by Kait Nolan
Chapter 3
Impatience gripped her in its teeth. It was broad daylight and here she was behind all her locks instead of out enjoying the glorious spring weather. Last night had shaken her. That sense of being followed when nothing was really there. Part of her was still a little girl who believed in monsters, and monsters could hide in plain sight. She knew that better than most.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she admonished herself.
Before she could change her mind, she grabbed the messenger bag holding her sketchpad and charcoals, then locked her apartment and headed down the central staircase of the converted old brownstone, out into the sun. Sucking in a determined breath, she paused, wondering where to go today. Traces of exhaust and garbage from the cans at the curb tinged the sweet spring air, but it wasn’t as bad as usual. School wasn’t yet out, so the streets were fairly quiet. Up the block, she could hear the steady thump of a basketball. Marley opted to turn in the opposite direction, knowing the less than savory element who’d be hanging around the concrete court at this time of day. It wasn’t paranoia, she convinced herself. It was just prudent.
The park was mostly deserted but for a Latina woman pushing a little girl on the swings. The girl’s bubbling giggle rolled out and she kicked her little legs, crying, “Mas alto! Mas alto!” Marley felt her posture relax, her lips curving at the sound. Not wanting to intrude on their play, she skirted the play area, which was due for its annual repainting to cover up graffiti. The fountain wasn’t running yet. Marley wondered if it would get turned back on at all given the number of times it had been soaped last year. She glanced in, grimacing in disgust at the layer of scummy green algae and pollen floating atop the few inches of dirty rainwater.
Crossing to a bench, she settled in the shade of some overgrown holly bushes and pulled out her sketchbook. Turning to a fresh page, she did a series of quick action sketches of the girl, studies of a child in motion, before turning her attention to the mother. It was her face that arrested Marley’s attention. Cautious joy with watchful eyes. The kind of expression Marley used to imagine on the face of her own mother—whoever she’d been. As she worked, the tension seeped out through her pencils and covered the paper, until her mind was full of nothing but light and shadows, crosshatching and bleed.
“Papa!”
At the delighted shout, Marley looked up. The little girl leapt down from the swing and ran on short, stubby legs toward a man at the edge of the playground. A smile flashed white in his bronzed face, and he bent to scoop up the child. Her laughter rang out as he swung her high, bright bubbles of sound that at once made Marley smile and her heart ache. The girl chattered in rapid-fire Spanish as her father listened attentively, interjecting a question or comment here and there as he held out an arm for the woman. She was at the edge of a laugh herself as she stepped into his embrace and accepted a kiss.
Something flickered in Marley’s mind and was gone, leaving behind a sharp stab of yearning for something she’d never had, probably would never have. She shut down that train of thought. It wasn’t productive or helpful. She had to make her choices from the available options, and she couldn’t pull new ones out of thin air. She was just fine on her own.
After the family left, Marley finished her sketch from memory, adding in the faint curve of a smile on the woman’s lips and the bright laughter in the child’s eyes. Pleased with the result, she flipped back through her sketchbook. She mostly drew what she thought of as character sketches. Faces. Expressions. Bodies with suggestion of emotion in their posture. In her mind, she made up stories to go with them, easily able to imagine a snapshot of the lives she captured in black and white.
She came to the series of sketches of Ian. She had no story to go with him. He didn’t fit into her world, not like the poor and the downtrodden, the elderly and the young, the bullies and the weak. He was strength, she thought, her eyes tracing the sharp lines of his cheek and jaw. Despite whatever injury laid claim to his leg, he embodied power. In her experience, such men were ruthless, using that strength, to rule, to bully, to take whatever they wanted, as all predators did. And yet Ian had used that power. To protect her.
Marley still couldn’t understand why.
She was nothing to him. A stranger. No one worth the risk of getting involved in a fight. Which just went to prove, yet again, that he wasn’t from around here.
The thought left a strange, hollow feeling in her chest, a faint taste of regret and loss. For what, she didn’t know. They were two strangers, connected by a random act of violence. Nothing more. Marley sighed and stroked a finger down the side of the sketch.
Her thumb froze on the side of the sketchpad at the sudden sound of cascading water. Had they turned on the fountain? She glanced up, and her heart began to pound. Something moved in the fetid water, rising up from the shallow depths as if there were more than mere inches of liquid in the bottom. As she stared, something bulbous emerged above the ledge of the fountain wall. It was completely translucent, as if made of the water itself, and yet the nasty, polluted water sluiced off of it as it continued to rise and take on a vaguely human shape. Shoulders, back, arms. Higher still until a pair of legs emerged.
Marley’s fingers clamped around the edges of her sketchpad, as if the stack of paper and cardboard backing could stop the shaking of her body. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe as the thing began to grow opaque, taking on flesh tones, then different colors as if it were materializing…clothes.
Somehow she managed to force her arms to move, to slowly slip the strap of her messenger bag across her shoulders without making a sound. There was no way she could get her sketchpad put away in silence, so she gripped it tighter, muscles coiling, ready for flight. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the thing as it finished solidifying into a man. It—he—faced away from her, but she could still make out plenty of details. Dirty blond hair. Broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist. Impossibly, the thing wore jeans and an Orioles t-shirt.
Paralyzed, Marley uttered a litany of silent prayers that he would step out of the fountain away from her, that he wouldn’t turn around and see her.
Time stretched taffy slow as he rolled his shoulders and stepped over the fountain wall, placing first one booted foot on the concrete sidewalk, then the other. He began to turn.
No. No, no, no no, nononono.
Terror coalesced to ice in Marley’s veins as the man-creature swiveled his head and saw her. His eyes were vivid Aegean blue. His mouth dropped open in a small “Oh” of surprise, then shifted to a flash of chagrin. “Shit.”
Marley bolted.
With a splash, he came after her, his wet boots slapping the pavement. Marley made for the playground, slipping beneath the bridge and pelting toward the exit. He was too tall. He’d have to go around. Blood was a roaring freight train in her ears. She broke free of the park, hitting the sidewalk and dodging pedestrians and garbage cans. She chanced a look back and almost tripped over a stray dog. No sign of him. Her bag slapped at her butt as she ran, spurring her faster as she turned a corner and ducked into an alley between two houses. There was no time for indecision as she burst free at the other end. She cut left and made a zigzagging beeline for her apartment. Her lungs burned, her eyes watered and spotted with black. And still she ran.
Her thudding steps on the stairs of her building sounded too loud. She kept expecting to hear the wet slap of feet on pavement as she fumbled for her keys and struggled to stab the right one into the lock. She sensed her neighbors watching her, wondering what this crazy girl was running from, what had so terrified her. Marley acknowledged nothing and no one, almost weeping as her shaking hand managed to insert the key and twist. Then she was inside, slamming the door and keeping the same frenetic pace up the stairs to her second floor apartment.
Only when she was safe inside her space, behind the locked door, did she dare to breathe. She backed away from the door, eyes glued to the frame. Her calves bumped into something, hard, and she fell, b
utt-first, onto the old trunk she used as a coffee table. Her body shook from exertion, from fear, her sweaty hands gripping the strap of her bag like some kind of lifeline. And still she stared at the entry, waiting for a nightmare to burst inside and claim her.
~*~
Ian’s single bag was almost packed by the time the perimeter alarm went off. Tossing a spare ammo clip on the bed, he moved to the bank of monitors and checked the screen. The fair-haired man waiting at the door with hands jammed in the back pockets of his jeans looked more like a frat boy than somebody who ought to be trusted with the security of a safe house. Ian hoped that was nothing more than an appearance.
He pressed a button to activate the intercom. “What do you want?”
For a moment the guy looked around, as if seeking a second intercom button. Shrugging, he spoke. “I was answering the ad about the yard work.”
It was the agreed upon security phrase. Ian buzzed him in to the antechamber. Palming his gun, he headed downstairs. He melted back into the interior shadows and triggered the door from across the room, calmly waiting as the newcomer pushed it open and stepped inside.
He didn’t appear to be armed. Thumbs hooked lazily in the front as he swept his gaze around the eat-in kitchen. Ian said nothing, waiting to see how the guy would react, thinking he was momentarily alone. His face remained relaxed, very surfer-boy blasé, but Ian caught the subtle ripple of motion in his features.
Really? The Council sent a Nix as his replacement? Not that the water spirits weren’t capable, but this was the city. Not exactly a wellspring of escape options, should things go sideways. Maybe it was temporary, all they could scrounge up on short notice. Matthias had indicated that finding Apollo’s killer was top priority just now.
“Where’s your stuff?” asked Ian, phasing back into the light.
The Nix jolted, finally losing the lackadaisical expression as he swung around toward Ian and the gun pointed at his chest. “Dude!”
What the hell is that? An exclamation? A question? The only thing he knows how to say?
Ian waited for an answer.
“I don’t need much,” the guy said, at last. “I’m only here ’til the permanent guy gets here.”
That made Ian feel somewhat better. Not that it really mattered to him what became of this post after he left, but he was loath to abandon security to an imbecile. Anybody whose sole response to being held at gunpoint was “Dude!” clearly had no security training whatsoever.
“I, uh, need to call and report in,” said the Nix.
Ian lowered the gun and motioned him toward the bank of computers and the secure phone line. “Did you have any trouble?” With that kind of appearance, he stood out in this neighborhood about as much as a nun in a strip club.
The Nix twitched his shoulders, not quite meeting Ian’s eyes. “A human civilian saw me when I ported in.”
Ian went motionless, zeroing in on the Nix with a flat stare. This was their one, unbreakable law: Never let the humans know the paranormal world exists. The penalty of death was swift and irrefutable—for the unfortunate human. “You’re certain?”
“Oh yeah, she definitely saw me. That fountain was filthy and polluted. All the gunk fritzed out my invisibility. I tried to catch her, but she was faster.”
Fuck. He wondered exactly who this dumbass had sentenced to death, if it was someone he’d passed on his reconnaissance of the neighborhood. “Did you follow her?”
“Didn’t have to. She left something behind. The Hunter can use it to track her.” The Nix pulled something long and narrow from his pocket.
Ian held out his hand for the thing, frowning as he studied the pencil. No eraser. Some kind of charcoal thing. Arty. His breath seemed to clog in his lungs as he ran the pencil beneath his nose and inhaled the delicate scent of hothouse orchids.
Marley.
It took every ounce of his training to keep his face impassive, to hand the pencil back, though his hand wanted to fist and break it.
"Did you see anyone else on your way here? Anyone from our world?”
The Nix shook his head. “No, after that I kept it on the down low.”
It would be easy to kill him. Ian could strike faster than this idiot could turn his head, long before the fucker would manage to get his neurons firing enough to phase out of his solid state. His race returned to their liquid form upon death, so not even a body to dispose of, just a big ass puddle to mop up. The security tapes would be a bigger issue. The local files would be easy to tamper with, create a loop to cover the gap of missing footage. But the files were backed up off site, and finding out where, doing reconnaissance, and getting in to wipe them would take time he didn’t have. Which meant he couldn’t just scrub this dumb son of a bitch for materializing in front of the one person in this god-forsaken place he gave a damn about.
He needed a plan B.
“You should report in,” Ian said, gesturing to the bank of computers set up in a corner of the kitchen.
Rather than crossing to the terminal, the Nix pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Klaus Zimmerman for Councilor Richter.”
What the hell is he doing? This isn’t protocol.
“Yeah, hey Mom. It’s me.”
Fuck.
Ian listened in horror as Zimmerman recounted his encounter with Marley directly to the ruling body who would order her execution.
I should have killed him when I had the chance.
Their conversation turned to family matters. Ian forced himself not to hurry, not to draw attention as he turned away and headed for the stairs. Hurry meant mistakes, and he couldn’t afford to make any when it came to this. His window was narrow. The Council would dispatch a Hunter within the hour. Unless he intervened, Marley would be dead by nightfall.
Methodically, he finished stuffing the last of his things into his duffel, brain turning over other options. He was a strategist for fuck’s sake. He should be able to find a solution for this.
He could go to her, tell her she was in danger, convince her to run. But she wasn’t trained in how to disappear. Nothing a civilian human could do would evade one of the Council’s Hunters for very long. And that aside, she didn’t know him, had no reason to trust what he said.
He could lie in wait for the Hunter, take him out. But even in top form, he’d have difficulty taking on one of the Council’s finely-trained assassins. And even if he were lucky enough to pull it off, they’d just send another.
Which left him with exactly zero options.
Except to allow things to run their course. Abide by the laws of his world. Do nothing, as he’d always done nothing, and keep living the life he’d been trained for. What was she to him after all? A veritable stranger. Just a woman he’d saved once, who made an impression of beauty in an otherwise unpalatable existence. She had no family, no real friends. Her death would leave few ripples behind for the Council to contend with. The smart thing to do was leave her to her unfortunate fate. A bloom crushed beneath the careless boot of a thug.
Chapter 4
Marley wasn’t crazy. She hadn’t had some kind of psychotic break or hallucination. That thing had come out of the fountain and morphed into a man.
She’d known monsters were real. As a child, she’d talked about the bad things in the dark. All the well-meaning social workers and psychologists had talked of trauma and coping, attention seeking and psychosis. They’d called her a troubled child. She’d spent twenty-five years trying to say the right thing, doing what people expected to avoid the labels and the drugs. In the back of her mind, she’d known it hadn’t been a figment of her imagination or a cry for help.
The sudden pounding on the door made her jolt and press a fist to her mouth to hold back the scream.
No matter what happens, you must stay quiet. As the thought echoed through her head, Marley clutched the sketchpad to her chest like a shield.
“Marley!”
For a second she stared at the door, which shook under another barr
age of pounding. The thing knew her name?
“Marley! Are you okay? It’s Ian.”
Ian?
Disbelief flooded through her, and, with it, some steel for her spine. Legs trembling, she crossed to check the peep hole. All she could see was a broad chest in a black t-shirt. Not the white Orioles shirt the creature from the fountain was wearing. But if it could materialize clothes, it could probably change them at will.
“Marley?”
It sounded like Ian. Nerves jumping, she grabbed a golf umbrella, gripping it like a bat as she undid the locks. By the time she opened the door the few scant inches allowed by the chain, he’d taken three steps back and dropped his shoulder, as if he’d been about to ram the thing open. The measure of relief on his face seemed out of balance, as if he hadn’t expected her to be answering the door all in one piece. It did nothing to dampen her nerves.
“You’re…home,” he said, straightening.
“I am.” She wondered what he’d been about to say instead.
“I’m…glad.”
Silence stretched between them as they stared at each other through the crack.
“What are you doing here?” she asked at last.
“I—Could I come in?” He shifted, trying to get a glimpse inside her apartment.
Marley moved to block his view. “Why?”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you alone?”
Did she look stupid? Why yes, I’m alone. Please barge in and attack me. Not that she thought he had motive, but you never knew. “Why?” she asked again.
“You look nervous. Like maybe you were being coerced.”
And if I were being coerced, I wouldn’t tell you for fear of being shot or stabbed. Don’t you watch the movies? “What do you want, Ian?”
“To talk to you.”
“So talk,” she said.
“Preferably without a door between us, and not where God and everyone can eavesdrop. Please. It’s important.”
His shoulders were set, his body tensed as if battle-ready. But he’d been the same the night he’d rescued her. Wary and prepared. They were traits she both appreciated and understood. Everything about him screamed military training, so maybe it was his default setting.
