Run of Luck (Veil Knights Book 4)

by Rowan Casey

  “I got out of what exactly?”

  “Out of racing. I looked you up. The Archer girls. You were tight with Davin Carino, but you haven’t been seen with Carino’s crew for over two years. After your sister’s death, you got out. So what happened?”

  I didn’t have to answer any of her questions, but I also didn’t want to piss her off at a time when I didn’t need the cops gunning for me.

  “Change of scenery.”

  Tired of waiting for me to offer up more information, she shoved the file across the table and leaned back. “The ADD profile two types of racers.”

  I flipped open the file and was met with pictures of mangled cars and corpses. I shut the file again and shoved it back. “What is this? Are you trying to save me, Riley? I’m a big girl, I can make my own decisions.” She could know that it wasn’t me who needed saving. It was everyone close to me who needed saving…from me.

  “There are the lucky racers. They usually scare themselves a few months in and eventually give up once money gets tight. And then there are the serious racers. They never give up. It’s not a hobby to them, it’s a drug. They can’t stop. Even when they quit after a near-miss or the cash gets tight, they might take a break, but they always come back. They race hard, they push, always looking for more speed. In the end, more often than not, it kills them.” She leaned forward and opened the file. “I was hoping you were one of the lucky ones who got away.”

  “You have no idea.”

  She caught the irony in my tone and frowned. “You’re in deep. But you did get out. You own a casino now, right?”

  Where was this going? The casino didn’t have anything to do with my past as a racer. That life didn’t touch this one. “If you’re about to ask me to rat out Davin, don’t bother.”

  That summoned a smile onto her lips. “No, I’m not that naïve.”

  “So why am I here? Why the little chat?”

  “I’m not your enemy. I’m just trying to keep people safe. Carino has a business, he has a tight crew that generally abide by the law. I’d hate to see that jeopardized.”

  “Really?” I stood up. “You picked me up for some veiled threat? Wait…are you trying to protect Davin from me?”

  Her expression cooled. “People die around you, Archer. Don’t think it hasn’t gone unnoticed. If you care about your friends, maybe you should reconsider returning to racing?”

  And I was not doing this right now with a LAPD officer who didn’t know when to keep her nose out of other people’s business. “Thanks for that chat, let’s do our nails and hair together sometime.”

  “Your casino made the news recently, didn’t it? Tech guy got hit by a car—”

  “I’m done.” I headed for the door.

  “Trouble follows you, Archer,” Riley called after me.

  After leaving the PD, I didn’t slow until I’d walked a block. I had better things to be doing than listening to the cops preach to me. I’d heard it all before. I heard it every day in my head. Riley was wasting her time and now she had wasted mine.

  With no better idea than to track Liam to the last place I’d seen him, I caught a late bus out to the marina and walked its fringes, my thoughts whirring.

  People die around you.

  Jesus, did she think I hadn’t noticed?

  Make it right.

  Sure. I’ll get right on that, Grimm, right after I’m finished being your fetch and carry girl.

  I stopped at the edge of a restaurant parking lot and gazed out at the boats bobbing against their moorings. Rigging softly clanged. Conversations, peppered with laughter, from the restaurant ebbed and flowed on the California breeze. After the noise of the race, the chaos from the last few days, and the bustle of the PD, this quiet marina seemed somehow alien, as though it existed outside of the real world. Or perhaps it was me who didn’t belong.

  The distinctive burble of a bike engine upset the peace. I watched the bike and rider pull into the lot, instantly recognizing Liam. He hadn’t gone far.

  He rolled to a stop beside me, kicked the stand down, planted his feet and cut the engine. Hot metal ticked as it cooled.

  He removed his helmet and raked his fingers through his hair. “We had a deal.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “You have a choice to make,” he said, his accent making the words sound melodic. He straightened his back and spread his hands on the GSXR’s fuel tank, soaking up its heat. “The person you were, not the one you want to be, she would choose wrongly.”

  He couldn’t know about my plan to bring back Kari, could he? Only Davin and Siobhan knew. I bit back what would have been a string of denials and faced ahead, looking over at the yachts and fishing boats.

  Liam’s next words were barely more than a whisper. “And around and around it goes. There are forces at work far greater than a sister’s love.”

  Shock and a sharp edge of fear at being found out stilled me. I slowly turned to look him over. He didn’t look like anything unusual. Just another racer, another guy in the crowd. But maybe that was the point. Beneath that veneer, there was nothing normal about Liam.

  He looked at me, his expression calm, making him appear young, but his eyes had a depth to them I hadn’t noticed before. “In another time,” he said, “another place, as another person, you would have given anything to bring back the brother you killed and make right the king that you betrayed. You’re forever destined to repeat the tragedies of your past, but also the triumphs.”

  “You’re talking about the avatars Grimm mentioned and how I’m one of them?”

  Liam winced at the mention of Grimm’s name.

  “I’m supposed to be a knight reawakened or reincarnated.” I’d seen the brother he spoke of in my dreams. I had killed him over and over in those dreams, too; felt the killing blow dealt me. Again and again, I’d lived it, dreamed it, remembered it.

  “Your life will always be shrouded in terrible luck as the lessons you learn come to fruition. But know this: It doesn’t matter what you believe, Jazmine. What comes will happen with or without you.”

  “And what are you in all of this?” I asked. My vision blurred, drifting at the edges. The events of the night were catching up with me. I rubbed the ball with my thumb against my eye and tried to clear it.

  “I am the catalyst. The choice. The decision. Your future’s past.”

  “You’re as helpful as Grimm, is what you are.”

  Another wince. There was definitely history there. “You’re surrounded by enemies, knight. It’s time you opened your eyes.”

  The restaurant door clattered open behind me. A couple stumbled out into the night, staggering down the steps. The woman’s sudden laugh, bright and loud, shattered the quiet. When I turned to Liam, the GSXR stood leaning on its stand, unoccupied and waiting to be claimed inside a drifting swirl of smoke that almost looked like a ghost until the wind caught it and carried it away.

  Liam was nowhere in sight.

  13

  I cut the GSXRs engine as soon as the workshop doors clattered closed, swung my leg off the bike and took a few uneasy steps backward. I’d ridden back on the GSXR, following Dav on Ghost, the entire time wondering if the motorbike I controlled was somehow sentient.

  Maybe Liam had vanished or maybe he was the bike?

  Beneath the workshop’s intense lighting the GSXR’s paintwork appeared to blur around the edges. I rubbed tiredness from my eyes and looked again. Colors ran together, edges frayed, as though something not quite there was trying to break out, something that had been hidden out of sight, waiting.

  Dav returned from stashing Ghost away and stopped beside me, admiring the artifact while making a stern effort not to look at me. He hadn’t congratulated me on the win. I’d expected a reaction of some kind, anything. Not this smothering silence.

  “Well?” I asked, popping open the collar of my leathers and yanking down the zip. It was late at night, or early in the morning, I wasn’t sure which; the streets had been
dark and quiet on the ride home but the night was clinging on. I needed to get out of the incriminating leathers and put the race behind me. The future was waiting. So was Kari.

  “Did you call her?” Dav asked, the question calm and flat, but his tone didn’t fool me. The quiet he carried around with him had a heavy edge to it, like the pregnant pause before a summer storm breaks.

  Stepping out of the leathers, I hesitated. There was only one woman I had to contact after I’d secured the bike. “I called Siobhan right after calling you to come help me get the bikes back. She’ll be here before dawn.”

  “Here?”

  “Yeah, here.” I kicked the boots aside, leaving me standing in a vest and shorts. Goosebumps riddled my bare arms, but not from cold. The artifact was mine. We were getting Kari. It was really happening. Everything since Grimm had appeared in the casino with insane stories and elaborate fantasies brought me to this moment. Events had been conspiring long before that; history destined to repeat. A sibling’s death, a quest. All I had to do now was make the right choice.

  I scooped up the leathers and stowed them away upstairs in Dav’s apartment, found my pants and changed into them. I returned to the shop to find Dav leaning against his car, arms folded like always, the harsh workshop lights bleaching all the warmth from his face. The artifact’s presence between us hummed an ominous undercurrent of power that lapped at my skin and tickled the fine hairs on the back of my neck. It was very real, and very…not of this world. The slippery knowledge that this thing was magical twisted in my heart and my gut.

  Make it right.

  As Dav watched, I approached the bike and reached out, touching the bike’s tank. Power vibrated beneath my fingers, tingling across the back of my hand and up my arm.

  “This is wrong,” Dav whispered.

  Ignoring him, I swept my hand across the bike’s seat, absorbing the heat that should have dissipated by now. It felt alive and aware, like an animal, not a machine. What the hell was it really?

  “Jaz?”

  “I heard you.” I pulled my hand back. I couldn’t be sure if it was fear in Dav’s eyes or concern. He hadn’t moved from his position against his car, using it to prop himself up like he always did when he needed extra strength. “We’ve come this far,” I told him. Too far to go back now.

  “What do you know about Siobhan?”

  “More than I know about Grimm. I know she can bring Kari back. What else matters?”

  He didn’t reply, which told me all I needed. It was too late for second-guesses now. Doubt chipped at my resolve, a doubt his words now amplified. But I couldn’t turn away from the opportunity. Not after everything we’d been through. This had to happen. It was meant to be.

  “Dav, I get it. You’re afraid.” He eyes narrowed. “So am I. But…” I wet my lips, buying time to get my thoughts straight, “she didn’t deserve to die. I could have saved her and I didn’t. I can make it right.”

  “Just because you can change something, doesn’t mean you should. This isn’t right.” He swept a hand at the bike. “You said Grimm and his knights need this bike, right? That it’s part of a larger problem—something to do with those baobhan sith in that house and worse.”

  “I also said he’s a Hollywood showman. He’s ignored every single call. Every call, Dav. He doesn’t care. If it was so important, he’d be here. Or he’d at least pick up the damn phone and help me out. I could call him now and tell him we have the bike but he won’t pick up. It’s all BS, just the same-old Hollywood drama.”

  He sucked on his lip and cast his gaze higher into the attic space above. “Maybe he hasn’t answered because it’s your quest, not his.”

  My quest? I snorted a dry laugh. “Look, there are no heroes and knights around to save the world. That’s not how the real world works. I killed her, I’m bringing her back. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Why the hell not?” What had gotten into him?

  “All your life you’ve been using luck, right? And every time you fuck about with it, something bad happens. That’s what you told me. Maybe it’s time you left fate alone?”

  “Screw you, Davin. I thought you were with me on this. I thought you loved her.”

  “I did, shit, I…that’s not the problem.” He pushed off the car and came forward as far as the bike between us would allow. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out my dice and held them out. “You might be able to control luck but you can’t control fate. People die. You can’t save them all, but if Grimm is right, you may save a whole lot more than one by handing this bike over. Kari’s dead. She’s been dead for two years. What you can do, moving luck around…it’s a gift.” He dropped the dice into my hand.

  “It’s a curse. I killed my parents. I killed my sister, and others.” I looked at the dice and wondered what my life might have been like without the ability to manipulate luck. Kari, Mom and Dad would be alive. We didn’t have much, a two room tiny house with a dirt patch for a yard. But we had each other. Now I was the only one left. “You don’t know what it’s like—”

  He closed his hand around mine, sealing the dice inside my palm. “A gift, a curse. Whatever, it’s meant for something more.”

  Another chip broke away and my resolve weakened. “What has gotten into you? We go through all this and now you’re having doubts? You never back down, Dav. Ever. We made a choice to do this.”

  His cheek twitched. “What if it’s the wrong choice?”

  “It’s my choice. I don’t see anyone else almost killing themselves to get this damn bike. It was my quest and it’s my call.”

  “Just…I’m just asking you to come at this from a different angle. I know you want Kari back, okay, I get it. There was a time I’d have done anything, too. But you’re so focused on your sister, you’re not seeing what else could be going on.”

  “And what else is going on, Dav? Huh? Because clearly I’m missing something. If you know more than I do, tell me. Because so far none of this shit came with an instruction manual, so I’m doing the best I can.”

  He touched my neck, eased his hand higher and thread his fingers into my hair and in the next second he was suddenly all I could see, all I could feel. A ragged and desperate seriousness tightened his expression and pressed his lips into thin lines. There was an urgency about him, as though we were running out of time, but I didn’t understand why and wondered if I should know, if I missing something. And the touch… His thumb stoked across my cheek, tantalizing. My thoughts emptied of the anger and frustration and funneled to one single question. I wondered if he’d kiss me moments before he did. His lips brushed mine, more of a question than a statement. I answered, opening to him, alarmed at the softness of his lips, his tongue. He should be hard and demanding, not this careful, gentle stranger.

  I had my hand on his chest, put there by a brief thought that told me getting involved with Dav was a terrible idea. I should push him away, but that wasn’t even close to happening. Curling his shirt in a fist, I pulled him closer, deepening the kiss, turning it urgent and messy. My knee nudged the bike between us. The handlebars and brake lever dug into my hip. Dav broke away first, uttering a curse, but I wasn’t done. I moved around the bike, tucked my dice away into my pocket, and squared up to him. We both hesitated—this was wrong, I was too much like my sister, we had to think about it, and Siobhan was coming, and this…whatever this was, it couldn’t happen.

  I stepped closer, erasing the distance between us, and backed him up against the GTR. He swallowed hard, and when I ran my hands up his chest, he let me, his gaze never leaving mine. I knew what he was thinking. We both knew this was a disaster in progress.

  This time I kissed him slow, drawing it out, making him wait, just so I could hear his breath hitch and feel his pulse quicken beneath my thumb. So what if this had to stop now, before it went too far, for Kari’s sake? Just a little more, that was all I wanted, to feel more, to feel like I belonged.

  He ran his hands up my
arms and clamped his fingers closed, pushing me back.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered against his cheek. His stubble prickled my lips.

  “It’s not.” He voice sounded broken, and I knew it was over before anything had really begun. I stepped back, touching my lips, feeling the heat of him there.

  Dav moved away, turning his back on me and putting much-needed space between us. “I went back to the abandoned house to burn it down, and I was going to. I mean, I was there, I had the fuel. I…There were more of those things. In all the houses, I think. I could have torched ‘em all. I should have.” He picked up a shard of steel bodywork from the bench and ran his finger along the sharp edge. “But she was there.”

  “Who was?” I asked, still lost the feel of him, still reeling and wanting. None of this was making any sense. He wasn’t making any sense.

  He closed his fingers around the shard. “She’s like them.”

  The workshop door rattled and Siobhan stepped inside, the picture of elegance with her pinned-back long, blond hair and long green coat. Her attention slid from Dav to me, to the bike. A slight curl lifted the corner of her lips.

  The workshop seemed smaller suddenly. The bike still hummed gently, the lights still buzzed above and I could hear the too-fast beat of my heart. Nothing had changed—nothing on the surface, but the gentle hum of power from the artifact had changed its pitch. Where before its power had felt like a warm caress, it now felt brittle and icy, as though poised on the edge of shattering apart.

  I quickly checked Dav but he’d turned to Siobhan and watched her approach the bike, a strange glassiness in his focus. He had asked me what I knew about her.

  Kari.

  We were doing this. Now. Forget what just happened. It didn’t mean anything. We were getting Kari back. That was right. It had to be. This was my chance to make it right, just like Grimm had said. But Dav’s words, the feel of him somehow pulling me close while at the same time pushing me away, and my own doubts chased each other around my head. Liam had told me I’d make the wrong choice. If this was right, why was my gut a bundle of nerves and my skin prickling? Why did everything suddenly feel so wrong?