Chase the Dark (Steel & Stone Book 1)

by Annette Marie

  Piper was shaking so much she could barely talk. “We couldn’t because of the choronzon.”

  “What choronzon, Piper? Anyone could have smashed the furniture.”

  “I saw it,” Lyre said loudly, anger finally giving him a voice. “It tried to kill Ash. We fought it off.”

  “You fought it off? A choronzon?” The man snorted. “Try something more believable.”

  “We did! It wasn’t very strong—its power was limited and it was acting strange, but—”

  “I’m not questioning you, rake. Speak again and we’ll gag you too.”

  Lyre paled at the same time his eyes flashed to near black. He flexed his jaw but said nothing more. Ash’s head came up, his eyes briefly focusing as they cut across the sergeant like a knife on flesh.

  “Now, Piperel,” the man went on, “quit with the games. Quinn is gone. So is the Sahar. You and these two daemons are the only ones still alive on the property—with the exception of Calder Griffiths, who was left for dead. Do you really expect me to believe you had nothing to do with this?”

  “You should believe it, because it’s true.” She glared, tears threatening to spill over. “And my father didn’t steal it. Something else must have happened, and you can’t figure out what.”

  “You’re a liar, Piperel Griffiths,” the sergeant said. “If I were your father, I would have shipped you off to a human boarding school years ago. You don’t belong here.”

  Piper gasped and hunched like she’d been punched in the gut. “I’m a haemon,” she retorted weakly. The man snorted again as four prefects stumped down the stairs and joined their sergeant in the foyer.

  “Sir,” the first one said. “The entire house has been searched. The Sahar isn’t here, and we found no clues as to where Quinn may have gone to ground with it.”

  The sergeant nodded like this didn’t surprise him. Piper stared dully at the floor between her feet, aching inside and shaking on the outside. This was so wrong. Everything about this was wrong. The police, even the daemon police, were supposed to be the good guys. Why did she feel like she was in enemy hands?

  The cold voice of the sergeant spoke the next order with no emotion. “Search them.”

  She looked up as a prefect descended on her. It was the scrawny-looking one who’d watched the entire interrogation with a nervous, uncomfortable tic to his eyebrow. He gave Piper a subdued smile as he asked her to stand. She pushed to her feet, wobbling on weak knees, and tried to stare at nothing as the man patted her down. Beside her, Lyre glared straight ahead while another prefect turned his pockets out and checked inside his mouth.

  Two more heaved Ash to his feet. The draconian leaned heavily on one while the other checked him over.

  “I think the collar is too strong for him,” the man acting as a prop told the sergeant. “I would have figured he could handle it, but he’s gone semi-comatose.”

  “It’s not the collar,” the sergeant replied dismissively. “Well—yes, it’s the collar, but only because he’s lost so much blood. Keep it on him. Dragon-boy can handle it.”

  Piper jerked her head around, staring at Ash. Blood loss? Where was he bleeding? One of the sleeves of his borrowed red hoodie was torn off, but—

  His glamour shimmered again, and focusing this time, she saw the red stain running all the way down his left arm. It looked like he wore a wet, crimson glove from his bicep to his fingertips. She gasped, half reaching toward him before the cuffs cut into her wrists.

  “What . . . ? When . . . ?”

  “The choronzon,” Lyre muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “He hid it because you were already hysterical when we found you. Didn’t think you needed to see any more blood.”

  She clenched her hands. “Is he . . . ?”

  “He’ll be fine. Bleeding’s already stopped. He’s tough, don’t worry.”

  The man checking Piper finally got her boots off to check the soles. She made no effort to help as he tugged on her socks, then worked his way back up, patting every inch of her. She went rigid when he checked the back pockets of her jeans. Making semi-apologetic noises, he slid his fingers along the waist of her jeans. She fought the urge to knee him in the face.

  The sergeant watched impassively as his prefects thoroughly frisked them. It wasn’t until the man gingerly patted the top of her chest above her bra that Piper remembered. She unintentionally sucked in a huge, panicked gasp. The sergeant turned and the prefect checking her paused. Trying not to hyperventilate, she let the tears she’d been holding back spill over and twisted her face into a mask of fear. “D-don’t,” she cried, hunching to shift her breasts away from the man’s hands even though he hadn’t made a move to check under her shirt. “Don’t touch me!”

  The prefect snatched his hands back like he’d been burned. The sergeant made a disgusted noise. “Hurry it up, Jaeneson. Check her head and be done with it.”

  “Sorry,” the prefect muttered under his breath as he ran his fingers through her hair and checked inside her mouth. “Okay,” he announced loudly, “she’s clean.”

  “So are these two,” another prefect said.

  The sergeant scowled. “Fine. Move them to the van while we tape this place up. I don’t want a single thing disturbed before we get the sniffers in here.”

  Piper tried to look scared instead of guilty as the prefect who’d patted her down helped her get her boots back on before leading her toward the door. Lyre followed, practically stepping on her heels, and two more managed to get Ash walking. She didn’t relax until they’d been loaded into the back of an unmarked black van parked outside the doors. The last prefect slammed the door shut, submerging the van in darkness.

  “You okay, Piper?” Lyre asked softly.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. Nine people were dead, her uncle was barely alive, and her father was missing and suspected of stealing one of the most important daemon artifacts of the last 500 years. But she was okay—for the moment.

  “Lyre,” she breathed as quietly as she could. “Do you know what the Sahar looks like?”

  “I know what the legends say,” he whispered back. “The Sahar Stone is small, like a robin’s egg, and supposedly made of quicksilver.”

  Piper struggled to breathe normally. Carefully, she pressed her upper arms against her breasts to squeeze them together and felt the uncomfortable press of the black ring box still lodged in her bra—the ring box Quinn had told her to keep safe . . . with the mysterious silver stone inside it.

  “Lyre,” she croaked weakly. “We need get the hell out of here before they realize I have the stolen Sahar.”

  . . .

  “Hurry,” Piper hissed.

  “I’m trying,” Lyre hissed back.

  In the barely-there light coming through the tiny window that separated the driver’s compartment of the van from the back, she watched Lyre tinker with the buckle at the back of the gag in Ash’s mouth. The gag was made of heavy leather and fit between the draconian’s teeth like the bit in a horse bridle. A plate inside depressed his tongue, preventing him from making any intelligible sounds. On the off chance he managed to cast magic with the dampening collar around his neck—unlikely—and his hands cuffed behind his back—almost impossible when you couldn’t aim the spell—the gag prevented him from using an incantation to control his magic.

  Lyre had wrestled his arms around in front of him in spite of his handcuffs and was now trying his damnedest to get the gag off Ash.

  “There!” he exclaimed in a whisper. With a loud click, the straps of the gag fell away. Piper reached over and plucked the nasty contraption out of Ash’s mouth. The draconian slit his eyes open and licked his lips with a relieved sigh.

  “How you doing, buddy?” Lyre asked. “Were you following along?”

  Ash slowly nodded. “We’re in deep shit,” he summarized. The end of his statement slurred badly and his eyelids fluttered. “Fucking collar.”

  “I can’t get that off,” Lyre said. “It needs a key.”


  “How’s your arm?” Piper whispered, inching closer. She and Lyre knelt on either side of Ash, who was stretched out on his stomach, his cheek pressed against the dirty floor of the van.

  “Been better,” he muttered. “What’s the plan?”

  “Uh.” Lyre blinked at Piper. “We were hoping you’d tell us.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Because Piper and I are fresh out of ideas on how to get these cuffs off and out of the van.”

  “And then we have to find my father so we can prove he didn’t steal the Sahar or kill those people,” Piper added.

  Ash blinked rapidly. “All right. Umm.” He took a long, deep breath. With focused precision, he flexed his shoulders and bent his elbows until the chain between his handcuffs was pulled taut. He grunted softly and the muscles in his arms bunched. His hands clenched tight into fists as he strained against the chain.

  With a pop, the chain snapped.

  “Holy crap.” Piper picked up a bent link. “How did you do that?”

  “With effort,” Ash grunted as Lyre helped him sit up. Blood dribbled from under the cuffs. The draconian took a deep breath. Placing both hands over the collar around his neck, he began to mumble under his breath—an incantation. Piper slid back, unable to believe it. Ash was going to magic off the magic-dampening collar? Exactly how powerful was he?

  Lyre backed away too, putting his back against the van doors. The air grew hot and dense around Ash, and with a hissing crackle, the collar crumbled to dust. Ash dropped his hands, a tired but satisfied look on his face for a brief moment.

  Then his eyes rolled up and he fell backward.

  Lyre jumped forward but Ash snapped back to consciousness when he hit the van floor. Swearing softly, he allowed Lyre to help him back up. Piper jerked her hands in their cuffs, wishing she could help.

  After a few minutes of deep breathing, Ash used a touch of magic to break Lyre’s handcuffs and then Piper’s. Rubbing her wrists in relief, she watched Ash face the back door of the van. How would he get the door open without the prefects noticing?

  “Wait,” Lyre whispered. He tugged nervously at his hoodie. “Are we sure we want to do this?”

  “What do you mean?” Piper hissed.

  Lyre met her glare without flinching. “If we take off now, everyone will think we helped Quinn kill those people and steal the Sahar. Especially since we actually have it.”

  “My father did not—”

  “I know, Piper,” he interrupted quickly. “But that’s what they’ll think.”

  “We have to,” she said fiercely. “If we stay, they will eventually find the Sahar on me. We can’t hide it and we can’t throw it away; it’s the only proof I have that my father didn’t steal it. He gave it to me to keep safe. He must have known something would go wrong.”

  “She’s right,” Ash murmured. “We have to get it away from the prefects or it will vanish without a trace while we burn for the crime.”

  “All the more reason to get it away from here.” After Lyre nodded in reluctant agreement, she looked hopelessly around the steel-lined interior of the van. “How do we get out?”

  Ash, moving like every muscle hurt, shifted toward the double doors at the back of the van. He tilted one ear toward the door and held perfectly still as he listened. Then his teeth flashed in a brief, unexpected grin. He clucked his tongue softly.

  The doors clicked loudly and one of them cracked open.

  Ash pushed the door a little more and a large pair of golden eyes appeared in the gap—Zwi, the dragonet. She made a soft trill and Ash crooned something to her. With a quick glance at Piper and Lyre, he slid through the gap and out into the night. Scrambling onto her feet under the low roof, Piper slid through the gap. She almost collided with Ash, who was hovering in the shadow of the van with Zwi curled around the back of his neck like a cat. A set of keys hung from her mouth with the bulkiest key, obviously for a vehicle, between her teeth. Her mane was ruffled with self-importance.

  Lyre squeezed out of the van and nearly pressed against Piper in his anxiety. A dozen yards away, the Consulate was lit up like a party house. Dark figures moved in and out. A group of handlers were leading several dog-like creatures around the perimeter of the house. Prefect cruisers, their purple and orange lights flashing, were scattered over the manicured lawn.

  Ash slid around the corner of the van into the deeper shadows on its far side. Piper took one last longing look at the Consulate and followed him, Lyre on her heels. The draconian crept to the passenger door, peeked in the window, then took the keychain from Zwi. He fit the largest key into the door and quietly unlocked it. Opening it just as carefully, he gestured for Piper to get in. Breathing fast, she crawled onto the wide seat, keeping below the windows. Lyre climbed in after her, kneeling on the floor and hunching his torso over the seat.

  Ash scooped Zwi off his shoulder and put her on Lyre’s shoulder. “Wait here,” he whispered to the three of them. He shut the door with barely a sound and vanished from the window.

  “Where’s he going?” Piper whispered shrilly.

  “There are two prefects guarding the van,” Lyre whispered back. “On the other side.”

  As the seconds crawled by, Piper’s legs twitched from adrenaline. Then the driver’s door popped open and Ash jumped in. The key was in the ignition the next second and the engine started with a cough of protest. He shifted the vehicle into gear and, with more self-control than Piper could have managed, let the van roll into motion. His knuckles were white from his grip on the steering wheel, one hand and arm still coated in dried blood, but he didn’t accelerate as he wove between parked squad cars and waiting prefects. No one looked twice.

  They were half a mile along the long drive of the Consulate when Ash finally put his foot down. The van’s engine roared and he turned off the vehicle’s lights. The road and bordering trees vanished in the darkness. Only the pale blue light low on the eastern horizon offered any point of reference.

  Piper sat up on the seat, staring at her trembling hands so she didn’t have to look at the invisible road whipping beneath the van. She was sure Ash could see fine but that didn’t make it any easier to endure. Lyre shifted from the floor to the seat and slumped against the door, pale and shaky.

  She swallowed hard and didn’t ask Ash where they were going because she didn’t want him to say he didn’t know. They were fugitives. Not only were they wanted by the prefects for conspiracy and nine counts of murder, but everyone thought they’d stolen the Sahar. Once it leaked they were the top suspects, every power-hungry daemon out there—and they were all power hungry—would start hunting them. Every haemon with more ambition than morals would be after them. Every human who wanted to compete in the dangerous daemon community would be on watch for any hint of them. There was nowhere safe to go.

  And the fact that they had the Sahar only made it worse.

  She closed her eyes. The only two people in the world she could trust right now were sitting on either side of her and she couldn’t trust them at all. They were daemons. Her only flimsy insurance was the accusation against them. Whoever possessed the Sahar would be hunted for the rest of his life, as the three of them would now be hunted. Everyone wanted the Sahar, but no one wanted anyone else to know they had it.

  She cracked an eyelid to peek at Ash’s profile. She hoped he knew where he was going because she didn’t have a single idea. She didn’t know what to do at all. All she knew was she had to find her father—and she didn’t have a clue where to start there either.

  CHAPTER 4

  PIPER had never been so tired in her life but she couldn’t sleep. Lyre snored quietly, curled up in the passenger seat of the car Ash had stolen after they’d ditched the prefect van. She was stretched out in the relative comfort of the backseat, trying to enjoy the cessation of movement. Even though the sky was heavily overcast, the afternoon sun stabbed her aching eyes. There was no shade at their current stopover.

  Piper had never spent much time
in the city; the Consul was located just outside the city near a decent neighborhood where Piper went to school. She’d only ever seen the slums from its outer edges.

  After escaping the prefects, Ash had taken them straight into the city, driven until the van ran out of gas, found a vehicle with a full tank, then driven for hours more. Daemons had ways of tracking people that had nothing to do with physical clues or scent and Ash hadn’t taken any chances. He’d circled, backtracked, crisscrossed, and otherwise created a tangled mess of trails through the whole city. The prefects would know they were somewhere in the city but wouldn’t be able to pinpoint their location without a systematic grid search.

  Piper sat up slowly, stretching aching muscles. Curling up beside the window, she stared at the depressing scenery. Their junker of a car was parked between two vehicle skeletons. The lot was a wrecking yard for old cars, the dead machinery scattered randomly or stacked in flattened piles. Their car blended right in, though it did have more intact windows than most.

  She looked past the car graveyard to the dilapidated streets. Seventy years ago, the area had probably been full of trendy shops and restaurants. Now, the bones of a few cars slowly dissolved into rust in front of boarded-up buildings, nasty-looking bars, and nastier-looking apartments. Most cities were pretty much the same. Bombs and biological warfare and weapons of mass destruction had left civilization in ruins. The war had lasted only three years and killed more people than anyone had bothered to count.

  Before humanity could finish destroying itself and Earth, daemons had sacrificed their anonymity to preserve their favorite playground. In one swift move, they butchered military leaders across the planet, destroyed the remaining weapons of mass destruction, and left the surviving humans to sort through the rubble. Not exactly diplomatic, but it had worked.

  It took people a long time to get over the sudden revelation that “demons” and “angels” existed and weren’t anything like the myths. It was taking society even longer to get over the war.

  Piper rubbed her face. So tired. She’d been up for almost thirty hours. She hadn’t eaten in half that time. But her mind wouldn’t shut up and let her rest. Everything was shit. How was she supposed to sleep when her whole life was in pieces around her feet?