“Can’t,” he said with a sigh. “You got mixed up with Kestrel because of me. I’m responsible for your safety now.”
“You really aren’t. My apartment is warded. I’m pretty good at protecting myself. Seriously.”
“You also have no idea—”
“—what I’m up against, yes, you’ve mentioned that a time or two. But you don’t know what I’m up against, either. You don’t know if Kestrel is alive or dead, or if anyone else knows she was here. For all you know, she healed up fine and isn’t even mad at me. You’re probably the only one she’s after. You—”
Cooper yanked me against him, spilling hot tea between us, then pivoted to push me back against the brick wall of the building behind us, shielding me with his body from whatever had spurred him into action.
Which turned out to be fire.
Specifically, a gigantic wave of flame surging out my apartment window as it shattered. Glass and sparks rained down on the street below. Fire raged behind the one intact window I could see from the street. My whole apartment was in flames.
For a second I just stared stupidly. Then something about the scene clicked. Not something I saw, but something I didn’t.
Cooper was already on the move. “She can’t have gotten far,” he said over his shoulder, then grabbed my arm when he noticed I was running straight for my building. “She won’t be in there anymore!”
“My neighbor’s car isn’t there,” I said.
“So you’re worried because your neighbor is not home while the building is on fire?”
“He has a dog! Go after Kestrel, I’ll be right behind you.”
Cooper looked inclined to argue, but there was no time. “Be careful!” he yelled, and took off down the street.
I wasn’t much of an animal person—wasn’t much of an anything person, when it came to connecting with other living things—and I’d never had a pet of my own. But the Mount Phearson Hotel had been haunted by the ghost of a sad little boy who carried a leash. I’d first seen him when I was three, too young to understand death, but able to understand heartbreak just fine. Growing up, I’d tried a few times to help that poor kid find his dog. But ghosts can’t talk, and it was an impossible mission.
Thanks to that little boy, I could never stand the thought of a lost or abandoned pet. Ugly, yippity thing though it was, there was no question of leaving my neighbor’s dog to die.
I rushed up the stairs and banged on the second floor apartment door, then took a chance and found it unlocked. That only added to my considerable dread. New Englanders aren’t generally the trusting sort.
“Hello?” I called out as I hurried inside, hoping at least the dog would hear me and come running. “We’ve got an emergency.”
Nobody came running. My neighbor was lying on his couch, the little dog curled up at his chest. They looked like they were watching TV, although the set was off.
Both had blood seeping from their eyes, noses, and ears. Both were dead.
I didn’t even know the guy’s name.
But there was no time to think about it. The noises from above, and even, I thought, behind one of the walls, suggested the fire would be upon me any second. I ran back out.
I banged on the door of the first floor apartment on my way by, too, but I didn’t waste a lot of time. Those people lived in Boston and were only there occasionally. Then I went out to find Cooper.
Thankfully, my phone had been in my coat pocket when I brought the tea outside. (Even more thankfully, its case doubled as my wallet, something I suspected was about to come in handy now that all my worldly possessions were in flames.) I called 911 to report the fire, but hung up when the operator told me to stay on the line.
I hesitated on the sidewalk, looking around at a loss. Then I saw someone rounding the corner, onto the busier street that crossed mine.
I ran after them, but not fast enough. As I came around the corner myself, all I saw was a couple coming out of the pizza place down the street. I headed that way, peering into the alleyway between the restaurant and the convenience store next door.
It was too dark to see anyone, but I thought I heard an exhale.
Turning on the flashlight on my phone, I took a few tentative steps forward, trying to remember any simple protection spells I might be able to cast without writing them down. But my thoughts were sluggish in my panic. It was like the faster my heart went, the slower my brain worked.
When the attack came, it happened too fast for me to process, except in bits and flashes.
Someone gripping me from behind, and it must have been a magical grip, because I could barely even wriggle, let alone struggle for real. Icy breath in my ear, whispering a question. She wanted to know where Cooper was.
She said something else too, something about my power. Then licked my neck, her tongue cold and repulsive. A laugh, more cool breath.
And then I felt her stealing. It was nothing at all like it had been with Cooper, when I’d been a willing participant. This was unbearable, violating. And so cold.
I resisted, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. Already my knees were buckling, my head buzzing like it was filled with flies.
“Big mistake, Kestrel.”
Cooper’s voice? I was losing consciousness.
And then Kestrel was gone.
Cooper had pulled her off me. With blurred vision, I saw him throw her against a brick wall, then rush at her.
But Kestrel had taken too much of my vitality to go down easily. With a wave of her hand, she sent a dumpster skidding across the pavement. It rammed into Cooper’s back, hurling him into the same wall. I heard a snap that might well have been his spine.
I was slumped on the ground, unable to move, my entire body numb and tingling with pain at the same time, almost like I’d suffered an electrical shock. I couldn’t help. I couldn’t even scream.
But Cooper stood as if nothing had happened. The dumpster came at him again. He pushed it away with superhuman—or nonhuman, to be precise—strength, and turned on his enemy.
Kestrel fought back with a monstrous strength of her own. She was a monster, biting, clawing, ripping at his throat like a wolf going after its prey. There was no sign at all of the frail woman I’d encountered at Spare Oom.
Because I just fed her.
I managed not to retch, but only barely.
She and Cooper both moved with a speed that, in my still-dazed state, was hard to follow.
At least Kestrel didn’t use jet this time. Maybe she figured Cooper wouldn’t fall for that twice. But she kept sending things—crates, pieces of debris from the dumpster—flying and crashing into him. More than once I saw a wound open in his skin, heard the crack of one of his bones.
But he gave as good as he got. And then, better. Kestrel came in too close, trying to bite him, or maybe steal more vitality, and he managed to knock her off balance.
Kestrel fell. Cooper was on her in a split second. He pinned her face-down on the ground, his knees on her back. She tried to turn her head, but that was a mistake, giving him a chance to slip his forearm under her neck.
He yanked her head up. She screamed. One of his hands gripped her chin, the other the side of her face. And I knew what was coming next.
I closed my eyes in time to spare myself the sight of Kestrel Wick’s neck snapping. But there was no hiding from the sound of it.
“Verity.” Cooper crouched beside me and gently pushed my hair out of my face. The warmth of his hand made me realize how cold I still was. He opened his mouth, but seemed to be at a loss for words.
“I’m okay,” I said.
He looked intently into first one of my eyes, then the other, like he was checking for a head injury. “You’re sure?”
“I’m fine. Just a little dazed still, that’s all. Give me a second.”
Thus assured, he went back to Kestrel Wick’s lifeless body and stomped on her neck. Hard. Once, again, a third and then a fourth time. Making sure she was well and truly dead this tim
e. Then he tossed her unceremoniously into the dumpster.
I was kind of terrified of him. At the same time, I kind of wanted to kiss him.
He came to help me up, and must have felt me flinch as he touched me.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured in my ear. “I know how that must have looked. But gunshots are too loud, and stabbing is too messy.”
“Hey, far be it from me to complain about how you go about rescuing me.” I smiled weakly.
“Can you try to get up? I’ll help you, but we should get out of here.”
I nodded and he pulled me to my feet, but I was still dizzy and slow. Cooper put his arm around my shoulders, and half-dragged me back to the street.
There were sirens. The fire, of course. How long had they been blaring? The encounter with Kestrel felt like it had happened somewhere else, outside of time.
I focused on putting one foot in front of the other, and tried not to think about the fact that we’d just killed someone and dumped her body. I wished I could write a spell to help ensure that nobody remembered seeing us near the alley, at least not well enough to describe us to the police. But all my ink was on fire.
There were two firetrucks outside my building, along with a police car and an ambulance. Cooper stayed at my side, his arm still protectively around me (and half holding me up), while I identified myself to a policeman as the one who’d called 911. I figured it was best to come forward first; it wasn’t like they didn’t have Caller ID.
“But you didn’t stay on the line,” the officer said. “Where have you been?”
Pitching my voice to sound as ditzy as possible (which wasn’t all that difficult, under the circumstances), I made up a story about being worried about my phone battery, since I had no way of recharging it.
“And then we went around the corner, to see if I could find any of my neighbors,” I went on.
“Around the corner where?” the officer asked.
“Just up and down the street. Sometimes they get pizza or whatever. You know, to let people know about the fire. Wouldn’t you want to know if your house was on fire?”
“And did you find anyone?” he asked.
“No.” I pointed at the small crowd that had gathered in the street. “But I think I see a couple from the building next door over there. So I guess they figured it out.”
The policeman motioned for me to step closer to the streetlight, out of the shadows the fire was casting. He leaned forward and peered into my eyes, much as Cooper had done in the alley. “Were you hurt? Or have you been drinking, maybe?”
“I think she’s in shock,” Cooper said. “We were standing outside, saying goodnight, when one of the windows broke and all this fire just started coming out.”
“We did split a bottle of wine with dinner, though,” I added, more than happy to be dismissed as drunk. If the fire was determined to be arson—or if any evidence of what Kestrel had done to my downstairs neighbor didn’t burn away—my behavior was going to look suspicious even if I wasn’t connected to the body in the dumpster.
“Go on over to the ambulance and get yourself checked out,” the officer said. “I’ll send someone over to grab a statement.”
I was cleared by the paramedics, and Cooper and I both talked to the police. After that, we did what we guessed normal people would do while their house was burning down: we stood at a safe distance and stared, pretending to be devastated by the loss.
Cooper pulled me away from the rest of the onlookers and spoke in a low voice. “Is there any kind of cloaking spell you can do, to help the body stay hidden?”
“I can try something with just blood instead of ink, but she just took so much vitality from me,” I said. “I honestly don’t know if I can work any magic at all right now. Do you think there’s a chance they won’t find it for a while? Or maybe we’ll get lucky and they won’t find it ever?”
“I guess it depends on when the trash truck comes,” he said. “At least it doesn’t get hot here in March. The smell’s not likely to hit the street right away.”
I fought off a wave of nausea, and tried not to think of him stomping on Kestrel’s neck. Or of my poor neighbor, curled up with his little dog.
“My neighbor,” I whispered, realizing I hadn’t had a chance to tell Cooper. “He was dead. Bleeding from his eyes.” I was dangerously close to crying, and didn’t care if he knew it.
He pulled me into a little half-hug. “She probably drained his vitality to get the power to set the fire. She’d have wanted to use magic, so she wouldn’t have to be too close when it went up.”
“Cooper.” I swallowed, then shrugged, as if asking a casual question, the answer to which didn’t really matter. “Would she have killed me?”
“Hard to say. I’m not sure what her game was, actually. I have no idea why your place is burning right now instead of mine.”
“Maybe yours is burning, too.”
“Could be. Doesn’t matter, I guess. I won’t be back there.” He put his hands on my shoulders, turning me to face him. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to let you be indecisive anymore. We’ve got to get out of here tonight. As soon as we can walk away without it looking weird. I’ll go tell the cops you’re overwhelmed and exhausted and I’m taking you to rest.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “My building burns down, maybe a dead body turns up a block away, and you and I both leave town the same night? You don’t think that’ll look a tiny bit suspicious?”
“It doesn’t matter what they think, as long as they don’t get any hard evidence,” Cooper said. “Maybe you can use some magic to smooth things over. I’ll help you make more ink. But we have to go, regardless. The police are the least of our problems. The Wicks won’t come at us one at a time next time. They will kill us.”
No, a nagging, cowardly voice in my head said. Not us. I didn’t kill Kestrel. They have no reason to come after me. Not unless I help Cooper now.
For as long as I could remember, I’d been what people call a survivor. They use the word as a compliment, like it’s a good thing. But sometimes that instinct doesn’t look very nice.
Out loud all I said was, “They won’t find us right away. You said yourself she was probably hunting alone.”
“The first time. For all we know, she reported in to her clan after what happened at the restaurant. Maybe she had some help healing up.” Cooper shook his head. “It’s not worth the risk. You want to end up like your neighbor?”
I didn’t. But I didn’t want to go with Cooper, either. This wasn’t my fight. And I didn’t want it to be. I’d just gotten a very unpleasant taste of what the Wick clan could do. I was still weak. My neck still felt cold where she’d touched it, like a dead place on my skin.
My stomach turned at the thought of what she’d done to me. And I suspected the memory of it would keep right on making me sick for years to come. I would feel her breath again, over and over, in my dreams.
I was in no position to take on people like that. I wasn’t a warrior. All I’d ever wanted was a quiet place of my own, a stack of books, some spell ink to keep me safe. I wanted nothing to do with a cause.
Cooper had saved my life. But I’d saved his, too, and it had just cost me everything I owned. I didn’t owe him anything.
I cleared my throat. “Doesn’t it make more sense to split up?”
Was that disgust in his face, or did I imagine it? I didn’t know him well enough to say. Another reason not to get mixed up in his problems.
“You mean you think you’re safer without me,” Cooper said in a flat voice. “Because I couldn’t protect you tonight.”
“You did protect me!” I said. “And I’m grateful. Please don’t think I’m not. But I have a responsibility. To Bristol, to this hotel I’ve inherited. There are people who work there, and I’ve left things unsettled too long already. I have to go back.” I gestured at the burning building, the literal ashes of my life. “Seems like there’s nothing holding me here, now.”
&
nbsp; He gave me a look that suggested I wasn’t fooling anyone, but shrugged. “I’ll let you go, and stay out of your way. On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to promise me you’ll go tonight.”
A treacherous part of me was disappointed that he hadn’t argued more, but I promised.
And I made good on it. I got into my beat-up old car less than half an hour later. I didn’t drive it very often, so I kept it in a garage three blocks away instead of on the street. That meant no worry about getting past the emergency vehicles. And there was, after all, no packing to do.
Cooper walked me there. He opened the driver’s side door for me, then leaned on it and stared at the pavement. “I’m sorry. For what she did.”
I never would have had the nerve if I’d thought about it more consciously, but I instinctively put my hand on his scruffy cheek, until he raised his eyes to meet mine. “That was not your fault,” I said. “And I meant what I said about being thankful for the rescue.”
He nodded, but looked away again, reaching for my phone instead. He took it and opened my contacts.
“You can get me anytime at the number I’m putting in here. I’ll keep the phone active as long as I can. I doubt they’re going to follow you to some random little town. It’s not you they’ll want anyway. But you call me if you need anything.”
“I will,” I said, but I knew I would never call him. Out of embarrassment, if nothing else. He’d asked me for help, in his way. And I’d told him to go fend for himself.
Nice move, coward.
The goodbye felt awkward to me, but I told myself that might be one-sided. After all, we were practically strangers. Surely it didn’t make me weird that I didn’t want to run off with him to fight some magical war I knew nothing about. Maybe he didn’t think less of me. Probably he wasn’t thinking about me at all.
I wished I was the kind of girl who could just casually kiss his cheek, or something, but I’d used up my courage on touching his face.
“Take care, Cooper.”
“You do the same, Verity.”
I drove until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, then fell asleep in the back seat at a rest stop in I didn’t even know what state. I was too tired to think about everything that had happened, or about where I was going. But I felt defenseless with no paper or ink, and I slept fitfully.
Grim Haven (Devilborn Book 1) Page 3
