“Never said you weren’t…” He grimaced and disappeared, just as he had done when I’d first met him with Grey in Ireland. One minute he was standing in front of me, stake in hand, the next he was gone.
A grunt came from behind me and something wet and heavy hit the ground with a slithering splat. Spinning on my heel, I faced Alex and what was left of Isaac.
The vampire was on the floor. His body had fallen apart and he lay in chunks strewn at Alex’s feet. The stake lay in the centre of the mess of body parts and black goop dripped from Alex’s hands, probably from where he’d grabbed the vamp in order to stake him.
Silence slipped into the space surrounding us and my ears felt like they’d been stuffed with cotton wool.
“He’s dead…”
Alex shook the worst of the blackened blood from his hands and stared at the remains. They were beginning to break down. Soon there would be nothing left but a puddle of black liquid.
“Geez, Jenna, would you go already.” Alex let his hands drop to his side with a frustrated sigh. “It’s done, he’s dead. You don’t have to worry about Division 6 torturing him anymore.” He eyed me carefully. It was the look of someone who was used to playing their cards close to their chest. But no matter how hard he tried to hide who he truly was from me, I’d seen him. Seen the truth reflected in his eyes as he’d stood over Isaac’s remains.
No matter how hard he pretended not to care, no matter how dismissive he was of the victims, of their pain, their suffering, it was all just a front. He wasn’t the monster he wanted us to believe he was. I just couldn’t figure out why he thought hiding his true self was better than letting us in?
“You look like shit, you’re barely fit to stay on your feet, and if you glare at the tech guys like that,” he said, gesturing to the expression I wore, “well, they’re too big to look good as garden gnomes.”
“What?” He’d been talking the entire time I’d been studying him and I’d missed half of what he’d said.
“You know, the thing your grandmother could do…”
I stared at him blankly, my mind refusing to put the pieces together.
“Turning men into oversized garden ornaments… Turning them to stone.”
Rolling my eyes, I ignored his grin. “Fine, point taken. I need to get cleaned up and sleep anyway.” It wasn’t fair to leave him alone to fix this disaster, but then again someone had told me years ago that life wasn’t fair. And I had a feeling that if anyone was going to understand that, it would be Alex.
An emotion I couldn’t pin down flickered in Alex’s eyes but it was gone before I could really pick it apart. I let it go, now was not the time to go analysing his motives. There’d be plenty of time to figure him out if we managed to survive Carmine and the new friends she’d made.
“If Grey comes back, I’ll tell him where to find you,” he said softly, as though he could sense my hesitation over leaving him and was putting it down to the argument I’d had with the druid.
“And, if we get anything, you’ll be the first one I call—” His sudden kindness caught me unawares. It wasn’t like Alex to be so considerate. A lump formed the back of my throat and I struggled to swallow past it. Clearly, I was exhausted, it wasn’t like me to be on the verge of tears. Especially not in the wake of the death of a vamp. But then, the vamp’s death wasn’t the only end weighing on my conscience.
“And I promise not to tell anyone that the great and powerful Jenna Faith had to go home so she could get her booboo’s bandaged and take a nap.”
Nope, there he was, same as he’d always been, an infuriating man-child.
“Go to hell,” I said.
“What, no witty comeback?” He cocked a questioning eyebrow in my direction.
Glaring at him, I spun on my heel and stalked away to the sound of his laughter as it chased me down the hall.
His laughter followed me out of the basement. Just how he managed to make it travel so far was something I would have to ask him. Whatever it was, it was creepy as hell and I could suddenly understand how someone as pretty as he was could strike fear into the hearts of battle hardened men. Alex was the sort to stare death in the face and welcome it with a big smile and wide open arms. It helped that he was an immortal and couldn’t die but there weren’t too many that Alex shared that little titbit with.
The reception area was deserted as I passed through. The fluorescent lights were dimmed for the night, and the emergency lighting gave the space an unnatural blue glow.
Punching in the code on the glass doors, the audible click as they unlocked filled me with relief. And as I pushed out through them, they slid shut once more with a whoosh. I’d never realised before just how relieved I felt leaving the place, but there it was, definitely relief.
There had been a time when working for Division 6 filled me with pride. I was making a difference after all, I was helping people…
Now, after everything that had happened, I wasn’t so sure. What difference could I hope to make? Every time I felt like I’d taken a step forward, beat the darkness back just a smidge, the monsters pushed back, and if we were lucky we just lost ground but more often than not, we lost innocents, too.
Hurrying out into the car-park, my boots clicking across the asphalt, I came to a sudden halt.
I had no way home. Alex had picked me up from the house and the jeep was still parked where I’d left it, outside my own front door.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I swore under my breath.
Turning back toward Division 6, I swore some more. The place was locked up and the only way back inside was with an ID card, which I still hadn’t been given. I slid the cell phone from my pocket and stared down at the black screen. My face reflected up at me, bisected by the ugly crack that split the display, but not even the splintered glass could hide the dark circles beneath my eyes. If anything, they stood out more, making me appear as exhausted as I felt.
Great.
It was the third phone I’d managed to annihilate. Closing my eyes, I tried to remember just when the phone had fallen victim to my lifestyle, but it wasn’t as though I remembered it going crunch in my pocket. Then again, when you were battling a vampire intent on ripping your throat out, it didn’t leave you with much opportunity to worry about the cell phone in your pocket. And it wasn’t as though I could have asked the vampire to wait while I put it somewhere safe. I could practically imagine the scene in my head.
“Hey, Mr. Vampire, I know you’re trying to choke the life out of me but do you think you could stop for a minute so I can put my cell phone on the table?”
He’d have laughed in my face and finished me off then and there.
Snarling with frustration, I shoved the offending technology back into my pocket and drew my coat around my body a little more firmly. One of these days I was going to embrace the Universe’s message telling me I should become a luddite.
Staring around at the almost empty parking lot told me I wasn’t going to find help here. Luckily, I knew just where to go to find both warmth and a working phone… There was just one problem with that plan. The bar owner wasn’t exactly a fan.
Beggars can’t be choosers, Jenna.
I started for the road.
The Ram’s Head Inn sat on the corner of Wuthering Street. Light spilled from the leaded windows creating puddles of warm gold on the pavement, promising me warmth and a working phone. From my vantage spot across the road, I could hear the raucous laughter of the patrons inside.
Tracing my fingers over the screen of my phone, I paused on the pavement. I wasn’t in the mood for trouble, so why the hell was I here? Marcus Sedley, the owner of the Ram would be only too happy to drop kick my ass back out the door if he spotted me. He’d made that more than clear the last time I’d seen him.
Apparently causing half a million pounds worth of damage by starting a fight with a leprechaun wasn’t something Marcus could just overlook. Especially when said leprechaun was a close personal friend of Marcus’.
Silence fell over the room and my stomach churned uncomfortably. The pub was busier than I remembered it being in the past…
Three dozen pairs of eyes studied me. I was good in a pinch but if they rushed me, I wouldn’t stand a chance against so many preternaturals. And there was no denying the fact that the patrons of this particular pub were all of the supernatural persuasion.
A pub full of shifters. All shapes sizes and flavours. Perhaps, bursting into the place wasn’t my finest idea, not that there was anything I could do to change it now.
Next to the bar, a couple tilted their heads in unison, drawing my scent in. It was a predatory stare and I’d have preferred to meet it head on with a knife in my hand. The female of the pair curled her lip in contempt, her flame coloured hair practically glowing as she flicked her thick locks back over her shoulder. I held my breath as russet flared in their twin gaze, the animal within peeking out as the overhead lights from the bar reflected unnaturally in their eyes.
Foxes… Great.
They were strong but nothing I couldn’t handle. The problem with foxes lay in just how agile they were, that and the fact that they tended to lack a conscience. They were predators in every sense of the word. Like their smaller counterparts, the shifter variety tended to run on the wild side. As far as they were concerned everything was fair game, human and preternatural alike. And just like their smaller, cuter cousins, I’d heard fox-shifters liked to torture their prey, snapping the spine so they couldn’t run away before proceeding to play with their unfortunate victim for hours, sometimes days before they finally killed them.
The last thing I wanted was to find myself at the mercy of this pair.
A couple of murmurs began in the corner of the room and within seconds the patrons had turned their backs on me, returning to their quiet conversations and the amber ale in their pint glasses. Of the pair, the vixen was the first to look away. She spun gracefully on her stool, her shoulders stiff as she presented me with her back. Clearly, she didn’t view me as a threat. I didn’t know whether to be insulted or pleased by her response.
The vixen nudged the man next to her and he spun around, leaving me with just the man behind the bar to contend with.
Marcus levelled me with a withering glare as he folded his arms over his barrel chest. Rocking back on his heels, his hulking frame barely fit in the tiny space behind the counter. He’d added a few pounds to his already sizeable frame, his belly hanging more than a little over the brown belt of his blue jeans.
Yet, I knew what he was capable of, I’d seen him move before. He’d clear the counter and have me pinned to the whitewash stone walls by my throat before I’d have a chance to draw a blade.
As shifters went, Marcus wasn’t one to mess around with. I’d never seen him shift form, but by all accounts, the former Viking was a sight to behold when he shed his human skin. Polar bears were supposed to be cute and cuddly but as I met the icy blue-eyed gaze of this particular bar owning bear, cute wasn’t the word that sprang to mind.
“You have some nerve turnin’ up here, lass.” He wasn’t remotely Scottish but the legends of the berserker who’d abandoned his pillaging ways and settled near Edinburgh nearly a thousand years before were renowned through the preternatural community. And after nearly half a millennium in the highlands he was now the proud owner of his very own Scottish burr.
How he’d ended up owning a bar, so far south, practically the other end of the country and about as far from Scotland as he could get short of leaving the country, was something I’d never managed to ask him.
“I’m not here for trouble, Marcus,” I said, spreading my hands wide in a gesture of surrender. Fighting him was the furthest thing from my mind, but if he crossed the bar, I would defend myself.
“Told you last time, you weren’t welcome here.”
“I just need to use the phone,” I said, “nothing else, I swear…”
“The word of something like you isn’t worth much.” He spat on the floor.
As I stood in the doorway, I could feel the tension in the room beginning to climb. The conversations continued but they were quieter, as though everyone present was listening in. They probably were, shifters were nosy like that.
“If I had somewhere else to go, Marcus, I’d do it but I don’t…”
“Heard you were back with that scrote from Division 6,” he said before turning his attention to the rest of the bar. “You bawbags can quit your eavesdropping, this is none of your business.”
As though someone had flipped a switch, the atmosphere in the pub instantly relaxed and I released the breath I’d been holding. Crude language was nothing more than terms of endearment coming from Marcus.
“Word travels fast around here,” I said. “Only went back to Division 6 today.”
“Aye, can’t keep nothing quiet ‘round here,” he swiped a cloth across the bar before he gestured to a seat at the end.
As much as I wanted to go home, refusing him now would be akin to an act of war. He was already making a concession by allowing me to stay in the bar. I hopped up onto the solid wooden barstool, carefully angling my body so I could keep the rest of the patrons in my field of vision.
“Still paranoid as ever,” he said with a chuckle. “You lot never lose it.”
“It’s what keeps us breathing,” I said, allowing a small smile to form. “You know that as well as the rest.”
“Aye, can’t beat a wee bit o’paranoia to keep the aul’ ticker going.”
He set a crystal tumbler in front of me and proceeded to pour a hefty measure of garnet coloured liquid into the glass. The smoky scent tickled my nose and set my mouth to watering. I reached for the glass but Marcus beat me to it, whipping it up and downing the contents in one quick gulp. He thumped the glass back on the counter, a defiant glint in his pale blue eyes.
“You didn’t think I’d let it go that easy now, did you, lass?”
Leaning back on the stool, I folded my arms and met his gaze head on.
“I suppose I deserved that,” I said.
“Aye.”
I sat in silence watching his blank expression carefully.
“Are you going to let me use your phone?”
The silence stretched between us. I could feel the weighted gaze of the vixen from the other end of the bar. It made my fingers itch and I desperately wanted to touch the sharp blade at my waist, a sort of comfort, but I kept my arms where they were.
“Aye, I suppose I am,” Marcus said, finally breaking the awkward silence. He reached behind him, snagging a receiver from its perch on the glass shelf filled with whisky bottles. Setting it in front of me, his pale eyes darkened.
“One phone call,” he said, “and then you’re gone. I don’t like giving second chances, no exceptions. If you come here again, I’ll break both your legs from under you.”
I sucked air in through my teeth, his words causing my spine to stiffen. Threats were not usually something I tolerated, and if it had been anyone else handing it out, I might have dismissed it. But the hard glint in Marcus’ eye told me everything I needed to know. He meant every word he said, and while I might disagree with his ability to break my legs, I knew he would give it a damn good shot. So much, that if he tried it, I knew I would have to kill him because he wasn’t the type to give up.
“You got a problem with my conditions, there’s the door, don’t let it hit you on the backside on the way out.”
With a quick shake of my head, I snatched the phone from the counter and dialled Adrian’s number. Without tearing my gaze from Marcus’, I prayed for Adrian to answer. The thought of heading back out into the night in search of another phone didn’t fill me with delight.
Adrian picked up on the seco
nd ring, slightly out of breath and more than a little flustered as though he’d just raced up a set of stairs. But I’d been in his apartment and there weren’t any stairs.
“Now is really not a good time, doll face,” he practically purred down the phone.
“I need you to pick me up,” I said. “Wait, since when do you call me doll face?” Marcus’ eyes darkened, the polar bear peeking out from behind his baby blues. Obviously, I could make my call, but there would be no chitchat so long as I was using his phone.
“Wait, never mind, just come pick me up… please. I’m at The Ram’s Head. Marcus Sedley let me use his phone…” I put as much emphasis on his name as I could. Adrian knew my past with the ex-Viking polar bear shifter.
“Jenzie, come on, you’re killing me here…” He huffed into the phone and I could have sworn I heard the creak of bedsprings.
“Are you in bed?”
“No!”
“Yes, you are… Are you sick?”
“No, I’m not sick and I’m not in bed—”
“Why are you lying?”
Marcus glared at me and shifted toward me and the phone I had pressed to my ear. He definitely wasn’t interested in finding out why Adrian was being so damn evasive.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and the line went dead. Pulling it away from my ear, I stared down at the receiver, thoughts racing through my head. Maybe he was in trouble? It wouldn’t be the first time. It wasn’t as though he was fully recovered after the vamp attack he’d suffered. I still hadn’t forgiven myself for not getting to him sooner, but he’d insisted that the gift of seeing into the future was firmly his job and that I couldn’t be expected to both take down child-murdering wights and use a crystal ball to pinpoint vampire attacks.
Marcus snatched the phone from my hand and gestured to the front door.
“Now, scoot your wee ass out the door,” he said gruffly.
I didn’t want to stand out in the cold but there was no sign of reprieve in Marcus’ gaze. With a sigh, I slid from the stool and stomped to the door.
Stakes and Stones Page 17
