A Ghost of a Chance: The Nightwatch book 1

by Cassidy, Debbie

  I cut him off with a shake of my head. “You’ll have to ask Henri what he’d prefer to do.”

  Henri’s gaze met mine, his silver eyes flaring.

  I smiled and shrugged. “What do you want to do?”

  “I’d like to patrol.”

  Mai looked from me to Henri, and an undecipherable look crossed her features, but then Tris was climbing into my lap and up onto my shoulders—her signal that it was time to get into bed. Dawn must be creeping up on us, and the rule was to be in bed with Tris before dawn to allow her to hum me to sleep and keep the nightmares away.

  Okay, that made me sound like a wuss, but even though the nightmare phase felt like a bad dream, pun intended, it hadn’t faded enough for me to risk slipping back under. Heck, my pulse was racing just thinking about sleeping without Tris, and there would be a time that I might want to do just that—like if I found someone more flesh and blood to share my bed—but then we’d have to find another solution for my sleep issues.

  Tris gave me a little squeeze, and I stretched and yawned and did the whole heck-is-it-really-that-late double-take of the clock over the mantelpiece. The last thing I wanted was for my new colleagues to think that I was being sent off to bed by my gargoyle.

  “Yes, it’s late,” Jay said for me. “We can reconvene tomorrow evening after you’ve done your rounds.”

  He strode from the room in a hurry.

  Kris watched him go, narrow-eyed. “What’s crawled up his butt and lit a match?”

  “He has stuff to do,” Mai said. “He is head watchman.”

  “Yeah? And when’s the last time he acted like it?” Kris said sourly. “He keeps harping on about extra hands, so why isn’t he back in the field? It’s been three months.”

  Mai rubbed her face with a delicate hand, the same one I’d seen her wielding a barbed whip with, the one with the neat pink fingernails. “We all deal with death in our own way, and he was there that night. He blames himself.”

  Kris drained his tea and stood. “I’m going to find Killion and go for a run.”

  “Don’t bait him, Kris, please.”

  Kris flashed a wicked smile. “What? But he loves it.” He rubbed the cuff on his right wrist. “I need to blow off some steam.”

  He left, and Mai turned to me and Tris with an apologetic smile. “The cuffs mute his demonic powers, but there is a residual seepage which builds up in his system from time to time; it makes him antsy. Exertion helps. It’s why this job is perfect for him.”

  “And how did a demon get this gig?” Tris asked.

  Mai gave us a close-lipped smile. “You’d have to ask Kris that.”

  Henri opened the door for me when I stood and led the way out of the room.

  “Hey,” Mai said.

  I paused on the threshold and glanced back.

  “We should hang out soon.” She grinned. “We can hit that club and do it properly.”

  Clubbing for the sake of it? Yeah, I didn’t know what that was. I’d scoped out clubs and bars in my time. Stalked the creepy monsters that liked to prey on intoxicated humans or use the sweaty, thumping, pulsing hangouts as hunting grounds. I’d put them behind bars, but actually … Just hanging out for the sake of it. That was a novel concept.

  She frowned. “All work and no play? You do play, right?”

  “And you have time, how?”

  She snorted. “Honey, you make time, or you go insane. Trust me.”

  I shrugged. “Sure, I’m in.”

  “Ooh,” Tris said as we climbed the stairs behind Henri. “Your first girl friend, maybe?”

  I patted her head. “Nah, you have that spot.”

  I swear if she could have blushed, she would have.

  * * *

  Henri escorted us to my chamber and then hovered as I made to enter.

  “What is it? Spill?”

  “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  Shit, what did I do? “What?”

  “Tell Jay I made my own decisions?”

  Oh, that. I ducked my head. “Because you do. When we’re out there in the field, you make choices and decisions, and you’ve …” I cleared my throat. “You’ve saved my ass a few times.” I peered up at him, expecting to see a smirk on his face, but he was deadly serious. Fuck, had I somehow offended the golem code. Wait, was there even a golem code. “I’m sorry?”

  His metal lips turned down. “Don’t be. That was … nice of you.”

  He turned on his heel and walked off down the corridor to his room. I shut the door to mine and leaned back against it.

  “Tris, babe. I’m wiped.”

  “Well, put your PJs on, chickie, and let’s get some shut-eye.”

  I was different. I was unique, I was an anomaly—a vampire that needed sleep, that could communicate with ghosts and tear them from human hosts. I was different, but it seemed that the Watch here didn’t know a great deal about my kind. Unlike Ravensheart, where two of the Watch had been Nightblood, and I’d had to drink blood regularly and fake that I’d stayed up two days and nights in a row just to fit in, here I could maybe just be myself.

  I crawled under the duvet and closed my eyes. Tris’s hum filled my head, and sleep claimed me.

  * * *

  I woke to a gray room tinged in the orange light of day. The bedside clock showed me it was almost nine a.m., what? I’d slept less than five hours, how the fuck? Twelve hours was my standard. Beside me, Tris was silent stone. Shit, if I went back to sleep now, then I risked a nightmare. I climbed out of bed and stared at my limbs. I was human right now. Like couldn’t-punch-through-a-door kind of human, but why didn’t I feel any different?

  I stood, expecting my legs to shake, expecting to feel like a newborn lamb, which was how daytime waking was described by other Nightbloods. But there was no tremble. No knee buckling. Nada.

  Different.

  I was different.

  A memory flashed through my mind. Running through the halls of Justice Manor, Gramps right behind me, begging me to slow down, to stop, my sweet, we mustn’t be heard or seen.

  I blinked, and the memory was gone.

  Weird. I didn’t recall waking during the day, but maybe this was a pre-Tris memory.

  Coffee.

  I needed coffee.

  Grabbing my robe and slippers, I padded down the stairs and round the back of the house to the kitchens. The mansion was bathed in gold and shafts of sunlight left patches on the wooden floor that were warm against the soles of my feet. All the drapes were firmly closed as if to shut out the day. Nightwatch were nocturnal, no matter the breed, because mischief worked its magic at night. It was just the way of things and always had been.

  I paused at the hidden door to the basement and cells. It was open a crack. Had it been left open on purpose? Was someone awake and down there? Maybe just a peek?

  I was already halfway down the stairs, my excellent Nightblood vision needing no lantern to light the way.

  Voices drifted up the stone steps, and I paused, instinct telling me I was intruding. That whoever was down there didn’t want to be heard or seen by me.

  “They were covered in it,” Emmitt said, humor in his tone. “Ya know what them huggers is like.”

  There was a rumble like thunder, and it took my brain to process that it was, in fact, a chuckle. It came from the left … From the hidden door.

  “How is he taking the intrusion?” The voice was deep and abrasive like gravel, sending a tingle up my spine to settle at the nape of my neck.

  “He’s coping. Death takes a toll on us all.”

  Silence. “You shouldn’t be here,” the stormy voice said.

  The muscles in my calves tensed, ready to bolt.

  “I’m always here, ya know that,” Emmitt replied. “Ain’t nothing wrong in a little conversation for those of us locked in the dark, eh?”

  Another rumble, and then, “Can you smell that? It smells like … Raspberries.”

  Fuck! I turned and bolted up the stairs. Back throu
gh the door, around the staircase, and up to the first floor. I stopped outside my room, heart pounding.

  Ha, look at me, running from a bastard fey and a rumbling voice. I had every right to be there. Every right to go down to the cells.

  Except, I’d hidden and listened like a creepy spy. Who was down there? A prisoner? In which case, why the heck hadn’t Mai just told me that. I was a part of this team dammit, and I had a right to know who they were holding.

  I walked past my room and knocked on Henri’s door. There was no answer. Was he out? I popped my head around the door to find the room shrouded in gloom. Clothes lay neatly folded on the armchair by the dresser, shoes were stationed side by side under the chair, and a body sprawled on the bed, sheets pulled up to its waist. Silver-toned muscle carved with love and attention to detail stared back at me. Henri was … He was beautiful. His eyes were closed, and his chest unmoving, but there was no doubt in my mind that he was asleep.

  My throat tightened, and I backed out of the room, pulse pounding.

  What the fuck was going on?

  Golems did not sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  My golem slept. I stared at him across the kitchen table as he poured me a mug of coffee. He was in supe glamour mode, all blond hair and blue eyes and perfect skin.

  I’d exited his room and knocked loudly, and he’d answered a minute later fully dressed and looking as if he’d been awake the whole time, and I swear for a moment I’d questioned my sanity, but then I’d stepped into his room and clocked the rumpled bed, and he’d ushered me downstairs for coffee, and yeah … Here we were in the large, cozy, cottage-style kitchen with me seated at the huge oak table and Henri pottering around like he owned the place.

  Where was Emmet? Probably best he wasn’t there.

  Should I say something?

  Fuck it. “Henri, why do you sleep?”

  He froze, mug in hand.

  Oh, this was uncomfortable, like telling someone you’d snuck into their room and watched them sleep. Wait, that was exactly what I was about to tell him.

  “You came into my room?” He turned to me, his expression neutral even though his tone was far from it. “What happened to letting me make my own choices? What happened to privacy?”

  “Hey, I didn’t say anything about privacy.”

  He arched a brow.

  “Okay, fine, you should have privacy, and I’m sorry. I just heard something and came to tell you, and you were sleeping.” I widened my eyes on the final word.

  He set the mug on the table in front of me. “Are you going to report me to the weavers?”

  Huh? What? “No. Why would I do that?”

  “Because I’m obviously defective.”

  Oh, God. They’d take him away. They’d unmake him with a word. They’d take him away. Okay, I’d already thought of that one.

  “Kat?”

  I waved a dismissive hand. “So, you get tired and take a nap now and then, so what?” My voice had gone up a notch, and I cleared my throat.

  He gave me a level look, his blue eyes dark with secrets. Or maybe that was just me projecting.

  “I don’t get tired, Kat. I choose to sleep. I find it passes the time, and I enjoy dreaming.”

  Oh, God. “You dream?” My voice was almost a screech.

  I slapped a hand over my mouth. Yep, I really needed to bring it down a notch.

  He folded his arms across his chest, his biceps bulging against the fabric of his shirt. “I understand if you’d prefer a new golem.”

  I stared at him, my beautifully broken partner. My should-not-be-but-is butt-kicking companion, and something warm bloomed in my chest to rise in my throat and choke me.

  I coughed. “Fuck off, okay. You’re not going anywhere. This stays between us, just like all the other fucking secrets we have. You know my secrets, and now I know yours. We stick together.”

  His throat bobbed. “Right. Do you want biscuits with that?” He indicated the coffee.

  “Sure.” I side-eyed him as he grabbed the cookie jar. “Wait … Do you eat?”

  He threw me one of his signature flat looks over his shoulder.

  “Hey, I don’t know, do I? Ooh, I wonder if Tris has any secrets.”

  He handed me the jar and then sat opposite me.

  They’d take him away, and they’d unmake him. No one could know that he was different, just like no one could know I was different. Something had changed between us now. A new bond had formed, and there was no time to examine or understand it, but we’d somehow become kindred. He was stuck with me and I with him no matter how much we got on each other’s nerves.

  Henri leaned his arms on the table. “Now, tell me what you heard in the basement?”

  I filled him in on the gravelly voice and the fact that there was obviously a prisoner down there that Mai had deliberately neglected to tell us about.

  Henri looked thoughtful. “You want to go down and see?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to give Mai a chance to tell us. Maybe he’s new, and she forgot to mention it?”

  “And what about you waking up seven hours early?” he asked. “Are we going to mention that to Tris?”

  I gave him my sweetest smile. “Probably not the best idea.”

  He nodded slowly. “She’d worry.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because it’s worrying and out of character.”

  “Right.”

  “So, if it happens again …”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “Good. In the meantime, did you want to take a daylight walk around the grounds?”

  Outside in the sunlight? My skin tingled in anticipation of being sun-kissed. “Fuck it, let’s do it.”

  * * *

  The grounds, which had looked ominous and spooky in the night, were neatly trimmed and beautifully landscaped by day. The driveway was gravel, bordered by impressive-looking stone statues. It wrapped around the house to create a stony moat. Cute bushes sat below the windows. Flowers I had no names for bloomed amidst the green. There was even a maze behind the house with hedges twice my height.

  I turned to Henri. “You want to try it?”

  He gave me his flat look.

  Oh, yes. His GPS would lead him easily through. “Fine, you stay here and come get me if I get lost.”

  He folded his arms and waited. I stepped into the maze and began to walk. Left, right, left again, another right. The bird song melted away, and the world grew silent, peaceful. Floral scents tickled my nostrils, and I walked, my hand trailing across the spiky edges of the leaves jutting from the hedge. Who the heck kept this trimmed and neat?

  I stepped into a clearing and stopped. Lying on his front on the soft grass, butt-naked, was Killion. His head was turned to the side, his face in profile, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted, the behemoth looked almost tame.

  A hellhound, they said. He looked more like a pussy cat. A naked pussy cat with a perfectly nibble-worthy butt.

  Oh, God.

  He was knocked out. Sleeping so peacefully, it was almost criminal. I backed up, turned, and started back the way I’d come. Three minutes later and it was obvious I was lost, but that was okay, all I needed to do was call for Henri.

  “Henri! Hey, needing extraction here.” There was no reply. “Henri!”

  Nothing. Fuck, was the maze so dense it sucked up sound? Dammit, my phone was back in my room. Okay, I could do this. Five minutes later and I was back in the clearing staring at the naked sleeping form of the hellhound Killion.

  There was nothing for it. I’d have to wake him up and get him to show me the way out.

  I inched forward and then prodded him in the shoulder with my finger. Nothing. Fucksake.

  I shook him.

  Nothing.

  Wait. Was he breathing? What if he was dead? No, there was definitely breathing happening. I’d just have to be firmer about waking him up.

  “Hello. Hey. Um, Killion.” I shook his shoulder, leaning in to speak close to his ea
r.

  His shoulder tensed beneath my hand, but before I could move back, he had me pinned to the ground and was on top of me.

  Wait, what? “Gerroff.” I shoved at his pectorals as he bracketed me with his arms, pinning my legs with his.

  He was naked with all the bits, and oh, God, was that hard thing what I thought it was?

  “Off. Down. Go.” Shit, how did you get a hellhound to back off?

  His chest rumbled as his fiery eyes locked onto my face and then his gaze sharpened. His lip curled, and he rolled off me.

  “My space,” he said. “You don’t belong.”

  I stood and dusted myself off, even though there was nothing on me, because he was naked, and I had to look somewhere. Okay, focus on his face. His face.

  “I didn’t know. I got lost. Was hoping you could show me the way out.”

  He sneered at me and then strode off, giving me a perfect view of his taut buttocks and powerful back. That was my cue to follow.

  He took the turns with confidence. Not looking back once to see if I was following, but hey, he was a hellhound, he probably had super hearing and smell. Did I smell?

  Raspberries.

  The prisoner in the basement had smelled raspberries.

  He stopped and turned to me and pointed. “Go straight and get out.”

  Wow. Rude much. I shuffled past his huge frame, a frame that could crush me if he wanted, and then broke into a jog.

  Henri was still standing where I’d left him, arms crossed over his broad chest. His brows shot up in surprise.

  Yeah, like hell I was telling him that I’d had help. I grinned and strolled past him. “You’re not the only one with excellent direction.”

  * * *

  I stared at the compact, waiting for Gramps to pick up the Call, but the mirror remained dark, and my stomach began to churn.