Shattered Spirits

by C. I. Black

  And why had she left him? Every day his memories grew stronger, more consuming. If she didn’t return and use her magic to help him regain control, he’d fall into them and never be able to find his way out.

  She had to come back. She always did. “The Handmaiden will return. She has to.”

  “But will it be soon enough?” Hunter asked.

  Grey pushed the memories back. Trembles shook his hands, and he shoved them into his pockets. “You can’t wait. You have to take the throne.”

  “I’m not willing to risk that without her support.” Hunter blew out a long sigh. His gaze, through the reflection in the window, caught Grey’s. “I need you to watch Anaea. I need you to keep her safe.”

  “Isn’t that your job?” But ice seeped into Grey’s gut. There were very few reasons for an inamorated drake to ask someone to watch over his beloved, and none of them were good.

  “I have to find the Handmaiden. Someone has to. But Anaea needs to learn to control her magic. She can’t come with me.”

  “And I’m sure you two have discussed this.”

  “No, and if I talk to her I won’t have the strength to leave.” Hunter’s expression hardened. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. It’s the only way.”

  “So you’re what? Going to leave her a text message? Oh, that’s slick. Even I know that’s bad form.”

  “You need to let her know I’ll be in touch when I can. She’ll understand how important this is.”

  “Gee, thanks. She’s a sorcerer. The only thing that has more fury than a woman scorned is a sorcerer scorned. And you’re asking me to play messenger.”

  “And bodyguard.” Hunter pulled the medallion’s chain over his head and set it on the coffee table beside him. “She’s at Nero’s. Keep her safe.”

  With a pop, Hunter gated from the house.

  The fire snapped, its image flickering in the dark window where Hunter had stood.

  This was just great. Regis was on a dragon hunt. Hunter, the only drake in a position to take over, was gone, and Grey had just been put in charge of keeping Anaea safe.

  Sunlight danced at the edge of his vision. He could barely keep himself in the here and now, let alone keep Hunter’s inamorata safe. If anything happened to her, not even the Handmaiden would be able to save Grey from Hunter’s wrath.

  The sound of a gate forming whooshed in the front hall.

  “I’m home and I brought wine from Nero’s collection,” Anaea called.

  Hunter had terrible timing.

  “What are we celebrating?” Grey asked.

  Anaea strode into the kitchen. “Hey, Grey. Is Hunter still outside flexing his wings? Give a drake shiny new scales and he becomes vain.” She set the bottle of wine and a bag of groceries on the counter and unzipped her coat.

  “Actually, he…” Jeez. Where did he begin? She was Hunter’s inamorata. This kind of leaving didn’t happen; it would feel too much like heart-wrenching abandonment this early in their relationship. “Maybe we should open that wine and sit.”

  Anaea’s eyes widened. “What’s happened? Has Regis done something?” She closed her eyes and frowned. “Hunter isn’t answering me. He’s blocking my mind call.”

  The stemware in the glassed-in cupboard behind her started to rattle.

  “If he responds, he’ll come back and he can’t do that. Not yet.”

  “But he promised he wouldn’t return to Court without discussing it with me. If Regis has done something to him—” The cupboard door flew open. A glass leapt out and shattered on the counter, making her jump. “Shit.”

  Another glass tumbled out and smashed.

  “No no no.” She squeezed her eyes shut and drew in a slow breath, then another.

  The glasses stopped rattling.

  “Long day?” Grey asked, trying for nonchalance. It wasn’t every day he watched stemware commit suicide, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility in his world. Last time he’d seen Anaea, her telekinesis had just started to develop. Looked like it had gotten stronger.

  “Long two weeks.” She pursed her lips and stared at the broken glass. “It’s getting so hard to control it. All of it. Yesterday, I almost set Nero’s library on fire and I’d just been reading a book.”

  And losing her inamorator—even just for a temporary absence—was going to make it even more difficult to control her magic. Unstable emotions equaled unstable earth magic. But Grey still had to tell her about Hunter.

  “Take off your coat. I’ll clean up the glass.”

  “And you’ll tell me what my stubborn drake has done?” The glasses rattled again, and she sucked in another breath.

  “Hunter has gone to find the Handmaiden.” Grey pointed to the medallion on the coffee table.

  “Thank God. It’s about time.” She strode to the medallion and hung it around her neck. “Although that means you’ll have to come with me to face my soon-to-be ex-husband’s lawyers tomorrow.”

  “Jeez, Hunter couldn’t have waited a day?” Sure, Grey was managing not to have a panic attack every second he was in the human realm, but most of that time he was in safe, confined spaces. An office, with strange humans, was not safe.

  “I hadn’t told him. He’s been so worried, I didn’t want to bother him.”

  “You’re too kind,” Grey said, letting playful sarcasm color his tone. “But couldn’t you postpone it? I’m sure finding the Handmaiden won’t take long.”

  Anaea’s expression turned serious. “I hope it doesn’t. Dragon-kind needs her and so do I. I’m terrified I’m going to kill someone.”

  “You’re not going to kill anyone.”

  The glasses in the cupboard rattled again. “You so sure?”

  CHAPTER 9

  Ryan kicked his shoes off in the front hall of his childhood home. A fog had settled around him, and he couldn’t seem to shake it. He couldn’t remember why or how he’d become so exhausted. Or even why he’d returned home to Newgate. There was something he needed to do. Something he had to…

  Jess, his ten-year-old niece, squealed from the kitchen and appeared at the end of the hall. She rushed to him, her ponytail swishing behind her in a curly brown cloud.

  “Not so fast, young lady.” Trisha had taken her place in the archway to the kitchen. “You can hug him after he cleans up.”

  He glanced at his clothes. How—? What—? He was covered in dirt and a sticky something that was hardening into a clump along his arm. He couldn’t remember getting filthy, or even being in a situation that could have covered him in dirt… or was that dust?

  He picked at the goop with a nail, but only managed to smear it. He’d been doing something… What the hell had he been doing?

  Jess stuck out her bottom lip. Her mother raised an eyebrow at that, and the pout disappeared.

  “So how does rolling around in the dirt get you your job back?”

  “I—” How did getting filthy get him his job back? No, he had a job. He’d transferred to Elmsville after Internal Affairs had started asking about that apartment fire and how he’d gotten to the scene so fast. It was as if he’d known before anyone else, and he knew where that would go—accusations of setting the fire and charges for the death of that kid he couldn’t save.

  But he couldn’t tell them the truth, that he had known before everyone else. They wouldn’t have believed him and the possibility of being declared criminally insane could be added to the list of terrible options.

  Something boomed. He jerked back. Special Agent Jones crashed into the wall beside him, her head slamming against it. Blood stained her side and smeared across her face. Another gunshot hit the beige concrete blocks beside her temple, and shrapnel sliced her cheek and forehead.

  His heart pounded. The next shot could kill her. He had to do something. Had to stop it.

  He reached for his gun at his hip.

  The hall wavered.

  No. Not the hall. Jones wavered. Ripples on a still lake.

  His breath burned
, and he couldn’t draw enough air to fill his lungs.

  The image wavered again, and Jones’s features blurred, melting into a broad forehead and cheeks, her hair darkening and lying still around her face.

  “You look beat.” Trisha’s frown deepened.

  The vision snapped, lancing through him and stealing the rest of his breath.

  He gasped, drawing in warm air tinged with the aroma of popcorn. He was back in the hall of the house he’d grown up in, now owned by his sister. She hadn’t changed anything. He didn’t know if she didn’t want to, or if she just hadn’t had the time. Probably didn’t have the time. She’d moved in within a month of her husband’s passing four years ago and had struggled to keep everything as close to normal as she could for Jess’s sake.

  He blinked and drew in another unsteady breath.

  He was alone in the hall. Trisha was back in the kitchen and water whooshed from the tap, presumably to fill the kettle. When she didn’t know what to do, she made tea.

  “Orange pekoe or green tea?” she called.

  He shuffled into the kitchen and sat at the worn, linoleum-topped, table. Shoe boxes, old photos, and photo albums covered it. Jess cleared a corner for Ryan.

  “I think there’s another box of albums in the attic. Why don’t you go up and see if you can find them for Uncle Ryan?” Trisha said.

  “Sure.” Jess jumped from the table and raced out of the kitchen.

  Trisha pulled two mugs from the cupboard beside the sink and tea from a white ceramic jar on the scarred counter. Everything was where it was supposed to be. Him. Trisha. The house.

  Except… it wasn’t. He was forgetting something. It was on the tip of his tongue, something about not belonging, or wanting to belong, or being somewhere…

  The thought that he needed to go home kept going through his mind, over and over again. Except he was home… no, home was his apartment on Railroad Street. But that wasn’t right, either. He lived in Elmsville now, not Newgate.

  He slid his gaze over the photos. The closest one was of him and Trisha at Christmas when they were kids. The photo had yellowed, or maybe it had always been slightly yellow. Beside it was a family photo on vacation at Disney. Mom and Dad, him and Trisha. All grinning from ear to ear, wearing those ridiculous Mickey Mouse hats. This was his life… no, it had been his life. Dad had died on duty, trying to stop a convenience store robbery three months after the Disney vacation. When Trisha’s husband passed, Mom had sold her the family house and moved into a modern semi-detached bungalow on the other side of town.

  A black and white picture poked out from underneath another Disney snapshot. Ryan pushed the other photos aside. He hadn’t realized they still had anything this old. Two couples in the stuffy clothes of the early 1900s stood on the front porch of the house. Mom had said the house had been in the family for generations; he’d just never known there was proof.

  A cup of tea slid into the clear place on the table before him.

  “Great-great-great-aunt Sarah and her brother, Eric.”

  Ryan smoothed his thumb over the photo’s corner. None of them were smiling but they all looked happy. Especially the woman standing beside his great-great-great-uncle. She almost looked like Jones.

  “You look a lot like Eric,” she said.

  He dragged his gaze up to his sister. For a moment her hair was strawberry blonde, her face heart-shaped. God, he was seeing Special Agent Jones everywhere. In his sister, in that woman in the photo.

  Fear snapped through him. Jones was in trouble. He just didn’t know when and where. That’s why he was back in Newgate.

  No, that wasn’t right, either. Well, not entirely right. Jones was in trouble. He’d seen it, and his flashes of the future always came true. The question now was whether her trouble was related to Pete’s death… or rather second death, if in fact the body in the M.E.’s exam room was Pete.

  He jerked to his feet. That was it. He was back because Pete’s picture had shown up on the news.

  How could he have forgotten that? How could he have forgotten that the friend who’d died in high school had somehow been murdered yesterday?

  Trisha raised an eyebrow, and he eased back into his seat. She sat in the other chair at the table and hugged her mug of tea. From her pursed lips and slightly veiled eyes, he knew she was dying to ask what was going on. But even if he did know, he couldn’t tell her. He hadn’t told her the complete truth in years.

  “Well, it’s certainly been—” He glanced at the kitchen window. It was dark. Twilight was setting in. He hadn’t just lost the minutes where he’d managed to get covered in filth. He’d lost almost the entire day. What the hell had happened? What had he done?

  The fog in his head billowed. He’d followed up on a few leads but nothing had come of it, save that he’d gotten filthy. He hadn’t answered any questions, but he hadn’t gained new ones. Which meant he hadn’t done anything important. That was all. Nothing important. Just exhausting. Yes. “It’s certainly been a day.”

  “I can see that.”

  He blew steam from his mug. She wanted him to say more, explain why he’d called this morning and said he was visiting. Or rather, more of an explanation than his original lie of ‘it would get him transferred back to town.’

  Maybe investigating Pete’s murder would get him back in Newgate. A guy could hope. He hated Elmsville. Nothing happened, save local kids smoking pot, painting graffiti, and stealing street signs for entertainment. At least, nothing had happened until last week, when Special Agent Jones had walked into the police department and took away the only interesting case he’d seen in over a year.

  Trisha tapped her nails against her mug. “So…”

  “So—” He was going to need to think up something, explain why he was covered in crap, but he couldn’t get his mind to work. He couldn’t remember how it had happened in the first place.

  His cell phone chirped, saving him from coming up with an explanation, or at least one right away. “Miller.”

  “It’s Hiro. I’m going on break in about half an hour; care to buy me dinner?”

  “Absolutely.” The fog slid away. “Name the place and I’ll be there.”

  “Bistro 57.”

  He stood and pocketed his phone. “I’ve got to go. Tell Jess I’ll look at the album when I come back.”

  Trisha raised an eyebrow. He could see the questions in her eyes. Rushing off to dinner? Was it a woman? Please let it be a woman.

  And it was, just not the one he wanted. It wasn’t Special Agent Jones.

  Wow, where had that thought come from?

  He shoved it aside, offered Trisha a half smile—she’d make of it what she wanted, she always did—and headed back to his coat. Jones was a distraction he couldn’t afford to have, and yet he couldn’t avoid her. He’d seen her in danger. He had to figure out a way to save her, or even just warn her.

  But first things first. Dinner with Hiro and answers about a corpse that shouldn’t be fresh.

  CHAPTER 10

  The restaurant Hiro had picked was a few blocks from the Medical Examiner’s office. With simple stylish decor in tan and chrome, it seemed out of place in the tired neighborhood—and so did his filthy coat and jeans. He should have changed at Trisha’s, but it hadn’t occurred to him until halfway to the restaurant and then he couldn’t turn back. Not without being inundated with all those questions his sister was dying to ask.

  Inside, there were only two dozen tables lining the sides of the narrow space, but more than half had customers. The hostess gave Ryan a quick glance and, with a hard expression that said in no uncertain terms she disapproved of his attire, led Ryan along the right side to a table halfway into the room. He sat with his back to the wall so he could catch Hiro when she entered.

  It had been a long time since he’d had a meal with Newgate’s Chief Medical Examiner. Well, it had been as long as he’d been stuck in Elmsville. They used to have lunch or dinner every couple of months. It wasn’t because t
here was anything between them, although she was certainly pretty. He’d just felt comfortable with her, like he could be himself, and that included the part of himself that had flashes of the future. Not that he’d ever told her. The only person he’d ever confessed that to had been Pete.

  And now he was dead, again… maybe.

  The door opened and Hiro entered. For a moment he was disappointed. Not because it was Hiro, but because it wasn’t Jones.

  There was that irrational desire again. One that was guaranteed to get him into trouble. She wanted nothing to do with him, and she couldn’t have made it more obvious when…? When they’d been lying in the dirt at the…? Where was that…?

  Hiro waved, and he shoved the questions aside. If he wanted answers about Pete, he couldn’t let questions about the day distract him. He hadn’t done anything important that day. That was all.

  He stood as Hiro approached.

  “Glad to see you dressed up,” she said, her tone wry.

  He brushed a hand over the dirt on his pants but didn’t dislodge anything. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to change.”

  “So.” She hung her coat on the back of her chair and sat. “What do you need?”

  Ryan sat again and leaned forward. She’d always been direct, but never this direct before. Maybe three years without much communication was too much for their friendship. “Wow, straight to business.”

  “Kind of like someone I know.” A smile pulled at her lips, but he wasn’t sure who she was thinking of. She rubbed the back of her neck. “I don’t have a lot of time. Nick called in sick so we’re shorthanded. And you wouldn’t have shown up three years after your transfer without a reason.”

  “I can’t just ask a friend out to dinner?”

  “You can. But before you noticed Capri, you looked like you had a question.”

  “Capri?”

  Hiro flipped open the menu, but didn’t look away from him. “Special Agent Jones.”

  “Capri.” He rolled her name over his tongue, spinning it through his thoughts. An unusual name, just like her.

  The waitress took their drink order. Hiro continued to watch him from over the top of her menu.