by Ciara Graves
There’s a growing darkness within Mercy. Dark voices fill her mind. Just when Rafael is starting to open up, she shuts down. She’s lying to those who care about while she single-mindedly pursues tracking down the mage that cursed her.
Rafael’s plagued by nightmares and a past he can’t escape. He needs help of the magic kind—and Rafael hates magic!—yet he seeks Gigi out. Unable to find her, he ends up going to the wrong witch.
Things go from bad to worse when Mercy vanishes leaving only a note behind.
Warning: Unputdownable action-packed fantasy, with mages, sirens, demons, dragons, gryphons and a Federal Paranormal Unit
Chapter 1
Mercy
The ghoul in my grasp shrieked.
I punched it again. “Enough with the screeching! You’re going to blow out my damned eardrums,” I snapped, giving my head a hard shake. “Just answer the question.”
“No,” he whimpered, shoving my hand in vain. Not that I wanted my hand anywhere on his skin, to begin with. Ghoul skin tended to peel, seeing as they were technically just reanimated corpses. Already a piece shifted under my hand, and I fought back a gag. “Let me go.”
“You’re making this night a hell of a lot harder than it needs to be. Tell me what I want to know. You worked for Liam Manchester. Yes?”
The ghoul cringed as I squeezed harder, cutting off his air so he couldn’t scream again. He bobbed his head frantically, half-decayed ears flapping against the sides of his head. The sound was sickening, but I swallowed back my discomfort along with another gag. I really hated ghouls. This wasn’t the time for me to puke. Didn’t look too good for interrogations. I eased up on the pressure.
He sucked in a grateful breath of air. “For a time, short time only,” he rasped.
“And during that time, what did you learn?”
“Nothing. I only cleaned and fetched things for him. I swear it.”
There was a tap on my shoulder.
I turned around.
“Allow me, ugly.” Rufus. Damned goblin.
“I’ve got this,” I told him.
Rufus’s black eyes glared past me to the ghoul still in my grip. There was an edge to Rufus’s look. One that said I should stop him from doing whatever it was he planned, but without even thinking about it, I released my grip on the ghoul.
Rufus snatched him away and slammed him into the brick wall. Not once. Three times.
I flinched with the last one.
The ghoul’s head cracked against the hard surface. Blood and bits of loose skin covered it when he slipped to the ground, tears seeping from his eyes.
“He’s had enough.” I grimaced at the sight of him.
“Has he now?” Rufus asked darkly, his drawling voice dragging the words out in a way that creeped me out. “I’m just getting started.”
The ghoul held up a shaking hand, begging for the torment to stop.
Rufus grabbed him and tossed him down the alley. His body rolled and bounced, his yelp echoing off the walls.
I never shied away from roughing up a contact if I knew he or she withheld information. Sure, I threw a punch or two, threatened to take them in for some bounty they might not have even had.
But what Rufus was doing, he was beating the shit out of this ghoul, and instead of stopping him, I stood by and watched. I’d learned a bit more about the gob since joining up with him. For one thing, he was not as young as I’d always assumed. After seeing him at my house in my not so fun trip down memory lane, I’d begun to suspect he was older, but not as old as he told me. He was pushing one hundred and had aged incredibly well for a gob. That and he was a much better fighter than he let on that fateful night at the bar. It irked me to think he let me beat his ass, but that was in the past. We were working together now, whether I liked it or not.
By the time Rufus finally paused to take a breath, his knuckles were raw, and the ghoul’s face was covered in blood and muck from the alley. His breathing was underscored by a terrible wheezing. That creature was damned lucky he wasn’t human, or he’d be dead by now.
Rufus drew back his fist for another hit.
The ghoul curled in on himself.
“Wait, just wait.” I stopped Rufus before his fist could fall. “You going to talk now or what?” I asked the ghoul, crouching beside his beaten body.
He spat blood from his mouth, black and clumpy. “Home.”
“Home? What does that mean?”
“Go to his home,” the ghoul uttered. “Protected… but inside… inside you’ll find what you want. Podium. Look for the podium. I can’t say anything else.”
“You can. You just won’t.”
The ghoul shook his head, ears flapping again. “No… magic… can’t speak of it. Liam…” Words failed him, so he pointed to his throat, then motioned his hand as if to speak. He turned his hand and placed it on his neck as if he was choking himself, eyes wide, begging for me to get his meaning.
“Liam cursed you, so you could never speak of him,” I said.
The ghoul sighed in relief.
“Fine, then we’ll go to his home.”
I straightened, ready to tell Rufus we were done for the night when he rushed past me toward the ghoul.
A loud crack sounded.
A sound I knew only too well. My gut clenched. I whirled back around. “What did you just do?” Damned gob.
“Covered our tracks,” Rufus replied, emotionless.
“You… you murdered him!”
“I did what was necessary. Don’t stand there and act all offended,” he grunted. “You broke me out for a reason. This is it, ugly. So stop looking at me like I’m a monster.” He wiped the blood from his hands on his already dirty shirt. “If I’m the monster, then what are you? You’re the one who let me out of the cage.”
“We had a deal.”
“Yes. To track down the mage who cursed you. Also, the ones who killed your parents.” He kicked the ghoul’s body unceremoniously to the side of the alley, burying it under several bags of trash. “That is exactly what we’re doing. You’re damned lucky I haven’t gone to Damian or any of the others.”
“Why haven’t you?” I asked, my eyes refusing to look away from the ghoul’s hand sticking out from under the trash.
He was silent.
I glanced up at him. “Rufus?”
He shrugged, tugging at his pierced ear. “I liked your parents. They were good friends. Goblins do not take kindly to those they care for being murdered.”
“But all this time, you could’ve gone after those responsible. All of you could have.”
“And who says some of us didn’t?” he shot back angrily. “You’re coming into this game late, ugly. Remember that. The only reason we’re able to get anywhere now, is because of Liam.”
I rolled my shoulders, hating his nickname for me lately.
Ugly.
He was a goblin, so to him it meant beautiful, but not to me. All it did was remind me of the scar on my face and the stain that was growing larger on my soul ever since I killed Todd.
What was I doing with my life? I helped Rufus break out. Since then, we managed to track down five supes with connections to Liam with hopes that one of them would give us the answers we needed. The first four had given us nothing, and I let them get away, but this time… this time I let Rufus take control, and now there was a dead supe in the alley.
Because of me. I let him get killed.
“Don’t do that to yourself,” Rufus told me sharply.
“Do what? I haven’t done anything.”
He grabbed my arm, squeezing it hard enough to hurt.
I gasped, attempting to break free, but his nails dug in through my coat.
“You want answers? This is how you get answers,” he said fiercely. “There’s no more tiptoeing around. There’s no more playing nice. We are not in a nice world. What do you think these mages will do once they figure out you’re hunting for them? Huh? What?”
“Let go,” I snapped.
He twisted my arm, and I sank to my knees, trying to relieve the pressure. Bad idea. Breaking him out had been a really bad idea.
“You’re not ready for this fight,” he whispered, getting in my face, his rotted meat breath made me gag. “They’ll find you, and they’ll tear you apart. Unless you learn to let go of emotions. Learn to see the endgame and understand that nothing else matters.”
“I’m not a killer.”
He leered at me darkly.
“What?”
Rufus let me go.
I lost my balance, falling onto my ass in the alley.
“Liar,” he hissed.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are, ugly. You’re a liar. You came back from Sector 18 with a darkness in your eyes. The kind of darkness one only gets when they’ve taken a life.”
“I’ve taken lives.”
“One or two and always in self-defense. I know how you work. We all do,” he argued. “Who did you kill? Huh? Who? Bet whoever it was didn’t see it coming, and that’s the reason you’re beating yourself up for it. You didn’t let him kick your ass before you let him have it.”
I glanced past Rufus at Todd’s faint silhouette at the end of the alley. He wasn’t really there, but ever since we came back home, he’d been appearing. In my apartment. Out in public. Everywhere I was, he would eventually show up, not glaring at me, though. He was smiling as if he knew his death was tearing me apart. It was all in my head. It had to be.
“No one,” I whispered as I scrambled to my feet. “We need to check out Liam’s home.”
Rufus sniffed hard, watching me closely. “You’re not ready.”
“The hell I’m not. I’m going to find the bastard who did this to me and make him pay. You can either help or get out of my way. Which is it going to be?” I got right in his face as I added, “And if you think the second option means your freedom, you’re wrong. I snuck you out of that cell. I’ll sneak your ass right back in.”
“Whatever you say, ugly.”
My hand curled into a fist, and I sucker punched him in the gut. “And stop calling me that,” I seethed.
Rufus grunted, but he was still eyeing at me like he knew everything about me. “Liam’s house is probably being watched. We might have a fight on our hands.”
“A fight is just fine with me.”
“Is it? How long are you going to play this game, Mercy? It’ll kill you if you’re not careful. You hear me?” He yelled after I started to walk away. “Stop while you’re ahead!”
I flipped him off, holding my hand up high over my head so he’d see it, then stormed out of the alley, down the three blocks to where I’d left my bike, and climbed on.
The ghoul had taken us almost three weeks to track down, and now he was dead, and we were left with no new information.
Liam’s house appeared to have what we needed, but Rufus was right. His house would be watched or boobytrapped. We’d have a hell of a time getting inside in one piece or getting back out the same way.
I revved the bike and drove home, not thinking about Rufus and where he might be getting his next meal.
The night I sprung him from his cell, we made a deal. I would set him free if he helped me track down the assholes who killed my parents and cursed me—these hybrids Shuval was creating somehow.
In turn, he could have his freedom, but he could not eat another living being, supernatural or human. He’d cracked several jokes that made my stomach turn, but agreed. He had a small hideaway he took me to in the Underground, and I learned everything he knew about my parents and what they’d been doing to stop Shuval.
Rufus worked with my dad for a time as a partner. He had even resided with the Gathered until they suddenly decided they could no longer trust goblins.
“She used them as her puppets,” Rufus had told me. Then spat, a glare in his eyes. “Used them to do whatever she wished. The Gathered could no longer trust my race.”
“Were you personally used like that?”
The hard glint in his eyes said he had been. He spit again. “Your father let me help him. He trusted me. So did your mum. They were good people who did not deserve to be dragged into this filth.”
“And these hybrids? What do you know about them?”
“Not much,” he’d replied. “There was only rumor about what they were until the night they attacked. I lost half my den. They’d come in with fire and burned them alive. I still dream about their screams and the smell of burning flesh…” He gnashed his teeth and clasped his hands together. “I’ll be certain to peel the skin from their bones slowly when I find the ones responsible.”
“And Liam?” I’d switched the topic of the conversation away from any more vivid of torturing, What of Liam? Do you think he was a hybrid all those years ago?”
“No, but if he is now, he’s with Shuval. That’s a good enough place to start. Or was.”
I hadn’t said anything for a long while, I knew I’d be subjected to Damian’s yelling if he ever figured out what I was up to.
“You sure you’re ready for this, ugly?” Rufus had asked.
I’d bristled at the word, but nodded. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Your parents were good people,” he explained. “You are too, beneath the badass persona.”
“And?” I snapped. “So what?”
“Good people don’t get their hands dirty.”
“Then maybe I’m not a good person after all.” I had left then, before he could say another word.
As I pulled up outside my building tonight, a few short hours before dawn, I replayed that conversation over and over in my head.
The ghoul’s death bothered me more than it should, but when I told myself it was a necessary evil, a very loud part of me rebelled.
Not too long ago, I told Rafael I was one of the good guys, just like him. That I hunted down criminals and brought them in. What would he think of me now, if he found out what I was doing? Since coming home, we texted a few times a week, but no phone calls and I hadn’t seen him. He was on the hunt for Todd and being around him made me want to tell him the truth about everything. The reality of Todd’s demise would come out if I wasn’t careful around him. Right now, I was too unstable, I couldn’t take that risk.
My apartment wasn’t dark when I opened my door. It should have been. I jumped when I saw the figure standing at the back windows. For a horrible second, I was sure it was Todd, though yes, the logical part of my brain reminded me he was dead.
Then Damian’s red eyes flared to life. “Where were you?” he asked as I shut the door.
“You know, it’d be nice if these locks right here actually kept you out.” I took off my coat and slung it over a kitchen chair. “What do you want?”
“Answer my question first. Where were you?”
“Out.”
“Mercy, what’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing. I went out. Can’t I do that? Try to have a life?”
“You weren’t at the Wailing Siren.”
I slammed my holstered pistol on the table. Dropped the bow and second sword I’d started carrying next to it.
“Are you following me now?” Fear that he would catch on to what I was doing with Rufus rose within me.
His narrowed gaze told me he sensed my fear.
I tried to calm myself, so he couldn’t read me so well. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“You’re avoiding me. And you’re not speaking to Bowen.”
“Correction, he’s not speaking to me.”
That was true.
Bowen hadn’t said one word to me since that day in the woods after we lost Todd. If he didn’t want to talk to me, that was just fine. Whatever. Not that it mattered right now anyway. At least Rufus was willing to help me. Though I had my doubts about how this plan was going to play out with him before we caught those responsible.
“When was the last time you spoke to Gigi?”
“A week ago.”
“And that’s another lie. You were supposed to see us both for the holiday, and you never showed up.”
Holiday?
I frowned at him as he looked at me expectantly.
Then I remembered seeing the Christmas lights all around the city. The trees up and the wreaths. I’d been so wrapped up in the hunt for the mage, I’d forgotten all about Christmas. Shit.
“Wasn’t in much of a celebratory mood,” I said, hoping that would be the end of it.
Wrong. Why was I always so wrong?
“You forgot.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is why I never wanted you to know about your parents. Or me. Or about anything that happened.”
“Why? So you could keep me in the dark? Keep me safe?”
“Yes.” He kicked my poor coffee table, nearly flipping it over. “My god. Do you even see yourself? You’re running yourself ragged, and you’re closing yourself off from everyone.” He stomped closer and grabbed my shoulders. “I know you’re looking for the mages,” he whispered. “You are going to stop right now before you get yourself into any more trouble. Do you hear me?”
I glared at him. “You are not my father.”
“No? I am your guardian, named so by your parents, and you will start listening to me.”
“Or what?” I wrenched myself free. “You going to lock me away? I’m not a child! And you have no right to keep me from my revenge.”
“Oh, revenge, is it now,” he replied. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“I will make them pay.” The power in my voice made me pause. That had not sounded like me, not at all. I took another step backward, putting distance between me and Damian. What was happening to me? Damian made to come closer, but I held up a hand, stopping him. “I want them found,” I said quietly, my voice back to normal. “Why can’t you see that?”
“I can, but this path you’re on is not going to give you happiness or relief. Trust me.”
“How can I?”
Hurt flickered across his face at my question.
He turned around as if to leave, then withdrew a folder from his coat and slapped it on the kitchen table. “New name for you. One of the vampire covens wants him found ASAP. He’s making a mess, and they’re tired of cleaning up after him. Should be an easy enough one to track down and find.”
