“Yes, I picked up on that too. Everything about this hearing was off.”
But dwelling on it wouldn’t help. My brain worked best on a problem when it was left to deal with it subconsciously. A tingle ran over my body as power flooded it, and then awareness flared in the back of my mind reserved for Tris.
“What is it?”
“The sun just set, and Tris is awake. She’s agitated, probably because I’m gone.”
“You can sense her? From this distance?” Karishma looked impressed. “I’ll have to find the files on Vinod’s binding of you and your gargoyle. It’s something I’ve never seen before.”
“Yeah, well, I think the shimmer man may have damaged it when he tried to break the bond. So, if you figure out a way to reinforce it, then let me know. In the meantime”—I looked down at my feet—“you got any boots I can borrow?”
She studied my slippers. “I don’t know if I have anything bunny-shaped, but I’ll see what I can do. Come on.”
I followed her from the room, a mixture of relief and dread dancing in my belly. I was alive, for now. Gramps was safe, for now. But if I failed to get the council what they wanted, then all bets were off.
I just had to make sure I didn’t fuck this up.
Chapter Three
The drive back to Scorchwood wasn’t nearly as long with Karishma in the driver’s seat. There were so many years of catching up to do, and it was easy to fall into that comfortable camaraderie we’d once shared. Plus, talking about old cases, the academy, and our separate experiences filled the silence and helped me to forget what was in store for me for a little while. It helped me to forget the meaning of the Sworn that was tucked in my pocket—a pardon, but only if I completed a task that seemed impossible.
It was gone midnight by the time we drove up to the gates of Scorchwood Prison. I’d been gone a whole day and most of a night, and damn, my eyes felt as if someone had shoved grit in them and then forced me to close my lids and rub them.
I yawned for what felt like the hundredth time.
“You need to get some sleep,” Karishma said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I have a wedgie.”
“Nice.”
“Not really.”
She brought her car to a halt, and I hopped out and crunched over the gravel to the gates. Killion appeared out of the shadows. God, did he spend all night lurking by the gates? How did he always know when someone was here?
At least he was mostly dressed tonight in sweats that hung low on his hips. My gaze traveled over his abs and flat pecs and up until his ember eyes were locked onto me.
He raked me over. “You came back.” His breath plumed in the air.
“I did.”
He nodded shortly. “Good.”
He yanked open the gates and then padded off, his bare feet soundless on the gravel. I turned back to the car to see Karishma sitting there with her mouth open.
“Yep.” I walked over and climbed back in. “Killion’s a sight to behold.”
She snapped her mouth closed. “What is he?”
“Hellhound.”
“There aren’t any … forget it. Until a few hours ago, I hadn’t been aware there was a place called Scorchwood.”
“Well, I think once you know about this place, it sticks with you.”
She started the engine. “It certainly has a vibe about it.”
“It’s all the ghosts.”
We started down the drive.
“You mentioned a ghost bar?” she asked with a little too much enthusiasm.
What was it with supernaturals and their fascination with ghosts?
“Yeah, I’ll take you sometime.”
She chuckled. “I get the feeling I’m going to be making excuses to come down here more often than not. You have no idea how boring working at headquarters is.”
“Well, I can guarantee that Scorchwood is a lot of things, but boring isn’t one of them.”
The mansion loomed up like a menacing shadow with amber eyes.
“Yep,” Karishma said. “I think I’m in love.”
* * *
Tris came sliding down the banister just as I stepped through the door. I held out my arms, and she leaped into them. Her stone body hit me, her weight a solid, reassuring presence.
“Chickie, I was so worried.” Her tiny arms hugged my neck, and God, it was good to be back.
To be home.
She peered up at my face. “I thought the worst. Was it the worst? Kris said they didn’t even let you dress.” She looked down at me. “Those aren’t your clothes.”
“I had my bunny slippers on, can you believe it? I went to a hearing in my sweats and bunny slippers.”
“A hearing. Oh, God. Oh … You have to tell me everything.”
Kris and Mai appeared at the top of the stairs, and Jay strode up the corridor that ran along the side of the staircase.
For a moment, we all hovered in the entranceway, and then Karishma raised a hand in greeting.
“Hi, I’m Karishma, your head weaver.”
Jay looked from Karishma to me, his expression shuttered. “You brought the head weaver?”
I blew out a breath. “I didn’t bring her, she offered to come. I have a lot to tell you guys, and I don’t think tea is going to cut it.”
“In that case, we better head to the lounge.” Jay’s gaze was wary as it passed over Karishma. “But before we do, can I ask why you’re here?”
Karishma smiled. “I’m here to make sure your weaver is uncompromised and help him if he is.”
Jay’s mouth parted in surprise. “The council knows …”
I shrugged. “I told you. I have a lot to fill you in on.”
Jay nodded curtly. “Fine, follow me.”
He led the way into the lounge, and, with a quick look of reassurance in Karishma’s direction, I followed.
* * *
Emmet brought me blood and offered scotch to everyone else. There were even sugar cookies and pound cake.
The hobbit really did know what we needed.
After I’d finished giving them a rundown of the hearing and my heritage and of the task that the council had handed me, there was pin-drop silence.
I could have left out the shit about the Nightbloods killing their female offspring, and the council probably hadn’t expected me to tell my team anything that had happened at the hearing, but that wasn’t how teams operated. I trusted these guys. I needed them. They’d saved my life.
Karishma was stiff and uncomfortable by my side, but she didn’t stop me or harp on about protocol, thank God.
Kris was looking intensely at me. Jay was studying me speculatively, and Mai just looked pissed off.
“So, I have to go to Demonica.” I crunched on a cookie to stem my nerves.
“I don’t think you were supposed to tell them any of this,” Karishma stage-whispered.
“I know, but they didn’t expressly say I couldn’t tell anyone, and this is my team, so fuck the council.”
“Unless you plan on tattling?” Mai gave Karishma a narrow-eyed stare.
Karishma held up her hands. “Hey, I’m on Kat’s side. Whatever keeps her breathing. This whole situation, the law, everything, it’s fucked up.”
Mai relaxed slightly.
Kris was picking at his cuffs, his eyes downcast. “I haven’t been back to Demonica since before the fomorian wars. Since before the Unity Treaty was signed.”
Jay looked up sharply. “Kris?”
Kris’s mercury gaze settled on me. “But I can’t let Kat go alone. It’s too dangerous. Too many variables, too much that could go wrong. She might have a daemon gene, but she isn’t a daemon. If the traders get their hands on her …”
Traders?
Jay ran a hand over his face. “Kris, are you sure about this?”
Kris’s smile was wry. “Fuck, no. I stayed away for good reason, but it’s been a while, and maybe together, Justice and I can get in and out
alive. Maybe things will be … different.”
I looked at the cuffs and his youthful face. He was older than the fomorian war—that made him at least three hundred, give or take a few years. Wow. He sure looked good for his age.
Karishma looked at the clock on the mantel. “I have to be back at headquarters by tomorrow afternoon. Can you take me to Lark?”
Mai nodded. “Yes.”
Karishma stood. “I’ll wake Henri once I’m done.”
My heart leaped. “Thank you.”
She followed Mai out of the room, leaving me alone with Jay, Kris, and Tris.
Tris had been silent. She hadn’t climbed off my shoulders for a moment, and her tail was a secure band around my arm. When she spoke now, her tone was solemn and serious.
“What are you running from, Kris?” she asked. “And will it make things harder for my Kat?”
Kris’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Trust me, she’s a lot safer with me than without. And I promise you, I will protect her with my life.” He stood and stretched. “If we’re going to sneak into Demonica, we can’t do it via any of the registered thinnings. We’ll have to find an illegal one.”
“And how do we do that?”
Kris’s smile was tense. “We find a crossroads daemon.”
“And what is that?”
“Daemons that procure human souls for the black market in Demonica. Cheap labor to build the citadels and the monuments that make up the realm or act as house slaves, that kind of thing. It used to be big trade once upon a time. But after the fomorian war and the signing of the Unity Treaty, it was prohibited for crossroads daemons to operate on the mortal realm.”
“But they still do.”
“Oh, yes. And there’s no doubt in my mind that we have one in Scorchwood.”
“Then why haven’t you stopped him from operating?”
It was Jay that answered. “We’ve had bigger issues to deal with.”
Okay. “So, how do we find this crossroads daemon?”
“We do some serious sleuthing. I have a few contacts I can ask. There was a time when all you had to do was go to a crossroads and summon one, but after the treaty, any daemons caught responding to a summons were arrested.”
“And what happens if we can’t find this crossroads daemon?”
Kris sighed. “Then we go to plan B.”
“Which is?”
“Classified until needed.”
Jay and Kris exchanged loaded glances.
“Seriously, when you guys have finished eye-fucking, can we get back to the matter at hand?”
Tris snorted indelicately.
Kris tore his gaze away from Jay and settled it back on me. “Getting into Demonica is one thing, but additionally, I’ll need to prepare you in the etiquette of the realm. Slighting someone can get you killed. You should get some rest. You’re going to need it.”
The council fuckers had given me a task but hadn’t even bothered to consider how the heck I’d execute it. Having a daemon gene meant nothing if I couldn’t find a way to sneak into Demonica. And the etiquette thing? Hell, they hadn’t filled me in on that. It was almost as if they wanted me to fail, and if not for the greedy look on Faraday’s face when he’d spoken about this Incanta Imagica, I’d have believed this whole mission was just an elaborate way to go about getting rid of me. Let the daemons kill her, so we don’t have to.
I locked gazes with Kris. “Give it to me straight. How likely are we to pull this off? How hard is this archive to get to?”
And God, I was glad I didn’t have to do this alone.
His mercury eyes were clear and sharp, his expression serious. “We’ll have to get close to the archivist. He’s the only daemon with full access to the whole of the archive. We steal his access card, and then we break in.” He padded across the room to the door. “Get some sleep, Kat. You’ll need to be on the ball for this.” He strode out, leaving me alone with Jay.
Jay and I stared at each other for a long beat, and then his gaze slid to the clock.
Enough with the time watching. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Check the time so frequently?”
“I wasn’t aware I did.”
This was the moment to ask him about the fomorian in the basement.
But when I opened my mouth, an altogether different question popped out. “What do you think about me having a mutated fomorian gene?”
“I’m not surprised the Nightbloods hid the truth,” he said simply.
“The Hydes have many shadow knights in their family, don’t they? Didn’t you ever want to be one?”
He graced me with a slow blink and an impassive expression. “We don’t always get what we want, and sometimes when we do, it turns out not to be what we expect.”
Tris’s grip on my arm tightened in prompt, but confronting him would be forcing his hand. I’d bared my soul to the team. I’d shared my secrets, and I needed him to share his. I needed them to tell me about the monster in the basement. It was almost like a rite of passage, like complete acceptance.
I stood and headed for the door. “Did you get that from a Nightwatch Christmas cracker?”
He ducked his head. “Kris is right, you should get some rest.”
Yeah, he so wasn’t going to be confiding in me tonight. “Rest sounds good. Rest in my own clothes.”
No wonder Karishma got wedgies. These pants were tight.
I climbed the stairs to the first floor.
“We’re not going to bed, are we?” Tris said shrewdly.
“Nope.” My heart picked up the pace. “We’re going to check on Henri.”
Chapter Four
Henri lay where I’d left him, silent and still and very un-Henri-like. I wanted to touch him but curled my hands into fists to stop myself because creepy much. The guy was incapacitated, and stroking him was not appropriate.
Was it?
“Why didn’t you ask Jay about the fomorian in the dungeon?” Tris asked, jolting me out of my dithering.
“Ah, Jay and the secret of the fomorian.”
“Kat …”
“Fine. I need him to tell me himself, okay.”
“No.” She peered at my face. “That’s not it.” She climbed off my shoulder and onto the end of Henri’s bed. “There’s more. I can feel it.” Her tail swished in agitation.
I kicked off the loaned boots and splayed my toes. “No, there isn’t.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, missy, now spill.”
The stone woman was relentless. “Fine.” I threw up my hands. “I want to see him again, all right. I need to see him again.”
She pursed her lips. “And you’re afraid if you push this, then they’ll move him. Hide him from you?”
“Urgh. I’m all kinds of fucked up.” I parked my butt on the end of Henri’s mattress. “It has to be the damn gene making me want to suck face with that thing.”
“You want to suck face with it?” Her voice went up an octave.
I buried my face in my hands. “No. Yes. I don’t know. It can’t just be the gene. I mean it’s mutated, but shadow knights don’t get the urge to lick fomorians. So, it can’t be, unless … Unless it’s different for Nightblood females who are going insane.”
“You are not going insane.” Tris cupped my face. “Look at me. We are going to figure this out. You’ll get the book, and we’ll stop the shimmer man, and you will not go insane.”
Just hearing her say it made me believe it. “I can do this.”
“Yes, you can.” She kissed my cheek. “I love you, chickie.”
“I love you too.”
“Now, lie down and close your eyes. You need to sleep.”
“I can’t. I need to stay awake for Henri. I want to be here when Karishma wakes him up.”
“Fine, then lie down at least and rest your body.”
I could do with a lie-down. “Do not let me fall asleep.”
“Uh-huh.”
I crawled up the b
ed and lay down beside Henri. Tris climbed up behind me and began to stroke my hair.
“Urgh. Tris, that’ll make me sleepy.”
Then she began to hum.
Sneaky cow.
* * *
Darkness cocooned me, protecting me, but there was something outside of my bubble. A presence that I recognized that sent a shiver through me.
I can feel you.
Hush. Don’t speak. Don’t move.
Are we going to play this game? All you need to do is step out. You don’t need to be afraid, Kitty Kat.
No. This was too familiar, and the cocooning darkness was suddenly suffocating and restrictive.
He couldn’t find me. I couldn’t let him find me.
Tick tock, tick tock, time is running out. I see the cracks. I see the weakness. It’s only a matter of time now.
A phantom breeze kissed my face. His breath? His fingers? A scream locked in my throat, and then the spot on my arm where my birthmark resided tightened and burst into burning pain.
The scream dislodged. The darkness shattered, and the world flooded my senses.
The bed beneath me, my leg over something hard and taut. My arm over something, also hard and taut.
“Kat?”
His voice was soft and tentative, and my terror melted away at the sight of his face. His mobile, awake, glamoured, beautiful face. I was wrapped around him like ivy, and his arm was around me, so my head was on his shoulder, face angled up to his.
Henri looked down on me with his bluer-than-blue eyes, concern etched across his features. Concern for me, when he’d been the one shut down for almost two days. Joy and relief and something sweet and sharp pierced my chest, and then my hand was on his jaw, and the urge to press my lips to his and have him open for me, to kiss me back, was a violent need shooting through me. It made my eyes burn and sting, and my breath caught painfully in my throat.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and he closed his eyes, but not before I caught the darkness and pain inside them. When he opened them again, his baby blues were clear and focused. He gently extricated himself from me and sat up.
Give Up the Ghost: The Nightwatch Series Book 2 Page 3
