by Rowan Casey
“Good times.”
“For you. My nuts ain’t so sure.”
I looked at him, really looked. He’d gained a few lines around his mouth, some weathered concern in his eyes, but he was still the same. Damn, I’d missed this, missed him.
Focus. “When I brought my A-game, I won, every time. Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
“Not really. You’re good. You read the racing line before anyone else. Shit, you find lines most of us can’t pull off and you’ve got the reflexes to react. You don’t let the rush get to you. Kari said she’d never seen anyone as focused as you. I believed her.”
“She was so wrong. You’re wrong.” I took the dice from my pocket and handed them over.
He looked at them in his palm, a frown cutting into his features. “You used to roll them before a race.”
He offered them back but I shook my head. “Pick a number.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
He eyed me suspiciously and then frowned at the dice. “Eight.”
“Roll them.” I got the same questioning look. “Do it.”
He shrugged, twisted at the waist and tossed the dice onto his desk. They bounced around the papers and pens, and came to rest on a smudged weekly planner: five and three.
“Huh,” he acknowledged.
“Again.”
“So, they’re loaded.” He grinned, catching on fast.
“No.” I stepped closer and glanced through the filthy little window looking out over the shop. “This time don’t tell me the number and roll.”
He scooped up the dice, gave them a shake—for luck—and tossed them onto the desk.
“Holy shit.” The third time I didn’t need to ask him, he went right ahead and rolled again, and again, and again.
“Wait, wait. This ain’t possible.” He dug inside his pants pocket and dumped a handful of change on the desktop. Picking up a quarter, he flipped it, and I apparently got the guess first time, the second time, and the third too—if the wild look in his eyes was anything to go by. “Shit.”
A clatter sounded outside the office, followed by a bark of alarm and a few colorful words.
“Stop.” I told Dav, and then pointed to the window. “Or Billy will likely find that the next spanner he drops will do more than bruise his foot.”
“What the hell is happening here?”
“Luck isn’t infinite. We each carry our own. Some have more than others. And then there’s me. I can shift that luck around, take it from someone and give it to someone else. Just now, I borrowed Billy’s luck and gave it to you. That’s why you couldn’t lose.”
Dav frowned at the two dice, his brow creasing deeper as my words sank in. “That’s how you win every time.”
I picked up the dice and tucked them safely back inside my pocket. He seemed to be taking this well, a lot more smoothly than I’d thought. “Nobody knows. I mean, Kari knew, but she was the only one. Until a week ago I thought it was just me who could do…things. But magic is real. I’ve seen it. Liam’s bike looks like stock, but it’s not. Underneath, it’s something old and it has power. Power that some people want for themselves.”
“Hold on a second. You can’t lose a race because you’re stealing luck from the other racers?”
Okay, so we were still on that. “Yes. But it’s not just me. There are people out there—I’m not even sure they’re people. Look, they want the bike. There’s a woman, she wants the bike, and I—”
“What happens if you take too much?”
Siobhan’s offer stalled on my lips. If I told him what happened when I took too much, he’d know my secret.
“I mean,” he continued, “you said you shift luck around? So if you’re using luck to win, you’re taking it from someone else, right? So what happens if you take too much?”
People die. “I don’t do that. I mean, I try not to; sometimes it’s…Okay, yes, it can go bad. My parents, I… When Kari and me were small, I didn’t know what was happening back then. I wanted…” My throat closed around the truth. This was a lot harder than I’d expected. I hadn’t told anyone and never would again. But it was Dav. He deserved to know the truth. “I wanted a radio-controlled car, the off-road type that went forwards and backwards.” A small, humorless laugh tumbled free and the water Cate had given me churned, threatening to come back up. “I pulled on luck without realizing what could happen. I just thought someone’s parcel would find its way to our doorstep by mistake. I knew my folks couldn’t afford the radio-controlled car, so I figured, what the hell, might as well wish for it. But, it er…I pulled on the luck in the house, my mom’s, mostly. The gas line had been leaking for weeks, but it was just a tiny fracture in a hose. We didn’t know. Nobody knew. When I pulled on the luck over a few days, a maintenance crew working on the neighbors line knocked ours, opened the crack. At least, that’s what the report said. It could have been anyone passing by down the side of the house, I guess. Kari and I were in the yard when mom lit the stove.”
I knew the moment his gaze turned cold that our friendship would never be the same again. “Accidents happen,” I said quietly, self-hatred trying to crush my heart into a tiny ball of guilt.
His eyes widened. He stepped back and straightened, fighting hard to lock down his anger, but I saw it in the clenching of his jaw and the curling of his fingers into fists. He’d figured out exactly how I’d survived the accident that had claimed Kari. Our past was suddenly right there in the room with us.
He squeezed by me and yanked the office door. “You need to leave.” He glared at the coins on his desk—anywhere but at me. A muscle in his cheek jumped. I heard his teeth grind.
“It was an accident. If I lose focus in the middle of a race, my control lashes back and the results are unpredictable. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I never would have hurt her. You know that—”
“Get out, Jaz.” He whispered it, and that made it so much worse.
“Dav, please. Listen, I can fix it. I can bring her back.”
“Get the fuck out before I tell them what you did!”
“Didn’t you hear me? I—”
When he looked up hatred twisted his expression, turning it fierce. It was the look I’d imagined in my nightmares. A look of disgust and hatred. Two years it had been coming, and now here it was. The truth was out. My focus blurred at the edges and my heart thudded too hot in my chest and loud in my head. He was right, so was Cate.
A good person wouldn’t have left. A good person wouldn’t have let her sister die.
I left the office and marched through the shop, aware that all eyes were on me. Cate’s satisfied smirk followed me to the door and into my nightmares.
8
The next few days blurred into one long waking dream. I returned to the casino and put in the hours, but my attention drifted. How could I go back to the everyday when I knew there was a way to save my sister and make it right with Dav? I researched Grimm’s artifacts, the man himself, and the monsters he claimed were a veil away. But the more I dug around various internet articles, the more myth and legend became embroiled in fantasy. Getting tangled up in European myths wasn’t helping me get any closer to Liam, so I moved my research efforts to social media, but found only a few vague posts about the mysterious biker and a handful of blurry photos.
I left Grimm a few messages asking him to call back. Wherever he was and whatever he was doing, I clearly wasn’t on his agenda.
Sleep didn’t bring a reprieve. Two brothers haunted my dreams. They circled one another in a dirt arena hemmed in by battlements that blocked out the sun. The surrounding crowd bayed for blood. In one of the dreams the brothers became sisters, and I was one of them. Instead of heavy armor, I was clad in bike leathers while I stared into my sister’s eyes, feeling her hatred burn into mine. I woke tasting blood in my mouth while the ghost of the killing blow hollowed out an ache in my chest.
Magic and knights and illusions—how did this become my life?
I padded barefoot through my apartment to the kitchen, wearing an old nightshirt, and poured myself a glass of water.
Early morning sunlight crept through the living room blinds. The old building sighed around me. Most of my neighbors would already be at work, wouldn’t they? I couldn’t recall whether it was the weekend or a weekday.
I couldn’t go on like this. The bike, Grimm, Siobhan, my sister…I had to get this done and get on with my life.
A crackling sound fizzled above me, like shorting electrical circuits. I had a second to turn, only to catch a glimpse of a shadow dropping from the ceiling.
Its outline shifted and shivered, revealing too-long limbs and a humanish face full of triangular teeth.
My harried thoughts jarred. A low rumble trembled through the creature. My instincts kicked in. I launched the glass at it and lunged across the counter, reaching for a knife from the block, but I didn’t make it. A punch sank into my back, stealing the breath from my lungs and whipping all the strength out of my legs. I slid off the counter and went down to my knees. The knife block clattered to the floor, scattering its array of weapons. Curling my fingers around the nearest knife, I twisted and slashed wide, sending the creature reeling back a step. It had grown bigger or maybe it just looked that way now I was on the floor where it towered over me, long arms reaching. A thick eel-like tongue lashed out, tasting the air. There was nothing in its small, hot-coal eyes but hunger. Some instinctual part of me knew this thing would tear into me with its teeth.
I scurried backward. My hand slipped, smearing blood across the floor tiles. I registered somewhere distantly that the blood must be mine and the punch probably hadn’t been a punch at all, but a slash from its claws. There wasn’t time to consider what that meant.
Run.
The shadow made a gurgling noise and its lipless mouth pulled back, revealing more teeth crowding its half-moon mouth.
It slashed downward, reaching at the same time for my leg. I kicked out, scrambled back and twisted, getting my feet under me. My own ingrained reflexes tugged on the latent luck, wrapping it around me. I bolted for the front door, only to find the creature suddenly blocking the hall. It cocked its smooth, hairless head and leered as though thinking of all the ways it could strip my flesh from my bones.
My cell rang.
The distraction briefly drew the creature’s eye away from me. I darted back into the living room and shot around the couch. It slammed into my side, throwing me against the wall. A few inches to the left and it would have thrown me through the window. Cool, slippery fingers locked around my throat, squeezing my windpipe closed, and all I could think was how right I was—I wasn’t Grimm’s knight, I was just a girl who could play with luck and now I’d never know want that meant.
A tiny shaft of sunlight briefly shot through the blinds and licked across the creature’s skin. It let out an ear-piercing cry and staggered. Now. I kicked out, impacting hard between its legs, having little effect, but surprising it enough to buy me a few seconds. I wrapped luck around my knife-hand and slashed down through the creatures arm. It howled and came at me, but I brought my free forearm around and slammed a fist into its throat, at the same time plunging the knife into its chest.
Blood spilled over my hand and down my arm. The creature only looked like a shadow. If it bled, that meant it could die.
It screeched again—so damn loud I was afraid it might shatter my skull. Its claws slashed low, attempting to open up my gut. I parried the strike with my kitchen knife, slicing off a digit and earning myself another howl.
Memories that weren’t mine poured into my thoughts, filling in holes in knowledge that I didn’t know I’d missed. A sudden strength lent me a cool, sharp and fearless clarity. I caught the thing by the throat and flung it against the window. LA’s sunlight captured it. Its screeches became a siren. Its limbs thrashed and its claws cut my blinds to ribbons. I watched, strangely detached, as the sunlight devoured its skin, turning its outsides to ash. In a sudden moment of silence, it burst apart, turning into a cloud of grey powder, that covered me and my furniture.
“Son of a bitch!” I tasted soil and decay on my lips and felt my gut heave.
A dull, hot ache throbbed low in my back. I looked at the knife in my hand and saw the streaks of blood, not all of it belonging to whatever the hell that thing was. I was bleeding, and that was bad, but I was having a hard time trying to put the pieces of reasonable thought together.
A sound—the rustle of movement: I spun and launched the knife. It slammed into the wall, twanging into the plaster next to Siobhan’s head. She didn’t so much as blink.
Shivers spilled through me as my mind caught up with events and my body declared time out. “I er…” I made it to the couch and leaned into it, not entirely sure if I could stand much longer.
“What was that?” I didn’t sound as though I was about to collapse. I wasn’t even sure it was me who had spoken, because the voice was cold, detached, like all this was just another day in paradise. Like I’d seen and heard this insanity before.
My nightshirt clung to my back where blood had cooled. I should have looked. It may have needed stitches. And yet I couldn’t move. Not yet. I just needed a second to remember who I was and what I was doing. Jazmine Archer, just a girl who used luck. That was me.
“The baobhan sith,” Siobhan replied, like I should know what a baa-van shee was. Only, I did know, somewhere inside the knowledge was there, tickling the edges of my consciousness. And old memory, just like the strength that hadn’t been mine but had come when I’d called.
“Jesus…just, give me a second.”
Siobhan drifted closer and settled her light hand on my shoulder. Her clear green eyes questioned whether I needed help. I nodded, and let her lead me through the living room, trailing baobhan sith dust behind me.
“It would have cut your throat and wrists,” Siobhan said as though remarking on the fine sunny weather. “Then drained you of blood and consumed your flesh.”
“Like a vampire?” I replied, still too calm and distant. She gave me a blank look. “Ya know, drinks the blood of its victims.”
“Indeed, very much like a vampire.”
A vampire. My first thought was to deny it, it hadn’t looked like a vampire, but what the hell did a vampire look like? Hollywood had gotten it so wrong.
“I think I prefer the brooding type,” I muttered, adding a sharp chuckle. My icy exterior cracked, letting more nervous laugh through. With it came the desperate knowledge that none of this was going away. The myths and monsters didn’t care that until last week I hadn’t believed in them. They believed in me and they were in my damn apartment.
I can’t run from this.
After managing to stop the wound in my back from bleeding, I dressed it as best as I could, and gingerly stepped into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Siobhan was waiting silently in the living room. She had cleared away much of the dust and righted the fallen knives and furniture, so that my encounter with the baobhan could have been a nightmare, but for the oily decaying odor that still hung in the air.
She smiled politely when I emerged from the bedroom. “Time is relative,” she said, smoothing her coat down. “And I am more than familiar with its foibles, but I had hoped you would be making progress before your presence and the bike drew this kind of unsavory attention.”
“Unsavory attention?” A creature had just attacked me in my home, tried to kill me, and vanished in a cloud of dust. I could think of a whole bunch of better words than ‘unsavory’.
She cocked her head.
A brittle spark of anger burned just as readily as the wound in my back. “Up until now I think I’ve been pretty damn accommodating. I had Grimm show up out of nowhere, tell me I’m some kind of reincarnated knight from a twisted fairytale and before I could call him batshit-crazy he summoned gods-knows-what from a portal to prove all the monsters under the bed are actually real and yes, they’re out to kill us. But hey, no pressure be
cause he’s got a bunch of poor saps just like me thinking we’re saving the world. I’m just about ready to shake it off as BS when you appear and bring a dead guy back to life, with all the promises and all the right words. So sure, I’ll go find the bike and be done with this insanity if there’s even the remotest chance I might get Kari back. But you know what—and by now I really shouldn’t be surprised—the bike is all kinds of wrong and so is its owner. Add to that the fucking vampire that just dropped from my ceiling and nearly tried to sever my spine and you’re telling me you really think I should be making more progress?”
“Yes.” She replied, clearly missing the dangerous edge to my tone. “That seems a fair assessment.”
I swallowed a comment about her taking her fair and shoving it somewhere unsavory. She really didn’t see any problem with any of this, like it was her every day. Maybe it was. Maybe it was mine too now? I needed a drink and headed to the kitchen to search for something potent enough to take the rattle out of my nerves and take the edge of the pain in my back.
“Unless you’ve got something helpful to add,” I grumbled. “I think you should leave.”
“You are not alone.”
I splashed a swirl of some old whiskey into a glass and lifted it to my lips, remembering the disgust etched into Dav’s face as he’d realized exactly how I had walked away from the crash that killed my sister. Siobhan failed to realize that I had never been more alone.
“Will there be more of those baobhan things?”
“It’s possible. They can be unpredictable.”
I glared through my lashes.
“It is likely you will see more,” she corrected.
“Worse?”
“Now that the forces are aware the artifacts are awakening, as are the knights, and if you do not retrieve the bike soon, then yes. This will escalate. Forces from the Demimonde—the Unseen—are gathering. I would prefer that did not happen.”
“Lady, that makes two of us.” I downed the drink, briefly enjoying the very real and visceral heat it stoked in my belly, and then picked up the bottle to pour another. But it wouldn’t stop there. There would be another time to get wasted. A time when I wouldn’t be alone, when Kari would be right here and we’d get drunk together. That time would be soon. Replacing the bottle in the cupboard where I’d found it, I turned to Siobhan to tell her I’d get the bike by the end of the week, but found she was already gone.
