by Megan Starks
“I’m fine. I can take a lot of damage,” he repeated. “Besides, I don’t think she’ll try again tonight. If she does—”
“I’ll be the one she targets,” Gisele finished for him, gritting her jaw at the thought. “Got it.”
He surprised her by reaching out to tuck a stray strand of her hair behind one ear. “I was going to say, if she does, I’ll protect you. So you don’t have to be afraid. Okay?”
Flushed, she didn’t know how to respond. So she mumbled a quick goodbye, telling him she’d be back with Warrick and Susanna later, and that he should leave her keys on her desk if he took off early. Then she fled to the safety of the Accord, feeling wholly uncool as she buckled herself into the front passenger seat, a gangly tangle of arms and legs.
Beast yanked the car into drive once more, giving her a short-lived case of whiplash. She fought not to look back as they drove off.
After a while, the minotaur clacked his teeth. “Beast does not understand. Little dragon longs for old leash. Stupid dragon. Beast hated leash.”
“He ran away from his master,” Gisele said. “It must be tough, being all alone in the world.” The lonely orphan she’d been could certainly sympathize. “He wants a friend. I think. Or maybe he’s just a con. I can’t tell, I guess. I really don’t know anything about him.”
“Dangerous,” Beast agreed with her.
Baltimore’s Western District police station was in an old brick and gray stone building that looked grimy no matter how many times it was pressure-washed. The inside smelled of mildew, and the linoleum looked more yellow than white, but despite that, Gisele liked the bustling, shoe-scuffing, coffee-guzzling atmosphere of the precinct.
As usual, Detective Laurel Grey was busy, so Gisele settled herself into a padded, wooden chair in the lobby to wait. For a while, she debated what she should reveal about her apartment burning down. As her friend, Laurel had the damnedest knack for knowing when she outright lied. But so long as she omitted any mention of the Mardoll—or Shade—she should be fine.
Gisele rubbed her face, tired and sheened with sweat. She could use a good, hot soak in the tub, but seeing as how she had no home to return to, it was more likely she’d spend the night dozing on the cot in the office.
Sleep. The thought of it pulled and weighed on her aching muscles, and she closed her eyes, slumping down in the chair to nestle her chin atop her chest.
She was waiting.
The room was dark and cold and stretched impossibly large. Her bedroom had always felt intimidating to a girl of her tender size and age, but now it felt deathly, eerily dangerous as she sat in the middle of her massive bed, shivering beneath satin sheets of scarlet and gold. She’d woken with a terrible feeling that made her stomach cramp and her lips tremble.
Shadowed shapes loomed like monsters in the depths of the room. They were the sort of monsters that came alive at night, that breathed indiscernible whispers in the darkness, that crept toward her without ever getting closer. They were the kind that sprung from her terrible imagination: a wardrobe that was all at once a troll, a dress form that could grow as tall as the ceiling and stalk along the wall, a vanity that showed her snatches of movement, reflecting a black figure lurking about her room. But they paled in comparison to the stabbing, terror-stricken feeling that had woken her in the middle of the night. Tonight a true monster was coming to visit her, bringing fire and bloodshed. Bringing her death.
With a fistful of hair pressed to her nose, she fought the urge to cry or light a candle—after all, big-girl demons weren’t afraid of silly things like the darkness or half-born premonitions. She had to be brave or her brothers would make fun of her. Still, she wanted the comfort of her dragon. She wanted Shade.
Soft moonlight filtered through the two-story stained glass window beside her bed, coloring the stone floor in slithers of red and gold and green. The tinged, slanted light formed a warped inverse of the image in the glass, a mural of the ancestral father of her bloodline, Lucifer, the Great Founder of Hell.
A wail of alarm rose from the far reaches of the complex, followed by the cacophony of a fight—bursts of death-cries mixed with the hack and blunting of steel. A rupture in the keep.
The bedroom door creaked inward. It stretched and yawned open for what seemed miles, emitting a ceaseless groan of sound, the moment slowed and warped in her memory-dream.
Her older, middle brother walked in, a long black robe furling against his hurried strides, face cloaked behind a bronze half-mask.
“Rhogan!” she cried, fat tears tumbling from her wide, scared eyes. “Something terrible is going to happen.”
With one hand, gloved in thick, black suede, he clutched a large golden chalice, the ceremonial Cup of the Hierophant. Blood coated the outer lip, a dark gleam on metal. Without knowing how she knew, Gisele recognized the power inherent in the blood—angel’s blood, like her fallen mother’s.
Rhogan reached toward her with his free hand, open and expectant. “It’s already begun. Come to me, Giseraphel. Quickly.”
She nodded, sniffling and swiping snot from her nose. But before she could scramble into the security of her brother’s embrace, a movement in the doorway caught her attention. Atlas, Rhogan’s soul-bound dragon, towered in the wide opening, his hulking body and wings expanding to fill the frame. His fangs gleamed white as he fixed her with a look of anticipatory violence.
“Rhogan?” she questioned, afraid.
The noise of glass shattering came sudden and loud, jarring the three of them. Gisele turned red eyes toward the stained glass window in time to see Shade vaulting through the frame, colored glass twirling in the air around him as he burst through the pane. He landed in a stumbled crouch, swords outstretched for balance, shards raining onto his slender shoulders.
Blood streaked his shirt and face, had matted darkly in his hair, and he was heaving in deep gulps of breath. He’d had to fight to get to her.
There was something wrong, upsetting, about the sight of him battered and bloodied from battle. It was too soon—he’d only just turned fourteen.
“Get away,” he growled, rising to his feet. “Run, Gigi!”
She jolted into motion instantly. Her brother was her flesh and blood, but her dragon was her world, brighter to her than the burning sun, her brave protector. She would do anything he asked her.
Her brother lunged for her legs, and she screamed.
Shade attacked Rhogan, silver swords swinging, and Atlas attacked Shade. Gisele slipped under the bed, crying and clutching at her nightgown. This was the terrible feeling that had woken her in the night. The terrible thing was happening.
The fighting was a savage dance of wings snapping open and closed, feet sliding against stone, swords hacking into flesh, spells bursting and being deflected, of grunts and cries and curses. Her dragon was slight and so young—so obviously outmatched against the elder, stronger men—but he was also fast and desperately driven, unable to relent. He attacked with all that he was, burning with every whit of his being—attacked again and again, pressing forward when he should have been pushed back. He rent Atlas’s guts open and spun, scissor-slicing his head clean off in a breathtaking move that stopped her brother mid-attack. Atlas’s slate-scaled body hit the ground with a heavy, final thud, and Gisele bolted from under the bed.
Both Shade and her brother were yelling at her, a blur of sound and movement as she barreled across the room, bare feet striking the cold stone floor. She ran breathless, fast-fast-fast and faster still, terrified to leave her dragon but compelled to follow his earlier command. She ran for the door, for safety. She ran for her mother.
She neared the door, swept forward by a whirlwind of desperation and burning lungs. Three more paces—she was there, she was—
Edelmark, her eldest brother, the one she’d always idolized, stepped into the frame. He too wore black robes that draped to the floor, but his face was bare to her, his green eyes concerned as he put together what was happening. She leaped for
him, crying and hugging her face to his neck. He accepted her weight easily, held her against his chest as if she shouldn’t have a care in the world. And she believed it, because he was her brother and he’d take care of her. Whereas Rhogan was sometimes kind, sometimes cruel to her, teasing but quick to inflict pain when irked, Edelmark tended to ignore her altogether most days, too busy to bother with her, making her burn for his attention and approval.
“Something terrible is happening,” she cried, tears blurring the dark world from her eyes.
“You sure know how to make a mess of things.” Edelmark turned her to look out at the room, to face Rhogan, who was waiting for her, tight-lipped.
Uncertain, she glanced past her middle brother—and saw what he’d done to her dragon. She shrieked, heart-torn.
Rhogan had thrown Shade against the wall. Crucified him with his own swords through wrists and wings. He was white-faced, the life leeching out of him, his lips twisted in pain and grief. Black tears glistened on his cheeks.
“Gisele! No!” he screamed when he saw her. “Don’t! Please, don’t!”
Rhogan lifted the cup two-handed before her. And Edelmark raked a cold, jagged blade across her throat.
Gisele woke with a start, peering into Laurel’s concerned face.
“Touchy,” the detective muttered.
“Sorry,” Gisele replied. “Vivid dream.”
She put a hand to her throat, taken aback by the smooth, solid expanse of it. The dream was already fading, a strange jumble of her imagination—a young Shade crucified, brothers she didn’t have drinking a chalice of her blood as she died—yet she’d half expected to feel the ghost of a scar. This was the third dream she’d had now of a made-up childhood with Shade, and it was starting to unsettle her.
“Let’s get this over with.”
“After you,” Laurel said, leading the way into the small conference room. She spread a file folder on the table and clicked open her pen, sweeping the point over a page of handwritten notes. “What happened to your horns?”
“Donated them to science. Hurt like you wouldn’t believe.”
For a moment the detective just stared at her, eying the scabbed injury. Then she nodded. “Tell me about it on Tuesday?”
Gisele grinned. “If you think you can stomach it over food.”
Laurel laughed and waved the thought away. “Nothing gets me anymore. Not after the Multhorn vic.”
Gisele had seen pictures and lost her lunch. Laurel had been there when the scene was still fresh, the smells ripe. She had a point.
“Don’t you think you’re a little young to be so jaded?”
The detective considered her words, rolling the pen between her fingers before shrugging. “The other night, I bought a six-dollar bottle of wine, a lean cuisine, canned cat food, panty liners, and some fudge-brownie ice cream. The cashier actually looked at me in pity. So you tell me.”
“I thought you were on a Neapolitan kick.”
“I switched it up. You haven’t been around lately.” Laurel gave a small smile, but it held no hint of humor. “So tell me what the hell happened with your apartment. You know this isn’t my subdivision. The guys are doing me a favor.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask you.” Gisele drummed her thumbs against the tabletop. “Besides, they’re going to file this one under paranormal, not arson.”
That grabbed the detective’s interest. “I’m listening.”
Gisele stopped drumming, ran her thumb along the line of her throat where she should’ve had a scar, hating what she was about to admit. “I think someone wants to kill me,” she said.
12
One hour at the precinct seeped into two and then three, stretching an already long day. Gisele wanted nothing more than to skip the trip back to the office, but Shade wasn’t answering her texts—oh, how the ironic tables had turned—and that worried her. Left to his own devices, who knew the sort of trouble he’d stir up?
Mm. Not that she was anyone to talk.
She’d fielded no less than five well-meaning but persistent phone calls from Warrick and Susanna, persuading them that, yes, she really did have a place to sleep, and no, it was not the safe room’s dry-rotting cot. Added to that, Marcel had left her a cryptic message, stating only, “Time is slipping. For all of us.”
Exhausted, Gisele rubbed her temples as Beast weaved them in and out of traffic toward downtown. She was ready to crawl into her new-old empty brick office-slash-home and blessedly call it a night. But first, she had to check on Shade at Warrick’s.
She half-expected to find the office empty when she ducked inside, a rush of cool air caressing her face as she eased past the door. After all, Warrick and Susanna were still out. The windows were dark, and the closed sign still hung askew on its chain. But the front entrance was unlocked. Which meant despite her worries, Shade had to be safe inside, waiting for her.
Relief wreathed her but was short-lived.
The glass door closed behind her, forgotten, the bottom of the metal frame scraping a familiar trail into the sidewalk. For a moment, she simply stood there and stared.
Holy shit.
The place was in ruins. It was so ransacked that at first she thought they’d been robbed. Except that nothing actually appeared to be missing.
A jumble of computer equipment and office supplies littered the floor. Orange, blue, and manila folders spilled from an overturned metal cabinet. And in the shadows, Shade sat slumped in her green swivel chair, the hundred-page contract in his hands. He’d torn half of the damn office and the whole of her desk apart. He’d rummaged through her files, knocked over her pen and paperclips jars, and ripped the bottom right drawer out completely, dropping it on the floor. It was the drawer she kept locked—the drawer she’d left the contract in.
Clearly, it was what he’d been searching for.
“Real mature,” she said, irritated with his reckless, temperamental violence and his blatant disregard for her privacy. “Find what you were looking for?”
No doubt he planned to tattle on her to Warrick. Her contract aside, the grimgolem was going to blow a gasket when he accounted for the damage to their computers alone.
“I hope it was worth it for you,” she continued, “because I am not cleaning this shit up.”
Rather than glare at her, he looked away. His brows drew together, lips pressing a tight line. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” he said, voice raw. “They’ve tricked me.”
“Who has?” Gisele asked, but he ignored her.
The muscles in his arms corded as he gripped the contract tighter, crinkling the thick stack of pages, and she knew who he meant. He really was working with them—the elghoul and its master. For them. Working against her.
Son of a bitch.
She chucked a stapler at him hard enough to bruise his chest, then crossed the room, closing the distance until she could have yanked him up by the collar of his soiled, bloody shirt. Instead, she smacked her hand on the desktop. Wood splintered.
“The woman in this contract? Who is she?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he answered, not even looking at her. Not even now. He sounded so defeated. “They’re going to kill you, and they’re going to use me to do it.”
“But why?”
“Because they’re cruel.” Bitterness swirled in his voice. “Because they can.”
And if they demanded it of him, he’d do it, just like that? What kind of a cold-blooded person was he?
“Are you going to?” she asked, dreading his answer. “Going to rip me apart with your claws? Tear my throat out?”
The image of him, darkly winged and terrifying in the Office of the Paranormal, came crawling back, unwanted. But then it faded, overwritten by the memory of him in her dreams, bleeding, and dancing with his swords, beheading Atlas as he fought to save her.
“Would you really do it?” she asked. It hurt, but she needed to hear him say it. “What happened to ‘I’ll protect you, so you don’t have to be af
raid’?”
His little declaration hadn’t even lasted four hours.
“I won’t have a choice.” He raked a hand through his hair, tearing at the roots.
“Right, I get it. You’re not a good guy. Well, don’t worry. I can defend myself.”
He shoved the desk as he stood, sending it grating across the floor. “You shouldn’t have signed this. You have to break it. Find a loophole, do something.”
“I don’t have to do anything you tell me. Why would I listen to you? You’re just a hired killer. That’s why you came here, right? To watch over me for your masters? Well, I don’t care who you’re indebted to or what they want. Take the damn Mardoll if it’ll make this go away. I want nothing to do with it anymore.”
“That’s not—I can’t just—I’m not a good guy, Gisele!” His words seemed to infuriate him, and he punched a hole in the wall, bloodying his hand. “Fuck!” he cursed. “You don’t know shit. It’s like you’re blind.”
She pulled her left pistol on him—her silver shot—and he raised his hands in the air. “Yeah, I know. I’m going. Don’t worry, I won’t be back.”
“Damn right, you won’t.” She spit on the strewn mess at his feet, a show of bravado to let him know exactly what she thought of him. But her trembling hands betrayed her.
She should have left him in the Office of the Paranormal. He was nothing but a liar.
The bell jingled as the door opened. Beast clomped in, silent and hulking in the entryway.
“It’s fine. I’ve got it under control,” she said to him.
“Shouldn’t fight,” Beast told her.
She ignored him. She could handle herself just fine, and he didn’t know Shade was a killer, out for her blood.
“Don’t let anything happen to her,” Shade threatened Beast as he walked out, leather jacket thrown over one shoulder. “Or I’ll find you.”
When he was gone, Gisele sagged, the waning adrenaline leaving her weak. She’d been right to suspect him all this time. Only she didn’t feel triumphant about it. She felt wounded.
