Cimmerian Shade: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Collection

by Kiki Howell

  “I’m putting a lot of faith in you,” he said. “I hope you won’t let me down.”

  Before she could promise she wouldn’t, he stood and left her office, his steps heavy as though he’d grown ten years older.

  Clearing up her desk from the messenger bag and assorted powders and herbs, Kirsten set the two diaries down side by side. They were numbered, and logic dictated that she should start from the beginning and Cara’s failed attempts. Who cared about logic, though? She’d have all the time in the world to examine everything that didn’t work. Right now, she wanted to understand what spell Cara had done.

  Right as she opened the second diary, a new knock on her open door interrupted her as Andrew had done earlier, and for a moment she thought he had come back after changing his mind and would take the notebooks from her. But no, it wasn’t Andrew who was standing, a little awkwardly, just outside her office. It was Jacob.

  “He gave them to you, huh?” he said with a small gesture to her desk.

  “Along with more warnings, yes.”

  He grimaced at that. “Warnings, or threats?”

  "It's fine," she said with a shake of her head. “He can threaten me all he wants. I know he has your best interests at heart. So do I, so we’re on the same page.”

  His eyebrows rose and he stepped into the room, though he didn’t come much farther than right past the threshold.

  “You do?” he asked quietly. “Does that mean...”

  She was glad when he stopped, because this way she wouldn’t have to say that no, it didn’t mean what he wanted it to mean.

  What she wanted it to mean, too.

  “It means I care about you,” she said slowly. “And I don’t want you to get hurt. But right now it doesn’t mean anything more than that.”

  The disappointment that flashed over his features broke her heart. She wanted to take it back, all of it, erase the past few years and be with him again, but if she did that she wouldn’t forgive herself. There were a lot of things she could compromise on, but not this, not the fear that gripped her whenever she knew Jacob was out fighting demons.

  “Right now,” Jacob repeated. “So, some day?”

  If his disappointment had been heartbreaking, the sliver of hope that now filled his voice was shattering. What had she done to deserve that much love? Nothing she could think of; quite the contrary. After all, she was the one who had broken up with him and stomped on his heart.

  “If I get anything out of these,” she said, running a hand over one of the diaries, “many things will change.”

  It wasn’t a promise, but it was a close thing, and she finished with a smile, expecting Jacob to smile back. Instead, he looked grim.

  “If,” he said quietly. “I see. Good luck, then.”

  He left her office without a look back, and Kirsten could only regret her choice of words. When. She should have said when, not if. And there was nothing for her to do now but get to work so that ‘when’ could be ‘soon.’

  WHEN JACOB CAME BACK from the hunt after driving Rachel home, the house was dark except for a ray of light filtering under Kirsten’s office door. In the past week, ever since getting her hands on the diaries, she had been staying in there longer and longer.

  Holding back his instinct to go knock on her door and remind her that she needed sleep, he crossed the foyer and entered the training room. He set his sword and Rachel’s down on the cleaning table and grabbed a rag, going through the motions even as his mind ran over the events of the night.

  Just one demon, this evening, but by the time he and Rachel had reached the woods, it had wandered off some distance away from where it had first been spotted, and they had spent a good hour trudging in the dark, looking for it. Jacob didn’t mind, he could see well enough at night, but more than once Rachel had missed tripping over an exposed root, or she had walked on a stick on the ground, breaking it in a sound that carried through the woods and announced to the creature they hunted exactly where they were.

  Every time it had happened, she’d muttered a curse under her breath, although the rest of the time she’d remained quiet, for which Jacob was grateful. In the past few days, she’d tried to ask about what was going on with Kirsten, not ever asking out right but dancing around the topic until Jacob wanted to snap at her. He hadn’t snapped so far, but if she kept it up, he probably would.

  If she wanted to be nosy and hear about the situation, she might as well go and ask Kirsten directly, because Jacob didn’t understand what was going on. Kirsten had said she still loved him. He’d told her he loved her too. They’d been close, as close as before their break up. And then... nothing more than a vague promise. ‘If,’ she’d said. She’d used the word ‘care.’ And also, ‘not right now.’

  It had felt like her breaking up with him all over again.

  With a grunt of disgust, he gave up on cleaning his spotless sword and started on Rachel’s instead. This one actually did need a good clean up, as Rachel was the one who had battled and finally struck down the demon. It wasn’t her first kill, but it was the first one she had taken down by herself.

  Usually on hunts like these, they’d attack together and take down the demon fighter. Tonight, however, Jacob had taken a step back, watching her fight and calling out advice when he could spot a weakness in the demon’s defense or predict its next attack. At first, Rachel had seemed perplexed by his hands-off attitude and had looked back toward him several times as though to invite him to join her. Soon, though, she’d given her entire focus to the fight, and hadn’t done too bad at all.

  She’d taken more risks than Jacob was comfortable with, but she’d walked out of it unscathed, which was the important part. Afterward, she’d been exhilarated, bursting with pride at the thought that she had taken down the demon on her own, and easily accepted Jacob’s claim that he wanted her to have that experience when someone was close enough to help if needed, so if she ever was truly alone in a fight she’d know she could do it.

  It wasn’t, as such, a lie. But it wasn’t the entire truth either.

  Satisfied that no demon blood remained on the blade, Jacob left the swords on the table and stepped out of the room. Just as he did, Kirsten was coming out of her office, her messenger bag slung over her shoulder and her jacket folded over her arm. She blinked twice when she saw him, her mouth curving on a tentative smile.

  “Long fight?” she asked.

  “Not really. Just a hard to find demon.”

  She nodded once, then yawned. “Well, I’m beat. Good night.”

  He watched her leave, and only after the door had closed on her did he murmur back, “Good night.”

  Upstairs, Andrew was waiting with a book. Jacob offered him a bare-bones report before begging off to go to bed, but it was a long time before he found sleep that night. It had been a while since he’d had a good night of sleep.

  KIRSTEN JERKED AWAKE, sitting up in her chair and blinking as she looked around her office for whatever had awakened her. She couldn’t see anything there other than the books on one side and the mess of papers and notes pinned to the other wall.

  Two weeks ago—sixteen days, in fact—Andrew had given her the diaries. The first read hadn’t taken long. The second one had been a lot more thorough, and she had jotted down notes and ideas on bits of paper as she read, displaying them on the wall in a random assortment of colors and words. The problem about Cara’s diaries was that they hadn’t been meant to be read by anyone else. She had detailed her process, yes, but she’d also been talking to herself, and some things she hadn’t felt she needed to explain.

  Sometimes, Kirsten could guess, one mage following the mind path of another mage. At other times, it was a lot more complicated. Cara had been a doctor as well, and anything more advanced than basic medical knowledge was a bit beyond Kirsten’s reach. It might have been helpful to pick the brain of a doctor, but Andrew had forbidden her to talk about all this with anyone, so she had to rely on herself and whatever knowledge she could gl
ean from the internet.

  Getting out of her seat with a wide yawn, she stretched her arms over her head. She might as well go home. She’d been staying increasingly late at the agency, but late-night sessions did not help much more than early ones. Three times, Andrew or Nicholas had come to send her home, each gently chiding in his own way and pointing out that sleeping on the diaries would yield no new answers, while sleeping in her bed would let her come back tomorrow with a fresh mind to look at the tangled web she had pinned to the wall.

  They were right, of course, but right now there wasn’t much more she could do than study the text, again and again. She wished she could get that rare magic book Cara referenced. Julie recalled taking it with her when she’d left town, but couldn’t put her hands on it. Maybe it was time to start looking for a new copy. There was a good magic bookstore in town, but if they didn’t have it, then the internet might again come to her aid.

  As she picked up her purse from the floor, yawning again widely enough that her jaw creaked, her door opened without warning. Rather than Andrew or Nicholas, as she had expected, it was Jacob who stood there. She’d barely seen him, let alone talked to him in the past two weeks, and she knew why. She’d been colder than she wanted in their last conversation, and he had backed away before she could break his heart any further. Why was it always so complicated?

  “Hi,” she offered with a small smile. “Back from your hunt?”

  He didn’t reply and instead said, “Vinnie is hurt. Nicholas took him to the hospital, but he could use a bit of magic too. Do you think you could—”

  “Of course,” she said at once. “Which hospital?”

  “Saint Vincent. I’ll take you there.”

  “No need, I’ve got my car.”

  When his already drawn features tightened even further, she grimaced. She hadn’t meant to sound like she didn’t want to be with him.

  “I mean,” she added quickly, “you look exhausted, and I was leaving anyway. I’ll swing by the hospital on my way home. All right?”

  “All right,” he repeated tonelessly. “Nicholas is there. He should be able to get you in if the nurses make trouble.”

  She nodded as she pulled her keys from her purse and walked to the door. He drew back to let her pass, and she revised her opinion. No, he didn’t look exhausted. He looked wretched. Tired, upset, worried, guilty...

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she said. Impulsively, without letting herself think about it lest she changed her mind, she leaned in and brushed a kiss to his cheek. “Get some rest,” she murmured, and left without meeting his eyes.

  “HE FROZE,” NICHOLAS said. “That’s what Vinnie said. He needed help, he asked Jacob to step in, and Jacob froze.”

  Andrew’s brow furrowed. He passed a hand over his face, sighing deeply.

  “Is Vinnie angry?” he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed, his back to Nicholas.

  “He didn’t sound angry,” Nicholas said. “More like... confused. I don’t think he told me that to complain about Jacob. It was more like he was trying to understand what was going on.”

  And in truth, Nicholas would have liked to understand the same thing. For Jacob to freeze in the middle of a fight against demons was such an outlandish thought! Nicholas wouldn’t have been more surprised if he’d been told a demon had lowered its sword to start reciting sonnets.

  After another few seconds, Andrew slipped under the covers and laid down, staring up at the ceiling. Nicholas prodded him with a finger.

  “Say something,” he demanded. “Do you have any idea what’s going on with him? He’s been pretty quiet, lately. Ever since—”

  “He and Kirsten came back from the demons’ world,” Andrew finished for him. “Yeah, I noticed too. I thought it was about her, but...” He paused, sighing again, then turned a questioning look to Nicholas. “When was the last time you saw him kill a demon?”

  “Saw him?” Nicholas frowned. “I don’t know. I haven’t gone hunting with him in a while.”

  “Neither have I,” Andrew said. “He’s been begging off a lot. Have you heard him or Vinnie or Rachel report that he killed a demon recently?”

  Nicholas thought for a few seconds. None of them bragged about their kills, but they talked about it, compared notes.

  “The last ones I can recall are the ones he said he killed in that other place.”

  Andrew nodded. “Same here. I don’t think he’s killed a demon since then. I think it’s about Kirsten. It’s obvious she doesn’t want him to fight.”

  Nicholas couldn’t believe it, and he wasn’t shy in saying so. “That can’t be it. Even if he wanted to please her, he wouldn’t let Vinnie get hurt just to get in her good graces.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Andrew agreed. “And I suppose if he stopped for her, he’d stop entirely. There’d be no point going out on hunts.”

  For a long moment, they were quiet, each of them considering what could be affecting their son in this manner. Andrew finally reached back to turn off the bedside lamp. Nicholas shifted closer to him, resting his head on Andrew’s shoulder.

  “Tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Yeah. We’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  JACOB HAD A terrible night. He didn’t catch a wink of sleep, tossing and turning in his bed, the same images replaying in his head, over and over.

  Mostly, he saw Vinnie get hurt, the demon’s sword pushing right through him. It was a miracle that Nicholas had joined them at that point after killing his own demon, and Jacob could only feel guilt at the thought that Vinnie might have died because of him. All he’d been able to do was help Vinnie back to the car to get him to the hospital that much faster.

  When his mind didn’t push images of Vinnie on him, it was almost worse, because he was forced instead to relive the moment when he’d killed Gertruh and Taleeh. Those memories made him feel as guilty as his failure to help Vinnie, if not more so. Vinnie would be fine. The hospital and Kirsten had seen to that. Gertruh and Taleeh, on the other hand, would never grow up.

  No, they’d never grow up to become dangerous beings who came to Earth to kill people like Vinnie.

  What was wrong with him? How could he, at the same time, feel guilty about allowing Vinnie to get hurt, and guilty for killing beings who would have hurt Jacob and, more importantly, Kirsten? He was losing his mind, there was no other explanation.

  Things didn’t get any better in the morning, far from it.

  Giving up on sleep, he got out of bed early and trudged to the kitchen. A first cup of coffee made him feel almost human. He was sipping on a second one, generously dosed with sugar and cream, when both his fathers entered the kitchen together.

  “Morning,” he mumbled into his cup, and was surprised when, rather than helping themselves to breakfast, they both sat down at the table, Andrew across from him and Nicholas on his right. They were both looking at him with identical frowns, but it was Nicholas who said, “You look like crap, kiddo.”

  Snorting, Jacob raised his cup at him in a toast.

  “Feel like it, too. Thanks, Dad.”

  Nicholas didn’t crack a smile. His gaze flitted toward Andrew. Wondering what was going on with the two of them, Jacob turned to Andrew as well, who cleared his throat before saying, “If you’re not going to fight, you need to tell us. I can’t keep sending you out with Vinnie or Rachel if you can’t help them fight demons.”

  Jacob’s mouth turned dry. The cup and half of coffee he’d drunk suddenly felt like they wanted to come back up.

  “Of course I can help them,” he said in a voice that sounded much too quiet, much too small when his father—and his boss—had just questioned his ability to do his job.

  “Then what happened last night?” Andrew pressed on, leaning a little over the table, his fingers linked in front of him.

  He looked worried, Jacob realized. They both did. Worried for Vinnie and Rachel, maybe, but mostly worried for him, he’d have bet anything on it
. He hadn’t given them much cause for real worry as he was growing up, but Andrew especially and Nicholas to a lesser degree had always worried too much. Today, they had cause.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he mumbled.

  “Vinnie said you froze,” Nicholas said, not unkindly. “Is that it?”

  Feeling a little numb as he remembered how useless he’d felt last night, Jacob nodded.

  “It’s been a little while since you killed a demon,” Andrew said, and while it wasn’t an accusation, neither in words nor in tone, Jacob still heard it as such and winced.

  “I know,” he said, peering into his half empty cup of coffee. “I try. I swear I try. But the demons... they all look like those kids I killed.” He swallowed hard and said it again quietly, more for himself than for his fathers. “I killed kids.”

  “They weren’t human,” Nicholas said.

  Jacob couldn’t help but scoff. He’d known they would say that. But the truth was, his fathers weren’t human either, and no one knew for sure what Jacob himself was exactly.

  “Does it matter?” he asked. “They were still kids.”

  “Kids that would have killed you,” Andrew said in a soft voice that was meant to be soothing but that only raised Jacob’s hackles a little more.

  They didn’t get it, did they? It didn’t matter that they’d been demons or dangerous. They’d been children. Full stop.

  “No,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “That’s the thing. If I’d left them alone, they wouldn’t have killed me. They’d have killed Kirsten, but me, they were fine with having me around. They looked at me like I was one of theirs. And I killed them. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  And now, every demon he saw looked like them—looked like a being he could have tried to communicate with, be friends with. Why were they fighting? It was all senseless. If only they could have spoken to demons and understood what it was they wanted and why they attacked...