was … yeah, best not think about that.
Henri grabbed and tore the creatures in two, somehow avoiding getting gunked on. And then it was over, and the ground was still littered with dead huggers, and Mai and Kris were covered in … yuck.
The demon locked eyes with me, raking me up and down and shaking his head. “You took your time.”
I smirked at him. “You should have called.”
He narrowed his eyes, but there was an answering smirk on his snarky mouth. His hair was pulled back and had dollops of gloop on it. He spun the ax in his hand, and then propped it on the ground and leaned up against it. The weapon belonged to a tank-like Henri, not someone lithe and athletic, but he wielded it as if it weighed nothing, and heck, maybe it didn’t; for all I knew it could be a cheap knockoff used for D&D roleplay. But the truth was he was a demon, and super strength was probably to be expected.
“Hey, glad you made it.” Mai pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped at her face. “God, I hate these fuckers.” She shudder-shimmied. “We have a thinning in the mausoleum that keeps popping open every time the Watch seals it.” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “I best call it in so they can send a weaver to reseal the breach.”
“You don’t have your own weaver?” Henri asked.
Mai’s expression closed off, and it was Kris who replied. “He died. Three months ago.”
Ah, shit. “I’m sorry.”
Kris shrugged. “Death happens.”
Mai turned away and began to speak into her phone.
I stood hands on hips and stared at the mess. “The clean-up crew is going to hate this.”
Kris’s smile was sadistic.
No. Hell, no. “You don’t have a clean-up crew, do you?”
Kris wiped his hands on his jeans. “Get them all piled up, and I’ll grab the paraffin from the boot.”
Someone really needed to invent stylish rubber gloves.
* * *
Tris came sliding down the banister as we entered the foyer and then hopped up the stairs to get away from us.
“Urgh, you stink.”
Gargoyle senses were super acute; funny she hadn’t smelled the hugger goop from upstairs.
Kris grinned down at her. “What do you think, cute little stone woman, want to help me shower?”
Cute little … what the fuck?
Tris’s eyes practically bugged out of her head, and then her face went all stern. “Don’t play with me, demon spawn, not unless you’re willing to get burned.” And wait, was that an eyelash flutter, or it would have been if she had any lashes. And where had she picked up that line?
Kris let out a bark of laughter. “Feel free to watch anytime.” He dropped her a wink.
Oh, man, first the kitsune flirting with my golem and now the demon flirting with my gargoyle, and that sentence should not be uttered by anyone, ever.
Kris took the stairs two at a time, stripping off his shirt as he went to reveal slim hips, broad, muscled shoulders, and powerful biceps. He paused at the top and glanced back at us with a small smile.
“Exhibitionist!” Mai called up the stairs.
He turned, flashing his abs made up of a six-pack that any woman would have loved to rub up against, and then gave us a bow before striding out of view.
“Now that is a man,” Tris purred.
“That is a demon,” Mai corrected.
I shrugged off my gunked-up jacket. “I�
“Tut.” Tris snatched it from me. “I’ll see to that. You go get …” Her eyes narrowed, and she held the jacket up to her nose.
“What is it?” Henri asked.
“Huggers?” she asked. “What else did you come across?”
Shit, could she smell the riders? Spirits didn’t technically have a scent, just an electrical signature, but … wait, could she smell the reaper? Shit, Mai and the others couldn’t know about that, or the ghosts. My lie weaver got to work. “I got in a scuffle with a guy who was trying it on with a woman in an alley.”
I gave Tris the eyes, the ones that said, I know you can smell my lies, but I’ll fill you in later, so just go with it.
She blinked and shook her head as if to dispel an unwanted thought.
“You got in a fight with a human?” Mai asked.
“He was a bad human,” Henri said, deadpan.
Mai blinked up at him.
I nodded. “Real mean. I think … I think he might have been trying to abduct this woman, but he got away.”
“You lost a human?” She looked incredulous.
I held up the clutch. “I have this. It belonged to the woman who he was attacking. She ran away, but I’m going to get it back to her. Ask her a few questions about this guy, see if I can track him down.”
“Because he could be related to our missing person case.” Mai grinned. “Great work, and on your first day.”
I shrugged. “Meh, I just got lucky.”
Tris was giving me the stink eye and sniffing the coat.
I pointed to the stairs. “I’m gonna shower.”
Mai followed me up. “Yeah, let’s get cleaned up, and then we’ll meet in the lounge and report to Jay.”
Good. Time to think up a story to cover the ghost attack one. Let’s hope Jay wasn’t good at reading poker faces.
Chapter Seven
“Okay, spill it?” Tris perched on the edge of the bed, the jacket abandoned on the floor. “What happened?”
I filled her in while stripping down to my underwear. Urgh, these clothes would have to be burned.
“A rider?”
“Several riders.”
“A reaper?”
“Yes, Tris, that is what I said.”
“He saw what you can do.”
I was not going over this again. “I have it under control.” I headed for the bathroom, and she followed. “Kris was the one who gave you the bathroom invite, not me.”
She pursed her lips. “Don’t get sassy with me, missy. You know reapers don’t show themselves to just anyone, and this one knows your secret. He must be silenced.”
“And what do you propose I do?”
She tapped her chin. “A forgetting spell. There has to be something. Your gramps will know. He can ask Vinod about it.”
Vinod was the head weaver at the Nightwatch headquarters. A close friend of my gramps, he was the one who’d bound me to Tris and woken the gargoyle from a century-long slumber. There were hundreds in a vault at headquarters, waiting to be woken. An army from the old days when the supernatural world had been at each other’s throats. But those days were over. Order had been restored to protect us all, and the oldest of the supernatural races, the Nightbloods, had been the one to implement it. There were others on the council, of course: Moonspawn, Vinod, the head weaver, even an original fey, but the Nightbloods ruled supreme, split into four main houses and several minor ones.
Did Vinod know the truth about me? Gramps had never said.
“Fine, we’ll ask Gramps.”
He’d be pissed, worried that I’d been exposed, but he’d sent me to this cesspool of spirits. This was partially his fault. Yeah, tell yourself that if it makes you feel better. Damn it.
I turned on the hot water, and the showerhead went to work, splashing the tub with glorious heat.
“What did this reaper say?” Tris asked, hovering by the tub.
“He thought I was in dire straits.”
“And were you?”
Had I been? “I thought I had it under control.” Or had I? Had I been overconfident? I’d been pissed at him for interfering, for letting the rider get away, but had he saved my life? “It doesn’t matter. I need to find the human woman and question her. Maybe there’s a clue somewhere, maybe the rider said something to her that might help us understand why he attacked her like that.”
“You think the ghosts are connected to the missing people?”
“It’s a possibility. Now, get out, so I can shower.”
“Seen it all before anyway,” she muttered as she slithered out of the room.
I shut the door and stepped into the spray. Oh, God, the gunk was in my hair. Thank fuck for raspberry body wash.
* * *
The fire crackled, the tea was poured, and everyone was showered. We’d gathered in the lounge—Kris in his favored spot by the window, Henri by the door, Tris and me on the longer sofa, Jay by the mantel, and Mai on the single-seater.
Henri was in metal mode right now, silent and forbidding, and Mai kept sneaking curious glances at him. She hadn’t seen him like this for an extended period. Good. He was a golem and best she got used to that.
Kris fingered his hair. “I’m going to have to wash it again,” he sighed.
I looked at Jay over the rim of my cup. “Someone needs to get you a clean-up crew.”
“Fewer people that know about Scorchwood the better,” Jay said. He was wearing sweatpants and a tee and his hair was swept off his forehead, and slightly damp, not the damp that came from a wash but the kind that came from a workout.
“You have a gym?”
He frowned at me. “You work out?”
“No, but I like to watch others do it. It’s relaxing.”
Kris snorted and opened his mouth to speak.
“Wait.” I held up my hand. “Don’t tell me—I can watch you work out anytime?”
He grinned.
The man was a hussy, and I found myself grinning back at him before returning to the earlier conversation, and Jay, who now had a disapproving gaze fixed on Kris.
So, they had no clean-up crew. “You are getting a new weaver though, right?”
Jay’s attention flicked to Mai, who was cushioned on the sofa, fluffy-sock-covered feet propped up on the coffee table, mug of something that steamed in her hands. She sat up straighter and nodded slightly at him as if giving him permission to speak.
Jay pressed his lips together and then pushed away from the mantel and perched on the arm of Mai’s sofa. “The last weaver we had was also an active Nightwatch agent. He wasn’t just someone who sat in the tower and waited for a breach or a wound to heal. He was one of us. What I’m saying is …” Jay blew out a breath. “Is the Watch blames us for his death and refuses to give us another weaver. I was reprimanded for allowing him to take active duty, and yes, it’s my fault. I should have—”
“No,” Kris snapped. “Lark knew what he wanted. He was perfectly capable, and he had a right to choose how to live his life. What happened wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
Jay took a shuddering breath. “Regardless, they’ll send us a weaver to seal the thinning, but he or she won’t be allowed to remain.”
Weavers were prized, they were coveted, they were adulated. They were the only beings on this mortal realm able to directly and deliberately manipulate the threads of magic. Humans called them witches or warlocks, mages and sorcerers, but they were all the same to us. Weavers. And the Watch protected its weavers like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter.
“They blame you because a weaver wanted to do something more than sit in a tower?” Henri asked from his position by the door. “That’s bullshit. Every being has a right to choose his path.”
I stared at my golem friend. The construct that had been given no choice in either his creation or his function, whose life was at a whim of a weaver. Why hadn’t I ever stopped to ask him how he felt about his existence? Did he have other dreams? Did he want to be free?
He kept his gaze fixed ahead, never looking at me, but the tightening of his jaw told me he sensed my regard.
Mai was watching him now, her eyes watery. “Thank you, Henri,” she said softly.
I took a deep breath. “The Nightwatch needs to stop skimping when it comes to this place. You need a clean-up crew, and you need more hands on deck. You need a weaver. I’ll speak to Gramps.”
Mai’s mouth twisted bitterly. “You think you can come here and make one phone call and fix everything? Lark is dead, and getting more hands on deck won’t change that.”
Oh, shit. She thought I was replacing Lark? That I was … wait one second, was I reading this right? Tris touched my arm lightly and shook her head slightly. Yeah, I was reading it right. Mai and the weaver had been closer than close. Ouch. So against the rules. Just like Nightbloods, Weavers weren’t permitted to get sexually intimate with anyone outside of their weaver race. They were a close-knit community. Still, rules were often bent out here in the big wide world. The trick was not to get caught.
I met Mai’s gaze levelly. “No. Getting another weaver won’t change the fact that Lark’s gone, but it might stop something like that from happening again. You need a weaver on staff to make sure you don’t lose anyone else.”
She didn’t reply, and the room was suddenly thrown into an uncomfortable silence.
Tris clapped her hands together. “Well, how about we discuss the reason for us being here tonight? Kat has found a clue.”
“Yes. Mai filled me in briefly,” Jay said. “You have her handbag?”
I’d brought it down and held it out to him now.
His gaze went to the clock above the mantel, and he waved the bag away. “I’ve spoken to Kiran. She’ll be there at eight p.m. tomorrow night. You’ll go with Kris, take the bag and the ID, and she’ll help you trace the woman.”
I glanced at Henri. “I’d rather just go with Henri, if that’s okay?”
Jay’s smile was terse. “No. It’s not okay. You’re part of the team now, and you need to get comfortable with working with us all. Henri isn’t officially one of the Nightwatch, but he can accompany Mai on a patrol if you’ll allow. However, I understand if you prefer him to remain at the mansion when you’re—”
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