Chase the Dark (Steel & Stone Book 1)

by Annette Marie

  Forty in this building alone? Piper frowned, calculating. She supposed if they didn’t mind cramped quarters, forty people could fit in the Consulate.

  “Then, of course, a huge squad of prefects followed you here. They’re thirty minutes out last I heard. We need to be gone before then, so you’ll, you know, have to keep your conversation short.”

  Piper worked to keep her expression blank. Well, shit. Everything was falling apart. Captured by the Gaians, who were led by her supposedly deceased mother, and now the prefects were right behind them. She trailed along in a silent frenzy of ineffective on-the-fly planning while Travis blabbed all the way to the basement and down a long hall, through a locked door, and into another hallway. This one was dim and unfinished, more of a tunnel than a hall. There were three doors, all on the left side.

  “The middle room is empty,” he said. “This near one has the daemon we captured earlier. The far door is your dad.”

  Piper glanced at the deadbolt on the nearest metal door. “What are you planning to do with him?”

  “Well, some people thought we should kill him so he can’t tell anyone about us, but Ms. Santo overruled them.” Piper started to nod—of course her mother wouldn’t kill a daemon in cold blood—then she froze as the guy continued. “She said he’s too good an opportunity to pass up. This is our chance to learn about some of the magic daemons have that we don’t. Find out if there’s a way to duplicate some of their abilities like glamour and stuff.”

  She slowly clenched her hands as outrage kindled. “So you keep him prisoner and, what? Force him to give you magic lessons?”

  “Nah, he wouldn’t do that. I think the idea was more to experiment on him or something. I don’t know, that’s not my department.”

  “Experiment on him,” she repeated flatly.

  “Yeah,” he said excitedly, as emotionally observant as a brick wall. He obviously considered her a full-fledged member of the Gaians already. “Imagine what we could learn. Glamour would be so cool.”

  “Where are the daemons I came in with?” she asked abruptly.

  “Them? Oh, they’re in the old food cellar at the other end of the basement. We didn’t think these rooms were secure enough. We only had one 5-class dampening collar and we used it on this daemon here, so your daemon only has a 4-class collar. Might not be enough.” He shrugged.

  She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then she plastered on a vacant smile. “Sounds good. Say, do you think they’ll want to experiment on them too?”

  Travis shrugged. “Who knows? Probably not, not without a top-level collar to keep the nasty one tame, and the incubus is useless anyway.”

  “So what’ll you do with them?” she pressed, trying to keep her tone casual.

  He spread his hands. “No idea. Maybe just kill ‘em.”

  “Oh . . . right.” She worked to keep her smile in place.

  “Yeah. Maybe I’ll see how well that ultrasound works.” His grin faded as he squinted at her. “What? Don’t sweat it, it’s not like killing people. They’re only daemons.”

  Piper clenched her jaw and gave a noncommittal nod. She remembered what the file had said about the Gaians; their public mandates were a lot different from their private agendas. Her mother had offered Piper the public face only.

  “Are these rooms locked?” she asked.

  He nodded as he pulled out a ring of keys. “I’ll let you in to talk to your dad and wait until you’re done.”

  She smiled politely, stepped up to him, and slammed her fist into his gut so fast he didn’t even have a chance to flinch. As he doubled over, she locked her arm around his neck from behind and squeezed. He flailed and slapped at her like a panicking child. It only took a minute before he crumpled into unconsciousness. She plucked the keys out of his limp hand, breathing hard.

  What a group of hypocritical, self-deluding murderers. She would have to figure out what she thought of her mother leading them later, but she knew she would never join them. No. Way. In. Hell.

  Shaking out the keychain, she strode to the far door and started trying out keys. There were a dozen large keys and nearly as many small ones. It took her a while to get it unlocked. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

  It was a barren cube of cement blocks, not even a window. A pallet covered most of the cement floor, several cheap blankets spread over it. A bucket sat in the far corner. Lying across the pallet was her father. At first glance, he looked fine, sleeping peacefully. Then she noticed the pallor of his skin and the hollowness of his cheeks. His clothes, the same dress shirt and pants he’d worn the night he was kidnapped, were stained and dirty. He had several days’ growth of unkempt facial hair.

  Without thinking, she rushed across the room and dropped down beside him. Before she could find her voice, his eyes cracked open. He stared at her. Then a grin split his face—a very familiar but un-Quinn-like grin.

  The floor seemed to drop out from under her.

  “Uncle Calder?” she whispered in disbelief.

  “Hey Piper,” he croaked.

  “But—but—you’re not Father!” She mentally flailed. Not possible. Yes, they were identical twins, but she’d been positive the Gaians had kidnapped Quinn, not Calder.

  “Nope,” he rasped, barely able to get any volume. “It was supposed to be a contingency plan in case . . . Do you know . . .?”

  “He’s alive,” she said quickly. “In a medical center last I saw him.” She marveled at the thought—that had been her father in the medical center? She gasped as another realization hit her. “That’s why you couldn’t tell the Gaians where the Sahar is!”

  “I have no idea. Only Quinn knows. That’s why we switched. How did you find me?”

  Piper hesitated, then decided not to get into the technicalities of who knew what about the Stone. That could wait. “We broke into the medical center so I could talk to you—I mean Father. Well, he couldn’t really talk, and I thought he was you, but he gave me the combo to the vault in his office and I found the Gaian’s file.” Her excitement stalled, replaced with suspicion. “Did you know Mom was alive?”

  Calder’s face tightened. He took a deep breath. “Your father made that decision, Piper. It wasn’t my place to undermine his choices.”

  She opened her mouth furiously, betrayal searing her. He held up a hand. “We can hash it out later. We need to get out of here.” His eyes narrowed. “When you say ‘we broke in,’ who is ‘we’?”

  She reluctantly shelved her fury. “Me, Ash, and Lyre.”

  “Ash?” he repeated warily.

  She looked away. “Yeah. Don’t worry, I know I can’t trust him.” She frowned, remembering what Lyre had said about Ash’s days being numbered without the Sahar. She gave her head a shake. “But we can catch up on stuff later. Right now, we have to escape. The prefects are thirty minutes away and there’s a party of hostile daemons camped out back.”

  “Aren’t the prefects a good thing?”

  “Not when they think I’m a thief and murderer, and you’re the treacherous Head Consul who engineered the whole thing.”

  He blinked. “Well. In that case, I’m all for escaping, Pipes, but there’s one small problem.”

  “What?”

  “My leg is broken. I can’t walk.”

  “Your leg? How?”

  “I didn’t, as they say, come quietly.”

  She frowned. “That makes things more complicated. I might have to get Ash and Lyre, then come back for you.”

  He nodded, instantly wary again at the mention of Ash’s name. She started to stand, then reconsidered. “Maybe we’ll get you out of this room first. I can scout ahead for the cellar room while you . . . stand guard or something. Sit guard. Whatever.”

  She helped him gain his feet. Calder moved with painful stiffness, so slow and awkward that Piper bit her lip. Short of someone carrying him, they wouldn’t get far. He was way too heavy for Piper to do more than prop him up. Together they hobb
led out the door and into the hallway. Calder could barely shuffle along, grunting and wincing as he dragged his broken leg. He’d made an attempt to wrap it in torn strips of blanket, but without a splint it wasn’t doing much good.

  As she drew level with the first door in the hallway, a crazy thought popped into her head.

  “Huh,” Calder said, pointing his chin at Travis sprawled on the floor. “Nice work.”

  “Hardly a challenge.” She squinted at that first door. Dared she?

  “Wait here,” she said, making her decision. She slipped out from under Calder’s arm, helped him lean against the wall, then approached the door. It took another agonizing minute to find the correct key. Their time ticked away, second by second. The lock clicked. She yanked the key out and flung the door open.

  The room was almost identical to Calder’s cell, but the figure sitting on the pallet couldn’t have been more different.

  Eyes of an impossibly bright, yellowy green locked on her with disquieting intensity. The daemon was a young man, at least a few years older than her in appearance. He had the kind of sculpted face that surpassed handsome and could only be described as arresting—amazing, sharp cheekbones, a perfect jaw, and those bright, mysterious eyes. His golden-blonde hair was long enough to have that carefree tousle women loved. For a second, she felt an unreasonable surge of irritation that she was cursed to be surrounded by impossibly good-looking daemons—but then again, it wasn’t hard to be impossibly handsome when it was faked with magic.

  This particular daemon lounged on his pallet like it was a throne, studying Piper without expression. Heavy manacles bound his wrists, chaining him to the wall. She swallowed hard, strapped some steel to her spine, and smiled smoothly.

  “Good evening,” she said in her best game-show-host voice. “I have a fantastic offer for you—one night and one night only!” She held up her ring of keys with a dramatic flourish. “One ‘get out of jail free’ card, just for you.”

  His eyebrows rose. Amusement touched his expression but his stare was calculating. He didn’t blink nearly as much as she thought he should. She wondered what kind of daemon he was.

  “What’s the catch?” he asked. His voice ranked up there with Ash and Lyre on the delicious scale—smooth and melodic like a classically trained singer. Again, good chance it was magically assisted; Ash sounded different without his glamour. Although, in his case, the surreal, bone-shivery undertone of his voice was suppressed by glamour, not enhanced.

  “The catch is that you have to escape my way and not yours.” Time was ticking but she didn’t let her urgency show. With daemons, sometimes you had to act in a way they didn’t expect to keep the upper hand. Plus, letting this dangerous creature catch the scent of her urgency would be a disaster. Nice daemons didn’t need 5-class magic dampening collars.

  “And what,” he drawled with a teasing tilt of his head, “might I ask, is ‘your way’?” He was playing along. Thank goodness.

  “Well,” she declared, leaning against the doorframe and swinging the keys on one finger. “Were you to, hypothetically, be granted your freedom right about now, would you say you’re the ‘escape quietly’ type? Or the ‘bloody killing spree of revenge’ type?”

  He made a thoughtful sound. “I could be persuaded in either direction. I can always come back for the killing spree later.”

  She swallowed. He wasn’t joking.

  “Well, this offer of freedom requires the quiet approach. You see, there’s an unknown number of prefects on their way. We don’t have much time.”

  “Prefects?” He canted his head to the other side. “They would free me the same as you, wouldn’t they?”

  “And you want to answer all their questions about what the hell you’re doing here in the first place?”

  He smiled, apparently pleased she was smart enough to see that. “No.”

  “All right then.” She waved the keys again. “Here’s the deal. I unlock those chains and you help me carry my injured uncle out of here. Then you can do whatever you want.”

  “Your uncle?”

  “Yes, a fellow prisoner. His leg is broken.”

  He nodded agreeably. She was getting more suspicious by the second. This guy was way too calm and blasé, both about his imprisonment and this opportunity to escape it. Did he care he was chained to a wall? Maybe he got off on that kind of thing.

  “I also have to free two of my friends who’ve also been locked up,” she told him.

  “Friends?” His gaze slid down Piper and back up again. She resisted the urge to hide her bare, bruised midriff. “Haemon friends?”

  “No, daemon friends.”

  A flicker of interest. “I see. Fair enough. I agree.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And how do I know you won’t attack me the moment I get those chains off you?”

  He leaned back into the wall, spread his manacled arms, and smiled beatifically. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  She warily approached him. Stupid, stupid. She knelt beside him and lifted the keys. He held out a wrist. She found the right key on the second try and unlocked the first manacle. His wrist was raw and bruised underneath. He offered the other manacle and she unlocked it too.

  He sighed, rubbing one wrist. Then he was on his feet. One second he was sitting—the next, he was uncoiling like a jaguar from its den, towering over her. She froze for a second. Then she leaped up too, watching him guardedly and resisting the urge to back away. He was taller than her by almost half a foot, probably within an inch of Ash’s height, and built the same way—toned and athletic to the nth degree. The collar obviously wasn’t impairing his glamour, because his classy white shirt and dark gray jeans were impeccably clean and wrinkle-free despite his days of captivity. Yeah right.

  He tapped a finger against the collar around his neck. “What about this?”

  She stepped closer and craned her neck for a better look at the back of it. It was solid steel and the same dimensions as a wide dog collar. The keyhole in the back was tiny and elaborate. She fingered her ring of keys.

  “These keys are all too big. I’m sorry. Someone else must have that key.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll get it off another way then.” With a sudden flash of a smile, he swept one arm out dramatically. “After you, my lady savior.”

  She suppressed a flicker of fear—why was he so nonchalant? Who exactly was he?—and projected confidence as she swept her hair back over her shoulders and sauntered out the door like she owned the place. She caught a glimpse of his amused smirk. Keep him off balance, she told herself. It was her only protection. Even without magic, this daemon was more than she could handle.

  She stepped into the hallway. Calder had sunk down to sit on the floor, pale and sweating. As the daemon stepped out of the room, her uncle’s posture stiffened.

  “Uncle Calder, this is . . .” She looked over her shoulder. “Have a name, hot stuff?”

  “Miysis,” he offered. “But I like ‘hot stuff’ too.”

  He said it like “my-sis.” The name was familiar. If he was as powerful as she suspected, she’d no doubt heard about him before. Calder must have recognized the name too, because he started shooting her nonstop warning looks. She ignored him, playing it cool while Miysis was watching.

  “I’m Piper. Miysis, could you—”

  An explosion blasted so loudly from above them that she staggered into the wall.

  “What—”

  Another blast above them. Dust swirled through the air. Voices upstairs were shouting. The unmistakable sound of gunfire erupted. Someone screamed.

  Piper grabbed her uncle and hauled him to his feet. Miysis looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.

  “The prefects must be early,” she gasped. “Come on, we have to go.”

  “No,” Miysis murmured. He glanced at her and shrugged. “Some of that is daemon magic.”

  “Daemon?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Shit!”

  “This is bad?”
>
  “Yes.” Her hands clenched into fists. “It must be the daemons from the woods. They’ve come for the Sahar.”

  Miysis’s attention sharpened. He smiled slowly. “It is here then?”

  She shook her head sharply. “The Gaians never had it.”

  He sighed. “Too bad.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed distractedly. “Crap, we need to get out of here.”

  The daemon she’d freed glanced upward as another blast shook the ceiling. “It will take too long if we all go together. I’ll take Calder. You find your daemon friends.”

  Calder stiffened. Piper slowly turned to face Miysis. “You’ll take him where?”

  “Out of the building and to safety.” He appraised her expression then smiled. “Don’t worry, Piperel Griffiths. I would not let harm come to a Consul, especially not to the brother of the Head Consul.”

  “You—you—how do you know who I am?”

  “How many haemons named Piper with haemon uncles named Calder can there be? Your father—and your family—are quite well known, you know.”

  She scowled.

  “I will hide us in the woods. Then, once you’ve saved your friends, you can join us . . . and we can have a little talk about the Sahar and who might have it if the Gaians never did.”

  Ice slid through Piper’s veins. She shared a panicked look with Calder. Stupid stupid stupid. She never should have freed Miysis. Yes, he would get Calder out, but the daemon was also going to hold her uncle hostage until she told him everything she knew about the Sahar.

  Slowly, she nodded. At least Calder would be safe. She’d worry about the rest later.

  “If he gets so much as a scratch,” she threatened roughly, “I promise you’ll never set foot in a Consulate again.”

  He smiled, calm as ever. “Do not fear. I will take care of him.”

  Another explosion shook the house. The screams and shouts from upstairs were coming almost constantly now. After a last glance upward, Miysis slung Calder over his shoulder with an astonishing lack of effort.

  “I’ll see you soon, Piper. Take care.” With a smile that didn’t touch those bright, unnatural irises, he and Calder vanished into the hovering dust that obscured the long hall.