BROKEN BLADE

by J. C. Daniels

  I started for the back door.

  His words froze me. “Coming after you is never a waste, Kit. And I’m not giving up.”

  “That’s too bad for you. I have.” I kept walking. I needed to get to Paulie’s. Needed to get this next one—the last one—done.

  I’d told myself when I had the scars covered I’d see about starting my life again. I’d see about trying to remake myself. But even looking at one thing from my past left me shattered.

  How could I possibly rebuild anything?

  * * * *

  “I...” Paulie’s voice paused in the middle of the tattooing.

  I floated in a haze of pain, heat and horror. I’d thought the fang would be the worst, but this was so much more horrible than I’d ever imagined.

  “Close your eyes, Kit,” Paulie said, her voice full of magic and power. Even as I struggled past the veil of her magic, I couldn’t.

  Voices raged around me.

  I don’t have to break you to fuck you up…Xavier. The witch who’d cut the bond with my blade.

  You’re mine now... Jude.

  Useless waste... Fanis. My grandmother. The woman I’d fled from when I’d been fifteen.

  Good-bye. Damon.

  It wasn’t just one piece of my past, it seemed. It was everything. I hadn’t had any idea what I’d face when she put the broken blade on me, but I hadn’t been prepared for this.

  Behind my eyes, I saw the swirling silver of my blade, spinning brighter, brighter, but I couldn’t reach her.

  Something touched me and I screamed.

  “Shhh,” Paulie murmured. “It’s me, Kit. We need to finish it. It’s worse with this one. We weren’t prepared, were we?”

  I sobbed.

  “Do I need to stop?”

  “No!”

  Hands pressed on my shoulders as I struggled. Strong, too strong—

  “Then be still,” Paulie said. “Let’s be done with this.”

  I felt the hot burn of blood on my neck, the brush of a cloth as it was wiped away. The ache and misery as memories beat at me.

  Nobody will come.

  I don’t have to break you.

  Useless.

  “Shhh,” Paulie said again.

  It was an awful, horrible spiral that lasted forever and in desperation, I retreated.

  I wasn’t even aware when she finished.

  Cold and shivering, I floated in a numb haze, keenly aware of the burn in my neck. Somebody wrapped something warm around me. I shivered and huddled deeper into it.

  And I felt the warm prickle of energy slamming against my skin.

  Recognition slammed into me and I rolled off the chair to crouch next to it, ignoring the screaming pain in my neck as I stared at Damon. I was only vaguely aware that I was wearing his jacket.

  He sat in the chair on the opposite side. The chair where Paulie’s assistant had been each and every time I’d come out of this weird, magical haze. He held a bloodstained cloth in his hands, one he twisted around his hands, over and over.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” I asked. My voice was a hoarse croak.

  “I heard you scream,” he whispered. He wouldn’t look up from the cloth. Muscles bunched in his hands as he continued to twist it and then it shredded and he stopped. For a moment, he looked confused and then swore, surging up off the chair to pace. “I was trying to tell to myself I needed to leave. Needed to give you more time. And I heard you scream.”

  He turned his head and I didn’t look away in time. The impact of his gaze, dark gray and haunted, hit me square in the chest. “What the fuck, Kit?”

  Shaking my head, I forced myself upright. My legs shook as I took a few steps away. Out in the main room, I could see Paulie and her assistant. They looked terrified. “You didn’t have to frighten them,” I said quietly.

  “I heard you. Screaming. You think I care if they are scared?” The energy around him shivered, hot and tight for a moment and then he stopped, blew out a breath. “Why are you torturing yourself like that?”

  Torturing myself.

  Turning away from him, I moved over to the mirror and stared at my neck.

  It was done, I realized.

  Finally. The tattoo was still inflamed, the redness even more stark considering how pale I was but there was no denying the sheer beauty of what she’d done.

  I couldn’t see the broken sword but maybe that was best. And it didn’t matter. What did matter was the fact that I couldn’t see those marks. I couldn’t see where Jude had all but branded me as his plaything.

  Even though I knew where they were, the artistry of her design, the cleverly placed lines and swirls hid the marks.

  “Why?” I asked quietly, turning to look at him after a long moment of studying my reflection. “Because now when I look in the mirror, I don’t see the scars he put on me that marked me as his toy. I don’t see him every time I see my own reflection. Maybe I can look at the mirror and start to see me again.”

  Something flashed through his eyes and an eerie green rolled over his gaze, the skin tightening around his mouth. Turning away from him, I went back to gazing at the mirror.

  I saw the images of everything that had cut into me, the things that had left bruises on me, battered my heart and my soul. The things that had broken me.

  And I also saw me. Now it was time to start rebuilding myself.

  “I see me.”

  Chapter Five

  TJ slipped a phone number in front of me three weeks later.

  “What?”

  “It’s a job.”

  I crumpled it up and threw it in her face. “No,” I said calmly as I went back to pulling a beer.

  It was finally quieter in her place. Most of the regulars were werewolves and some roughneck offshoots. Offshoots were the odd magical breeds like me. I thought the guy in the corner might be part mer-something. Water kept trickling over his flesh when he thought people weren’t looking. And he smelled like seaweed.

  Even with the weird smell in the air, I was happy the cats were no longer crowding into the bar.

  Very happy.

  I could almost breathe.

  And I’d been coasting along just fine until TJ had thrown that number in my face.

  “It won’t pay a whole lot, but if you don’t take the job, nobody else is going to, and the poor girl is out of luck.” TJ talked like she hadn’t heard my no. Even though I knew she had. “I just hope she doesn’t try to go down there herself. She tried talking to Sam one time and—”

  “Sam.”

  The bottle of Redcat I’d been putting up shattered in my hand. The fumes of the alcohol were strong enough that I felt a little dizzy and it didn’t help that the potent stuff was also seeping into the cuts on my hand from the bottle I’d busted.

  “Damn it, Kit, that bottle was half full!” TJ snapped, wheeling herself over to me. She went still when she saw the blood on my hand and glanced up.

  I felt the skin on the back of my neck crawl but there wasn’t any upward spike in the tension in the air. It was early and no more vamps had come back into the bar since that day a few weeks ago. Still, never hurt to be safe. Swiping one of the bar towels from the counter, I wrapped it around my hand to staunch the blood.

  “You can’t do that, kid,” TJ muttered. “You’ll heal with glass in there.”

  She grabbed my hand despite my attempts to pull away—wheelchair or not, she was still a werewolf and had the strength to match.

  I held still as she grumbled and reached for the first aid kit under the bar. “What are you rambling on about?” I asked. “You said Sam.”

  Sam.

  I could still hear the sound of her voice in the back of my head. Sorry, honey. He doesn’t want you anymore...Those were some of the last words I’d heard before I disappeared into darkness. They’d haunted me during those weeks. Even now, even now when I tried to console myself to the empty mess of the life I’d always expected to live, they haunted me.

  A pri
ckle of heat danced in the palm of my hand. But it could have just come from the booze. Could have been from the pain as TJ dug out the slivers of glass.

  But rage pulsed inside me.

  Aside from that night with the vampire, it was the first fiery whisper of real rage that I’d felt.

  I’d felt everything from despair to self-pity to disgust and I’d contemplated all the options that seemed to be fitting—staying here with TJ. Leaving and trying to start over elsewhere. Suicide had trickled in a few times during those first few days, but it hadn’t lasted for too long. I’d survived Fanis. I’d handle this; I’d get through it.

  Lately, all I’d felt was just listlessness, though.

  The burn of anger was almost welcome.

  Sam.

  Gritting my teeth, I waited until TJ had finished digging the slivers out of my palm. Then I turned, looking out over the bar. A couple of the regulars were tucked in the back, bent over a worn out deck of cards. They were TJ’s men. Not employed by her, but they were hers. Unless TJ said otherwise, they saw nothing. Heard nothing. Said nothing.

  “What does Sam have to do with anything?” I asked quietly.

  TJ didn’t answer and when I turned my head to look at her, she was watching with a little bit of a smile on her face. “You’re pissed off.”

  I sneered. Turning away from her, I headed back to the counter. I needed to get to work on inventory. Inventory—

  Something twisted inside me and I felt like screaming.

  “Kit.”

  TJ laid the paper down on the counter, smoothing out the creases. “She doesn’t need much help...just somebody who’ll run interference with the cats for her. She needs to talk to the boy who used to own the phone. It’s a quick job, although I’m telling you, she can’t pay much of anything. Sam would have been able to tell her, but she won’t and now the girl is too afraid to call again. It’s an easy job, almost as easy as checking inventory.”

  I swallowed. “Then why don’t you do it?”

  “Because I’m not losing myself here. Because I’m not the investigator.” She nudged the paper. “You are. You’re not meant for working in a damn bar, Kit.”

  I picked up a box-cutter. I had shit to do.

  Half way across the floor, I turned and stormed back to the bar. I slammed the box-cutter down and grabbed the number. “How the hell do I get in contact with her?”

  * * * *

  For the first time in months, I had to leave Wolf Haven.

  When I walked outside and found my car sitting there, my heart lurched up into my throat until I thought I just might choke on it. Instead of letting myself do it, I walked around and jerked the door open.

  “That’s a girl.”

  I glanced at Goliath before I went to duck inside.

  “TJ said you might freak out about the car.”

  Others might not realize what he meant, but I knew. Anything and everything associated with Jude was going to give me bad moments, and as stupid as it seemed, and as unfair as it seemed, the damned car was associated with Jude now, too.

  I’d been in the middle of leaving town when I was kidnapped. Bags packed, door open, ready to climb in and head out…and then Xavier had appeared.

  The last clear thought was stumbling back against my car, and the last clear emotion was terror.

  Shooting Goliath a narrow look, I shrugged. “I’m pretty damn close. But don’t tell her.”

  “It’s okay. When you freak out, you kick the things that scare you in the balls.” He tossed my keys at me.

  Snagging them out of the air, I climbed in. “I haven’t been doing much of that lately.”

  “That’s because the person you’re fighting right now is yourself.” He grinned at me and said, “I wouldn’t intentionally kick myself in the balls, Kitty. Takes a bit more work to fight that battle. But you’ll get there.”

  I wish I was half as sure of myself as he was.

  Without letting myself think it through any longer, I started the car.

  East Orlando was a good forty-five minutes away and the longer I thought about this, the more likely it was I’d lose what little nerve I had left.

  Think about the girl.

  Don’t think about anything else. Just her. And maybe Sam. Because you’d really like to kick her in the teeth.

  It was an easy job. I just had to track down a phone number and it wasn’t like I couldn’t do that, right? I’d think about her, figure out the steps to solving the job.

  Forty-five minutes to plot out, figure out, try to decide just what her problem might be. I could do this…right?

  * * * *

  The girl in the coffee shop had just a little bit of magic on her. I felt it as I walked inside and automatically, I tensed, bracing myself.

  She looked at me with so much terror, some part of me felt sorry for her. As her gaze dropped to the Desert Eagle strapped to my thigh then bounced to the blade riding on my hip, I wondered if I should have left the weapons locked up.

  Gut response—no.

  Somebody approached me, eyes wide with terror and I flipped out my ID card. Fraud! The voice was a scream in the back of my head but I wasn’t about to have my weapons taken away. “I work for the Assembly,” I said, tapping my finger against the badge. “I’m meeting somebody here on the job.”

  “You can’t carry weapons in here like that.”

  “I can.” I tucked the badge back away and slid my hands into my pockets as I held his gaze. I didn’t want to pick a fight with him. I wanted to go back home. “Assembly and human law are both clear on this. I’m recognized as an investigator under Assembly law and I’m often chasing after things that aren’t human. In order to do that job, I need my weapons. If you’d like to argue the fact, I can call Banner and the Assembly, you can call the human cops and we can argue it all out, right here in front of your customers, which isn’t going to reassure them. Or you can let me do my job and I’ll leave a lot sooner.”

  Something ugly flickered in his eyes. “I’m not required to serve you. I have the right to refuse service to anybody.”

  “I don’t recall asking for service.” I edged around him and started toward the girl. She looked even more scared now.

  I felt him moving at my back before I heard him. Ducking and spinning to the side, I turned to face him. “You don’t want to put your hands on me.”

  Nobody would do that again. I itched to pull a blade. I hadn’t brought my sword, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t carrying other sharp, shiny objects. The knife at my hip would work just fine.

  He thought the gun was scary?

  His throat worked as he glared at me, then he shot the girl behind me a dirty look. “Make it quick.” He bit off the words like they tasted bad, his face twisted in a tight, ugly scowl.

  I kept him in my line of sight as I moved over to the table. She’d picked a four-top. Instead of taking the seat across from her, I took the one at her left hand, keeping the counter—and the man behind it— in my line of sight. My new friend was shooting daggers at me.

  I waved at him before focusing back on the girl.

  She feels kinda witchy. Now that I was closer to her, that was how she read to me. Kinda witchy.

  There was an odd twinge of magic in her blood that just felt strange to me. And there was something else.

  I could feel the buzz of her soul, batting against my mind.

  But it was more than that. She was terrified of me, but I caught an odd sense of hunger. Need. It flickered in the back of her eyes and as I studied her face, she licked her lips and looked away. Her hands, small and delicate, were clenched into bloodless fists.

  Her respirations were too fast.

  So was her heart.

  And that weird something—

  “You’re pregnant,” I said as it clicked.

  Her skin, a soft olive gold, flushed and she hunched her shoulders. “How did you know?”

  “I’m just that good,” I snapped. It sounded better than I don�
�t know.

  Groaning, I braced my elbows on the table and ground the heels of my hands against my eyes. “It’s a werecat’s kid, isn’t it?” No wonder she was so desperate to find him.

  “Yes.” Her voice came in a broken little gasp and I lowered my hands, staring at her face as darkness roared in the back of my mind.

  She was terrified.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No!” Her dark eyes jerked my way and she shook her head. “He didn’t. We were...” She bit her lip and looked around before scooting in closer. “We were seeing each other but my dad didn’t know. Then we…uh…he stopped calling me a few months ago. I...I didn’t realize at first what was going on. But now I can’t get a hold of him and I need to let him know and I—”

  “Slow down,” I said as the words came spilling out of her.

  Pulling out the paper that held the number, I tapped it. “This is his number? Or was?”

  She nodded. “But that number is dead. There’s no forwarding address or anything. He...well, sometimes he used to hang out at the rec club on Bart Street.”

  Bart Street.

  My brain filed that away even as I processed everything else. She was hiding something. I’d caught that little pause. A fight, maybe? Made sense. Everything else added up, even how she didn’t know she was pregnant. Shifters carried longer and if she was carrying a baby with shifter blood, she’d carry longer, too. Typical shifter pregnancies, if I remembered right, were thirteen months and she might not have even noticed for the first four or five months. And it was a damn good thing she had non-human blood in her, otherwise we’d have an entirely different set of problems to deal with.

  Swiping a hand down my face, I studied her and then braced my elbows on the table. “So when you couldn’t get a hold of him, what did you do? Try to find him? Go to his house?”

  “I tried to call. Well… um. Look, we had a fight.”

  Bingo. I thought so.