“Merry,” I called to her, but she kept her gaze locked on the stairs, “what can you see?”
I strode down the hall and the tension in the air dropped suddenly. Merry’s wide-eyed gaze came to rest on me once more. Scanning the stairs, I searched for the thing that had held her so rapt, but I couldn’t see anything besides the dust motes that danced in the shaft of sunlight streaming in through the windows on the landing above our heads.
“What’s wrong?” Carolyn asked, appearing in the hall a moment later.
“I found this outside,” I said, holding the box out to her.
Carolyn stared dumbly at it for a second and then her expression shifted to one of shock. “What was that doing outside?” She took the box from my hands, examining the polished wooden surface, turning it over in her hands. “How is that even possible?”
Shrugging, I glanced down at Merry again. “Hey, where’s Merry’s bracelet?”
“She’s wearing it...” Carolyn trailed off as she stared at her daughter and the empty space on her wrist where the bracelet should have sat. Carolyn crouched next to her daughter and I watched her draw in a deep breath. Merry’s abilities made it all too easy for her to pick up on even the slightest fluctuations in the moods of those around her. If we were frightened, she’d know it, and where Merry was concerned, an excess of emotion overwhelmed her. The last thing either of us wanted was to see her in tears.
“Merry, sweetie,” Carolyn said softly, catching Merry’s attention, “where’s your bracelet?”
Merry cocked her head to one side, studying her mother’s face, the suspicion in her blue eyes increasing by the seconds.
“Did you take it off?”
Merry shook her head and then turned on her heel and disappeared back into the kitchen. Peering in through the doorway, we watched as she hopped back onto her chair and started to eat the cereal still floating in the bowl.
“She knows not to take it off,” Carolyn whispered, concern veiling her gaze.
“Maybe she had help,” I said. There had been no denying the strength of the presence that attempted to lock me out. It didn’t want the box in the house, that was for certain.
“It shouldn’t have been able to get it out of the house,” I said absentmindedly, watching the gentle ripples in the air across the surface of the box. If I held my hand just over the top of it, I could feel its pulse and the hairs along the back of my arms would slowly rise to attention. Adrian hadn’t explained just what exactly it was, and I hadn’t bothered to ask, but it didn’t take a genius to work out the fact that it was powerful. It should have been powerful enough to withstand any manipulations the entities in the house attempted but apparently not.
“The bracelet?” Carolyn asked, the confusion in her voice snapping me out of my mulling over of the situation.
“No, the box,” I said. “It feels powerful. They shouldn’t have been capable of screwing with it.”
“Merry, knows not to touch it,” Carolyn said defensively.
“I didn’t suggest anything,” I said softly, raising my hands.
“No, but I know how your mind ticks,” she said. “I know what you’re feeling, remember?”
“Maybe you two should go out today,” I said. “I mean, if it can do that…”
Carolyn shook her head vehemently. “No. I’m not running away again. I’ve spent too long now running from things.” She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes. She still hadn’t told me just what she was running from. We both knew she would have to tell me eventually. Especially if Adrian’s visions of the future were true. Something was coming for Carolyn and Merry, and according to Adrian I was the only one fit to stop it. Not that I was really buying that bullcrap. The idea that I was the last great hope played too much into the victim mentality and Carolyn was as far from a victim as you could get. She’d saved herself and her daughter once, I had no doubt she would do it again. The only difference this time, she would have back-up.
“Well, look, at least consider going out for a few hours…”
Carolyn opened her mouth to argue with me and my cell phone chose that moment let out a shrill ring that made us both wince.
“Go, Jenna, we’ll be fine.”
Hesitating, I glanced back in at Merry. She was chomping happily on her cereal, her legs, too short for the chair, swinging back and forth under her.
“If you’re sure,” I said. Carolyn gave me a good-natured push toward the door and I let her.
“Go, before Merry senses your indecision. If she gets wind of it, you’ll be lucky to get to work this side of Christmas.”
Grinning, I did as she said, stepping out into the fresh morning air. “Fine, I’m gone, but you’ve got my number if there’s any weirdness…”
“And Adrian’s number, and Megan’s number, and Grey’s number…” she said with a smile. Despite the humour, I knew she was nervous, you didn’t have to be an empath to sense her unease with the house and its spiritual houseguests. Not that I could blame her. Whatever had tried to keep the door closed had been stronger than I remembered the poltergeist ever having been.
I’d been happy enough to live alongside my rent dodging roomies before Merry and Carolyn had come along. Their presence hadn’t bothered me aside from the odd inconvenience of small things going missing, or my keys being misplaced. But since Merry’s arrival, things had changed, and if they weren’t willing to leave Carolyn and Merry to go about the business of the living, then I wasn’t sure I was willing to let my ghostly guests do whatever it was the restless dead did.
Sliding in behind the wheel of my dark blue Land Rover, I stuck the key in the ignition and let the engine turn over. Carolyn gave one last wave before she disappeared back into the house, still carrying the box. Sitting in the car and staring up at the house, I half expected to see the curtains move as a phantom face disappeared into the depths of the house once more. But there was nothing as clichéd.
Carolyn knew what she was doing. Steeling my resolve, I reversed the car around the side of the house, turning it so it faced the road.
Everything is fine. Carolyn has it under control… Stop panicking, Jenna. I repeated it over and over, hoping if I just said it enough times, I would somehow believe it.
Chapter 2
Division 6’s newest outpost looked just like the one in London. A squat grey box of a building, like some kind of ugly toad perched between the other taller and more graceful office blocks surrounding it. Someone had decided to try and cheer this one up by painting the front of the building aubergine. Shimmering sunlight hit the banks of windows, turning the glass opaque, like the eyes of the possessed.
“Jenna!” Alex’s voice cut over the sound of the traffic that had snarled up the street outside my new office. I spotted him standing outside the revolving door, a cigarette held carefully between his fingers.
I hadn’t known he smoked, it made me dislike him a little more. That wasn’t fair, I didn’t dislike him. He was a giant pain in the ass. Adrian had called him ‘my brother from another mother.’ If he hadn’t been in the hospital at the time, I’d have punched him. As far as I was concerned, Alex was a reminder of my history, a history I would never fully understand, a history I’d lost when Kypherous had murdered my mother.
I zig-zagged through the traffic, making it unscathed to the other side of the road as Alex stamped the life out of his cigarette in the little ashtray attached to the side of the wall.
“Didn’t think you were the smoking type,” I said, coming to a stop next to him.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, sweet-cheeks.” His eyes roamed over me, pausing at the sight of the whip on my belt. “Dressed to impress, I see,” he said, “or are you an’ Lover Boy going to go all Fifty Shades in the supply closet?”
“One,” I said, holding up a finger, “don’t call me sweet-cheeks if you want to keep all your teeth. And two,” I held up a second finger, “Grey is not my lover boy.”
Alex grinned at me, a w
ide shit-eating grin that only served to send my blood pressure spiralling upwards.
“Really know how to make a guy feel special, don’t you?” He pushed away from the wall and headed for the revolving door. I followed him inside, managing to avoid getting caught in the gap as the door swung around in never ending circles. The first time I’d ever tried a revolving door had involved a fairly large error in judgement and I’d wound up getting jammed in the door. I could still remember how humiliating it had all felt.
“What’s the new case?” I asked, choosing to side-step his accusation of me.
“The big man himself has sworn me to secrecy,” Alex said. “Apparently, they don’t want you butting your nose in on it yet.” He made air quotes with his fingers. “You’re a liability. Too wilful, and you don’t take direction well enough to be trusted.”
I came to a juddering halt in the middle of the foyer, my boots making a faint squeak on the polished marble.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Hell if I know,” Alex said. “I don’t agree with them personally, but as far as they’re concerned, I’m a grunt fresh out of training…” He gave me an exaggerated theatrical wink and I half expected him to nudge me in the ribs for emphasis. Thankfully, he restrained himself, saving me the chore of having to remind him what happened to those who touched me without prior consent.
Noting the look on my face, he paused. “Don’t take it personally, Jenna, it’s what they do to everyone who comes through that door the first time.”
“But this isn’t my first time, is it?” My hand went to my waist and I ran my fingers along the whip on my belt.
This wasn’t my first rodeo with Division 6. They’d been dicks the first time I’d worked with them and if what Alex was telling me was true, they had no intention of changing the habit of a lifetime. I’d agreed to return to work with them only because they had better access to the preternaturals who went rogue. There was definitely something to be said for having the weight of the law on your side when you had to kill something nasty in someone’s backyard. So long as you had a badge to flash around the place, people were happy enough to let you do whatever needed to be done. Without it, you were nothing but a vigilante and the police and general public didn’t look too kindly at vigilantism. Even when it was a public service.
Hell, I’d killed a troll in Ireland that had been working its way through the population of young women, raping and murdering them, not necessarily in that order and, yet, when I’d been found with its dead body, it had been me they’d put in jail. Of course, they wouldn’t have known I was there if a certain pain in the ass and irritatingly handsome druid hadn’t let them in on that small fact first.
Now that I thought of it, I hadn’t paid him back for that stunt yet…
“You coming?” Alex asked, holding the door to the elevator to stop it from sliding shut.
Where was the harm in going up there and confronting them? Following him into the elevator, I traced my finger across the rough surface of the whip, feeling each scale that made up its length, the magic that kept it all together tingled in recognition against my skin.
We came to a sudden jarring stop that had my teeth rattling in my head and then the doors slid open. The sound of yawning metal, grinding and scraping, hurt my ears but I ignored it. My gaze swept over the office space that had opened up in front of me.
The large room was split up into small grey cubicles, the walls of each one sat snugly around a desk, leaving just enough room for an uncomfortable looking black swivel chair. If I sat inside one, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to stretch my arms out to the side without coming in contact with one of the drab grey walls. Not to mention the walls themselves were short enough to allow someone in the adjoining cubicle space to peer in over the top.
Drawing a deep breath, I fought against the wave of claustrophobia that washed over me. How had I ever looked at this as normal? Alex moved between the small slices of life, each cubicle unique in its own way. At least they hadn’t stopped those working here from decorating them exactly how they wanted to. Perhaps Division 6 wasn’t trying to crush the spirit from those who worked for them after all.
We moved into a small hallway that led down to several private offices. Everywhere I looked, it was a combination of beige and grey. The carpet was beige, blending perfectly into the beige walls. The plastic divider that bisected the wall and ran the full length of the hall on both sides was a drab grey. Small darker marks covered it, and when I looked closer, I realised they were dents. Clearly, it was to stop the walls from getting scratched up by whatever was getting dragged up and down the halls.
What the hell was Division 6 doing to require a bumper barrier to protect the walls? The ceiling overhead was grey, even the lighting fixtures had been painted grey, and I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe they’d just bought too much grey paint and were determined not to waste a drop. Considering how economical Division 6 could be, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
The electric lights buzzed, a low hum that would eventually give me a headache if I hung around it for too long.
I’d been so busy examining my surroundings, I hadn’t noticed that Alex, who had moved down the hall ahead of me had paused next to one of the non-descript grey doors. There was something written on it, but Alex pushed it open before I had the chance to read it.
Following him into the small office, I paused in the doorway and my gaze met that of the woman perched behind the desk.
Her black horn-rimmed glasses looked out of place on her hook nose. Her sickly sallow skin tone at odds with the vibrancy of her red lipstick. The lines and wrinkles around her eyes and mouth gave her a mature appearance that seemed oddly out of place. The skin beneath her eyes was a little puffy and despite the obvious magnification on her glasses, her eyes looked unnaturally small.
She stood, her height taking me by surprise as she settled on her feet and held her hand out to me, long thin fingers attached to a veiny hand at the end of a skeletal arm. The cream blouse she wore was definitely function over form and did nothing to enhance her appearance. In fact, it seemed to wash her out further.
“Jenna Faith, I want you to meet our Unit chief, Sofia Joubert, she’s the one we report to,” Alex said, “you’ll be reporting to her, too, if not directly, then through the reports you and Grey file.”
I took her hand, feeling the strength in her grip. If I jerked her forward and over the desk, despite her height I knew I wouldn’t budge her, well not unless I managed to take her completely by surprise. Anyone this strong didn’t have a body so spindly and fragile that a puff of wind would snap them in half. And yet the woman in front of me, clearly wanted me to believe this of her.
Taking my hand back, I flexed my fingers and rubbed my palm on my trousers, shaking free of the magic that crept up and over onto my skin. Satisfied, I folded my arms over my chest and glared at her. Her already small piggish eyes narrowing further so that she peered out at me from two little slits in the middle of her gaunt face.
“Really,” I said, “you’re going to test me with glamour?” I raised an eyebrow at her, challenging her.
“Test you?” she asked, only the slightest hint of an accent covering her words. “Why would I test you?”
“Because you all want to know what I can do,” I said, “especially after whatever report Grey made.”
“I know what you are,” she said, keeping her voice even despite the snapping of irritation in her eyes. “You are a preternatural, like many of us here.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but what kind? Isn’t that the million dollar question?” I grinned at her. It was a shitty thing to do. Baiting her was definitely not the way to handle my first meeting with someone who would be my boss. And it wasn’t as though I wanted them to find out what I was. In fact, the less people who knew the truth about that little nugget, the safer I and everyone around me would be.
She smiled at me and it was like looking into the eyes of a shark.
Cold and unfeeling, with zero conscience. It was definitely a warning. Clearly, I was stepping on her toes and she didn’t like it.
“If you can do your job, Ms. Faith, then I don’t care what you are. If you prove to be a danger to the population, then I will beat the truth from you myself.” Her smile widened, and I knew she believed everything she’d just said. Maybe her lack of arrogance meant she really was as good as her word. I dismissed the thought.
I contemplated challenging her for a brief moment. There was something about idle threats that rubbed me the wrong way. No matter how much she believed in her own ability to overpower me, I knew she was wrong. As though he could sense my thoughts, Alex, nudged me, his elbow a feather light brush against my arm.
“Fine,” I said. “I still don’t see the point in the glamour.”
Her smile stretched, becoming more of a grin as she bared her teeth. No human could spread their lips like that, at least, no human who hoped to keep their face intact.
“What I am requires a glamour,” she said archly. “Without it, many would lose their minds.” She returned her attention to the files laid out before her, raising her hand to dismiss us with a wave.
“Come on, I’ll show you to Grey’s office,” Alex said softly, and I followed him toward the door.
“I had heard you’d created quite the stir when you worked with Division 6 in London,” Sofia said. Glancing back over my shoulder, I noted that her hooded eyes watched me with a keen interest.
“Not quite how I’d describe it,” I said. “I had a few personal issues that they found a little distasteful.”
She nodded, steepling her fingers in front of her face. “I trust those personal issues won’t interfere with your ability to do your job now?”
The way she phrased the question instantly set me on edge and it took every ounce of strength I had not to turn around and let my anger loose. The moment I did that, I would be out the door faster than I could draw breath.
Stakes and Stones Page 2
