by H. D. Gordon
“How does he figure that’s your fault?” he asked. “You’re the one who stopped the Beast.”
My throat felt tight, but I spoke past it. “He asked me if the Beast would’ve attacked the city if the Masked Maiden had never come to town.”
“How could you know the answer to something like that?”
I ran a hand down my face, pulling away from Thomas’s embrace a little for reasons unknown to me. I could feel myself getting unreasonably upset with him, even though he’d done nothing wrong, and in fact, everything right. And, yet, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop myself from an uncalled for reaction.
“Because I do know the answer,” I snapped, sitting up and moving over to the edge of the bed, swinging my legs over and planting my feet on the floor. “The Beast was after me, Thomas. Every time it attacked, I was the primary target.” A small voice in my head urged me to stop here, to shut my mouth and keep these truths from spewing, because once they did, they could not be called back. But the gates had opened, and there was no stopping the flood.
“The Scarecrow? Remember him?” I continued. “Remember the girl he murdered and left in that alley, painted up like a doll at a tea party? Remember the reason that psychopath was in Grant City in the first place?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “Right again. The answer is me. It’s because of me that those people are dead… So when he asked me if I could truthfully say that those people dying had nothing to do with the Masked Maiden… With me, what could I say? An answer in the negative would’ve been a lie, and we both knew it.”
I swallowed hard, my eyes burning as I fought hard against the tears threatening to shed. “I could see it in his hateful, vengeful, suffering aura that we both knew it.”
Now I did snap my mouth shut, but only to keep back a sob. I rested my forearms on my thighs and hung my head as if it had acquired the weight of the world and that weight was spilling over onto my shoulders, pulling me down.
Thomas said nothing for a long while, because there was nothing to say.
Truth was, whether I managed to bring down Leonard Boyce or not, the faces of his wife and daughter and everyone else whose images he’d shown were sure to haunt me like ghosts for the rest of forever.
Worse than that, I was starting to feel as though I just might deserve it.
CHAPTER 16
This is an emergency broadcast. Repeat, an emergency broadcast. This is Chief of Police, Robert Townsend. As of right now, the power has not yet been restored to Grant City, but I want to assure you that we are working around the clock to resolve this issue, and we appreciate your patience.
Due to the nature of the situation, the Grant City Police Department is issuing a mandatory curfew between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., effective immediately, and a state of Marshall Law is now declared. Anyone caught out during these restricted hours will be arrested and face charges. This is for everyone’s safety, and we trust that we’ll receive your full cooperation during this difficult time.
To those of you using this as an opportunity to make poor choices, shame on you. In times like these it is the responsibility of every citizen to maintain civility. When the lights do turn back on in Grant City, your deeds will be revealed, and the truth of your soul will be bared to the public, so I advise all of you to choose wisely.
Again, this is Chief of Police, Robert Townsend, and Marshall Law and mandatory curfew between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. are effective immediately. Thank you for your patience while we work to correct these issues. God bless.
Sam switched off the transistor radio and folded her arms over her chest, looking at me over the thick rims of her glasses. “That’s it. Same message all day… Think it will help with the riots and robberies?”
Raven rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, and I watched as immediate annoyance sparked in Sam’s aura.
“No, it won’t help,” Raven answered. “The only thing that will help is restoring the power and returning the prisoners who escaped Grant City’s Pen to their cells… and catching the weirdo who’s doing all this.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Sam snapped.
I rubbed my forehead and kept a grip on my own annoyance. Normally, this banter between them wouldn’t really bother me, but I didn’t want to be here in the first place. I wanted to be in my apartment, hugging my pillow and hiding between the pages of a book. Real life sucked right now and I did not want to be a part of it. In my opinion, this was one of those times when escaping into fictional worlds came in most handy.
But the fourth night of darkness was approaching, and Raven was right. There were prisoners to catch, power to restore, and a puppet master to stop. My stint of self-pity and depression would have to wait.
“I don’t see you doing anything particularly useful, Nerdgirl,” Raven replied, her hand going to her hip.
Red flashed in Sam’s aura and her blue eyes narrowed. “Oh, and you are, you evil Succubus?”
Matt was sitting on the old couch in the corner of the lair, reading a comic book, but he chuckled a bit at this. Both girls whipped their narrowed gazes toward him. He swallowed and promptly seeped back into the comic’s pages.
“Actually,” Raven said, stepping up so that she was almost standing in Sam’s face, “I have been useful, you little dork. I’ve been very useful. In fact, not only am I on the trail to figuring out what kind of creature our madman made a deal with, but I also called in reinforcements for tonight.” She flicked some of her long black hair over her shoulder. “So, basically, I win, dumbass.”
“Enough with the name-calling, you idiots,” I said.
Both Raven and Sam quirked eyebrows at this hypocrisy, and the three of us broke out into an almost companionable laughter, perhaps the first we’d ever shared.
“What reinforcements?” Matt said, appearing beside us. He waggled his eyebrows at Raven. “It’s the Night Rider, isn’t it? You totally called the Night Rider, didn’t you?”
“Try to control yourself, dork,” Raven said, but her red lips had pulled up into a grin. “But, yes, I called Remy.” She looked over at me. “I hope that’s okay?”
I nodded, trying to keep the relief off my face. “What about the creature that’s helping Boyce? You said you’re on track to figuring it out?”
“That’s right,” Raven said. “See, there’s only so many things that can control electricity, can harness power like this… and none of them are good.” Her voice lowered to a whisper, and her dark eyes studied my face. “Have you been having strange visions, or dreams?”
I swallowed, my first instinct to lie. At last, I nodded. “I haven’t gotten much sleep, actually.” I didn’t add that this was partly because I was afraid to, but something about the way Raven looked at me suggested she knew this anyway.
Pain shot through my skull in that moment, a memory surfacing, and with it, the pain it had inflicted. In my head, I saw black, inky shadows seep out of Boyce’s fingertips and snake toward me, preparing to seep through my skin and shroud my mind.
Dead because of you. All dead because of you. Remember their faces...
I gripped my head and felt myself sway on my feet. If not for Raven grabbing my shoulders and steadying me, I may have actually fallen over.
“Aria?” she said, concern filling her voice. “Are you okay?”
Slowly, the pain began to subside, and I was able to straighten from the bent position I’d adopted. I held up a hand to let them know I was okay, since both Sam and Matt had gathered close with concern as well.
“I’m fine,” I gritted out, though none of them looked convinced. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out over my face, and I coughed into my hand.
When I pulled it away from my mouth, there was blood on my fingers.
Sam gripped my hand, alarm lighting up her aura like the flash of reds and blues in a rearview.
“You need to see the doctor,” she said, her tone allowing for no argument.
Raven shook her head. “A doctor can’t help
her. But the good news is, I know who Boyce went through to get his mojo.”
“And who is that?” came a deep, familiar voice. We all turned our heads to see that Thomas Reid had just entered. My weary heart did its usual flip, the air in my lungs hitching just so.
Raven ran her eyes over him with appreciation. “Looks like Leonard made a deal with a Demon,” she said, as if commenting on the weather. “And if we can’t find a way to break it, Aria is going to die.”
***
“That’s not even close to funny, you stupid skank,” Sam said, her eyes narrowed to little slits as she looked at Raven.
“That’s because it wasn’t a joke, loser,” Raven shot back. She looked at me. “Tell them, Aria. You know I’m right. Tell them about the Demon’s Curse. Unless you don’t think that’s what this is.”
Four sets of intense eyes pinned me, and I met them all squarely, spreading my hands. “Well…I wasn’t sure,” I said. “I considered it, but it hasn’t been long enough to really know.”
“So he didn’t touch you with black snakes that grew out of his fingertips?” Raven asked, manicured hand going to her hip.
“That,” I said, holding a finger up into the air, “was a detail I just remembered.”
Sam threw her hands up.
Due to the state of my mood, I felt myself growing defensive. “You’ll have to forgive my memory loss,” I said. “I was shot, and then struck by friggin’ lightning.”
“So you really could be cursed?” Matt asked.
“And dying, apparently,” Sam added.
“It is a possibility, yes,” I admitted, wishing Raven could’ve been more discrete with this revelation, and tucking it away in my mind to tell her so when the time permitted.
“That would explain the Hellhounds,” Thomas muttered, almost to himself.
“What Hellhounds?” Raven asked. “You saw some Hellhounds?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, remembering when Thomas and I had been searching the tunnels beneath Grant City for the Blue Beast, and had been attacked by Hellhounds. “They tend to be on scene just before deals are made. Forgot about that, too,” I added a bit sheepishly.
“Anything else you’re not mentioning?” Raven asked.
I shook my head. We all jumped as a thud sounded on the metal roof above us, as if something heavy had just landed on top of the old building in which the lair was housed. My head tilted as I listened intently and picked up a heartbeat, that extra sense of mine also acknowledging a familiar aura.
A moment later, the Night Rider emerged from the second floor office with the broken stairway, overlooking us like a foreman. He was fully in suit; black pants and a black jacket with a large, deep hood that cast most of his face into shadows. With the glow of the candles and the dying day outside, the lair was ruled by dark corners and blank spaces. It was the kind of lighting that instantly made a setting more intense, more intimate.
Remy stood on the balcony that looked over the main floor of the abandoned warehouse that had become the Maiden’s lair. The light hit him in a way that threw a silhouette of shadow onto the wall behind him. Included in that silhouette was the outline of enormous wings that sprouted from his back, apparently invisible outside of the shadow world.
If someone had been watching my aura just then, they would’ve seen a thick spike of green shoot through it. There’s a reason jealousy is referred to as the Green Monster, and none conscious on earth were immune to this.
Also, when you were a wingless half Fae, it seemed everyone could fly but you.
Beneath the hood of his dark jacket, a perfect smile pulled up Remy’s lips, and though his eyes weren’t visible, I knew they were on Raven just by looking at his aura. Their energies matched in reaction upon seeing each other, and despite the ugliness of my world right then, I took a moment to appreciate the beauty that was budding love.
Without flourish, Remy jumped off the office landing and landed lithely before our little group. He slipped his hood off his head and strode over to Raven, planting a bold kiss on her lips and whispering something in her ear I didn’t care to listen in on. Her high cheekbones went from olive-complexion to the color of a rose garden, and her aura shifted in a way that had me turning my head in the name of decency.
Once this business was concluded, Remy turned as if just seeing the rest of us, grinned, and nodded at me. He bowed his head in an archaic manner.
“Good to see you again, Aria,” he said. “I heard you were in need of assistance in wrangling up some criminals.” He spread both hands as if in presentation of himself. “Here I am.”
“I appreciate you coming,” I said.
Remy winked at me. “Don’t mention it. In our line of work, I’m sure I’ll ask you to return the favor.” He clapped his hands together, looking around at all of us as if sizing up the group. “Now, when I landed on the roof I heard you talking about a Demon’s Curse.” His dark eyes met mine. “I’m assuming the cursed one is you?”
My touchy defenses reared. “Why do you assume it’s me?”
“Because no offense, Halfling, but you look like crap. Anyway, there’s one way to be sure that it’s a Demon we’re dealing with.” Remy reached into the back of his waistband and produced a knife.
“Silver,” Raven said, red lips stretched in a smile. “Of course. Brilliant.”
I sighed, knowing where he was going with this. I held out my arm. “All right. Get it over with, then.”
Remy moved toward me with the silver knife, made it about a step and a half toward me, and was slammed to the ground by Thomas, who had moved faster than I would’ve thought possible for a human. Of course, Remy responded quickly, shoving Thomas away from him and finding his feet.
I moved with an even more impressive swiftness, stepping in between the two large men, blocking a swing from Remy at Thomas, and shoving both hard enough in their wide chests to send them stumbling back away from each other.
“What the hell, man?” Remy shouted at Thomas, realizing he would have to go through me to get to him.
“What the hell is right,” Thomas growled. “What were you planning to do with that knife?”
“Stab Aria in the heart,” Remy replied, and rolled his eyes. “We just have to slice her arm with it, you crazy person.”
Thomas’s hazel eyes were narrowed. His head tilted slowly back. “Oh,” he said.
This was almost cute enough to make me laugh, but I shook my head and rolled my neck. “Give me the knife, Remy,” I said.
Remy shot Thomas another look before tossing me the knife. I caught it out of the air like the badass that I was, took a deep breath, and placed its sharp edge to the soft skin of my forearm. Around me, everyone stood watching with silent anticipation. Biting my lip, I drew the silver blade over my skin.
Though I’d suspected it—the information Raven had presented sure did support her theory—I was still as shocked as the rest of our little group when my blood sizzled against the silver, causing me to drop the knife and suppress a groan of pain as smoke rose up from my skin.
The silver had hurt like hellfire.
Silence held for a moment while my friends all looked at me with similar expressions of horror.
So it was true, then. Someone—odds were on Leonard Boyce—had made a deal with a Demon, and if we didn’t stop him and find a way to break it, I was going to die a terrible death.
“We need a plan,” Sam said.
I nodded, deciding not to tell her that what we needed was a miracle.
CHAPTER 17
“I don’t like this idea,” Remy said, his aura spiking with discomfort, an unusual occurrence where the crime-fighting Demigod was concerned. As a Demigod, Remy’s aura was much brighter, more vibrant and alive than most I came across, and it lit up the fading evening with a show only I could see.
“This guy’s had plenty of opportunity to take me in and he never has,” I said. “I trust him.”
I couldn’t see all of Remy’s face beneath the larg
e hood of his Night Rider jacket, but I knew from his aura that he was giving me one of his I-know-better-than-you looks—his way of calling me a noob.
“Rule Number One of being a vigilante,” Remy said. “Never trust the police.”
We were crouched at the edge of a building that sat adjacent to a nice row of brownstones. I’d been here before, and knew which door in particular we were watching, because I’d made it my business to know. Maybe I would eventually learn not to do so, but in my experience with the Peace Brokers, I’d been taught that it was normally easier to get things done if you worked with local law enforcement.
“We need to work together,” I told Remy. “It’s the only way. There are too many criminals on the loose and you and me can keep beating them up, but we need somewhere to put them, or better yet, someone to come collect them. That’s where our boys in blue come in.”
“Listen to you. ‘Our boys in blue.’ You say that as though you’re one of them.” Remy’s head turned toward me, his eyes studying me out of the darkness of his hood. Our profiles were like two gargoyles on a building’s edge. “You’re starting to love them, aren’t you?” he asked.
This question caught me off guard, and the answer I gave was automatic. “I’m half Fae. I’m an Empath and an aura-reader. I love and respect all living things.”
Hood turning back toward the quiet street below us, Remy snorted a bit under his breath. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
I didn’t know why, perhaps it was my fatigue, but I found myself getting defensive. “You’re one to talk, Night Rider,” I said. “You risk your life to save humans all the time. You’re their hero. You must love them, too.”
He nodded. “That, I do… I am half human, just like you, and also like you, most supernaturals consider that half the lesser part of our blood, but it’s not true.” Beneath his dark hood, I thought I saw a small grin touch his lips. “Humans are incredible, and they are certainly heaven’s favorites.”
I’d never thought of it that way. Admittedly, humans were looked upon as lesser by the other races, and as a Halfling, I was born with a certain amount of shame about my heritage. So much so, in fact, that Halfling children were not allowed to live with their parents, but taken and placed in the custody of the Peace Brokers, as had been the case with me. It seemed stupid now, but even though I’d escaped the rule of the Brokers, I’d never thought to challenge the paradigms that had been built into that culture.
