by Rhys Ford
We crested, then reached for each other again, holding back sleep and the night until our bodies ached and our limbs were too heavy to move, and even then, as we collapsed onto the sweat-dampened sheets, our fingers brushed wherever we could reach of the other and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, not caring if I ever did.
The silence around us was only broken by our heavy breathing. Then Ryder finally whispered, “I love you. I needed you to hear it. And I don’t need to hear you say it in return, but I needed me to say it.”
I traced circles across his palm, then turned over onto my stomach to peer out through the fall of black-and-purple hair covering most of my face. He did me the favor of pushing it back, tucking a large hank behind my notched ear, and then ran his fingers down my still-damp cheek.
“I think you do need to hear it.” Arguing the point, I continued, “I don’t know if what I feel is love. I’m not a poet. I’m not going to think flowers and sweets when I see you. I’m sorry for that. But what I can tell you is that I’d die for you. I’d avenge you. I’ll defend you and yours, and hell, I’d even do it for free, which says a lot, because I’m a mercenary bastard who kills monsters for a living. If you’ll have me in your life, then I want to be there. But if ever you don’t, tell me, and I won’t darken your world anymore. That’s the best kind of love I can offer you. That I’ll be here when you need me, and I’ll tell you when I think you’re full of shit.”
“I expect nothing less from you, Chimera.” Ryder chuckled, the shimmery specks in his eyes flickering with amusement and the moonlight coming through the windows above the bed. “And I was going to suggest sleep, but right now, I think I’ve got better things to do with you than that.”
Epilogue
NEWT WOKE me up. Nothing said get out of bed louder than a tiny pointy-toed angry cat who looked more goblin than feline walking across the tender bits of your body while screaming about his empty belly. I left Ryder to his sleep, glad one of us could chase the morning under the covers, and dragged myself up to stumble down and get the cat his tribute. Once the tuna-and-egg slop hit his bowl, Newt discarded me like so much trash, and I gathered up my aching limbs to shove them and whatever they were left attached to to stand under a hot shower, angling the spray heads so nearly every inch of my body could be pounded by the hard streams.
As reluctant as I was to scrub Ryder from my body, I needed to or I’d get nothing done except to crawl back in bed and make my body ache more. And as I pulled my oldest pair of jeans up my legs and over my ass, I felt every twinge my overstretched muscles made while I moved.
“Iesu, I’ve got to wash those sheets once he wakes up,” I muttered, discovering the bit of webbing I hadn’t been able to cut split at some point during the night and healed correctly. “Not that I remember the last time I changed them, but screw it, I haven’t been sleeping here much, anyway.”
The day broke gray, and I’d missed it, but whatever clear skies there’d been were gone, leaving a cloak of mist and dreary light behind. I got a good view of the fogged-over shoreline from the stretch of windows along the back of the warehouse, and the cat dogged my footsteps once I brought a cup of coffee into the living space. The big block engine I’d hung on a mount was surrounded by the boxes Jonas had dragged over from Dempsey’s Lakeside double-wide, packed up and forgotten when Razor moved into the place. I’d put off digging through the old man’s stuff while he’d been alive, and now that he was gone, it seemed wrong to be leaving his life to sit like garbage beneath a chunk of metal I couldn’t find a home for.
“Okay, old man, let’s see what there is of you in there.” I dragged one box over, then another. Sitting down on the couch, I stared at the boxes, then grabbed the smallest, shoving aside the knotted rebar with a cardboard corner as I set it down on the shipping crate. “Guess I’ll start here.”
There weren’t many—only seven—hardly enough to hold Dempsey’s character and sure as hell not enough to speak for the man he’d been. Quite a bit of Dempsey’s things were over at Jonas’s place from when he’d gone there to live, and what was left at the Lakeside house had been mostly stored-away things. I’d already taken his weapons home, cleaning what was usable and glass-casing the guns he’d gotten back before the Merge, most of them antiques and untrustworthy in the field.
The first box was odd, tidbits of clothing and a chewed-through blanket. I didn’t know what to make of what I’d found until I reached the bottom of the box and found a length of iron chain with a clip attached to a ring soldered to the end of it. Staring at the thing like it was a snake coiled to bite me, I grabbed at the blanket again, recognizing it as something Dempsey used to wrap around me in the beginning of our lives together. I’d been feral, attracted to the red stars quilted into the heavy blanket, and I’d fallen for the flash of color every time he’d come near, only to be captured in it until I calmed down enough to trust him.
“Should have pulled my teeth,” I grumbled at my dead mentor. “Would have been easier on you.”
“Not every solution requires pulling teeth or cutting off body parts,” Ryder called out as he came down the stairs. “Sometimes it’s better to gain small steps than take huge leaps.”
“Said the guy who wouldn’t let me cut my fingers apart so I could make them work better before we fell into bed.” I nodded toward the kitchen. “There’s a thermos cup of hot water in there for you and a bunch of those frou-frou teas you like. Bags, not leaves, so don’t get too excited.”
“The fact that you even thought to have tea for me warms my heart.” From the sounds Ryder made in the kitchen, I guessed he found the tea. He walked back out, holding the lid from the sealable cup against its side while he swished a bag of leaves around in the hot water. “I hurt everywhere.”
“Yeah, well, that happens sometimes,” I remarked, carefully placing the blanket and everything else back in the box, then setting it aside to deal with later. The next one was a bit heavier and larger, so I shoved at the crate with my foot to make room on the floor in front of me. “Good to see you found the clothes I left.”
“I thought I was doing well enough until I moved my right arm. Shoulder stings as if I’d landed on a bag of wasps.” He hissed as he sat down, giving me a baleful glare when I glanced at him. “I love you, áinle, but you bite.”
“You knew what you were getting into,” I reminded him. “When have I not bitten? Move your knee so I don’t hit you with the flap. Never know what Dempsey thought to save, and with our luck, it’ll be some cursed mechanical bird with a thirst for Sidhe blood.”
The papers on top were Dempsey’s retirement portfolio from SoCalGov and the resolution of his Stalker license. I’d have thought he’d have burned them as soon as he opened them, but instead he’d shoved them aside, much like I’d done with what he’d used to bring me home. The rest of it seemed to be odds and bits from his Stalker career—loose pictures of kills with friends I knew and many I’d never met. There was a leather jacket folded up at the bottom, broad in the shoulder, with a tearing bite taken out of the upper left sleeve, about the size of my teeth span when he’d first found me.
“Oh, I have a matching one of those on my right shoulder.” Ryder grimaced, reaching for the jacket to hold it, then examining the cleanly cut mark. “Yep, exactly like that. With those canine points too. Imagine that.”
“Shut up. You didn’t complain at the time, so you don’t get to now,” I grumbled back. “Okay, what’s this, then?”
The package was soft-sided, a large brown envelope stuffed to the gills and held together by yellowed packing tape. Dempsey’s strong handwriting was faded, the black marker he used now a soft gray against the manila paper, but the name and address were still legible—a long-demolished motel in New Vegas and a room number scrawled out under Kenny’s name.
“I’ll be damned.” Reaching for the knife I’d used to cauterize my skin, I muttered at Ryder, “Bastard never mailed it. No wonder Cari’s witchy magic came up empty. Kenny never got th
is because Dempsey never sent it. He must have shoved it in here when we were moving to San Diego and thought he’d shipped it off.”
I didn’t want to see my fingers trembling, but they had a mind of their own, and it was hard to hold on to the knife. Ryder leaned in, his thigh against mine, and he nudged my shoulder, wincing as he moved.
“No matter what’s in there,” he murmured, “it’ll be fine. It won’t really change anything.”
Taking the package from me was easy enough. Getting it open was hard. The tape was gummy and the fabric threads running through it fought my blade, too sticky and old to be sliced clean even with a sharp edge. He finally wrested it open and the package burst apart, eager to breathe and vomit up its contents after years of being held in by a corset of plastic and glue.
Something triangular went bouncing across the area rug, a dried, withered bit Newt made a beeline for as soon as he saw movement. I pounced first, barely making it in time to grab at the folded-over scrap before my cat dug his teeth into it. An enraged mewl rumbled from his tiny throat, his chest puffed out and his tail bristling, ready to fight me for his prize, but I flicked a belled stuffed mouse out from its hiding place next to one of the boxes and he bounded after it, distracted and happy.
“Huh.” I pulled myself back up onto the couch, examining what I had in my hand. “I’ll be damned. Well, I’m sure I am, but it’s definite now.”
“What is that?” Ryder recoiled, much like he’d done when he found me snipping my fingers apart. “That looks like—”
“Yep, fits right in,” I said cheerfully, holding my hair back as I fit the piece into the notch taken out of my ear. Except for some looseness from years of drying and a bit of growth, the triangular bit was a perfect match. “Looks like this is what Dempsey was given to sniff me out with. Like a puzzle piece. Find the elfin this fits to. Better than a glass slipper.”
“Some paper, looks like a contract, but there’s no names,” Ryder commented, spreading them out on a box lid. “Only numbers, like a code and money amounts, higher if you’re alive, and when he needed to be in SoCal to get his money. They gave him six months to find you and bring you over.”
“Took him a few,” I admitted. “I wasn’t very cooperative.”
“No, I can’t imagine you were. You’re not cooperative now,” he drawled, rolling his eyes at me. “This, now, this I know.”
The large square piece of silk he slipped out of the broken package was dull, as worn from age as the tape, or perhaps even more. Speckled with brown spots I suspected were blood, the silk’s cobalt hue faded toward the edges, leached to a robin’s-egg hue from water damage. It was double-sided, plain on one, but when Ryder turned it over, I saw an elaborate sigil of a silvery white dragon picked out in shiny threads, the colors shimmering when he ran it over his hand. There were bits of blue and green worked into its ridges, a fierce Asiatic draconian face captured in mid snarl. It was a simple sweep of floss, beads, and silk, more of an impression than a true rendering, but the sight of it left me perplexed.
“A Clan sigil.” Ryder caught my confusion with a glance. Then, figuring I needed more of an explanation, he continued, “Something like this is given to a child at birth, or when they’re named. It’s a formal welcome to their House. Their Clan. I recognize this one. It’s a dead Clan. The Xishari. I just don’t know why Dempsey had it.”
“You know a lot about dead Clans?” I turned the bit of mummified flesh over in my fingers. “And how the hell does a Clan die? Everyone of that bloodline bites the dust?”
“Or if there’s one left and she renamed herself, making a new Clan.” Ryder brushed the square out, spreading it over his thigh. “It’s considered to be ill luck to be the last of a Clan, especially if they’ve all fallen in battle. That’s what happened to the Xishari. Everyone was killed after the Last Great War with the Unsidhe. Before the Merge. Only Sebac remained, so she set aside her blood name and formed her own Clan, the Sebac. That’s how I know about the Xishari. She was the last of her Clan and then the first of her own. It’s a part of our family history. There are a few dead Clans, but this sigil, I know very well. It’s a cloud dragon. It was their mark.”
“Huh.” I mulled over what he said, scratching at the dragon scale under my skin. After a moment, I held the bit of my flesh Dempsey meant to send to his brother and turned it over so Ryder could see the Xishari sigil inked into the triangular slice. “Then explain to me why it was tattooed onto my ear and why Tanic cut it out.”
More from Rhys Ford
The Kai Gracen Series: Book One
Ever since being part of the pot in a high-stakes poker game, elfin outcast Kai Gracen figures he used up his good karma when Dempsey, a human Stalker, won the hand and took him in. Following the violent merge of Earth and Underhill, the human and elfin races are left with a messy, monster-ridden world, and Stalkers are the only cavalry willing to ride to someone’s rescue when something shadowy appears.
It’s a hard life but one Kai likes—filled with bounty, a few friends, and most importantly, no other elfin around to remind him of his past. And killing monsters is easy. Especially since he’s one himself.
But when a sidhe lord named Ryder arrives in San Diego, Kai is conscripted to do a job for Ryder’s fledgling Dawn Court. It’s supposed to be a simple run up the coast during dragon-mating season to retrieve a pregnant human woman seeking sanctuary. Easy, quick, and best of all, profitable. But Kai ends up in the middle of a deadly bloodline feud he has no hope of escaping.
No one ever got rich being a Stalker. But then few of them got old, either, and it doesn’t look like Kai will be the exception.
The Kai Gracen Series: Book Two
Kai Gracen has no intention of being anyone’s pawn. A pity Fate and SoCalGov have a different opinion on the matter.
Licensed Stalkers make their living hunting down monsters and dangerous criminals… and their lives are usually brief, brutal, and thankless. Despite being elfin and cursed with a nearly immortal lifespan, Kai didn’t expect to be any different. Then Ryder, the High Lord of the Southern Rise Court, arrived in San Diego, and Kai’s not-so-mundane life went from mild mayhem to full-throttle chaos.
Now an official liaison between the growing Sidhe court and the human populace, Kai is at Ryder’s beck and call for anything a High Lord might need a Stalker to do. Unfortunately for Kai, this means chasing down a flimsy rumor about an ancient lost court somewhere in the Nevada desert—a court with powerful magics that might save Ryder’s—and Kai’s—people from becoming a bloody memory in their merged world’s violent history.
The race for the elfin people’s salvation opens unwelcome windows into Kai’s murky past, and it could also slam the door on any future he might have with his own kind and Ryder.
The Kai Gracen Series: Book Three
Stalker Kai Gracen knew his human upbringing would eventually clash with his elfin heritage, but not so soon. Between Ryder, a pain-in-his-neck sidhe lord coaxing him to join San Diego’s Southern Rise Court, and picking up bounties for SoCalGov, he has more than enough to deal with. With his loyalties divided between the humans who raised him and the sidhe lord he’s befriended and sworn to protect, Kai finds himself standing at a crossroads.
When a friend begs Kai to rescue a small group of elfin refugees fleeing the Dusk Court, he’s pulled into a dangerous mission with Ryder through San Diego’s understreets and the wilderness beyond. Things go from bad to downright treacherous when Kerrick, Ryder’s cousin, insists on joining them, staking a claim on Southern Rise and Kai.
Burdened by his painful past, Kai must stand with Ryder against Kerrick while facing down the very court he fears and loathes. Dying while on a run is expected for a Stalker, but Kai wonders if embracing his elfin blood also means losing his heart, soul, and humanity along the way.
When Xander Spade went through the Looking Glass, he wasn’t looking for salvation. He’d been running from the devil who took his soul, only to fall prey to the greates
t monster in Wonderland City, the Queen of Hearts. Years later, the Queen is dead and Xander has a chance to go through the Looking Glass and back home where he belongs.
Xander’s devil wants him to find a little girl who escaped into Wonderland City, before her presence brings down an apocalypse of uncontrollable chaos to the already mad world. Along with Jean Michel, the former Knave of Hearts, Xander now is in a race against time to find the missing child before all Hell breaks loose and he loses his chance to go home.
Ink and Shadows: Book One
Kismet Andreas lives in fear of the shadows.
For the young tattoo artist, the shadows hold more than darkness. He is certain of his insanity because the dark holds creatures and crawling things only he can see—monsters who hunt out the weak to eat their minds and souls, leaving behind only empty husks and despair.
And if there’s one thing Kismet fears more than being hunted—it’s the madness left in its wake.
The shadowy Veil is Mal’s home. As Pestilence, he is the youngest—and most inexperienced—of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, immortal manifestations resurrected to serve—and cull—mankind. Invisible to all but the dead and insane, the Four exist between the Veil and the mortal world, bound to their nearly eternal fate. Feared by other immortals, the Horsemen live in near solitude but Mal longs to know more than Death, War and Famine.
