The Medusa Files, Case 1: Written in Stone

by C. I. Black

  Morgan blinked. She couldn’t make her mind accept this was the new reality. The fire licked at her cheeks. She jerked her gaze to the grease-covered oven door beside Todd’s head and concentrated on controlling it.

  Gage squared his shoulders. “Don’t even think about it. Withdraw those teeth.”

  “You can’t just barge in here.” The hood quivered and a semi-translucent liquid beaded at the end of his teeth.

  Lachlin cleared his throat and pointed at Clayton, who towered over Todd. The hood quivered for a second more then settled over his neck. His face wavered between human and snake and finally settled on a stomach-churning combination of the two: snake eyes and nose, and everything else human. His flesh remained pink, but dark splotches mottled his cheeks and forehead.

  The blaze eased—thank God—and Morgan returned her focus to Todd again. This was her job. She now might be a monster, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still be a marshal.

  “I haven’t done anything.” Todd glanced at Morgan then back to Gage, as if he didn’t want to admit recognizing her. A sure sign of guilt.

  “Doesn’t look like it to me.” On instinct, Morgan knelt.

  Gage and Clayton shifted, their discomfort that she was getting closer to Todd clear. Even Lachlin stiffened. For a heartbeat she feared she’d misjudged how dangerous Todd was. But even with the poison on his teeth ready to be spat on her—which, quite frankly, could hit her if she was standing—he didn’t have the feel of a hardened criminal. And she’d met more than her fair share of hardened criminals. Nothing about Todd said he was aggressive. He’d run when he’d first seen her, he hadn’t struck out even when cornered, and he certainly didn’t have the build for a thug. No, his modus operandi was to lie, cheat, steal, and weasel—or would that be slippery as a snake? He would do whatever it would take to avoid bodily harm.

  She shifted her sunglasses a fraction down her nose. Todd whimpered and inched back, bumping into the stove.

  Yep. Anything to avoid harm.

  And she wasn’t going to think about how terrifying it was to know Todd feared her gaze. “Now you and I both know you recognized me.”

  “But—”

  “Who’d you tell about Morgan?” Gage asked.

  “No, I—”

  “Come on, Todd,” Morgan said, tapping her sunglasses. “Who’d you tell?”

  The splotches on Todd’s face paled. “I— I needed money.”

  “Who did you tell?” Gage asked.

  “He’ll kill me.”

  Lachlin snorted. “She’ll kill you first. What do you think is more painful? Being stabbed, shot, or turned to stone?”

  “I’m voting on stone,” Gage said. “I hear it’s slow, excruciating.”

  Todd trembled and paled even more.

  God, she hoped Gage was playing it up.

  “You obviously didn’t hire the ogre. So who did? I want a name,” Gage said.

  “Ogre?” Todd’s eyes shot wide, his slitted pupils expanding and contracting.

  Lachlin sighed. “This is getting tiresome. We’re not going to get anything, so have at it, Jacobs.”

  “No, please,” Todd squeaked. “Rentz. I owed Vincent Rentz money and when I saw her—I didn’t think there was another gorgon.”

  “Thank you.” Gage holstered his gun. “Don’t leave town. We might have more questions for you.”

  Todd bobbed his head. His snake’s hood trembled but didn’t flare out.

  “Good.” Gage turned and motioned for her to go.

  She followed him out of the house, with Lachlin and Clayton close behind her. They marched back to the vehicles and Gage pulled out his phone.

  “So who’s Vincent Rentz?” she asked.

  “Local loan shark and Blackstone dwarf,” Gage said, entering a number into his phone.

  Lachlin leaned against Gage’s Mustang and crossed his arms. “Except Blackstone dwarves don’t usually deal in information; goods only.”

  Gage leveled a stern gaze on Lachlin, who pulled away from the vehicle.

  “Fine. You’re right,” Lachlin said. “This information is worth a lot of gold, but he’d be stupid to sell it.”

  Gage’s phone rang on speaker. “Money can make even the smartest man do stupid things.”

  “Goddess of all things knowable,” Rika said on the other end of the line. “What can I do for you?”

  “Is Vincent Rentz still running bets out of the Whale and Ale?” Gage asked.

  A drop of rain hit the windshield of Gage’s car.

  Fingers tapped over the line. “Looks like it.”

  “Thank you,” Gage said.

  “You know I live to enlighten your life.” Rika giggled and the line went dead.

  “Or to make sure your credit card is declined on a big date,” Lachlin said.

  Clayton looked hurt. “She said it was going to be funny.”

  “It was funny.” Gage pocketed his phone.

  Lachlin scowled. “No, it wasn’t.”

  Another raindrop hit the car.

  “You weren’t really interested in that Aphrodite anyway.” Gage turned to head around the car.

  “Not the point,” Lachlin said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Gage said. “Lachlin, you and Clayton go to our ogre’s residence. Maybe there’ll be something there. Morgan and I will talk with Rentz.”

  Clayton reached for the passenger’s side door on the second vehicle, a black SUV, but Lachlin didn’t move. “You sure that’s smart?”

  Gage opened his car door and glared at Lachlin, who stiffened. The muscle in Gage’s jaw twitched. If Morgan could see the air between them, she was sure it would have crackled with the tension.

  “This isn’t up for debate,” Gage said, his voice low.

  “She’s untested.”

  “What about ‘not up for debate’ did you not understand?” Something deadly filled Gage’s dark eyes.

  A shiver swept over Morgan. Now she was certain lightning crackled between them. Gage was dangerous. If she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now with certainty. She couldn’t say how exactly, only that darkness coiled taut just under his skin, straining to be released, and she did not want to be on the receiving end.

  CHAPTER 6

  The tension sparked between Gage and Lachlin, growing with each passing second, and Morgan feared it would explode with deadly results. Fire licked at her eyes in response and she fought to keep it back. She had to stay in control. She couldn’t let their heightened emotions affect her.

  The power radiating from Gage increased and Lachlin sighed as if he didn’t care, except the taut muscles in his arms and legs and across his back gave him away.

  “Is this really necessary?” Clayton asked.

  Gage remained focused on Lachlin as if he could stare him into obedience. He probably could.

  The fire in Morgan’s face bled over her forehead, across her jaw, and down her neck. “Please.”

  Lachlin glanced at her then shrugged. “Whatever.” He dropped his gaze to the hood of his SUV, and sauntered to the driver’s side and got in, still oozing grace and bad boy sex.

  “See you at the house,” Clayton said, shutting his door.

  Lachlin pulled away with a squeal of tires and Morgan turned back to Gage. “What was that?”

  Gage turned his attention to her and she was drowning in his eyes again. Except this time they were consuming and powerful. Even through her sunglasses she could feel the pull, like a vortex threatening to devour her soul. God, he would be amazing in the bedroom if he didn’t destroy her.

  Heat flooded her face at the thought and she couldn’t tell if it was attraction, embarrassment, or her powers. Jeez. She slid into the passenger seat, praying he hadn’t noticed.

  Gage got in beside her and turned the ignition. The Mustang purred to life. The sense of power no longer radiated from him. Now the only sense she had of him was his intoxicating smell.

  Which, while more pleasant than the darkness, was still a pr
oblem.

  She adjusted her sunglasses and focused on the road as Gage drove. More rain dusted the windshield, but the torrent the clouds promised didn’t release. “So, you wanna share?”

  Gage sped through a yellow light and turned a corner, forcing Morgan to grab the door to keep from sliding in her seat. “Rentz is a Blackstone dwarf. That means he’s sturdy and strong, but doesn’t have any power that’s likely to kill you.”

  “Which was why Lachlin was so against me going with you?”

  Gage took another corner a little too fast, pressing Morgan against the door. “Rentz will, however, have Kin nearby who can kill you.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I brought my gun.”

  Gage stopped at a red light. “In some situations, your gun might be a liability.”

  The memory of her attacker turning to stone rushed through her. If turning someone to stone was possible, why not mind control? Why not body control? “But you carry?”

  “I’m different.”

  The light turned green and he hit the gas.

  “So what? I just face whoever Rentz has unarmed?” Sure, she usually did fine in a fist fight, but if she faced anyone like the ogre who’d attacked her yesterday, she wouldn’t stand a chance. She liked that idea about as much as she liked the idea of being forced to turn her gun on a friend.

  Gage sped around another corner, turning onto College Avenue, one of three four-lane roads running through the heart of town. “You are hardly unarmed.”

  “I’m not sure my fists count against ogres and things with poisoned spit.”

  “I wasn’t talking about that.”

  Heat flooded her face again, and this time she was sure it was her powers and not embarrassment. It swirled across her cheeks and around her eyes, as if the very mention of what she could do ignited it. No. He wasn’t talking about fists. He was talking about her gaze. “It’s hard to get answers from a statue.”

  Gage chuckled. “Clayton would disagree.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing.” Gage pulled into a parking spot, leaned back, adjusted the gun in his shoulder holster, and studied her. “Your ability is more than just stone. There are various levels to petrification. It just takes some practice.”

  She snorted at the thought. “And who gets to be the lucky guinea pigs?”

  “Leave the gun.” Gage got out of the car.

  She put her gun in the glove compartment and followed, a bad feeling churning her gut. “Who gets to be the guinea pigs? I’m not going to practice on real people.”

  The image of her attacker, his cheek sliding free and shattering on the asphalt beside her head, jumped to mind. Panic swept over her. It was real. It was really real.

  “And I’m not going to practice on real guinea pigs either. I don’t kill cute fuzzy things.”

  A hint of a smile pulled at Gage’s lips, and he crossed the street to an old-style pub. He opened the dark wood and smoky glass door recessed into a red brick storefront. City core revitalization hadn’t reached this block and the stained brick and cracked sidewalk made the building look every bit its age—which was probably a hundred or so, when the city was first settled.

  Inside was more exposed brick, dark wood, glass, and tarnished brass that said, with no uncertain terms, English pub. It was just before lunch, but only a few tables were occupied, although with the dim lighting and the tall-backed booths, there might be more customers.

  With a quick scan, Morgan assessed the room. Only two men seemed dangerous, one leaning against the bar at the back and the other sitting by himself at a table in the middle of the room. Bar man was big—almost as big as the ogre had been—and with thick tusks protruding from his jaw, Morgan was sure she didn’t want to get into a fight with him.

  The other man was narrow, wiry, like Lachlin, except even slimmer, but there was something about him that set off her instincts. This man might not be a bruiser like tusk-guy at the back, but there was something powerfully dark about him. Not as dark as what Gage had revealed, more sly… she couldn’t find the right word to describe it.

  “You spot the boar ogre?” Gage asked, his voice low.

  “At the bar? Yep. I’m more concerned about the man dead center.”

  “So am I. Lokis are unpredictable at the best of times. That could work for us as much as against us.” Gage headed toward the back of the pub.

  Morgan shoved back her initial denial of what he’d said—and what she was seeing. As crazy as it seemed, it was real. She really had turned her chair to stone. Right now she had to keep alert because she didn’t know much of anything about this new world and that put her at a serious disadvantage. “When this is done, you and I are going to have a long talk.”

  “So you finally believe me. What convinced you? Turning your chair to stone? Or the poison spit?”

  “Ha. You sure know how to make a girl feel better about her situation.”

  “I aim to please.” Gage strode to the front of a booth, his arms crossed, accentuating his broad chest and well-muscled arms. Inside the booth sat a small balding man staring at the papers scattered across the worn table. His profile didn’t waver into anything inhuman.

  “Rentz,” Gage said.

  Morgan glanced back at tusk-guy, the boar ogre. He still had tusks, which meant she could see through glamour and couldn’t see through Rentz’s… or he didn’t need one.

  Rentz glanced up, a slow smile curling his thin lips, and leveled glistening black eyes on Gage. “I was wondering when you’d show up, Alexander.” Rentz gestured to the seat across from him. “And I see you’ve brought the woman of the hour as well.”

  Morgan shifted under his beady stare. Warmth welled around her eyes and she concentrated on the cushioned bench back beside his head, just in case.

  “Even if you weren’t the only one, I’d know you were Chava’s daughter. You have her look.”

  The warmth continued to build. From the corner of her eye, she saw the lean guy at the center table shift. She wanted to ask about her biological mother, find out what this man knew. Hell, find out anything, but she doubted she’d believe what he told her. There just seemed to be so much she didn’t know about herself that everyone else did.

  “I’m just disappointed you didn’t invite me to the auction selling her information,” Gage said.

  Rentz picked up the glass by his hand and took a sip of the pale brown liquid inside. Scotch maybe? “Would I be so crass as to auction off information about the world’s only gorgon?”

  The only one. Which meant Gage hadn’t been completely honest with her either. But now wasn’t the time to ask about that.

  Gage crossed his arms. “I think you’d do anything if the money was right.”

  “If the money is right.” Rentz raised a finger and caught the bartender’s eye.

  “So who did you sell it to?” Gage asked.

  “Having you show up at my doorstep isn’t worth all the gold on the planet.”

  The bartender grabbed a bottle from the top shelf of the back bar and sauntered toward them.

  “You sold it to someone,” Gage said.

  The bartender filled Rentz’s glass and turned to go.

  “Leave the bottle.” Rentz waved at the only paperless spot on the table.

  The bartender set the bottle down and left. A drop of liquid ran down the neck and across the label, right through the picture of the watermill’s wheel. Not Scotch, local whiskey.

  “We know you’ve sold the information. There’s already been an incident.”

  Morgan suppressed a snort. And by incident, he meant her apartment lobby had been destroyed, her apartment trashed, and her friend kidnapped. That was a little more than an incident.

  “An incident?” Rentz sat forward, his body suddenly tense. Muscles Morgan hadn’t noticed before bunched around his neck and shoulders, making him more squat and solid than before. His arms flexed and his chest seemed to expand. “There’s been an incident?”

  “Ye
s.”

  Rentz’s eyes shimmered, light reflecting on onyx. “Believe me or not, but I haven’t sold anything regarding our lovely lady here.”

  “Well, someone did,” Gage said.

  “It’s a mystery, isn’t it,” Rentz said, his voice low.

  “Yes, it is.” Gage straightened. “Thank you for your time.”

  Rentz wrapped stubby fingers around the neck of the whiskey bottle. “Anytime, Alexander.” It sounded more like a threat than an invitation.

  Gage tipped his head, ever so slightly. “Rentz.” Then he turned and strode back to the front door.

  Morgan followed him outside onto the street. “He’s keeping something back.”

  “He’s a Blackstone dwarf. Of course he’s keeping something back.”

  “I have no idea what that means.” And the more she learned, the more she was sure she didn’t want to know. Except she had no choice. Even if she returned to her sequestered life in a new apartment, this new reality would still be there. This reality seemed determined to force itself on her. She couldn’t close her eyes and pretend it wasn’t real.

  Gage marched past her to the curb. “I can give you a full briefing when we get back to the house, but I’m not sure brief is the right word.”

  “Wonderful. Please tell me Rika’s set up a wiki for this, an ‘Everything Someone Needs to Know about Kin’.”

  “There’s a set of encyclopedias in the library. No one’s spent the time to scan it into a computer.”

  “That big, hunh?”

  A hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “And full of strange words, too. You might need help reading it.”

  Hell, yes. “I’m sure I can handle it.” Jeez. She had to keep her head. She didn’t know anything about Gage or anyone else for that matter. “We should focus on our current situation.”

  The traffic broke and they headed across the street back to the Mustang.

  “Blackstone is a dwarven clan. They align themselves with the Darkling Kin.”

  “I’m afraid to ask. Darkling Kin?”

  Gage rounded the front of the vehicle, pulling his keys from his pocket. “Darkling—” His gaze locked on something up the street and his eyes widened.