Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows)

by C. V. Larkin

  He didn't look like much in his ludicrous black beret, but the way several females were hovering around him piqued Tian's curiosity. He caught her staring and grinned, blatantly misreading her intentions. If he'd been Fae, he wouldn't have been nearly as pleased with himself by the sight of her...not that she was about to disabuse him of the notion. Peacoat hitched up his pants and strolled over, wallet chain clacking loudly as he moved.

  "You like what you see?" he asked.

  "I don't know. What am I looking at?"

  The kid in front of her shifted as if he wasn't sure whether or not she'd insulted him. It was obvious from his expression he hadn't been expecting the question. "My therapist says that I shouldn't commit to labels that I'm not comfortable with," he told her.

  He weaseled his way closer, leaning a hand against the column next to her, crossing one ankle over the other, and burying his unoccupied fist in an open coat pocket. Tian blinked and barely managed to control her expression. This gentle interaction and information gathering thing was not her bag. There was an awkward break in the conversation where she scoured her skull for something useful to say that didn't involve a threat that would make the kid piss himself. She finally settled on the good ole stand by, "What's your name?"

  "Tom..."

  Tom trailed off and readjusted his beret with a carefully executed hair flip. "You know," he continued, "you don't look like the kind of girl that usually goes for the nice guys."

  Tian had a vision of the dark haired stranger from the other night. The visual made the burn in her wrists feel like ice water. She closed her eyes, then, thinking better of it, forced them back open. She looked straight at Peacoat, hoping he'd see the heat generated and assume it was for him. "Are you a nice guy, Tom?"

  He giggled. Literally fucking giggled and she fought the urge to smack it out of him.

  "I'm kinda on the dark side right n-- Oh crap, that's my train."

  Perfect.

  "What do ya know," she replied blandly. "I'm going that way too."

  "Maybe it's fate then."

  A sleazy glimmer of victory slid across his features. She knew that look; knew she wasn't going to like what she found at the end of it. She also knew that her personal preferences one way or the other were inconsequential.

  "We'll see," she said.

  Chapter 8

  Get Some

  "Incoming."

  The static that crackled over the radio affixed to the front of Officer Donovan's tack vest was cut off by the indignant snort issued from the mouth of the entryway.

  "And what is it that you think 'this' is?"

  Sio gritted his teeth and shot a wary glance toward the hall. Gray Dress's question had been posed with a dangerous level of inflection. The use of the word bitch may have been left off the end of the sentence, but it had been implied, a fact that was not lost on the cop in front of him.

  Officer Donovan turned and leveled that glacial stare at the other woman. Gray Dress didn't flinch. She'd ditched the lone high heel in favor of the barefoot approach, which made her quieter and shorter as she stalked through the littered bits of broken electronics on the floor and got right up in Donovan's face. Donovan's partner, a big guy with a salt and pepper buzz cut and a pair of wire rimmed glasses, was riding the girl's heels like a shadow. He'd thumbed open the clasp on his holster, but he didn't interfere.

  "I'd like you to leave now," Gray Dress said, sizing the other woman up.

  "And I'd like to talk to S. Skellon, is that you?" Donovan's expression was placid.

  Gray Dress looked like she was about to blow a gasket. "He's not here."

  Sio's jaw dropped. He must have hit his head too hard. There was no possible way that Gray Dress had said what she'd said with him standing right there. Sio glanced at Donovan's partner who was surveying the room, staring past the carnage like it didn't exist. The tape on the front of his body armor said his name was Ward, and Ward needed some new glasses.

  Officer Donovan chuckled and the sound was all irritated amusement. "You can drop the act anytime now, puppy. It's not working."

  "He's mine. You're not his type."

  "I'm not a goddamn handbag," Sio snapped.

  The statement came barreling out Tourettes' style before his filter had the chance to bite it back. Gray Dress's look of horror preceded an expression of outright malice. Donovan's partner's jaw tightened and his eyes popped wide as if seeing the chaos for the first time.

  "Son of a bitch," the guy swore. Officer Ward drew down and aimed the gun at Sio's face. Without having to be told Sio dropped to his knees, laced his fingers over the top of his head, and stared at the ground wondering how the hell he'd managed to get himself into this predicament.

  "You're going to have to come with us."

  At least he had his goddamned pants on.

  "I'm not going anywhere," Gray Dress said.

  Sio raised his head, realizing with a start that Donovan hadn't been talking to him.

  "Refusal like that could be considered resisting arrest," Officer Ward said. He still hadn't holstered, but he wasn't finger fucking the trigger guard anymore either.

  "I'm not under arrest because you can't prove that I've done anything."

  "And yet every time you open your mouth this urge I have to forcibly remove you gets stronger," Donovan said with a sadistic grin.

  For a cop, she was downright likable. If it weren't for his predicament Sio might have enjoyed the banter, it not being directed at him and all, but he was preoccupied by the building pressure in the air and the familiar sense of dread that accompanied it.

  "I saw him first."

  "Something's wrong," Sio said.

  "Dolere," Gray Dress snarled. Her voice came out way deeper than plausible from such a tiny throat.

  A warping transparent wave barreled outward from her body, ripping up the floor boards in its path until it hit Officer Donovan head on. A thunderous clap resulted from the non-existent impact. The force rocked the cop back about a foot, and the far wall split right down the center like a pair of outgrown pants.

  Officer Ward got his ass in gear, surprisingly quick on his feet for such a large and unlikely candidate. He threw his body forward and hit Gray Dress hard, clipping her in the back of the skull with the butt end of his sidearm. She stiffened, grimacing, then spun around and shoved with both hands planted against the cop's chest. Ward flew like a rag doll into what was left of the entertainment center.

  Aside from a destroyed radio, Officer Donovan appeared to have come out of the first volley unmolested. Sio made a lunge for Gray Dress to distract from Donovan's interception course.

  "Consisto," Gray Dress said.

  Sio slowed, working for forward progress and only gaining it in slow inches, as if he were dragging himself through tar. The loss of control made him deranged. He thrashed and fought against the barrier like he'd fought for his damn life a couple of nights earlier.

  "Why me?" he grunted.

  "You shouldn't be moving."

  "Neither should you," Officer Donovan said. She placed two fingers to Gray Dress's temple and flicked her thumb. "Bang."

  Gray Dress collapsed in a boneless heap on the floor. Sio, unrestrained before he could compensate, shot forward into the center of the room and barely managed to avoid plowing into Donovan like a linebacker. He landed with a staggering lack of coordination, panting and exhausted, on all fours. It took ages to regulate his breathing and his gray matter churned the whole time.

  "How did you know it was my apartment," he asked.

  "Name was on the mailbox," Ward told him with a cough from his spot over against the wall.

  Sio thought about how ironic it was that he hadn't wanted to label the damn thing in the first place. He'd only done so because his landlord had pitched a fit.

  "Your building has some serious electrical code violations. You're lucky the wiring blew up without catching on fire," Donovan said. She was sifti
ng through a pile of rubble by her left foot.

  Sio looked up and searched her face. The statement may have been a load of crap, but as far as bullshit went, hers was of the moderately believable variety. It was obvious that she was giving him an out, a way to placate himself with the comfortable familiarity of rational explanation. And he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It must have been the shock.

  Officer Ward dusted himself off and erected his sizable frame from the floor with a groan. "I'm too old for this," he said.

  "Seems likely that all this damage ruptured a gas line," Donovan added.

  Ward snorted in amusement and continued patting himself down as if he were checking to ensure all the important bits and ends were still intact. He made eye contact with Sio for the first time since walking through the door and raised an eyebrow.

  "You feelin' alright? How's about I take you to the hospital, big guy? You can get checked out to be sure. Officer Donovan here can take your pal and make sure she gets the attention she deserves."

  Sio sat back and leaned against what was left of his bed.

  "Is she dead?" he asked, gesturing towards the crumpled form on the ground.

  Donovan shook her head negative. "Gas must have hit her hard."

  Sio forced out a disillusioned chuckle. "I need a drink."

  "I wouldn't stay here to do it," Officer Donovan responded, handcuffing the unconscious body on the ground. "It doesn't seem real structurally sound, feel me?"

  "Yeah, I feel you."

  Donovan raised a dark well-manicured brow, and looked at him for the first time like she was sizing him up sexually. Those ice pale eyes of hers narrowed and she frowned.

  "You should probably be more selective about the places you rent in the future," she said.

  Sio laughed outright. "Tell me about it."

  Ward hoisted the catch of the day over his left shoulder. "No offense, but kid, I don't want to see you again anytime soon."

  Sio shrugged. "None taken."

  He watched as both officers crunched through the broken shards of junk littering what was left of his floor as they made their way to the door. Ward brought up the rear, but he paused before making an exit. His uniform shirt was untucked, hanging out below the slightly domed line of his body armor.

  "One more thing."

  "What's that?" Sio asked. The response came out purely because the basic rules of polite society dictated he give one.

  Ward grinned. "Put a fucking shirt on. You're making the rest of us males in the species look bad."

  ****

  The aggravation from the sigils in Tian's wrists had hit a plateau, much like the one-sided conversation she was stuck enduring from the twat in the peacoat. Tom yammered incessantly in the seat next to her while she did everything in her power not to look disinterested or annoyed. Keeping up that level of bullshit required more emotional patience than she had to spare and he wasn't making it easy. The real rub was that the word vomit spewing from his face had no relevance or usefulness whatsoever. She was looking for it. He just could not have been less interesting. And then he leaned forward to unbutton his jacket.

  "What is the tattoo on your wrist?" she asked. Her blood was backing up in her veins, flagging the internal response as anything but moderate. He blinked at her, looking put out that she'd interrupted him.

  "It's for my religion," he answered.

  Thought so.

  She should have known. The answer to his brackish aura was so simple, so stupidly straightforward she could have kicked herself for not catching it sooner.

  "And what religion is that?" she asked, playing dumb and waiting for confirmation.

  "I'm... a warlock."

  Bingo.

  The way he was all scrunched up in his seat screamed that he was trying to gauge or predict what her reaction would be. If he only knew. Bonus points for honesty though, stupid.

  "Not the best pick up line, is it?"

  "I don't know," he said. "Maybe I've never had to use it."

  "What do you use then?" She tried to make the statement come out neutral, but she was beginning to lose patience and every minute she kept the Oracle waiting was another minute she was going to suffer. She'd been hoping to spend as little time with that miserable prick as possible.

  "Maybe I use magic," Warlock Tom told her, leaning closer.

  Negative. He had maybe a little talent, just enough to notice. Every one of those cocksuckers did, but if he didn't have enough juice to recognize that she wasn't human, he didn't have much. Tian struggled to remain where she was to avoid shoving him out of her personal space. His breath reeked of stale Doritos and processed meat.

  "Really? Whose?"

  He took the flippant comment as the insult it was intended to be, face turning a bright angry shade of red. "You don't know anything," he sulked.

  Neither did he. This was new to him, the stolen power he'd traded for beginning to go to his head, even as it was starting to fade.

  "Maybe I don't believe you. Enlighten me," Tian said.

  "Fuck you."

  Take me to your leader, motherfucker.

  She shook her head settling for, "Not if you can't prove it."

  Not even if he could, but he didn't have to know that. Tian bit back the bile that rallied on the heels of the suggestion in her tone and something sly slid under his features like a shadow in shark infested waters.

  "And what if I can?"

  A phone buzzed against the heavy wool of his peacoat and Tom jumped like he'd been tasered. He whipped the thing out and stared blankly at the screen, eyes wide and pupils massively dilated. He was breathing hard, reacting to the Sidhe pheromones in her skin like any run-of-the-mill human, as if the shit were catnip. His hands were shaking as his thumbs flew across the display screen. The aphrodisiac properties inherent to her DNA were chipping away at his brain a lot faster than normal. If she had to hazard a guess, it was because he'd already been exposed to mammoth levels of the stuff.

  Tian licked her lower lip and felt the dread curling in tendrils at the back of her jaw. She let her mind drift, reassuring herself the result of what she was about to do was a means to an end. She placated herself with the lie that there was no way the kid in front of her was going to believe the next statement out of her mouth if she couldn't gift wrap it in the kind of heat and believability she didn't have to give.

  Tian drifted, knowing that she was already caught in the gravity of the crystalline image of the black flame male from the arena. She let herself linger over it, inwardly cursing the perfection of him. She'd already gone down in flames once and didn't seem to be doing any better now. Her whole body flushed, vibrating with need. The reaction was inconceivable. And better or worse, she'd instigated this new form of torture.

  Tian forced her derailed train back onto its tracks and placed a hand onto one of Tom's cracked out paws. His head shot up and he looked her straight in the eye.

  You poor ignorant bastard, she thought.

  "Prove it and I'm going to do things to you that you never even saw coming. How's that for a trade?"

  She hadn't thought it was possible, but the warlock's eyes went even rounder, flaring like twin saucers. He let out a barely audible squeak and swallowed hard.

  "Like what?" he choked.

  Like rip your liver out through your asshole.

  It was the lucid moments like this one that the knowledge that she was a psychopath asserted itself with the utmost clarity. "If I told you it wouldn't be a surprise," she said.

  A piercing heat flared in her wrists to match the one smoldering everywhere else. He nodded vigorously.

  "When do we get off?" she asked.

  For a second the kid looked so damn enthusiastic she actually thought he was going to start clapping. He scaled it back to a smug grin.

  "Next stop," he told her with an eyebrow waggle.

  The human leaned in, looming right up in her grill. Tia
n froze and all that banked internal heat dissipated like it had never existed. She struggled against the desire to escape as he pawed at the sides of her face to hold her steady. Warlock Tom moved in for the kill and she checked out, let him mash his pie hole up against her mouth in an overly wet and discombobulated attempt at a kiss as she counted to ten while he molested her face. She pulled back and focused on the searing pain in her wrists.

  "You know," he said, sliding his arm across the back of her seat, "I can see us being together for a very long time."

  Magic using human or not, he had nothing going in the precognition department.

  "We're going to miss your stop."

  The warlock's phone rang, belting out some tinny emo-pop nightmare as they got up to debark. He fumbled with it, and the messenger bag he was carrying because they'd both become second priority to the attempt he was making at holding her hand. The call went to voicemail, shutting the shit up for thirty seconds before it started ringing again. Tian made her way out of the Colma station with Tom the apprentice warlock and his wailing smartphone nipping at her heels. She was hyper aware of the Progeny spell burning full tilt in her forearms as she turned to her overly eager tour guide.

  "Don't you want to answer that?"

  He flushed, fixating on her mouth as if he were imagining it places it was never going to be. "It's just my ride."

  "Where?" Tian scanned the line of cars at the curb. She flinched as Warlock Tom's hand whispered over her left ass cheek.

  "Right there," he answered, gesturing with his non-assaulting other hand.

  The black Toyota Camry he was pointing towards was idling quietly, piloted by a comfortably plump middle aged woman with wide beige glasses and a collared sweatshirt with a photo print of an animal on it. Tian had been expecting a lot of things, but this sure as fuck wasn't one of them.