by S. A. Moss
Guardian Born
Camille Prentice #1
S.A. Moss
Copyright © 2018 by S.A. Moss
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or had, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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1
It is patently unfair to have to take a chemistry final on the day you die.
If I’d known, I definitely wouldn’t have studied as hard.
I was barely clinging to a B in this class and had been up till 1 a.m. cramming compounds and elements into my brain. Which, unfortunately, was where they seemed to want to stay. I was still desperately scribbling answers when the professor called time at the end of class.
Groaning, I brushed my long brown hair over my shoulder and slipped my notebook back into my bag. Sarah, my friend, and sometimes lab partner, looked over at me sympathetically.
“That was tougher than I thought it was gonna be. How do you think you did?”
I shrugged. “Not great.”
“I think Professor Murray gets some kind of sick pleasure out of creating the most obscure test questions possible. If you can get him to let you retake it, I’ll help you study.”
As my lab partner, Sarah had seen firsthand how dismal I was at chemistry. She was lucky she still had both her eyebrows. A Southern belle with blonde waves and a cute pixie nose, she was pretty enough that she could probably get by just fine without eyebrow hair, but I was guessing she’d prefer not to.
Compared to her petite beauty and bubbly personality, I tended to fade into the background—which was pretty much where I preferred to be. I had long brown hair and brown eyes, which made me stand out less than Sarah, despite the four inches I had on her 5’2” stature. I also gave off a pretty decent “fuck off” vibe, which may have had more to do with it than my looks did.
“Yeah, maybe. Thanks, Sarah. I don’t know, maybe I just need to do some more flashcard drills on my own.”
We handed off our tests to Professor Murray. I swear, the bastard got an evil glint in his eye just looking at the first page of mine. Probably already marking it up with that red pen in his mind’s eye. Like me being dumb makes him smarter.
As we walked towards the door, I pulled my phone out of my bag and flipped the ringer back on. Sarah trotted along behind me, hitching her backpack up on her shoulders. She was already worrying aloud about her next final, hoping she’d studied enough for it. I was about to toss my phone back in my bag when a name on the lock screen caught my eye.
Jackson Silver.
I stopped in my tracks and hastily swiped across the screen to open the email from him. Sarah bumped into me, and several students jostled against me to get through the door, but I ignored them.
To: Camille Prentice
From: Jackson Silver
Subject: Possible New Lead
Ms. Prentice,
It looks like we got lucky. I may have found information on your parents’ whereabouts. Meet me at my office at 4 p.m. My rate goes up with the delivery of solid leads, especially on a cold case like this—it’ll be an extra $1000. My office address is below.
Silver
Another person jostled me, and the phone almost tumbled from my shaking hand.
He found something.
“Cam? Are you okay?”
Sarah slipped by me, so she could look at my face—which, given the clammy feeling of my skin, was probably ghostly white.
He found something.
No one had found anything before. Ever. And that included the good detectives I used to hire. This guy was so low rent his “office” was basically a studio apartment in a building that should’ve been condemned years ago. But somehow he, out of all the people I’d hired over the years, had found something that might give me a clue where my parents went when they disappeared without a trace twelve years ago.
I pushed off the doorframe and hurried toward the building’s front exit—already pulling up Google Maps on my phone, calculating what train I’d have to catch, and if I’d make it to his office by four o’clock.
“Cam? What’s going on?”
Sarah followed after me again as I pushed through the door. I stopped abruptly, and she almost repeated her earlier face-plant into my back. I turned around, forcing my voice not to shake.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just forgot I have an appointment I have to get to.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Don’t you have another final?”
Damn.
“Yes, but this is really important. I gotta go. I need to get down to Humboldt Park by four.”
“You’re going to Humboldt Park? By yourself?” She looked a little horrified. “Do you want me to come with you?”
My heart twisted. Of course, she’d offer to blow off her own finals to help me. But I didn’t want her to risk her grades for my benefit—and I really didn’t want anyone but the PI around when I found out what had happened to my parents. Not even Sarah, one of the few people I’d allowed to penetrate the little bubble I lived in. I had to face this myself.
I shook my head as I stepped away from her. Thanks, but that’s okay. I’ll keep my wits about me. Promise.”
Before she could offer again, I waved with finality and bolted down the street.
The Northwestern campus was tucked into the quaint little suburb of Evanston, north of Chicago proper. It was a hell of a long-ass haul down to Humboldt Park from here.
I hopped on the Purple Line and settled into a front-facing seat. I wanted to read the email Silver sent me over and over again, but reading on the train always made me want to barf. So instead, I rested my head against the window and flipped open the locket that hung around my neck.
My parents’ smiling faces stared back at me, happy and hopeful. The pictures inside were taken a year before they disappeared, and I’d spent more hours than I could count gazing at them, as if the photographs could give me the answers I craved.
But they couldn’t. My mother’s brown eyes, so like my own, held no knowledge of her future. My father’s rare smile lit up his entire face.
Where did you go, Mom and Dad? Why did you leave me?
Pushing down the sadness that rose in my chest, I slipped the locket back under my shirt and watched the Chicago landscape glide by.
I’d lived here my whole life, and I didn’t think I’d ever leave. At least not until I found out what happened to my parents. I mean, hell, for all I knew Silver would tell me that whatever clue he found to their whereabouts pointed to them being in Australia or something. But until I knew for sure, I couldn’t bring myself to go far from the last place I saw them.
I transferred to the Red Line then hopped on the 72 bus. Damn buses. I was cutting it close, and the bus pulled over at every single stop. By the time I got off at Humboldt Park, my hands were shaking from nerves.
I checked the time on my phone. Twenty minutes late. Crap! I picked up speed, my heart echoing the slap of my feet on the sidewalk.
Please still be there.
His office was in a building that looked like it’d once been residential before being repurposed for whatever use the tenants saw fit. I was sure that violated some kind of zoning regulations, but whatever. If he gave me information on my parents, Silver could work wherever he wanted. I pressed the buzzer next t
o his name and waited.
Nothing.
I pressed it again. Held it down and wobbled it around a bit this time. The buzzer in my building was really finicky, so maybe this one was too.
Still nothing.
Crap. Did he leave?
I hit the buzzer again, and this time I jiggled the door just to check. There was no response on the intercom, but the door popped open at my not-too-gentle tug. I hesitated. If he wasn’t answering, he probably wasn’t there.
Or maybe the buzzer really is broken, and he’s sitting up there waiting for me.
Pulling the door wider, I stepped into the building. Black-and-white floor tiles covered the dingy entryway, and a staircase sat next to a hallway leading deeper into the building. His number was 3B, so I figured that meant “up.” I trotted up the stairs, trying to brush off the feeling I was intruding.
It’s not technically breaking and entering if you don’t break anything, is it?
The door at the end of the third floor hallway was open, and a crooked B hung by one tenacious nail. A grin lit my face, and I picked up my pace.
“Stop squirming. This will be less painful if you stop resisting.”
The gruff voice stopped me. It was coming from Silver’s office, but it definitely wasn’t his voice.
2
The voice was a pitch I’d never heard before. If gravel could talk, it would sound like that.
“Look, I’m sorry! I find people. It’s what I do! But if you want, I can forget the whole thing. I can forget!”
That was Silver’s voice. And he sounded scared. His voice was high to begin with, but it didn’t usually quaver like that.
“Oh, you will forget.” The stranger sounded amused.
I pressed my back against the wall, not sure what to do. Did Silver have a meeting scheduled before mine? Whatever it was, this encounter didn’t sound like it was going well for him. Part of me wanted to bolt for safety, but I wasn’t sure I could just walk away—from a man in trouble or from the information he had promised me.
Deciding not to examine my motivation too closely, I peeled my back from the wall and crept a bit closer to the door, trying to get a peek inside the room.
“Yes! Yes, I’ll forget all about this. I’ll tell her I was wrong, got wires crossed, it’s not her father. I promise!” Silver cried, his voice a mix of relief and panic.
“That’s a very nice offer, Mr. Silver. But when I said forget, I meant it literally.”
“What do you mean? What are you… what are you doing?”
As I tiptoed slowly forward, Silver’s face finally came into view. He was staring wide-eyed at someone standing in front of the folding card table that served as a desk.
I shifted a bit to the left, and the giant man came into view. He was gripping his head in both hands as if he had a headache. Then, before I could even register what he was doing, his hands whipped quickly to the side, and a sickening crunch split the air. His body dropped to the ground like a pile of bricks.
I would’ve gasped, but my lungs had seized and didn’t seem capable of moving air at the moment. Silver was making enough noise for both of us though. He shrieked and leapt backwards out of his chair, toppling it over and putting as much distance as possible between himself and the corpse lying in front of him.
The corpse—and the thing crawling slowly out of its body.
The man was huge, tall and bulky, but the thing rising from his body was spindly, skeletal, and almost incorporeal. I could see through its arms as it pulled itself up, not breaking through the man’s skin but clearly disentangling itself from his corpse. Then its beady eyes focused on Silver, who was still letting out one long, continuous scream.
“You will forget,” the thing whispered in a creaky voice. “You’ll forget everything.”
It scrabbled over the desk and lunged for Silver. But instead of reaching for him, it reached into him, yanking him forward with its hands lodged in his chest. It rested its head against his, an oddly intimate gesture. It would’ve almost looked sweet if Silver’s eyes weren’t bugging out of his head, his mouth still open in a never-ending shriek.
The creature pulled Silver even closer, pressing into him slowly. Then the creature disappeared inside his body. Silver’s scream cut off with a hitched breath. In the echoing silence that followed, my lungs finally decided to start working.
I gasped.
Silver’s eyes flicked up and caught mine.
But it wasn’t Silver.
I’d only met the man once, but I knew in a deeper place than I knew grass was green and the sky was blue—that wasn’t him.
The thing, whatever it was, seemed to enjoy taunting Silver. Playing with him like a cat that wasn’t quite hungry enough to eat the mouse yet. Maybe that was why I expected it to do the same with me. Some witty repartee. Some flowery promise of slow death or eternal pain. Something.
But it just stared at me through Silver’s eyes, taking in my heaving chest and shaking limbs.
Then it moved.
Faster than I’d ever seen a human move before, it skirted the card table and sprinted directly towards me. I hesitated for just a heartbeat as adrenaline flooded my body so fast I was instantly nauseated. When he reached for me, I ducked under his grasp—but instead of running back, I dove forward.
Silver’s momentum carried him past me, and I threw myself into room 3B, slamming the door behind me. I fumbled for the lock, flipping the latch on the deadbolt and then the handle for good measure. Breath heaving, I braced against the door. It shook as the Silver-creature slammed into it.
I cast my gaze around the room, trying not to look at the body sprawled on the floor. There was a window on the far side of the room, but I wasn’t sure I’d survive a jump from the third floor. And that was if I could get the window open. Half the windows in my apartment had been painted shut years ago.
The door shook again. The handle rattled. Then there was a pause.
I pressed my eye to the peephole. Silver was still there. His focus was on something in his hands. What on earth does he have?
A scraping sound carried through the door.
Oh hell. He has a key.
Of course, Silver had a key to his own freaking office.
I hated to step away from the door. Standing in the middle of the room with nothing at my back felt way too exposed, but if the Silver-creature was out there testing keys in the lock, that door was about to become very unsafe.
I backed away, eyes locked on the doorknob. My heel caught on the dead man’s pant leg, and I stumbled over him, landing on my butt.
Shit. Maybe I should’ve looked at him earlier. He probably offered my best hope of escape.
Trying to shut out the part of my brain that was screaming just like Silver had screamed, I scrambled up and started patting the corpse all over.
Please have a gun. A taser. Something.
The man was dressed like a biker, in jeans, leather boots, and a fitted T-shirt with a jacket over it. I groped unabashedly at his waist, feeling for anything in his pockets or tucked into the waistband of his jeans. No dice.
The doorknob turned. Unlocked.
Oh no. If the deadbolt used the same key as the doorknob, I was screwed.
I moved my hands up, pushing the man’s leather jacket open, searching for an inner pocket. I’d seen enough movies—there was always some kind of inner pocket where they kept their gun, right?
Yep.
The latch on the deadbolt turned as my hands landed on the blessedly cold metal of the gun in his pocket. I’d never shot a gun before, but this one was medium-sized and reassuringly heavy as I pulled it out.
The door opened, and I didn’t hesitate.
Neither did Silver.
He ran right for me, and I pulled the trigger.
The gun whipped upward as the recoil nearly tore it from my hand. Shit, that was stronger than I expected.
But I hit him.
Silver stumbled slightly, gripping his shoulder w
here blood blossomed under his hand.
I darted past him, but with that same inhuman speed, he reached out with his bloody hand and grabbed the gun in my hand. Instead of pulling it out of my grasp, he wrapped his fingers around mine. He stepped closer, pulling me toward him.
“I’ll make you forget too,” he whispered softly.
Then he squeezed. His thumb pressed on my finger, and the sound of the gunshot made my breath stop.
More red bloomed on his chest, and he stumbled. He dropped to his knees with a thud then tipped sideways, sprawling just a few feet from the first body.
The gun slipped from my fingers, and I jumped. Don’t drop a loaded weapon, stupid!
I bent quickly to pick it up, but hesitated.
Silver had stopped moving. Stopped breathing.
Then with a twitch, the skeletal, incorporeal creature began crawling out of his body.
Oh hell no. I know what happens next.
Abandoning the gun entirely, I sprinted for the door, whipping it open and barreling down the dim hall. I heard a hiss behind me but didn’t slow down enough to look back. On the second set of stairs, I missed a step and slid down on my back, smacking my head painfully on the floor as I landed in a heap in the stairwell. Groaning, I pulled myself up. My head spun, and white sparks flashed in my vision.
Sliding my hands along the wall to keep myself upright, I stumbled down the next flight of stairs. I could feel something wet creeping down the back of my neck. I must’ve cut my head when I landed.
I still couldn’t bring myself to look behind me. If that creature was gaining on me, I didn’t want to know.
Just keep moving forward.
I was slower on the stairs, but as soon as my feet hit the black-and-white tiles of the entryway I put on a burst of speed, ignoring the feel of my pulse pounding in my entire head. Every beat of my heart was like a hammer to my brain.
Wrenching open the door, I threw myself outside. Goose bumps covered my skin as the cool spring air hit me. But the sunlight felt like a promise of safety.
