Chest of Bone (The Afterworld Chronicles Book 1)

by Vicki Stiefel

  The tiny bedroom—all lodge plaids and bear lamps—was dressed with military precision. For such a big fellow, Ronan didn’t take up much space. A few pair of jeans, along with several button-downs and t-shirts hung in the closet. His hockey gear, some doodads, a PlayStation. That was it.

  At the end of the bed sat one of our seamen’s trunks. I lifted the arched lid. His duffle bag lay inside. I unzipped it.

  A tool-sized box, maybe a foot long by six inches high, sat inside.

  All nerves, I slipped on the gloves and pulled my scuffed find out of the bag. Made from red leather, the lid bore the letters DC in faded gold. I traced them with my fingers.

  I carried the box to my room and sat it on my bed, feeling as if it were a snake about to strike. If this thing was so powerful, would monsters leap for my throat when I opened it?

  The box felt good beneath my hands. This was Dave’s. He’d used it, loved it, cared for it.

  I unsnapped the brass fittings. Would anything pounce out and get me? I took a couple breaths and lifted the hinged lid.

  Nothing leaped. Or even hissed. The box’s top tray, lined with red felt and stained with ink, was filled with calligraphic pens. Some with what looked like ivory handles and brass or gold nibs. The divided tray also held assorted sized and shaped nibs, some dabbed with dried ink. Lulu had entrusted her father’s calligraphy box to Ronan. Smart.

  I lifted the tray out, and found a row of inks in glass bottles and three glass vials with colored powders inside—green and red and blue. Small sheets of blotting papers lay against the side of the box. Sure, this could be it.

  The final test.

  I drew off a glove, felt the brush of magic.

  The door banged open. Knife in hand, I whipped around.

  arrimer, gun drawn, crouched in the doorway.

  “Shit.” He straightened, then tucked the gun behind his back. “I could’ve shot you.”

  “Really.” I snorted. “Who else would be in my bedroom? Paranoia anyone?”

  He nodded at my knife, and I slipped it back into my boot. “Point taken.”

  Laugh-lines crinkled as laughter tugged at his lips.

  My breath hitched. This complex man held my heart. He’d never hurt me, not intentionally. But he could destroy me.

  I turned away.

  “Clea?” He walked into the room.

  “How was your meeting?” I slipped my gloves back on.

  “Interesting.” He strode to the bed as if tethered. His scarred hand traced the case’s open lid. “The Chest of Bone.”

  “I believe so.” We’d talked about the chest, but I hadn’t told him its full name. I stood. “You know the Chest of Bone because…?”

  He lifted a bone-handled pen. “So this is what it’s all about. Pretty unimpressive.” After long moments, he looked up at me. “I have to take it.”

  I snapped the lid closed and stood, glared at him. “What? No way.”

  He held my gaze. “Why are you holding your knife, Clea?”

  I glanced down. I hadn’t realized I was. “Oh.”

  “And you’d gut me for some chest?”

  “Yes.” Not exactly the truth.

  “Christ, you’re insane.” He nipped my lower lip.

  “Ow!”

  “Of course you wouldn’t, but you talk a good game.”

  “Screw you. I mean, really, I’m not kidding.”

  He licked the lip he’d just bitten. “Yum. You’re delicious when you’re fired up. Babe, you don’t have it in you to kill someone without provocation. You’re too gentle for that.”

  “My ass I am,” I said.

  “And you do have an adorable one.”

  That voice, it sizzled with heat. “Off topic. It’s our trade for Lulu. This is what Tommy wants.” Which is what he’ll think he’s getting, before…

  “Put the knife away, sit down, and we’ll figure this out.”

  I locked the chest in my trunk, then sat on the bed, legs folded, leaning against the headboard. Larrimer took the foot, and I gave him a pillow to soften the footboard’s hardness. That amused him, too.

  He pulled off his boots and dropped them to the floor.

  “Red socks?” I asked.

  “I like red. So shoot me.” He stretched out his legs, surrounding me.

  I flipped my knife, caught it, flipped, caught it, flipped…

  Larrimer blurred, and he was on his knees in front of me, handing me my own knife, a smart-alec smile on his face.

  “Wiseass. The chest is powerful, dangerous. Why do you want it? You’re many things, Larrimer. Power hungry isn’t one of them.”

  “What happened to ‘James?’”

  “I’m seriously pissed.”

  “I can see that. It’s cute.”

  “Gods.”

  A long pause, then, “The people I work for. They instructed me to get it.”

  I masked my shock. “Obviously not Fish and Wildlife. DarkPool?”

  “Yes.” He did his Iron Man thing and closed up tight.

  “From the beginning?”

  “Yes. DarkPool is a military-for-hire corporation. Security services, private investigations, with an arm in technology and the sciences, as well. I was working for them when I was blown up.”

  What a fool I was. A clueless fool. I laughed. If I didn’t, I’d cry. Finally, the truth. How much more was there?

  I locked the bedroom door. “I need to know. Everything, dammit,” I said, voice cold.

  He seeped pain.

  “Your wounds hurting?” I asked.

  A bitter laugh. “No. Hell no. Only you, Clea. It’s always been only you.”

  Words threatened to bubble out. I mustn’t. I rubbed my chenille bedspread, back and forth.

  Silence.

  “Waiting,” I said in a sing-song voice.

  He inhaled a breath, deep and long. “Twelve years ago, two researchers messing around—”

  “Messing around?”

  “I don’t know what the fuck else to call it. Not my thing. These two DarkPool geeks noticed energy anomalies popping up around the world. Think small volcanic bursts.”

  “So this isn’t about the recreation of you?”

  “Not directly. They sent a team to investigate, and, much as they despised their findings, they concluded the rifts were pockets of magic.” He chuckled. “They don’t use that term. Their scientists came onboard and termed them Unnatural Energy Anomalous Incursions. They could quantify them, but failed to understand them. Believe me, they tried. Now, they’re paranoid and scared. So DarkPool got into bed with the government. They call their consortium The Union. They began mapping these, what they call, incursions. I’ve seen the Las Vegas-style map on the wall. High-tech. Colors. Razzle-dazzle. Looks like a neon sign. The colors move constantly.

  “They keep trying to grasp the magic. They continue to fail. Which scares the shit out of them. They’ve used those who possess it—Fae, the wyvern, others—but they can’t create it. They’ve succeeded in tracking these anomalies across the world. Places of eruption. That mess in Sedona was one.”

  “A disaster. I saw the footage.”

  “The Golden Eagles were another. The Great Victoria Desert.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Australia, by the Nullarbor Cliffs. Overnight, five thousand acres of flowers appeared.”

  “Flowers?”

  He nodded. “Tulips and orchids and gardenias carpeted the desert. Right after a pocket of magic exploded.”

  “Wow.”

  “Not just places and events.” His voice hardened. “People, too.”

  “People.”

  “Your friend, Dave. A bright incursion. He was magicked to death. Something black and evil sucked the life out of him.”

  The clarity of it hurt. “Tommy.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. You’re not immune, Clea.”

  “I never thought I was.”

  I stared at the seemingly everyday calligraphy box. Of course, The Union wa
nted the chest. I bet they were dying to distill the magic down to zeros and ones. Then recreate it, manipulate it, control it. Hadn’t they done just that with the earth’s resources? Gluttony and greed at its finest.

  Could magic be deconstructed, catalogued, categorized? Did humans even have the tools?

  The magic needed to be protected, cared for, so we didn’t mess it and ourselves up.

  Tommy, The Union—two different aspects of the same Janus face.

  “And you?” I asked.

  “My remaking was connected to the project. I’m their creature.”

  The urge to lay a hand on his thigh, to comfort, almost undid me.

  “Six weeks ago,” he said. “They handed me this mission. My cover, the endangered species threat, which was real, and one they suspected was connected to all of this. I was to find the Chest of Bone and bring it in.”

  I closed my mind to all that meant. “How did they learn the name of the chest?”

  He shrugged. “From the Fae who reanimated me. Or it could be another from the other side.”

  “The magic side.”

  “Yes. He may have taken one of The Union there. My handler—”

  “You mean, Taka.”

  He ran a finger down his temple. “Yes.” Strong. Cool. Dispassionate.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Their instruments can’t read the chest.”

  “Anouk said it changed, being so long in the mundane world.”

  “Or maybe it’s shielded, much like the Fae taught me to shield.” He paused, quirking a smile. “I can feel you sometimes, probing my mind.”

  “You’re the song, aren’t you? The shadow?”

  His brows scrunched.

  “When we met in the Feed and Seed. The watcher when Taka and Bob first came here.”

  “My clever Clea. I needed to do recon on my own. They told me little.”

  As if he were some unthinking machine.

  “At the store, that was the first time I felt your magic,” he said. “It astonished me.”

  “Outside the house and again, at Mt. Auburn.”

  “Yes. I felt your fear and cursed myself for being too late.” He leaned forward and his thumb grazed my lower lip. “My poor little Mage, how you’ve hurt. I promised myself I’d protect you, keep you safe.”

  I would not cry. “I’m not anyone’s poor little anything.”

  “No, you’re not. I was called in today because you’ve gone off the charts. You’re a blazing star on their fucking map.”

  The Union was tracking me, trapping me. Like an animal.

  My face must have shown something, because he moved up the bed to settle beside me. I wouldn’t look at him, no way.

  He caught my chin and turned my head to face his. “I won’t let them get to you. I promise this. They will never have you.”

  I imagined myself—their personal Ms. Magic in the bowels of a tech-flavored hell, picked over, tested, probed by faceless beings in white coats. No, not faceless. By Taka.

  “I’ve got you, Clea,” he said.

  I searched those Pacific blue eyes. “Do you?” Whispered words. “I won’t give you the chest.”

  His look, all resolve and desire and… more. His arms moved around me, and he pulled me close. “Yes. Always.”

  My mask cracked. This was real. He was real. His heart beat beneath my palm, his body warm and comforting, his scent honey and pine. What he said, his feelings, that was truth.

  Everything else was just white noise.

  He pulled me to him and kissed me, just the way I liked. I softened, felt his lips tease, then he deepened the kiss. His tongue entered my mouth, and I answered with mine. Kissing, touching, he eased me back, to where I lay stretched out, his torso atop me. I ached, and I rubbed against him. We kissed and stroked until I was dizzy, his hardness straining against his jeans, pressing my mound, my cleft. I moaned, wanting to feel him, needing him touching me, all of me, his skin hot on mine.

  “Your wounds,” I said.

  “I’m fine. Count on it.”

  I snuck my hands beneath his t-shirt, and my fingers glided over warm, hard muscle. He tore his shirt off and tossed it. His pants, too. I did the same. And we were naked, and I could feel all of him, his warmth, his hunger, his song.

  Gods, he felt good. My nipples ached, and my cleft throbbed, and his hands moved, and his tongue laved my breasts, his mouth greedy, sucking. He nipped, and pricks of pleasure arrowed down me.

  I needed. “More, James, more.”

  And then my hips were in his hands, and he spread my legs and kissed me there, where I needed it most. His tongue, piercing, penetrating, sucking, flicking back and forth across my clit.

  I scraped my nails down his back, and he growled. I’d wanted this for so long, this man, inside me.

  He raised his head, eyes wild, a Pacific storm. “Now, Clea.”

  “Gods, yes.”

  He kissed me again, there, and then he slid up me, his heat scorching my skin, his weight—delicious. And he took my lips as his cock probed my entrance and he slowly, evenly dug into me.

  The song. Our song. There it was.

  I was so high. Move, move.

  I arched, but he paused, not inside me yet, not all the way, and I wanted him deep, deep, slamming into me hard, moving.

  Then he stilled, petting me, nibbling my neck, licking my breasts, sucking, and I touched him everywhere, his carved arms, his broad back, desperate. I needed him deeper.

  I wanted him so damned much. “James.”

  He started to move and with each undulation, he thrust deeper, and oh gods, he felt fine. So fine. My fingers wove through his long, black hair, and I kissed his lips, his face, his neck, anything, everything. He tasted of salt and honey and him. And it wasn’t nearly enough.

  And he thrust.

  A moan slipped from my mouth, and he pounded hard and heavy, over and over, our song blending, complementing, heightening. Fast, oh, so fast, and I met him, again, and again, and the world spun, the song crescendoed, and my heart spiked, faster and higher and…

  I splintered, the release, oh, gods, yes, I came, my back arching as surge upon surge of orgasm bathed me in pleasure.

  A gasp, one breath, and then another. I couldn’t move, didn’t want to move, but I had to kiss him again, savor his musk of sweat and honey, our song’s coda. I licked him. Oh, so yummy.

  “Killer,” I said.

  “Lethal.”

  “You didn’t come.”

  Through harsh breaths, he replied, “Still savoring.”

  And he shifted, just a touch, a feather. Mmmm. Divine. I smiled. Okay, I grinned like a bastard.

  “More,” he said.

  “Oh yes.”

  Eyes never leaving mine, he moved inside me, slow and steady, a metronome of power, the smoke of pleasure curling again within me, and the slickness of him, the sweat of him, again and again and again, so even, so measured, and I spiraled tight, tighter, until he barked his release, and he didn’t stop, but kept thrusting, pounding, and I fractured a second time. And I held him fast as we rocked in sweet satisfaction, panting like runners, high, so high.

  “My Clea,” he said, voice hushed and rich. “Mine.”

  I ran my hands up his slick back to curl them around his neck, fingers toying with his sweat-dampened hair. My senses opened, and, his shields down, I drank in his satisfaction, his joy.

  And our song, that harmonic resonance I’d first heard weeks ago—us, together, sang with synergistic beauty.

  He went to move off me, but I refused to let go, relished his weight atop me, his sweat mingling with mine, legs entangled, bodies slick. He rolled us, so we lay side by side.

  “James,” I said.

  “Clea.”

  He kissed me. And we lay together until our breathing slowed. I nestled in the crook of his shoulder, my hand mapping his face, his petting my back, for long, long moments, one after another after another.

  Sounds of a car pulling in
to the dooryard. Bernadette. Ronan. I didn’t care. Not one little bit.

  I would stay like this forever.

  “Clea!” came the voice from downstairs, minutes later.

  Shit. Bob.

  “If only I could end the bastard.” Larrimer squeezed me tight, as if I’d disappear.

  “I’m not going anywhere, James.”

  “Never go.”

  “Bob knows about The Union, doesn’t he?” I asked.

  “Too much. He’s in it thick.”

  “Clea!” Bob said.

  We peeled apart.

  “To be continued,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Down in a minute,” I yelled as I flew into my clothes, found a rubber band, and corralled my sweat-sticky mop into a ponytail. Time to buy some scrunchies.

  I turned to Larrimer, his gorgeous self sprawled on the bed, a luscious feast. “Stay here. And behave.”

  He laced his hands behind his head and gave me a shit-eating grin.

  I had to kiss him, just had to, and then I zoomed out the bedroom door, closed it behind me, and trotted down the stairs.

  “Hey, Bob,” I said as I walked into the kitchen, intensely aware of how he’d betrayed our friendship.

  He gaped. Okay, maybe I looked like I’d just had the hottest sex of my life. I smiled, going for casual.

  “Did you get him? Lulu?” I asked, though I knew he hadn’t. I pushed my hands into the back pockets of my jeans.

  “No.” He looked me up, then down. “Where’s the kid?”

  “At school. You want some coffee?”

  “Sure.” His nostrils flared, and I poured.

  Oh, the vibes. Bob was not a happy camper. Good. He swiped at his face. He hadn’t shaved. Bob always shaved. “What’s up?”

  He tented his hands and studied me.

  He knew something was off. By the way, Bob, I just had mad, crazy sex. Can you tell? “Did you learn anything from people at the club?”

  A flush blotched his face. No need for the visual aid. I felt his fury just fine.

  “The ones eating the exotic meat gave us a little. All useless. Those dining on humans, disgusting.”

  I would not picture it. And there it was—in 3D.

  “They’re zombies,” he said.

  Thank the gods Ronan wasn’t. Zombies? “You mean, real—”

  “Of course not.” He gave me a “you’re losing it” look. “The diners in the first room knew squat. Those in the second and third rooms, they’re cows. Memories wiped, minds asleep. Lie detectors, threats, we got nothing. The waiters, hired help. Crumbs. All we got are fucking crumbs. However he did it, the guy’s good. Even the three goons that were packing couldn’t remember who hired them. Long rap sheets, so they’re not going anywhere.”