The Company of Shadows (The Company #1)

by Olsen, Lisa

  “It’s enough. I’m twenty-eight. I thought you were at least twenty-one, maybe twenty-two or three. What were you even doing in that club?”

  “Oh, like I’m the only person ever to have a fake ID. It doesn’t change who I am. Besides, it’s not like you’re forty.”

  “You’re still a teenager for chrissakes.”

  “And you like me,” she fired back hotly. “I don’t see how this changes anything between us. What difference does it make what it says on my birth certificate? I’m the one you’ve been spending time with, and I’m the one you kissed. That hasn’t changed.”

  “What’s changed is I’ve realized I made a mistake.”

  Her breath sucked in, pain twisting her heart worse than if he’d slapped her. Cady thought she might have seen regret on his face then, but she wasn’t sure if he regretted the harsh words, or kissing her in the first place.

  “Just… the safest thing you can do is stay away from me.”

  “The safest…” Her brow crumpled in confusion. “I don’t understand. I’ll stay out of your investigation if you want me to, but I thought...”

  “It doesn’t matter what you thought, I don’t have time to babysit you,” he said coldly, his entire body rigid and unyielding.

  “Jesus Christ, who asked you to?” Her temper flared, a tightening in her throat making speech almost painful. “Don’t me any favors, I don’t need this.” Turning on her heel, she left him in the hallway, unsure who she was madder at. Ian, for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, Ethan, for being such a jackass, or herself, for letting him get to her in the first place. He was just a guy she’d met a couple of days ago -- why did she care if he didn’t want to see her anymore?

  There were plenty of other fish in the sea, tons of guys who’d fall all over themselves if she smiled their way. She didn’t need him and his weird hang-ups. That was probably all that intrigued her in the first place, the fact that she’d had to pursue him for a change. Her rational mind could recognize it easily. He wasn’t even her type when she thought about it. So why did she swallow back tears as she leaned against the inside of the door?

  “You suck,” Cady fired at her brother as she swept past the couch, intent on reaching her bedroom before the tears began to fall.

  “You’re welcome,” he called back cheerily, waving a hand in the air. “I’m trying to look out for you and you know it, Cady.”

  “Everybody’s trying to look out for me,” she breathed, plopping onto the fabric covered stool in front of her mirrored dressing table. It was one of the few pieces she’d kept from her childhood bedroom. The white paint was scuffed and yellowed now, the flowers scratched and rubbed off in places. She couldn’t lean much of her weight on it when she put her make up on, but Cady was loathe to junk it. Apart from a few picture albums, there was very little that remained of her life before.

  Studying her reflection in the mirror, she tried to see what they saw. To her own eyes she didn’t look young and vulnerable, or in need of any protection. She’d always regarded herself as strong, able to keep the household going after their mother took off. Keeping Ian in clean socks and underwear after her father died. Giving up her dream of Stanford to keep food on the table.

  Most days it didn’t bother her. She didn’t dwell on what her life had become. What was the point? Pragmatic, she’d done what was necessary to move on. Why else would she be working at a dive like Spanky’s? Just like she hadn’t spent months moping over Stefan; she’d moved on, deciding to give dating a rest. And then Ethan…

  It hurt her more to think about Ethan than she thought it would. With a few minutes of reflection, she could recognize that his parting words were designed to push her away more than anything else. Her own heated response proved his theory that she was too young for him rather than disproved it. Maybe he was right? Maybe it was better to end it before it got a chance to progress beyond a kiss or two if he was unable to get past her age?

  Taking in a deep, calming breath, she rubbed at her eyes, wiping away the smudges of eyeliner that had migrated south. Her life wasn’t so bad. She had Ian, and she loved him, even if she planned to put cayenne pepper in his coffee the next time he asked her for a cup. Screw romance, she didn’t need more than Netflix could provide. She’d spent plenty of time never more than glancing at her next door neighbor. She could do it again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Discontent.

  Unused to the weak emotion, Asherik chased after the ecstasy of death, this time relishing the terror in her eyes as he felt the heart quiver and stop, but it didn’t last. He reveled in the vigor of his new body, silently thanking her for showing him the delights of punishing strength, but it wasn’t enough. Dissatisfaction welled, chasing away the pleasant glow of power, before the blood had even grown cold.

  He needed more.

  He had to see her again.

  But not in person, not yet. There was more he wanted to learn before he tasted her fear in this plane. A slave to the convention, Ash waited for her to surrender to dreams, each passing hour finding it more difficult to hold onto the unfamiliar patience.

  He hated waiting.

  A creature of impulse, he considered how best to drive his quarry into the open. Perhaps a box of chocolates laced with Seconal would send her into a deep sleep? There, he might have her, powerless to resist him under the sway of drugs.

  Something about that thought did not appeal, though he didn’t understand why. It was important for him to possess her through his own achievement. He wanted to punish the girl for thwarting him, for turning his own construct against him. He wanted to see her pretty eyes half lidded with desire, begging him for release before they widened in fear. He wanted to corrupt her soul before he devoured it. He wanted her to say his name, his true name, and know him before he destroyed her.

  The thought had him hard and lusting for the feel of another woman in his arms. Ash stepped away from the soiled mess at his feet, padding naked to the shower to wash off the remnants of decay. His new body gleamed under the glistening stream, the play of muscles under skin almost hypnotic, but he didn’t let himself become distracted.

  It was time to hunt again.

  * * *

  Ethan stood under the hot spray of water, drowning himself in the misery that clung to his skin. The way she’d felt in his arms, the stir of emotions he’d long thought dead by design. The laughter and acceptance he’d found in her eyes, only to see them cloud with pain. Pain he’d put there when he pushed her away, and finally the scorn of rejection.

  He allowed himself to wallow in it, the brief, shining moments of pleasure chased by sorrow for as long as the hot water held out, and then locked it away as he turned off the tap. There was too much work to be done to let himself be distracted by something as fleeting as feelings.

  There were ways to track the demon he hunted; he wasn’t as completely in the dark as he’d let on to Cady. As Ethan toweled himself off, he did his best to push her from his thoughts, a whispered curse leaving his lips at how easily she’d slipped in there again.

  Without bothering to dress, he went into his office, grabbing a stick of white chalk to draw a circle on the worn floorboards, large enough for him to comfortably kneel in. Next came the careful inscribing of protective sigils, in case his quarry should find him in the ether and try to follow him back. It was too much to hope that he might find the host the demon wore now, but he’d had luck in finding the face of his next intended victim.

  Setting the chalk aside, Ethan knelt within the circle, closing his eyes to gather the stillness around him. The ancient words began to form in his head, and when he had them fixed in his mind, they tumbled from his lips. “Dominus in lucem, mittere signum. In sapientia tua precor.” He began to rock slowly, the words forming their own rhythm as he repeated the chant over and over again until he achieved a kind of trance.

  Visions of Cady filled his senses, her laugh, the spill of fiery hair down her back, her pure, clean scent.
Ethan allowed himself the brief distraction of her beauty before he made his mind a blank slate, unsure if she’d snuck in there because of his weakness or if the demon still wanted her.

  Neither was acceptable.

  Concentrating on the inky blackness of discipline, only when he was sure he’d reached a blank state did he open himself to the vision again, nearly losing his rhythm when Cady’s image beckoned to him again.

  “Shit.” The room spun as he released the energy without grounding himself, and Ethan grit his teeth as vertigo swelled and then receded. Twice more, he tried to access the visions, and each time he only saw Cady. Fingers threaded through a metal cage, bored out of her mind, as her blonde friend chatted amiably to a man on the other side of the partition. Sitting in a Laundromat, paging through a magazine. Nothing about either sets of images showed him anything dangerous or out of the ordinary. He had to conclude that it was his own subconscious subverting the process.

  Stumped, he dressed swiftly, eating something tasteless from the freezer before going down to the parking garage. The interior of his car reeked of blood, and he realized he’d have to get a new one before too long. He drove with the windows open, losing the cool of the air conditioner, but gaining relief from the smell.

  There were still things he could do to track down the subject. He’d already found the address for the last host body, the art gallery and the private home. Ethan didn’t think there was much point in checking out the gallery, but the house might yield some clue as to Q’s actions.

  The modern three bedroom house would probably command a price well in excess of a million dollars, the view alone guaranteed it. A high tech security system was the rule in a house like that, and this one proved no exception. Ethan didn’t let it worry him, nor did it bother him to approach the house in broad daylight. With his skills, he could easily get around even the most sophisticated security systems, and the house probably wasn’t being watched.

  There were no signs of police entry or caution tape, since Claudio hadn’t been killed in his home, but it was reasonable to expect they’d already been through the place with a fine toothed comb. Ethan only hoped to find something the police wouldn’t recognize as valuable intel, something that would lead him to the monster behind the man.

  The alarm took less than two minutes to bypass, the fancy deadbolt even less. In the space of a few minutes he stood in the marble tiled foyer, taking in the lay of the land. Ethan was methodical in his search; starting with the bedroom, he went through every single drawer, searching between neatly folded clothes. He stuck his hands in every pocket, making sure to replace them in exactly the same position, repeating the process in the large, walk-in closet. After that he moved to the bathroom, then the vacant rooms and the living room, ending with the kitchen. The entire search took nearly an hour, and what did he find?

  Nothing. Not a goddamned thing.

  He even took the time to crack the wall safe, finding only a woman’s diamond bracelet and two thick bundles of cash. Ethan pocketed both before securing the safe. The man wouldn’t be needing it anytime soon, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave it around for Q to use. Not that he thought the demon would be coming back. He tended not to dwell on the past, from what Ethan could tell. Except in one aspect.

  Ethan drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles on Fell Street, waiting for the last dawdling employees to leave for the day. All it had taken was a couple grand and a disgruntled janitor to slip into the branch one night and install the beautiful little line of code that allowed him access when the system went into night mode without ever having to step back inside the building.

  If his hunch was right, Q might obsess about one past issue that could lead Ethan right to him -- the victim he was denied. On the one side, he hoped that he was wrong, because if there was a chance the demon wanted Penny, then the equal chance existed that he might come after Cady. But he’d sensed no danger in his visions of Cady, so he focused his search on her friend.

  Ethan knew her first name, coloring and guessed her age to be somewhere between nineteen and twenty-five, giving himself a wider range since Cady proved to be younger than he’d thought. Of course he could always call Cady and ask where Penny lived, but it was better to make a clean break.

  It didn’t take long to find her anyway, Penelope Abrams, on Lawton Street. Now that he had her full name, it was easy to find other things about her too. Her employer, social security number, immediate family’s names and addresses, an article about her engagement in the Chronicle.

  Taking a chance when he found her not at home, he slipped inside, making only a cursory search of the small apartment before placing a bug in the living room behind a vase of silk flowers, and one in the bedroom on the underside of a framed print of Water Lilies by Monet. By the time the petite brunette came home to her one bedroom apartment, Ethan had a pretty good feel for the woman. This one would be easy to keep tabs on.

  Penny stayed in for the night, with a marathon of schmaltzy cable movies on the television. One phone call to the fiancée, Justin Larsen, and then to bed by ten o’clock. Sitting alone in the darkened car, he listened to the soft snore over his equipment. If she was truly his target, Ethan expected Q to find her just as easily. He only hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake in leaving Cady unprotected.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cady lay on an unfamiliar bed, under a canopy of white silk, sheer enough to see the stars through. Hard, gray stone covered the floor, worn smooth from years of exposure to the elements in the open air boudoir. Pillars sheathed in the same stone marked the edges of the platform, and there were stone stairs visible below, stretching impossibly far. The bed itself was draped in black satin and crepe, a mound of pillows propping her up in a semi-reclined position.

  She wore something gauzy and filmy that stirred with the breeze, only barely covering her body. Despite the height and the open air, Cady wasn’t cold, but the sudden press on the bed made her shiver. Reclining beside her was a man, both familiar to her and not. Clad in black satin pajama bottoms and nothing else, he gave her a crooked smile. Tattoos marked his shoulders and arms, heightening the bulge of muscles there with a burst of color. But despite the fighter’s body he didn’t look at all brutish.

  “You,” she breathed, unable to shake the idea that she’d met him before.

  His smile stretched wider. “As you made me.”

  As she’d made him… it reminded her of a dream, though she couldn’t quite recall all the details. Was she dreaming now?

  The man leaned forward, his eyes focused on her lips. “Do you accept me?”

  Her hand came up to press against the wall of his chest. “Not so fast, I don’t even know you.”

  “You know me.” Her light touch stopped him, but his neck craned, lips seeking her skin. “You’ve felt me above you before.”

  “I don’t think so.” She dodged the kiss, pressing more firmly. “I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that.”

  He chuckled, the sound reverberating around them like a cloud. “I could show you, if you like. Perhaps that might jog your memory?”

  “Maybe some other time.” Cady scooted away from him to sit on the edge of the bed, peering over the edge of the platform to where the stairs disappeared into nothingness.

  “Is this not romantic enough for you?” He frowned, propping his head up with one hand.

  “It’s beautiful,” she admitted, pulling her knees up to her chest as she found the skimpy top of her negligee too see through for her tastes. “But it feels a little like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You know, that one with the opera music before it gets to the Kill the Wabbit part.” His head canted to one side, clearly confused by her reply, and she shrugged. Maybe he’d never gotten into classic cartoons the way she had.

  The sky above looked swollen and bruised, choked with inky clouds as if it might rain at any second, cloaking the moon in velvety darkness. Hadn’t it been clear and starlit just moments before? “I don’t think we should
be up here if it starts to storm. We might get struck by lightning.”

  “No harm will come to you here, I promise you that.” He slid across satin sheets to press a kiss to her bare shoulder and Cady shivered again, gooseflesh covering her skin. “I only want to know you,” he purred, the words teasing the edge of her memory.

  “No, you only want to do me. God, even in my dreams guys only want one thing,” she muttered in disgust before the realization struck. If this was a dream, that meant she had control of it too. The roiling night sky was quickly replaced with pale blue, the sun blazing overhead. The silken bower disappeared and the rolling green of a public park came into view, a wooden bench beneath them instead of the soft bed.

  A groan came from the man by her side. “This place again,” he muttered. “Your fascination with it escapes me.” The black pajama pants were gone, replaced by jeans and a t-shirt that strained to fit around his biceps.

  It struck Cady that he really did seem familiar. “We have met before, haven’t we?”

  “More than you know.” In the direct sunlight she could see just how blue his eyes were, and the pucker of a scar on his forehead.

  “There’s something about you…” she sighed, giving up on placing it. “But you’re not real, are you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “This is just a dream.”

  “How can you be sure?” The lopsided smile was back, and she could see his bottom teeth were crooked. Her kryptonite, and pure proof that it had to be a dream.

  “Because if this were real life I wouldn’t be talking to a guy like you.”

  “Why not? Am I not pleasing?”

  “That’s not what I mean. I’m done with men, especially ones that seem too good to be true.”

  He didn’t lose his smile. “If that’s what you prefer…” The air around him shimmered, and he morphed into a stunning woman with long, dark hair and a body made for sin. Not that she’d ever had leanings towards the same sex, but the woman was tempting enough to almost make her consider it.