by D. D. Chance
“That would be classic Grim.”
“I decided almost immediately that I didn’t want to go to Fowlers Hall. I needed to get everything I’d left at my apartment, just in case it might be relevant.”
He cocked me a glance. “Any reason why you didn’t want to wait till tomorrow morning to do that?”
I scowled. “Oh, gee, I don’t know. Maybe because I just saw a headstone with my mom’s name on it? That’s some seriously mind-breaking shit. So maybe I’m tired of not knowing what’s going on.”
Liam hiked his pack higher on his shoulder. “Fair enough,” he agreed. “So you decided to head over to the apartment and, what? Stopped off for a cup of joe?”
I smiled, thinking of Joe the barista. That line was one of the Crazy Cup staffers’ favorite jokes, and it never seemed to get old.
“Exactly,” I said. “It was a gorgeous night, there were a ton of people out, and I was keyed up. Everything was great, I walked in, the place was hopping, no problem. Then I stuck my hands in my pockets and connected with Grim’s lanyard, and whammo. Practically half the clientele freaking changed into monsters. They weren’t bothering anyone, and I didn’t feel like starting a fight before I got my latte, but they were totally there.”
“Really,” Liam said, his eyes lighting up. “I always knew that Grim rocked it as a tracker, but it didn’t occur to me that he had a tool to help him.”
“I don’t know if it was the lanyard itself, or simply that it had Grim’s essence all over it.” As soon as the words escaped my mouth, I grimaced. “Okay, that sounds completely gross.”
“Ha! Agreed,” Liam conceded. “Still, it’s kind of cool. May I check out ye olde lanyard?”
“Yup. And for the record, it doesn’t seem like it’s the plastic card, just the cloth strap. But here you go.” Obligingly, I pulled the woven loop out of my pocket by the thick plastic card and handed it over. Liam took it eagerly. He gripped it, winding the strip of fabric around his hand, and looked around. He scowled.
“I got nothing. What about you?”
I took the lanyard more carefully back, holding my breath as I gripped the cloth strap. I glanced to the right and froze. “Shit.”
Beside me, Liam instantly tensed. “What? What is it? What are you seeing?”
I slowly and carefully turned back to him, and when I spoke, I tried everything I could not to move my mouth. I didn’t know if that would make any difference, but I wasn’t taking any chances. “Okay. There are four of those tall, beautiful elf-looking people, the Laram or whatever you want to call them, hanging out across the street.” I said. “I don’t think they saw me. I don’t want them to see me, and I definitely don’t want them to come over here. Especially if you can’t figure out which ones are monsters and which aren’t.”
“Laram?” Liam asked, his eyes narrowing. “Where’d you get that name from? What language is it?”
“I…” I frowned, hesitating. “It was something Grim called them. I don’t know where he got it from, but—shit,” I muttered. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement across the street. Had the Laram figured out that I was on to them? Would they come over and try to shiv us with their pointy arrow-rods?
One of them took a step toward the street, and I flinched, making Liam chuckle.
“I hate to break this to you, but you’re sort of a walking billboard for Don’t Look At Me Right Now. That’s not good.”
“No kidding it’s not good,” I bit out, keeping my forced smile intact. “You got any suggestions?”
“Oh, sure,” Liam drawled. “I mean, when you get right down to it, monsters are as distractible as the rest of us, eager to drop humans into any of a dozen rough categories. Threat, nonthreat, smart, dumb, fast, slow, you name it.”
“They’re moving, Liam,” I murmured with more urgency. “I can feel them getting closer.”
“And I’m sure they’re picking up on that,” he countered, making my tension wind another notch tighter. “There’s only one way to make them drop you into the ‘random stupid human’ bucket, I’m thinking.”
“Which is?” I asked, hysteria spiking as I gripped Grim’s lanyard. It was the exact opposite of a security blanket, though—the more tightly I clutched it, the more intensely I could feel the attention of the Laram. I let go, but it didn’t seem to help—it didn’t help!
Apparently oblivious to my growing panic, Liam leaned forward and lovingly took my face in his hands, staring down at me with his soulful, river-stone eyes.
“Liam…” I began warningly. “What are you—”
Before I could finish the last word, his lips came down on mine.
Danger. Desire. Need.
Power.
So much power sweeping through me. Lifting me up, pulling me around, filling me with—
Liam pulled back as I gasped, sensations swamping me. He glanced over my shoulder. “It’s the frat guys, right?” he asked.
I jerked in his arms. “What?”
“The frat guys. Bif, Lou, and Freddo, hanging by the hoagie shop. Those are the guys you’d picked out? Because I can see them now too. They don’t look like monsters to me, and they definitely don’t look like elves. But they do look like assholes, so I feel like they have to be our guys.”
I laughed, managing a swift glance to the right. “Yeah, those are the guys. But they’re not looking our way anymore.”
“I concur. Apparently, my swashbuckling ways took us off their Persons of Interest list.” He looked back at me and waggled his brows. “Shows what they know—but we should probably keep it up.”
Without more explanation than that, he swung me around, sliding his arm over my shoulder in a proprietary gesture that somehow felt completely natural. Once again, a curious heat powered through me, completely different with Liam than it had been with Tyler or Zach. When Tyler touched me, trees literally shook. With Zach, it was like time stopped—and the two of us were swept away to somewhere else entirely. But neither of those reactions was the case with Liam. Instead, my heart pounded, my skin overheated, and a liquid warmth swirled and roiled deep inside me, desperate for release.
“You’re not wearing anything weird, are you?” I asked him, my cheeks flushing with the question, but I had to know. “Like some sort of strange pheromone thing that I’m reacting to?”
Liam side-eyed me with genuine curiosity. “I’m not, but that, my friend, is a fantastic new product idea. Probably not ethically right, as I think about it, but that’s totally something I should put a patent on…”
He cast his gaze skyward again, and we kept walking as he spent the next couple of minutes discussing the potential uses of a magically enhanced, sexually stimulating cologne or wearable tech. By the time we got to my apartment, he’d dismissed the idea as a possible avenue for development because of the almost certain likelihood of it being used for nefarious purposes. “But of course the obvious corollary to said dastardly invention is to create something that…”
“Defends you against such a product,” I finished for him. “Basically some sort of magical cockblocker.”
His eyes lit up with delight. “That would be exactly what I would call it. If you’re a member of the magical community and you’re nervous about getting swayed into liking some creepazoid who simply has better magical skills than you? Have I got the product for you.”
His grin faded as he caught me staring up the street. Without turning to see what I was looking at, he asked, “What is it?”
I made a face. “It’s nothing—or I don’t think it’s anything. It’s just that there’s a light shining in a window on the third floor of my apartment building, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in that unit. I’m so used to coming home at all hours of the night and the place is dead. I just don’t know, it’s weird. And given the fact that Zach found about a dozen cameras in my place, I can’t help but think that, you know, maybe people on the third floor isn’t such a great thing.”
“Agreed.” Liam kept his
focus on me. “Where’s the light in relation to your apartment?”
“Right beneath it.” I shot him a glance. “That’s bad, isn’t it? That’s probably bad.”
“It’s not great, most likely, but it does keep things interesting. What all do you have in your apartment that we need to bring back to campus? You already dumped off your lockbox with the letter and all that. What else could they be interested in?”
“Honestly, not a hell of a lot. Clothes and shoes, a few knives and other stuff from when I was growing up. Like random iron totems I kept in my pockets when I found them, more for superstition than anything else.”
I frowned, thinking about that. Only yesterday, I’d come across a similar token that I tried to pick up and pocket, only to discard it because it gave me the creeps. A small silver bead that had proven to be a tool of particular value against the demons that had hit campus in search of Zach. A bead that Grim had known what to do with…much like he’d been able to identify the elves by name. The old world tracker of our monster hunting collective was proving that he had depths far beyond Hulk-smashing things. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“Superstitious totems are exactly the kind of things we need to get out of your place pronto, scary people who live beneath you or not,” Liam said, scattering my thoughts. I looked up to see him peering at my apartment. He swung around his backpack, unzipping it without looking down. “Fortunately, I’ve got an app for that. In this case, app as in apparition ward.”
My brows lifted as he rifled through his bag with one hand. “An apparition ward? Like a ghost illusion?”
“Exactly like that.” He grinned, glancing at me with such warmth, I felt my cheeks heat all over again. “So let’s say we’ve got company on the third floor. We put this ward in play, nobody can hear or see us—not directly, anyway. We look like no more than a shadow. We’re not totally silent, but I’ve got other toys to cover that. Trouble is, all these things use a ton of energy, so they’re only good for short bursts, got it? We need to get in, out, and down the street in…well, fast.”
“Fast.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you know how fast?”
He shrugged, arching his eyebrows in challenge. “Not even remotely. You ready to give it a try?” Without waiting for me to answer, he pulled out two small metal cuffs, handing me one. “You slide it over your wrist just like your anti-Zach bracelet, and when I tap mine, it goes into effect. With my other tools in play, we can yell as much as we want, we can run, we can laugh, we can bang off walls, nobody can tell. We’re ghosts in the machine, baby.”
I made a face, turning to peer at my apartment and the brightly lit space beneath it. “Okay, but again, how long does that last? What happens if they stop working midway?”
He zipped up his pack and repositioned it on his shoulders. “We improvise. You ready? Because I’m ready. I’m totally ready. I’m ready to rock it. Hit your cuff.”
Obligingly, I gripped my cuff with my hand, and Liam slapped his. A jolt of electricity blew through me, quick and hot. “Wait,” I tried as Liam gave a short, loud whoop. “Why do I feel like this is a really bad—”
But Liam was already running. “Leeeeeeeroy Jennnnnnkins,” he howled.
I took off after him.
10
Despite his hollering at the start, Liam shut up quickly as we pounded our way toward my brownstone. We galloped up the front steps of the building, and I ripped my keys out of my skirt pocket. I used the key card to get through the front door, then we both hustled up the stairs. I found myself wanting to tiptoe past the apartment on the third floor, but Liam urged me on.
“They can’t hear us, they can’t see us, unless our cuffs short out and then we’re fucked, so choppity choppity,” he insisted.
I redoubled my speed, and a few seconds later, we reached my front door. Fueled by panic, I unlocked the various locks in less than seven seconds, and then we were inside, the door slamming behind us. I arrowed a glance at him as he blew out a harsh breath.
“They couldn’t hear that? It felt like the whole building shook.”
“Move,” he said tightly, and I realized for the first time that beneath the excitement, there were genuine nerves.
“I’m moving,” I said, defensive as I started for the back room of the apartment, past my tweed chaise, which was virtually the only piece of furniture in the living room. “Seriously, you’ve never tested these cuffs?”
“Nope,” Liam confirmed, his head on a swivel as we moved through the apartment, not that there was much to see. A tidied kitchen, a bathroom with a lot of medical supplies, an empty hallway. The apartment of a monster hunter, outfitted for function, not finesse.
“A lot of what I pick up is single-use-only kind of stuff,” Liam continued. “These cuffs, I had three of them to start, and the first one I shorted out way too fast, but that wasn’t exactly my fault because I ended up jumping into a pool… Never mind. Bottom line, I don’t know how long they’re going to last.”
“You jumped into a pool? Like a swimming pool?”
“Yeah from about five stories up. Not my brightest move, but, you know. Desperate times.”
We paused at the entry to my bedroom, which had an armoire, a mirror, and my rolled-up sleeping bag tidily stacked on a folded square of plastic sheeting. Nothing else on the floor, nothing on the walls.
“So you spend a lot of time decorating is what you’re telling me,” Liam said drily, and I shouldered him out of the way as we both tried to enter the bedroom at the same time. “I do love a girl who accessorizes with plastic sheeting.”
There was nothing I could say to that, so I went directly to the armoire as he kept going. “No, seriously. Do you cut up dead bodies in here, or is this just to catch your own blood when you’ve had a particularly busy night?”
“The latter,” I said, dropping to my knees in front of the armoire and rifling through the clothes on the floor of the closet. I pulled out my boots and another pair of jeans, plus a half dozen tank tops and a few hoodies. I took a second to strip out of my blouse and miniskirt and re-dress in more intelligent gear—jeans and boots, a tank top and a hoodie. “Most of this I probably don’t need—”
“But it’s yours,” he said simply, unzipping his pack. “I’ve got a kind of vacuum sealer in here—lemme…here.”
He settled the bag on the floor, and opened it wide. In went my boots and jeans, then he stuffed the shirts down, his gaze on the last item in the closet, a velvet bag I’d scored from…somewhere. The back of Mom’s closet, probably.
“Sweet pouch,” Liam drawled, hefting his pack up, its open top angled toward me. “Why do I think there are no sex toys in there?”
I snorted, and pulled the bag free—it was heavy, but that wasn’t surprising. “Weapons, mostly. Some junk too.” I made to pull the drawstring open, but he waved me off, the glint of his cuff catching the light.
“Negative on the show-and-tell. Remember, we’re on a time limit.”
I jolted. “Oh. Right.” I dropped the bag into the pack and Liam’s hands jerked down, the weight transfer taking him so much by surprise that he dropped the pack to the floor. It made a loud thunk as it hit, the room shaking as much as it had with the slammed door. A glass shattered in the kitchen, and Liam blinked at me. His mouth quirked up at one corner as his eyes lit with excitement.
“Thing one, I suspect those weapons and trinkets are more magical than you think. Thing two, it appears our cuffs have shorted out.”
“What?” I spluttered as he rolled to his feet and hauled the pack over his shoulders. He staggered a little, clearly trying to readjust for the weight.
“Is there another way out of here?” he asked, ratcheting up my nerves.
“No, there’s not another way out of here,” I snapped. “This is my apartment. It has a front door and a fire escape down the hallway, that’s it.”
“Windows it is, then.” He strode quickly to the wall and pulled the cellular blinds out of the way, then l
ifted the casement window as high as it would go.
“Are you nuts?” I hissed as he leaned out over the sidewalk. There was nobody on the street below us, and he whirled back toward me, smiling broadly.
“You didn’t hear that, did you? Opening the window, that was totally silent? Am I right? Because I have a theory.”
“Yeah, it was silent, but—”
We froze as the front door to my apartment rattled against its hinges.
“I have my own locks,” I whispered. “My landlord doesn’t have the key to those.”
Liam made a face. “That’s not going to stop him for long.”
Sure enough, a large boom sounded from the front door, and Liam grabbed my hand, speaking quickly as he pulled me over to the window.
“My theory: whoever possesses your bag of crazy weapons-n-stuff wins. You picked them up easily, but the transfer to me was a bitch—and left you vulnerable. Sorry about that. I can carry them now more easily thirty seconds later. I’m still invisible, silent, my wards still working. So I’m going to jump out first and hope I don’t break my ankles. If I don’t, I’ll turn around and catch you, because once again, your bag of goodies doesn’t want to be found. You get that, yes? The bag wants to keep itself safe. That’s the game.”
There wasn’t time to argue as the door slammed open at the far end of the apartment. Liam didn’t hesitate. In one smooth move, he slid his legs over the window sash and dropped out of sight, leaving me staring after him for a long second as dimly I registered the sound of running footsteps behind me. I stuck my head out the window, and shockingly, Liam was beneath me, his arms out as if he could catch my weight from three stories high.
He was a lunatic, but I didn’t have any other choice. I slid my legs through the opening and then turned around to cling to the wall. I hung from the window, barely peeking over the sill. I had to see. I had to know.
A tall, pale, gray-suited man burst into the room, and even if I hadn’t planned on it, I couldn’t hold on. My fingers had gone numb with shock. I dropped like a stone into the darkness—
