Fists of Iron: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Clans of Shadow Book 3)

by J. A. Cipriano

  I’d worry about that another day, because I had gotten an unexpected phone call the night before about an unexpected visitor today. That visitor was more than enough for me to worry about for the entire day.

  I had asked Tabitha to model the door to my office as closely as possible to match Sam Spade’s office door from The Maltese Falcon (I’m a sucker for Bogart films), so I saw her silhouette through the glass before she knocked on the door. All thoughts of what was supposed to go in the next line of the Improper Magical Use Violation Report took a short walk off a long cliff, replaced entirely with thoughts about her.

  When she knocked, my gold heart skipped a beat. Come on, Frank, get your shit together! “Come on in. It’s open.”

  The visitor fumbled with the knob for a moment before the door swung open. Gabriela stepped through, pushing the door open with her hip because her arms were laden with books and file folders.

  On the surface, the doc looked as good as she ever did. For all our troubles, all our adventures, she hadn’t picked up a gnarly scar or a lost limb or anything. But there were wounds there, deep emotional ones and they were obvious in the shimmer of her green eyes and the subtle lines around her eyes.

  “Hello, Frank,” she said softly, not quite making eye contact.

  “Hey, Doc.” I stepped up from behind the desk. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.” That was one way to put it. I had only seen her a few times after the Heaven Incident, the last being the funeral. John’s funeral I was pretty broken up about it, not so much because of my sadness over John’s death (and I did feel sad about it, no matter what else I felt about him) but because of how it was tearing Gabriela apart.

  Her brow furrowed and she stepped quickly to a side table, disgorging her load. “I was … cleaning out some old cabinets and found these.” She stared down at the books. “They’re records and papers. John’s. Peacekeeper things.”

  I sat on the end of the desk, afraid to get too close to her. “Thanks. There’s still a lot of missing pieces of the puzzle about the old guard we’re trying to sort out. How all the spells and wards and shit worked … how they locked off the divinities … all that sort of thing. Those books could be a big help.”

  She nodded faintly and gave me a sidelong glance, like if she actually looked me dead on she might lost control of her emotions. “How is Betty doing?”

  “Mom’s okay. Feisty as ever, ya know?” I ran a hand through my hair. “She keeps saying I should try to talk to you more.” Probably stupid to be so bold, but I could always lay it on Mom’s lap if it went wrong. “Max says you’re finally getting back to work, though. That’s good, right?”

  Gabby turned her eyes back down to the books, tracing the embossed leather cover of the top one with a finger. She seemed to ignore the first part of what I said as she replied, “I didn’t have a chance before to thank you for spending time with him. Max needs a … well, it’s good that you’re taking the time. I appreciate that.” She took a small, careful breath as though she was buying time before saying more.

  “As for the work, I suppose it’s good. It’s … necessary. After what I did, what happened, it’s the only way to make amends.”

  Gabriela had never killed before she ended John’s life. It was a gruesome compound fracture of trauma: to see your husband die, to have to do it yourself, to end a human life for the first time period, and to do so as a doctor sworn to the Hippocratic Oath.

  I stepped away from the desk, a tentative step toward her. “You did what you had to do, Gabriela. You helped save, well, everyone. Everyone everywhere. No one's judging you.”

  She turned her head toward me, hand still on the book. “I judge me.” Tears were starting to well up in her eyes, but her expression stayed focused. “You know, for a while at the start, I blamed you for it all, Frank.”

  Old Frank would have retorted, fired back a snarky deflection. I bit back on that instinct and simply nodded slowly, giving her room to talk, to get this off her chest.

  “It’s stupid and I know that. Even when you were getting pulled in, about to be murdered by that thing, you gave me the choice, the chance to take the battery without killing John. There’s a chance if I had done that and the gods came that” – the tears started to flow now and she stifled a sob – “one of them could have cured him. Saved my husband…” She shook her head as though suddenly embarrassed.

  “But you would have died. That’s all I could think of. I couldn’t trade your certain death for a slim shot at John living, not when I could save you for sure. ”

  I took a chance, stepping up the rest of the way to put my hands on Gabby’s shoulders. Maybe she’d hate me, maybe she’d hit me, but I had to try to comfort her. “I’m sorry. If it helps, if it makes it hurt less, feel free to blame me.” I set my jaw. “I can take it. Say I was too slow to figure things out, not enough of a badass to nip things in the bud earlier, whatever it takes to let you stand back up again.”

  She stiffened at my words before abruptly turning to look at me face-to-face, throwing off my hands. Through the grief and the tears, those green eyes were flashing with frustration. “No, Frank, I can’t do that, and I won’t do that.” She stabbed her index finger roughly into my chest. “Spreading more pain won’t make mine heal any faster. I asked everything of you, I put that stone in your chest, and I have no right to put my grief on your shoulders.”

  I frowned a bit as old feelings flooded back. In a way, she was right of course. Gabriela had indeed put the heart into me and she did ask for my help every step of the way, from the very beginning when the Enders had first taken Max. Hell, I had been so pissed with her, resentful of having been drug into this crazy world of gods and magic.

  But she was wrong too. No matter what, I was a big boy. I could have said no, walked away at any point. She might have asked, but I said yes of my own free will, no matter what the situation was.

  Her voice brought me back to the moment, her iron will fighting to make her shuddering voice stay steady. “I made my choice and I have to come to terms with it.”

  We stood there for a long moment, her finger still jabbed into my chest, my gold eyes locked with her green. I finally drew up my courage and put my hands lightly around her outstretched one.

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to go down that road alone.” When she didn’t recoil, I kept going. “You know how trauma works and fuck knows I’ve been through some of it myself. I’ve been to war, and I’ve had to bury friends and family alike. I’ll always ask myself what I could have done different that could have saved them.” I half-smiled and shook my head. “Shit, Bobby forgave me for everything, said it wasn’t my fault, but I still can’t entirely shake it.” I let out a small sigh.

  “What I’m getting at is if you want somebody to talk to, someone who knows what you’re going through, a shoulder to cry on, I’m here.”

  Gabriela was silent as her heart processed what her brain already knew. “The problem is I don’t simply want to be your friend, Frank, and the reverse is true as well.” She shook her head, but her free hand clasped around mine. “I don’t want to betray John’s memory like that, not after.…”

  After all the pain and turmoil, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised it would be hard for her to say, even harder for her to want to act on. She was right, of course. I hadn’t stopped loving Gabriela and I could say, at that point, it was actual capital L Love. No pining for the hot doctor I could never hope to have, no puppy-dog shit.

  “I won’t try to tell you you’re wrong, and I won’t lie to you, Gabby.” Maximum honesty time. “I love you. I won’t mince words about it. But that means I don’t want to hurt you or see you hurt—that’s the most important thing to me. So if you don’t feel that love back or you can’t let yourself feel that, I won’t push. I can be a friend. And if that doesn’t make you feel comfortable, I can deal with that for your sake. But you can’t deal with this all by yourself. You know it, and I know it.”

  Gabriela’s silent
tears turned into hard sobs as she leaned her head against my chest and cried. I didn’t say a word as I put my arms around her, cradling her. After a few long minutes of tears, Gabriela managed to slow her tears enough to catch her breath and speak.

  “Spirits above, why can’t you just be an asshole like usual, Frank? When did you turn into a self-sacrificing hero?” she cried in exasperation, a little hint of the old Gabriela's sense of humor under the sadness.

  I think I felt a tear in my eye as well as I laughed a little. “I dunno, Doc. You’re the one who gave me a heart of gold.”

  She pulled back from me, just a step or two, and wiped at her tear-streaked cheeks. “I don’t want to promise anything, to feel like I’m leading you on, Frank,” - she found the strength to look up at me once more - “but once I’ve come to terms with this…”

  I smiled down at her and thumbed away an errant tear from the corner of her eye. “One step at a time, Doc.” I forced myself to take another step back despite the need to hold her close. Instead, I took one of her hands into mind. “Do you want to go get a cup of coffee, maybe a bite to eat? We can finish catching up, right?”

  She sniffed back a final sob and nodded, a faint smile starting to return to her lips. “I think I’d like that.” That smile turned into a hint of a smirk. “But I’m buying.”

  “Fair enough,” I laughed. “We cops make shitty money.”

  It was enough to pull a tiny laugh out of Gabriela’s lips and that was enough. A few minutes later, we were out the door, the office locked up behind me, and on our way, both of us hoping for a better outcome to our second chance together.

  Afterword

  Thank you for reading Fists of Iron. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review.

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  Visit J.A.'s blog at JACipriano.com. Visit J.B.'s blog here.