Smoke & Mirrors

by C. L. Schneider

  Staring out the window, pondering my next move, I watched the traffic jockeying for position on the busy street below. Ronan being involved didn’t change my timeline. Going after Gant without a workable plan, still put the kidnapped creatures at risk. Plus, I had no idea where he was holding them. Waiting for the auction, at least, put them all in one place.

  In the meantime, I needed to get everyone out of the apartment. If I could convince Creed to hold off on the forensics team and act like we came up empty—and let me stake out the apartment alone—when Ronan came back to clean out his secret room, I’d be waiting.

  Not inside, though. If he wanted direct contact, he would have made it. Ronan needed to believe I was gone, or he wouldn’t bite. He’d canvas the perimeter first, to make sure no one was watching. I needed a perch he wouldn’t think to check.

  I scanned the neighborhood for a decent surveillance site.

  Food carts and newspaper stands cluttered the sidewalks. The surrounding buildings all had upper floors and rooftops with a clear sightline. At the far end of the block, a partially enclosed, old pedestrian walkway spanned the busy road. The curved, plexiglass walls were scratched and foggy with the build-up of years upon years of city life. Blue and white graffiti marred the brick stairwells on both sides. The tops were shaped like turrets. I might fit, lying flat on the roof, depending on its depth. I’d have to wait until nightfall to climb up. But Ronan wouldn’t show until then, anyway. He was too smart to let himself be seen.

  I studied the area again—streets, sidewalks, and storefronts—and decided the bridge was still my best bet. It didn’t seem to get a lot of traffic. Only one person occupied it now. Three more entered the stairwell on the right. They emerged, crossed the bridge, and disappeared down the other side. The original occupant remained. A masculine shape, he stood in the center, staring out through the filmy wall.

  I waited for him to pull out a phone or cigarette, but he seemed more interested in the street. Not the street. The angle of his head suggested his focus was higher, on the buildings. But not just any building. The building I’m in.

  The same floor. The same window. Shit. He was staring right at me.

  I threw open the window, but between distance, and the grimy bridge walls, I had no hope of making out the face. Then, I couldn’t see it at all, as he pulled something that resembled a ski mask over his head.

  Ronan. He’d been here the whole time, watching. Waiting. For me.

  Stunned, I knew meeting him now was a risk. I’d need one hell of an excuse to get out of the apartment, quickly, before anyone else noticed the creepy guy in the mask standing on—

  Too late.

  Two women entered the bridge. Ronan turned at their approach. He displayed an object of similar size and shape to the missing sword, and they ran back down. Distance muted their startled screams as the women fled, but I wasn’t the only one to hear them. Another was on the move, sprinting down the sidewalk to the end of the block. Her hand was on the weapon in her holster. Geronimo.

  I dropped the hood and raced from the apartment. Creed and Evans hollered at me as I sped by, but I didn’t stop. Flying down the first set of stairs, I vaulted over the second-floor railing and hit the lobby in a crouch. As I shoved open the front door, Creed’s second shout echoed down from the third-floor landing. I ignored it, too, and bounded up the small set of stairs to the sidewalk. I considered a detour to my car. My sidearm and knife were both in the jeep. But I was parked on a cross street, in the opposite direction. The metal baton in my boot would have to do.

  Unzipping my jacket, I ditched the extra weight as I weaved through the crowd at full speed. A quick glance at the grimy acrylic walls showed Ronnie on the bridge. My view wasn’t great at street level, but it was obvious her weapon was drawn and aimed at the masked man.

  He moved closer. Her gun discharged.

  I ran faster.

  With no apology to the pedestrians I toppled over in my wake, I pumped my legs as hard as I could to the end of the block. Breathless, time seemed to crawl as I spiraled up the dusky, brick stairwell. I burst out onto the sunlit walkway—and it sped up again, as I tripped over the standard, police-issued weapon lying on the concrete span. I tried to grab it, but the gun slid behind me. As it bounced down the stairs, a strangled cry resonated through the walkway.

  I looked up and saw Ronan’s sword at the tail end of a diagonal, downward swipe. Blood was streaking the air. Geronimo’s body was caving. Running to catch her, I dropped into a slide. She landed on me more than into my arms. Blood wet my shirt as I cradled her limp form. I eyed Ronan, hovering a few feet away. His familiar gaze, behind the mask, was icy calm. Maintaining a neutral posture, the sword was low at his side. But he wasn’t leaving. Which meant he wasn’t done.

  Repositioning Ronnie’s trembling body in my arms, I dragged her away from him. As I laid her down, she struggled to choke out my name.

  I doled out the standard line of, “It’s all right.” But as I sat back, I knew it was very far from all right.

  The blade had sliced long and deep across her torso. Organs were compromised. Blood was rapidly fleeing her body. The seam in her flesh was wide. I couldn’t sear it shut with fire. Even if I could, there was too much internal damage. Using pieces of my lyrriken form, to speed her healing, might work. But Ronnie’s injury was severe, and we weren’t alone. A crowd was gathering on the street. Creed and Evans were pushing through, hurrying toward the bridge. If I shifted here, there was no hiding it—from anyone, ever again.

  A shoe scuffed on the walkway. A glint of light shined in the corner of my eye. Snapping my head around, I shot my eager opponent a gruff, “Why are you doing this?”

  He replied with a silent brandish of his weapon.

  Even if I tried to heal her, he wouldn’t grant me the time.

  Ronnie clutched my arm. Red wet her lips, sputtering out as she gasped, “Go. I…I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not,” I said, and more blood oozed out as a pained sob broke through her heavy breaths. I smoothed the hair back from her face. “I’m sorry, Ronnie. I never meant for this to happen. I was wrong.” He is a killer.

  Her damp gaze drifted to the masked assailant, as he inched steadily closer. “For me,” she said, struggling to hold a smile. “Go…Barracuda…go get that son of a bitch.”

  I wanted to argue. But voices were echoing up through the stairwell, and Ronan was nearly on top of us. If I didn’t move, he’d cut me down, then Evans, then Creed. I’d heal; they wouldn’t.

  I drew the baton and stood. Giving the weapon a shake, I extended the steel shaft and moved to engage. My first goal was simple: push my opponent back from my friends. This was my problem to deal with. My fight. My ex. I wasn’t letting him hurt anyone else.

  The distance closed between us, and Ronan led with an uncharacteristic, showy spin of his blade. It was a clear summons. I wasted no time in replying.

  Rushing him, veering abruptly left, I ran at—then onto—the wall and pushed off. Rebounding high, as I came down, I cracked the baton over his head. I landed behind him and backed up, forcing him to pursue me to the far end of the span.

  Creed and Evans were on the bridge now, kneeling beside Ronnie. Refusing to let her condition distract me, I locked eyes with my opponent. I mocked his previous action and gave the baton a few twirls in challenge. The smooth, effortless side flip he used to accept stunned me. I’d never seen Ronan pull off such a move, let alone nail the landing in a perfect, blade-ready stance. Intent was radiating off him. So is the urge to kill, I thought, as I parried his ruthless strikes. Ronan wasn’t holding back, and there was little I could do about it with so many eyes on our skirmish. Creed had his weapon out, but we were moving too fast for him to risk a shot. And the growing audience below meant no scales, no fire.

  No show of strength I shouldn’t be capable of.

  Then how do I beat him?

  Thrusting forward, Ronan swung with a controlled flutter of brutal left-right, r
ight-left strikes at my chest. I blocked each one. He kept at it, and the nicks in the baton added up. It wouldn’t hold much longer.

  “Ronan!” I shouted, as our weapons met again. “What the hell are you doing?”

  There was no change in his glare, no easing of his attack.

  Naalish had clearly done a number on him. He’d never possessed technical skills like this before. He’d certainly never failed to recognize me. If he slowed down even for a minute, and truly saw me, maybe he’d snap out of it. Then what?

  Even if I talked him down, I couldn’t let Creed arrest him. Ronan being held for murder in a human court was a clusterfuck with no happy ending. I needed him off the bridge. I needed him to run so I could pursue. I could get through to him if we were alone.

  And if he stopped trying to slice me in half.

  I leaned back in a swift attempt to escape his oncoming blade. Rotating to the side, I came in low, and brought my baton across his kneecap. My elbow rose up to meet his face; the back of my hand his nose. As his head snapped back, I smacked the other knee, pivoted, and struck the back of the same leg. One, two, three more rapid hits, and the limb buckled.

  He reached back for me. I spun the other way. Jabbing the end of my baton into the side of his neck, I came around front with a follow-up kick to the chest. Propelled backwards into the brick frame of the stairwell, Ronan dropped to one knee. Dust and tiny bits of concrete rained onto his head. He panted for a breath or two, then rose with a furious growl and a vicious thrust of his sword. I scrambled to turn the strike away. Steel rolled along the metal shaft. It slipped off and sliced my jeans as I scampered back; skimming both legs with a hot sting.

  Pissed, I cried out with an authority I hadn’t used on him in nearly a century, “Ronan! Stand down!” And he lurched to a stop.

  Finally, his stare met mine through the mask. But it didn’t come with the recognition I’d hoped. “Ronan?” I said again. The lines around his eyes tightened, as if he didn’t understand his own name. “I know what you’ve been through. I know the queen’s orders are everything to you now. But I was everything once. I used to matter, too. I mattered to you.”

  Body still, he said nothing, betrayed nothing.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. “And I know, deep down, you don’t—”

  He jumped and thrust a boot into my face. Soaring back, I fell flat onto the concrete span. Pain traveled along the points of impact and kept going. My vision fogged. I struggled to clear it. Don’t pass out, I thought. Don’t pass out...

  A round of gunfire stabbed through the haze, clearing my foggy brain, and sending Ronan ducking into the stairwell. Creed’s subsequent shout of my name startled me into action.

  Taking off after Ronan, I paused at the top of the stairs. He was at the bottom. “Tell me where to meet,” I said. “We can talk. Whatever’s going on, whatever’s happened, I can help.”

  Ronan lifted his hands. The gloves were gone. Scales had replaced his human skin. Fire was sitting in his glowing palms. With a sudden thrust of both arms, he pushed an inferno up the passageway. As it climbed near, I leapt back onto the bridge. The burning column was too much for the confined space. The edge of the blaze burst out—inches above my head—while the brunt of the shot blasted through the back of the stairwell, shattering and propelling a rain of bricks and concrete onto the street below.

  Screams mingled with the sounds of collapse. More debris plunged down, darkening the growing cloud of dust. The weakened span shook beneath me. If it collapsed, those below would be crushed.

  Choking on the hot, dusty stench, I climbed to my feet and hollered for everyone to get clear. My plan to chase after Ronan fizzled as I got a look at the amount of debris filling the stairwell. I peered through both sides of the plexiglass wall, hoping for some sign of him on the street. But there was nothing. He’d slipped away in the chaos, using the smoke and the injured as cover. Pursuing him without so much as a direction was pointless. By the time I made it off the bridge, he’d be long gone. One thing Ronan knew how to do was disappear.

  That part of him was still very much intact, I thought, as I searched for evidence that wasn’t here. He’d taken his blade. There was none of his blood, no DNA. I hadn’t seen his face, touched his skin. There was no trace of who he was, no proof that it was him—trying to kill me.

  I took that disturbing thought with me as I started back across the bridge.

  Remembering the cuts on my legs, I threw in a limp for believability. I pushed out a few appropriately weary coughs on my way through the cloud. When I cleared it, there was no sign of Evans. Creed was sitting alone beside Ronnie. His jacket was off and balled up against the front of her; soaked in blood. His equally red hands were in his lap, as he stared at the still body in front of him. It looked very little like the woman I knew. Her face was the wrong color. Her sharp, dark eyes were closed. I’d never noticed before how black and thick her eyelashes were.

  Creed stood. He wandered toward me. Our stares met. Mine held hope. His was dark with a defeat I wasn’t ready to accept, even as he uttered a remorseful, “She’s gone.”

  “No. She can’t be. There’s still time.” There had to be. Sirens were cutting through the corridor of streets. “The ambulance is almost here.”

  “It’s too late. The wound was too deep. I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

  I could have, I thought. If only I’d stayed with her. “Did you check her pulse?”

  “Of course, I checked her pulse, Nite. She doesn’t have one.”

  I blinked, fighting to shove my emotions down. If my empathy caught wind of Ronnie’s ghost, it would drag me into her death-glimpse. And I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to feel her die. I didn’t want to watch myself walk away from her. “You’re wrong.” I took a step.

  Creed moved in front of me. “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure. Not giving up.”

  “Is that what you think I did? Look at the blood, Dahlia. On the ground. On you. On me,” he said, shoving his stained hands in my face. Creed shot one past me, pointing. “Look at her wound. She couldn’t survive that. No one could.”

  “I need to know. I need to check. Just—move.” I pushed forward.

  Creed shoved me back with a harsh, “Goddammit, what the hell is wrong with you? This bridge is a step away from collapsing. We have injured civilians down there. And we are three feet from a dead officer who deserves five seconds of respect before you start making it all about you.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes. You are.” His firm gaze held mine. “Calm the fuck down, Dahlia, or go home. I don’t need you here like this.”

  His anger dissolved my own, and I moved back. The weight of surrender sat cold on my chest. Shame moved in alongside it. “I’m sorry,” I muttered. It wasn’t his fault. I was the one who had a chance to heal her. And I gave it up to fight the bastard who struck her down.

  But that wasn’t true.

  I gave it up to keep my secret.

  I could have shifted. I could have tried something—anything. Instead, I chose lies over the truth. I chose to let Ronnie die to protect myself and uphold the “great secret”. Just like a good, little lyrriken. Just like the Guild taught me.

  Even after all this time, their hooks were still in me.

  And I had no idea how to get them out.

  Tears burning like fire in my eyes, I turned to stare out through the plexiglass wall; grieving in silence as the wails of the ambulance sputtered out on the street below. Evans was there, directing the EMTs. He dove with them into the chaos of the panicked crowd, but he couldn’t see the smoke around him turn black with their ghosts. He couldn’t feel the pain rippling out into the city, making its existence seem so fragile. Even the skyscrapers, towering metal and glass giants, with the look of something stalwart and invincible, felt brittle and inches from collapse with one wrong move.

  Wrong moves are all I seem to make.

  I rested my head against th
e wall and closed my eyes. I couldn’t stop seeing the cold void in Ronan’s gaze. It was so foreign, so detached. His attack was carried out with an unflinching brutality he’d never shown before. Yet, somewhere inside, a piece of his humanity remained. It had to. Why else would he risk betraying his new position (and Naalish) to ensure I knew what the Market was up to?

  And he did.

  Creed’s right, I thought. Ronan was our snitch. He orchestrated it all. None of it was accidental: the river, the sewer, the hit and run, the slaughterhouse, the broken brake lights on the semi. There was no coincidence, no lucky breaks. Only breadcrumbs.

  Twenty-Two

  There were too many bodies crammed into the briefing room. The air was hot, reeking of emotions and sweat. Blood and dust overlapped, coming off those who’d responded to the call and helped clear the rubble from the injured. Creed and I were nearly among the casualties. We’d barely made it off the bridge when the damaged side of the structure collapsed.

  Hours had been spent on scene, going over the details and canvassing the neighborhood for an assailant who was nowhere to be found. My scrapes and bruises were minor compared to everyone else, so the EMT’s left me alone. Even Creed didn’t push. His only care was if I had any of our suspect’s DNA on my clothes. I didn’t, which was why I turned them over.

  After showering and changing in the station locker room, I dressed in the spare workout clothes from my car and spent the rest of the day in one meeting after another. The latest (and the last) was a lengthy pep talk, wrapped in a eulogy, wrapped in a counseling session, led by Captain Barnes. There was no denying he was pissed, but his voice held an uncharacteristic sadness as he spoke of Geronimo.

  Seeing someone they looked to for guidance so rattled, discomforted the officers around me. Not that it took much. One of their own had been brutally murdered in the middle of the day by a “sword-wielding, ninja-dressing maniac”.

  Barnes labeling the killer as such might have put some people off. But the occasional, colorful phrases he dropped were the only specks of normal in the entire day. I latched onto them and fixed my remaining focus on the hum of the ventilation system and the ringing phones in the background.