by Elle Cross
“Okay, Una. Okay.” Agreeing with her seemed to be the best thing to do since I couldn’t quite figure out what she needed. It seemed to mollify her, though, since she relaxed a bit, as if she just did the ghost’s equivalent of a sigh.
As she began to fade, she changed the channel to an exercise show. I laughed, hoping she didn’t think that I ought to lose weight.
“What is that now?” West was fascinated by the people in bright and shiny clothing jumping around to loud energetic music.
“I think Una is telling me that I needed to get stronger.”
He blinked as if awaking from a spell. “Oh, well, that I can absolutely help with.”
West took the matter of strengthening me up like he did with most things: with focused intensity.
I had mentioned I was hungry—which was common enough for me—and he tore into my kitchen like a whirlwind.
I kept a stocked pantry and fridge despite living by myself, so he was able to find a lot of food to set out and prepare.
He started browning meat I’d been defrosting, and then expertly chopped vegetables until there was a mountain of them on the cutting board, which he pushed into the pan to sauté. He slathered butter all over a crusty loaf and warmed it in the oven.
I didn’t want to get in the way of his activity, so I made myself useful and set my coffeemaker to go. I figured it would fortify me and keep me company while I looked into Una’s files.
The food smells were blending together nicely in such a short amount of time. My stomach growled. “Wow that smells good. If I were alone, I would have just had some of that meat and called it a day.”
“You are not alone.”
He said it almost as if daring me to send him away. Granted that was what I wanted for his own sake, but I didn’t want him to leave. I missed having someone to talk to, someone who knew my past and remembered it.
Because I faded in and out of people’s consciousness here, no one sought me out or asked after me, or followed up on anything I had talked about. I told myself that I preferred it that way, but that would have been a lie.
I was just a part of the landscape here for the Shades, which was what the Oracles and I had intended for my safety. The reality though was that this was rather lonely, and kinda boring.
The coffee was ready. I poured it out, and offered some to West, who was gingerly sautéing the food together at the stove. He bent toward the proffered cup, sniffing at it. “What is it?”
I suppressed a smile. “It’s coffee. Generally a hot beverage full of magic. Never had some?”
He shook his head curious. “Are the magicks potent?”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Nah, they’re more subtle. Be careful, it’s hot,” I said handing him a small cup in a little cozy that I knit for it. He looked amused at my warning.
Since I liked mine just this side of scalding, I sipped mine right away. It was perfect, and already it soothed my nerves.
I watched him take a sip, and the look of barely concealed disgust made me laugh out loud.
“Gods above and below, this tastes like medicine. Or poison.” He eyeballed me to make sure I wasn’t about to keel over.
I giggled at his face. It was so much like a little boy’s. He was much more approachable this way. “Yeah, it does have that earthy component to it.”
He tried another sip because I nearly swooned drinking mine. He choked it down and set down the mug. “I am sorry, my queen, but I just cannot finish that.”
I had to put my mug down on the counter, afraid that I would have spilled liquid everywhere from laughing so much. “No apologies needed. More for me.” There was a bit of a pause because we both realized that I had my hand on his shoulder. I gingerly plucked it off and gripped my coffee, sipping, waiting while West doled out food on to plates that I set out on my kitchen counter.
He pulled out the bar stool for me. We spoke about all manners of things that didn’t have anything to do with Court politics or the current mission. Instead, I talked about my kitchen appliances and the purpose for things like the dishwasher, microwave, and television.
When I showed him how to load the dishwasher, he was thoroughly impressed. “Well, I would not have expected the Shades to come up with such magic.”
“You should check out the icemaker.” I put a glass to the dispenser and perfectly formed ice chips fell in. “I call it Morana, since it reminded me of her.”
At the mention of my sister, the Queen of Winter and Blood, as an ice maker, he barked out laughing. “My queen, that’s too much!” We laughed, and we stumbled into each other, releasing our pent up hysterics.
When the laughter subsided, I was very aware of being in his arms. Of his heat, his scent, his everything. We drew into each other closer and closer.
“Karina,” he breathed, before closing the stupid gap between our lips. He brushed over them once, the feel of them both velvet and electric. I could not stand the teasing so I raised myself up on tiptoes, dug my fingers into his hair, and crashed into him.
His lips were warm and softer than I expected. I sucked on his lower lip a little, tugging it into my mouth. And then I darted my tongue between his lips, tasting him.
Like a lightning strike, he switched from being careful of me to destroying me. He buried his fingers in my hair, slanting his mouth over mine so he could kiss me more deeply. His carefully controlled demeanor completely let loose as he sought to devour me.
I wrapped my legs around his waist, trying to get as close to him as possible. My mind opened, awareness flooding me. Echoes of the energies that flowed in the room, touching anything that had memories or feelings.
And there was Una, too, revived once more into something visible. Power thrummed inside of her. She grew weighty with prophecy and magic, a harbinger warning of an impending storm on the horizon.
West felt it too because he stilled. “There is something here, my queen.”
“Yes, it’s just Una. Do you see her?”
It felt silly to ask since to me she was as visible as a nightlight.
He shook his head. “No, is she here?” His voice dropped to lethal levels. If he didn’t look so serious, a stark contrast to the laughter from earlier, I would have rolled my eyes at him.
“Yes, and please don’t freak out.”
He visibly relaxed, thank goodness. “As long as you know what it is.”
“You are not worried about ghosts?”
He shrugged. “Your mother kept them around. It only makes sense that you can see them too.”
I thought about it for a minute. “Did my sister—you know what? Never mind.” I shut down that line of thinking. I was never close to my older sister, and as soon as she claimed her power, she gathered her followers and founded her Winter Court in the far reaches of the Fold.
Thinking of my old life did no good other than to attract attention to me.
Attention and Hunters.
I moved away from West, avoiding his gaze. I grabbed my bag from the other room for my files, while he cleared the table so that I’d have room. Una preferred the television on, and she silently sat watching the shows. She was stronger. Maybe it really did help that I took the time to eat.
I passed over the red folder first in favor of the plain one that had upset me this morning. It was non-descript and just a handful of sheets of forms, thank goodness. The only picture that was in there was that of a young girl. It looked to be a school picture. She had short brown hair down to her chin, with bangs bluntly cut across her forehead. It was the typical school girl haircut and it was almost heart-stopping to see her face.
She was so young.
Una Bloodstone.
I glanced over to where she watched more happy families finding homes of their own, and my chest constricted. Swallowing my emotions, I checked out the other folder.
The information blurred and shifted as if it wasn’t quite sure of what it wanted to be. I blinked and focused on the few clear facts, namely the city
and state. "She's not from around here."
I looked over scant notes that shifted and changed. Something was happening there. Like the Oracles couldn’t be sure what the actual information was supposed to be.
Well. I knew one thing. There was no reason for her to be part of this city’s investigation. The girl didn’t even live in the same state.
"How in the world did this even cross our precinct?" I muttered to myself. "She was in a different state, too. There was no reason for her file to even be here. She was from four states away in the middle of the country." I closed the file. The Oracles definitely intended for me to know about this. They’d be the only ones who would be able to manipulate events for the people to think it was no big deal for a case from the Midwest to get to the East Coast.
"What's the matter?" West had been looking on this entire time, taking in what I was doing and doing his best not to interrupt. But he loved puzzles and mysteries, and more importantly, solving them.
"Well, in this world, there are various territories, and there would not be a reason for one case to go across cities let alone across states since each state had its own government, lawmakers, and law enforcers. It's all a matter of geography."
West nodded his head. He understood political ties, alliances, and territories very well.
"I wonder, though. There was that hunt earlier, the one that attracted Una to me in the first place." At the thought of her, I turned to Una. She seemed to be fading again. I wasn’t hungry. So, it couldn’t have been that after all. I didn’t know what it was that kept her here.
I started to leaf through the folder when West placed a gentle hand on mine.
"You mentioned hunt? And if I recall correctly"—as if he didn’t have perfect recall—“the Oracles mentioned hunt. A ‘separate hunt’ if I remember their exact words. As in, one before the time we found you fighting for your life in a dirty alley.”
Oh.
That.
I may not have explained that incident to him. I was trying to rack my mind about it.
He kept looking at me. Peering into me. I had to tell him a short version, but it didn’t really matter because it wasn’t as if the event lasted for more than a few minutes anyway. "They were there—”
“What they?”
I coughed. “Banshees, Hell Hounds and Wraith Lords.”
He ground his teeth together. “Okay, go on.”
“Nothing much else. I realized we were in the Fade, the car doors opened, a ghost rushed the Hunters, I made it out, and that was it. Una walked me from the Fade to the What-Would-Be." I shrugged as if something like that happened all the time.
What he did was take me into a crushing embrace. He was not the type to be overly emotional or physical nor would he normally touch me without permission. So he was clearly upset.
He pressed his lips against my forehead. "If that ghost hadn't been there, I do not know what would have happened." He set me back on the floor. "Do you know who he was?"
I just shook my head. I must be missing something because it was scary, but I didn’t think it was anything to be that concerned over after the fact.
Hunts came and went. The veils didn’t allow for Hunters to linger far outside their respective Folds for long. And those that did, at least in the Shadow Realm, answered to the Remnant Gods. I avoided them as much as I avoided interlopers from the Fold.
“I will need to borrow that mirror.” He referred to the box.
“Sure, I guess. Not sure it’ll be helpful, though. I think the Oracles have blessed it only as their conduit, not that they were much help to me. Why?”
"Enver needs to get here. And the rest. Now. I do not like that there were multiple branches of Hunters here. Especially with Hunters who already knew how to find you once."
"Well, we don’t know that I was the target. From what the Oracles told me, the Hunters are after Oracles. That's why I'm doing this. The faster I find out who killed Una and who has this girl, and who the potential Oracles are, then I can figure out what to do."
"Then why were they after you? Why were they sniffing around on the train?"
"Una was nearby. From what I pieced together the Oracles said she was of the line of Delphi."
“And, where is Una now?”
I glanced at the living room. And a slow epiphany dawned on me. “She’s here. With me.”
“Here with you,” he repeated.
At his ‘do you see why I’m freaking out’ look, I just shook my head. "Look this is the first time I'd seen any disturbance of this kind in literally three years. I know you don’t believe in coincidences, but seriously this could just be a coincidence. It would have been bound to happen."
"It is your privilege to believe that, my queen. It is mine to believe that there is something here that we are missing. And I intend to find out." He got up, intent on finding a substitute for a conduit. "I know that you do not want your life to be more complicated, but in matters of your safety, my job trumps your desire to avoid uncomfortable emotions."
I was too busy thinking over his words to actually realize that he was determined to get word out. With no warning, he grabbed the knife from his belt, and slashed his arm. The knife drank his blood, and he spoke into it, words that must have meant something, since I didn’t understand them. I only knew the intention and that was he was trying to reach his brothers-in-arms, and that he wanted them to come fast.
"Well, that was kind of unnecessary. I could've found you some kind of mirror..."
At that moment I got a little woozy, and swayed on my feet.
"My queen? Karina!"
Darkness edged my vision, but I refused to give in. "Una, what's happening?" My voice sounded small, as if from afar.
I felt Una slipping away from me. Fading.
My heartbeats grew louder, slower, until booming thump-thumps were all I heard as I fought for consciousness.
West was yelling at me, but I could not hear him over the blood that rushed in my ears. Lights narrowed to pinpoints in the middle of my eyes. It was at that point that a reedy voice trickled into my ear.
They're coming for you.
Run.
Run.
Run!
The darkness lifted from my vision, and West’s maelstrom eyes gazed down at me as he cradled me on the couch. I was clear-headed once more. "Run!" I gasped out.
In one blink, he gathered me up, stood, and grabbed my bag. "Where?" he asked.
My mind blurred with possibilities. The basement could work since it was surrounded by earth, but there was no escape hatch. It would only take a crack in a spell for something to burrow through without a fallback position.
Upstairs though… I had put extra protection around my bedroom.
"Up," I said, and in two steps we were right outside of my bedroom.
If West wondered why he could not travel directly into my room, he didn’t mention it. Knowing that there were travelers that could walk Shadow Paths or create portals made me very careful about making sure that the only way to get to me while I was at my weakest would be the old-fashioned way: through my door.
I scrambled out of his arms as he locked the door. I pressed my own sigils into it.
The house trembled when an interloper crossed the barriers into the house.
I had set it up that way on purpose. Even through the gossamer thread of our bond, West could feel my anxiety.
I wondered what it would feel like to be even more bonded to the men who had pledged their lives to me. I never wanted to think about it; it all felt like a responsibility that I didn’t want to carry.
How was I supposed to make sure that other people were happy when I didn’t even know that for myself?
I felt West move toward me and I didn’t pull away when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him. He had his sword drawn and ready.
"You do not have to worry about us, Karina. We serve you. We choose to follow you. Remember that."
I did. Every day, tho
ugh I tried my hardest to forget. I knew it and also felt unworthy of it.
The high-pitched trilling screes echoed in my house. I could tell where they were in my house. They would be right around my fireplace now, the way their voices echoed in the vents.
I unsheathed the short sword that I kept by my bedside. I offered the rest of my weapons cache to West, for which he nodded in approval. He grabbed another gun to add to his collection. It was funny to see it on him, given that he looked like someone out of old myths. But I knew that he was as much a sharp shooter with the gun as he was with a bow and arrow.
Another presence entered my house. The protections held in place around this room muted its identity, though. A thread connected to my heart tugged and I gasped.
Enver. The thread from earlier still connected us somewhat.
West held me, his hand warm and secure at my back. “Do not worry, they’re here, my queen.”
I wanted to ask how many. Screams replaced the screes; unholy cries that threatened to undo the fabric of the universe. It was the death song of a few banshees.
I hoped that whoever faced them was protected or shielding. I saw bodies completely shredded just from a glancing blow of their cries.
It got really, really quiet.
I strained to hear anything, but all I heard was the blood rushing in my ears.
West positioned himself in front of me facing the door.
Something was just outside of the room now, on the landing. And the protections that I’d woven around the room had obviously worked because whoever it was had been expecting to come inside.
And then the last thing I expected happened.
Whoever it was knocked on the door.
Karina
BLUE-BLACK REFLECTIVE LIGHT shone against the cracks around my bedroom door. It was the distinctive aura of darklight, and there was only one Prince of Power who wielded it.
Enver.
The edges of his shields pressed against the cracks of my door, a stark relief against the plain white paint.
He knocked again, and it was so surreal, I could have laughed. I snorted a little bit. The look that crossed West’s face let me know that he worried for my sanity. He tried to open the door, but couldn’t.
