The Family Cross

by Gabrielle Ash

  “Calm down, Fancy Pants. Not everyone can be like you.” Samson chuckled and strolled toward the bed. “Looks like a normal lady room.”

  I wasn’t sure about normal, but it didn’t look like the place someone would hide a body or a murder weapon. There wasn’t enough room.

  “Someone had a guest though.” Samson inclined his head toward the desk piled high with textbooks and laundry. A tie was lazily slung on the back of the desk chair, waving in the slight breeze coming from a crack in the window. Red. Checkered.

  Familiar.

  “Hudson’s tie.” My feet felt like cinder blocks as I strode over to the chair.

  “That could be anyone’s.”

  “No. This is his. He had it on when I met with my father last Monday. The same day we were attacked at the restaurant.” I bent down and smelled it. Images of my brother lounging in our father’s office with a hickey on his neck came immediately to mind. “Yep. His cologne. He’s worn it since high school.”

  The urge to crumple into a ball on the floor overwhelmed me in a single second. The meeting implicated Gerard, and now a stupid tie implicated Hudson!

  “It doesn’t mean anything. Your brother and Blair banging isn’t a crime.” Samson made a face, nose scrunched and eyebrows pinched together. The cat continued to rub against Samson’s ankles. “Was Hudson at work today?”

  “I didn’t see him, but my father said they were meeting. Since my father wasn’t angry, I can only assume Hudson was there.”

  “What about the other one? Gerald?”

  “Gerard,” I corrected, “and I’m not sure.”

  Blair was mysteriously missing and had been sleeping with Hudson. My stomach rolled and clenched as all the implications revealed themselves, until Samson squatted down and picked up the cat that danced around his boots.

  “Ready?”

  When I connected the dots of what Samson implied, my eyes widened. “What are you doing? Put the cat down!”

  “And leave her here to die because her owner got eaten by a fairy?” Samson moved the cat closer to his chest and picked up the bag of cat food with his free hand.

  “We don’t know that Blair got eaten, and she might come back and wonder where her cat is.”

  “She could, but I doubt it.” Samson heaved a sigh and walked to the front door. “You coming, Fancy Pants?”

  Twenty-Eight

  With nothing more than speculation and a stolen cat to occupy our time, the next day I forced Samson to get a suit for the party on Friday night. My father had used the same tailor longer than he’d used even his barber, and I knew after saying the name Ashby we’d get a promise of a fitted suit before the party.

  Despite the offerings of cucumber water, Samson couldn’t find it in himself to stop complaining.

  “I will literally never wear this again.” Samson glared at me as the tailor measured from his armpit to his wristbone. It was the first time I’d ever seen him in public willingly without the comfort of his guns or heavy jacket. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

  Silly Samson. He had no idea.

  “It does. If we don’t want people asking questions, you better have a tailored suit.”

  His chin tilted up toward the ceiling, corded neck unable to hide beneath the glaring light above. The tailor, unaware that he was measuring an exceptionally dangerous person, moved on to the chest and waist.

  I pulled out my phone and pressed Eliza’s name in my contacts. Samson’s staring made watching him uncomfortable, so I turned my back and looked into a tie rack instead. My dress was black, so he’d get a black tie.

  After three rings, she picked up as I was fingering through the ties.

  “Your father has me at Blair’s desk,” she hissed immediately.

  Day two of no Blair. “Has she called in yet?”

  “No, and Mr. Ashby told me to make the position available to HR.”

  If Blair revealed herself again, she’d be coming back to no job. Blair had been my father’s assistant for years. No one would have known the risk of not coming in to work more than she would have.

  “I’m here for the week while you’re out.” Eliza sighed into the phone, and I pulled a tie off the rack. Black. Grosgrain. Perfect. “Is everything all right? I heard Richard followed you into the elevator yesterday.”

  “He did. But I handled it.”

  “Did you though?”

  Doubt crept in. I tried to handle it, but Richard still declared he was going to propose. Again. In front of our families. “I tried.”

  “He’s been up here all day. He’s turning into Edgar’s version of Hudson.”

  “He gets an undeserved promotion, and now he’s hanging out in the executive suite.” A snort scraped the back of my throat.

  “That’s ballsy.”

  Samson’s grumbling returned my attention to the tailor. He now measured the outside length of his left leg. Samson, eyes turned toward the sky, continued to say incoherent things underneath his breath.

  “I’ll see you Friday night, all right?”

  “Sure thing. Say hi to Mr. Brown for me.”

  My jaw dropped. “What—”

  The phone clicked on the other end. She hung up on me!

  “Miss Ashby,” the tailor asked as he stood. He took the tie from my hand and tossed it on a nearby table before pulling a pair of tan oxfords off the top. Samson scowled at them as they were set in his open hands. “You need this done before Friday night?”

  “Please.” I slipped my phone in the purse slung over my shoulder. My gaze fell to Samson’s feet when he stepped into the oxfords, more specifically at the hole in the toe of his sock. I could only imagine the tailor’s thoughts as he compared Samson’s sock to my Louboutins.

  “Of course. Anything for Milton’s daughter.” The tailor stretched out his measuring tape and turned back to Samson before squatting down at his ankles. He pulled the tape from the top of his shoe up his leg to measure the inseam.

  “Hey.” Samson grunted and pulled back his leg. “Watch it, buddy.”

  “Oh, stop it. You’re being a baby,” I said as my face burned. The man had been a contract killer for years, and getting measured for a suit was his limit? This was the line he had a hard time crossing?

  Thankfully, there wasn’t much left for the tailor to do. After a few more measurements and an exchange of money, we were free to leave. Sweat lined Samson’s forehead and the sides of his nose by the time we strolled out of the store and onto the sidewalk.

  “That really stressed you out, didn’t it?” I asked while we walked.

  “I don’t like people being that close to me without a gun. I definitely don’t like people that close to my dick.” Kill me. Just kill me. “We need to go see Cliff.”

  My face fell. We weaved around the ocean of people walking on the sidewalk. “Back to The Den?”

  “Yup.” Samson rubbed the back of his neck. “I only have one knife that can kill a fae. I’d like to have more just in case because I’m going to have to stab him a few times I imagine.”

  I never thought this would be a conversation I’d have out in the open traipsing around on a Manhattan sidewalk.

  “What do you need exactly?”

  “Iron.” The image of the last fae melting into a puddle from the knife to the heart came to mind. “It’s deadly to most of them, but even the ones that can survive it hate it. Some of them hate it so much they don’t ever come out of their weird realm to explore.”

  “Why come here at all?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “They’re mischievous. Some of them steal babies. Some like to trick humans. Some like to eat humans. Their desire to deceive is greater than their desire to live sometimes.” Samson stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Frank always hated working with fae. They are bound to complete any bargain they strike with you, but they are notoriously good at exploiting loopholes.”

  The smell of coffee and fried donuts soaked the inside of my nostrils as we crossed ove
r to the next block. I’d made pancakes before we left, but I was already hungry again.

  “The fact he’s working with them to get to you has me…concerned.”

  “Hey.” I put a hand on his forearm. “We’re a team. We’re going to figure this out.”

  Samson watched me, lips firmly pressed together into a white line. I didn’t know what he was thinking, and even though I didn’t touch his skin, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he could see straight through me anyway.

  “Yeah,” he said, “we will.”

  Twenty-Nine

  The Den was just as gross as the last time we visited, although it was much less busy. The Tuesday afternoon crowd consisted of a woman with a long, red braid and an older Hispanic man in starched jeans standing at the bar. Werewolves? Or something else?

  I never thought this sort of thing would even be a question, yet there I was, standing in a bar for supernatural people, wondering what I looked at.

  Samson led the way, not stopping despite the side-eye we were getting from the two patrons. The woman with the braid was somewhere around my age, yet there was an edge to her that I didn’t possess. She could send people running with a look. I could tell. She elbowed the man, and his frown deepened. We weren’t wanted here.

  I would’ve continued to walk awkwardly beneath their gaze if something unusual didn’t reach my ears: panting. In a bar.

  Right in front of us, less than a yard away from the place where drinks were served, stood a wolf. Sort of.

  It looked like the pictures of wolves I’d seen in books and at the zoo, but bigger. Much bigger. Tall like a Great Dane. A really tall, lean wolf with long canines and a bushy tail.

  Samson reached forward and dropped a hand on the wolf’s head. Its fur, a dark, burnished bronze, stuck up between his fingers.

  “Gemma.” I guessed he could read a person’s mind no matter the body they were in. “Where’s Cliff?”

  Gemma shook her head, knocking Samson’s hand off. Then, like a human jerking their head for us to follow, Gemma the werewolf did exactly that. The two people at the bar watched us go through the back door with a sign that read EMPLOYEES ONLY. Their scowls hadn’t lessened.

  The back of The Den was basically a long, thin hallway covered in wood paneling and yellowed linoleum I suspected had once been white. A wisp of smoke curled through the open door of the room at the end. Gemma led us toward it, the nails on her paws clicking against the floor.

  “What’s going on?” Samson asked as we followed Gemma through the doorframe, not waiting to set his sights on Cliff before announcing his worries. “Why’s she changed?”

  Cliff sat in a heap in a creaky office chair, arms dangling lazily off the rests. His shirt didn’t have a mustard stain on it this time, but he did have a cigarette hanging from his mouth. A computer from the nineties sat on his desk in front of a poster of a woman in lingerie.

  “She takes too long to shift back and forth,” Cliff grumbled as he pulled the cigarette from his lips. The office, small and cramped, had a gun safe tucked inside. “So we’re working on it.”

  Gemma cocked her head to the side, tongue hanging out from between her teeth. I could’ve sworn she was making fun of Cliff. Judging by the unimpressed glower, Cliff thought so too.

  “I need some iron.”

  Cliff made a face and ran a hand over his scalp. The designs shaved on his head had grown out a little, but they could still faintly be seen under the light. “More fae? Ay. Dude, can you not bring this shit to my door? You know if he asks if you were here, I’ll have to tell him.”

  “Tell who?” I crossed my arms.

  “Tell Frank.” Cliff turned his russet-brown eyes to meet mine. There was something I was supposed to be taking away from all this, but I didn’t know what.

  “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but could you possibly lie to him?” I’d never once encouraged lying to anyone, but this Frank person sounded terrible and probably deserved it.

  “To Frank? No.” Cliff gritted his teeth and looked at Samson. “Not unless I want to condemn my entire pack to that goddamn demon.”

  The knot in my stomach grew. “A demon? Is Frank an actual, honest-to-goodness demon? Or was that a turn of phrase?”

  Cliff closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them back up to drill a hole in Samson’s forehead.

  “He is an actual demon, and he makes deals. Deals you don’t want to break.” Cliff ran a hand down his face, annoyed. “Did you not see Nina and Julio outside? My Alpha is already pissed. I’m gonna get my ass whooped the second he sees me again because you keep coming here.”

  “I knew you’d have to tell Frank. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Samson’s throat bobbed. He took the risk, but he didn’t like it, and he said nothing about Cliff’s Alpha.

  My heart beat faster, and I looked at Gemma lying on the floor. She turned her muzzle up and whined before standing up to press her head into the palm of my hand.

  Frank, Samson’s old boss, was a demon. Despite his unassuming name, Frank was a real, from Hell demon.

  Cliff looked over at me, staring intently at my hand petting Gemma.

  “Fine.” Cliff walked over to the six-foot tall gun safe propped against the wall. He spun the dial several times, cursing under his breath all the while. The lock clicked, and he turned the handle. “I’m not giving anything to you. You’re stealing from me, okay?”

  Gemma curled up at my feet on the ground, resting her muzzle on the toes of my stilettos. She huffed, damp breath tickling the inside of my ankle.

  “All right. I’m stealing.” Samson stepped toward the safe, and Cliff backed away, hands up.

  As I watched him rifle through the safe, a sharp feeling of doubt pierced through my heart. Samson had his secrets, and that was his business. But things were starting to piece together in a way that made my heart ache.

  Samson pulled away from the safe with a few things, but my focus wasn’t there. It had retreated into my brain, sliding around the bits of the puzzle that was Samson. Cliff had been right back when he helped me. Samson’s abilities had to come from somewhere.

  If he had worked for a demon, I almost didn’t want to know where.

  I didn’t pay attention to Samson as he dug around in Cliff’s safe. Hopefully, Cliff wouldn’t get in too much trouble. Cliff kept his mouth shut the entire time Samson “stole” his things, not even breaking in his act to tell us good-bye.

  Gemma followed me all the way to the entrance of The Den, close enough to my legs that her coat sometimes brushed against my skin. The woman with the braid and her male companion were gone, and given the complete and utter terror rendering me silent, it was probably for the best. I couldn’t handle another confrontation. Not now.

  I gave Gemma a small smile before walking out onto the sidewalk. “Thank you.”

  She yipped and bounded back toward Cliff’s office.

  Samson, quiet as he held a black bag filled with an assortment of weapons, didn’t try to ease my fears. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with me until we were back in the car.

  “Calm down,” he said the second I shut my door.

  Something in me snapped like a celery stick. Calm down?

  “Really? Calm down? You didn’t think that I might deserve to know that the man sending people to kill me is a demon?” My chest hurt, and a ball of anger, wound so tight I was surprised it didn’t crush everything in my rib cage, pulled and twisted as the thought sank in. A demon. The person in charge of Circle Seven was a demon.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” Samson ground out as he threw the Mercedes in reverse. “He’s still a dick, and I’m still going to kill him.”

  “Doesn’t change anything? Of course it does!” My voice slipped up an octave.

  Samson’s knuckles turned white.

  “What can I possibly do to evade a demon? Hmm? For that matter, how do you plan on killing one?” I threw up my hands. “He’s a demon! Can they even be killed?”r />
  “Everything can be killed.” He jerked the wheel and zipped out of the parking lot. Cowboy Boots waved. He didn’t have blood on his face this time. “Everything dies.”

  While I didn’t know much about his supernatural world, it didn’t sound right, and it certainly didn’t sound easy. Demons could be killed?

  “Aren’t they like bad ghosts or something? How do you kill something like that?” My cheeks warmed when Samson stared at me, unimpressed.

  The silence in the car was thick enough to choke on, and it was a little disconcerting to see Samson at a loss for words.

  “Uh, they’re kinda like bad ghosts,” he said eventually with a pointed look at me. “But Frank needs a body to possess to get anything done. Demons can’t do much without a shell.”

  My nose scrunched up. “So he just possesses random people? How would you even know it’s him?”

  He glanced over at me again. “Frank has had the same body ever since I’ve known him.”

  Samson turned onto Bruckner Boulevard, knuckles no longer white.

  “But if you kill him, won’t he just jump into another body?” I slumped in my seat and heaved a sigh. “None of this makes me feel any better.”

  “It’s fine, Fancy Pants. Like I said, everything can die. Killing demons just requires a few extra steps.”

  Something bit on the edge of my brain, a thought I didn’t want to acknowledge that might change more than just our deal. However, as someone who liked to pretend at being a rational human being, I forced myself to ask the question I’d been trying to ignore anyway. “You know an awful lot about this.”

  He scowled.

  “Any particular reason why?”

  The rumble of the tires turning along the asphalt of the road filled the car as we sat in an uncomfortable, measured silence.

  “I’m not a demon.” His throat bobbed. “You can calm down.”