Stone Goddess (Isabella Hush Series Book 3)

by Thea Atkinson

  "What's this?" He demanded. "You're not one of mine. Where is my grey?"

  He was rigid with suppressed anger.

  "Come to me, Scottie," I said, dragging my eyes from Absalom's face and pinning them to Scottie's eyes. I needed to reach him. His body was here, but his spirit was still running afraid.

  I tried not to sound afraid or rushed, but I knew why his fist was clenched. I knew why he was here, why he looked so afraid.

  "Come to me," I said.

  If Scottie would have trusted anyone in that state, it would be me. He scurried forward no matter how much doing so must have hurt, and I reached for him and pulled him close, cradling him the way I might a child. I ran my hands down along his tattered shirt, pulling at the tatters, drawing them closed over his skin. It must've been what he was wearing when he'd been taken.

  A piece of his shirt tore off in my hand.

  Absalom rushed down the stairs, two greys following.

  "You're safe now," I said to Scottie. "I've got you."

  I put my hand over his, Tapping his fingers the way I would a child who had picked up something dangerous. It opened obediently and the stone dropped into my palm, nestling nicely in the scrap of shirt that protected my skin from its touch.

  "He's been assaulting me," I whispered in a ragged voice. "He thinks I'm his bitch, not yours."

  If the feral animal in Scottie was roused by anything, it was jealousy. Now with fear and rage added to the mix, it roared to the surface.

  I knew what he'd just been through. I imagined it was all the horrors that I could imagine and more. But I also knew Scottie would need to strike out in response. The man in him could only survive if the animal could fight for him. Scottie would have made a great shifter. He gave over to that part of himself frequently – and not just to save himself. It was part of his nature. He lived and thrived to control.

  He wanted his vengeance. He didn't need an excuse to exact it, but he would want it all the same.

  I watched him struggle to his feet, and I thought I saw the ghost of a smile play across his lips as the two greys charged at him. The animal in him knew better than I did how important it was for him to reclaim his ferocity. He wasn't a victim. He would never be a victim. And he wasn't about to let the things Lucifer had done to him turn him into one.

  The moment Scottie launched himself at Absalom and his greys, was the same moment I hurled myself toward the stairs.

  I heard Absalom cry out to one of his greys to grab me, and I ran like fire was licking at my heels, thudding my way up the stairs, stumbling twice before I managed to get to the top. I couldn't catch myself as I stumbled against the door, trying to open it with closed fists. I had the real stone in one hand, and the fake in the other. I couldn't let either of them go.

  I had to use my wrists and the friction of skin to open the door.

  Too much sweat made my grip a slick, ineffectual thing.

  Scottie roared, an aching, animalistic sound that reverberated in my chest and buckled my knees.

  I had to get the door open. The thing wouldn't budge.

  The wet and harsh sounds of struggle preceded that of a meaty sounding thwack. Someone or something hit the floor.

  Hard.

  I prayed it wasn't Scottie.

  I worked at the knob and cast a harried glance down the stairs. The bed was on its side, mattress separated from its partner. The springs of the iron frame clawing at the air. One of the legs was missing.

  I found it planted in the grey's stomach. What should have been blood pooling from the wound looked more like tar.

  Absalom, face suffused with rage, stood over the puddle that formed. A thread of light stretched from his fingertips to the fluid.

  I was transfixed, unable to make a move.

  Scottie pounded up the steps behind me.

  "It's a fucken lever, Sis," he bellowed. "Yank on it."

  He reached past me and pulled the knob upward and pushed me through the maw as the door shrieked open. We both fell through the door into the apothecary shop.

  I twisted my leg when he landed on top of me but I didn't have time to inspect the damage or cradle the pain. He pushed me to my feet, shoving me forward so powerfully, I gobbled up three steps in one from the sheer force of it.

  "Run, Sis," he said, breathless with adrenaline. "I don't know what the fuck is going on or even if I'm dreaming the shit out of all this but there's no fucken way I'm living through hell to let a pussy in slippers take me out."

  I had to give it to Scottie. He'd always been a take charge sort of guy. Nothing short of death would keep him from winning. Competition fueled his heart beat and danger was the pool he dipped his toes into for refreshment.

  I hadn't exactly banked on his fierce brawler spirit, but I was grateful for it.

  One look over my shoulder showed him barring the door with both arms, giving me time to propel myself deeper into the shop.

  "Holy fuck," he said to the opening of the doorway.

  That was it. Two words to describe the mangy looking, greyish coyote that leapt from the basement stairs at him. It was three times the size and it had Absalom's long mane of silver hair. I gaped as its mouth, unhinged and dripped brackish looking saliva onto the floor where it sizzled and hissed.

  I thought it was going to swallow Scottie's head.

  It snapped his head forward, aiming for Scottie. He fell backward just in time.

  A brawler Scottie might be, but he was used to having backup. It had been years since he had engaged in hand-to-hand combat of any sort. And that combat had been fists, feet, and the occasional weapon.

  I wasn't sure how effective he would be against soulless zombies more dogged than a pitbull and more deadly than a wiry accountant refusing to cook the books.

  All I knew was I had to run.

  My elbow yelped as I smashed into a shelf, and realized I was still running, so intent on what was going on behind me, that I wasn't watching where I was going.

  I clambered over the mess of skulls and mortars, pestles, vials of powder and liquid. My feet squished into fluids that drained onto the floor. I sneezed as the powders rose to dust into my nose.

  I fled the shop, pulling things from the shelves with my fists and kicking things ahead of me as I went. Crystal orbs shattered as they struck the door. I could see the street, people milling past. Taxi cabs blared horns and people, regular everyday human people cursed and laughed.

  A sob fled my lungs.

  I was almost there.

  I prayed it would be enough.

  I prayed Scottie wasn't already dead.

  But I didn't stop to turn around. I didn't stop to look over my shoulder. I didn't have time to wonder if Maddox felt the re-entry of the stone to the mortal plane and would know he was saved from a Hellish journey.

  I just flung myself headlong toward the door.

  CHAPTER 25

  At first, the only thing I heard behind me was the door slamming shut.

  As I skidded to a stop in front of the apothecary shop, scanning this way and that for best escape route, I felt worry for Scottie raising a rash of thoughts in my mind. I would never have taken him for a knight in shining armour, but he had just saved me. Given me a chance to save my life in an act of selfless chivalry.

  I owed him. What had begun as a way to give Maddox an out, had ended with an unexpected realization that my ex could be compassionate.

  The thought gobbed up all my mental gears and I wasn't sure how to react.

  The sun was sinking down over the buildings, casting a fiery glow across the brooding sky line. The streets were emptying out of people who had been working for the day and were going home for supper. It was filling up with nightwalkers, but not enough that I could disappear into the crowds. Certainly not with a chupacabra hot on my heels if Absalom stayed in that form at all. I wasn't sure how the shapeshifting thing worked. Would he have control? Could he change at will?

  I dimly wondered if someone would call animal co
ntrol.

  I skirted to the side, pressing my back flat against the brick wall of the building in case Absalom came rushing out at me. I didn't expect the mangy animal to hang sideways before it burst forth. A man, maybe. He might be more careful, inspecting the area the hopes of finding direction I'd gone. It gave me maybe, what?, Three minutes?

  At best.

  I edged along the bricks, feeling my way with my fingers as I kept my eye on the door. Fear thudded against my chest. My breath was coming in rasps.

  When the door creaked open, my instinct was to let go a shriek of surprise and fear, but I bit down on it, sucking in a breath and holding it.

  Someone did burst out of the door, but it wasn't Absalom or the chupacabra. It was Scottie. And he panned his gaze left, not right, knowing exactly which way I would go because he knew my habits, my nature.

  He swung his gaze along the brick wall to find me, my eyes straining wide at his exit, unable to shutter down because of the fear.

  "I thought I told you to run," he said. "Get moving, Sis."

  And then he was coming at me, full-tilt.

  "I don't know what the fuck that was or what's going on, but there's two more of them."

  He pushed me roughly ahead of him. I staggered.

  When I almost felt, he grabbed me by the elbow and yanked me along with him as he flung himself down the alleyway.

  "We have to hide out somewhere," he said. "Lay low."

  His breathing was ragged and he was limping, and even if his gait was somewhat slower than normal, the power in his arms was unmistakable. He yanked me along without concern for my welfare or whether I was stumbling or stopping. The grip he had on my elbow was so ferocious it hurt as it dug into the muscles.

  We rounded another corner, one that led into the bowels of the seedier part of town. A streetlight sizzled to life around us and he swore at it, muttering something about being too bright. They'd see us.

  "Get over there," he said and pushed me into the shadows where the glow couldn't reach. He stood beneath it, bathed in light, almost taunting whatever decided to burst into the mouth of the alley like a old-fashioned bait and switch.

  He planned to distract whatever came around the corner.

  And come it did. It wasn't the chupacabra, though, and for that I was grateful. Instead, what rounded into the opening from the street were three greys, this time more brawnier than the last. I wasn't sure where Absalom had kept them, or how many he had at his whim, but they took one look at Scottie standing beneath the wash of streetlamp and they tore for him.

  Scottie held his position. I stuffed my hand in my mouth, biting down on my fingers to keep from shouting.

  Absalom strolled along behind, his long silver hair swinging behind him in the breeze. It was like watching a horror movie in a disco setting. One moment he was lit by light, the next he was swallowed up in shadow.

  Scottie waited until the greys were several feet from him before he came to life.

  He was exhausted, and I knew he was. And yet he marshaled the strength he needed to fight them off. One by one they went down, not with the grace of battle that Maddox had, but in brutal and cruel fakes and jabs that spoke of his street savvy and the decades of bringing men to heel.

  When the last of them fell at his feet, I could see that the adrenaline had long drained from his body and he was acting purely on instinct and determination. His movements were slow and he had a drugged look to his face as he swung about, tracking my movements, searching for one more opponent to attack.

  Absalom halted, his head canted to the side, and I realized whatever he was doing, it would inevitably end in more greys rounding that corner.

  "We need to get out of here, Scottie," I said to him. "You need to rest. We need to run."

  Scottie hated running. It was my thing. He made fun of me over the years for hightailing it with my tail between my legs. This time, I ran for Scottie and wrapped my arm around his shoulders.

  I hauled him with me. This time it was him stumbling over the cobblestones being dragged along. I hailed a cab and made it zigzag through the streets until it came upon the first hotel I could find.

  The lobby was filthy. Several kindred hung about. I was getting good at recognizing them now. I didn't care. It was only moments away from the alley, but it would have to do. Both of us were fading.

  "I need a room," I barked at the clerk.

  "Cash only," he said without lifting a brow.

  "The regular rate in advance or scads of it later?" I said.

  He looked us over. "Scads of it later," he said.

  I'd lost my cell phone, but there was no doubt a phone in the room. I'd call Maddox or, failing that, my landlord. Bar the damn door. Recuperate for a few hours. Maybe get some sleep.

  Scottie wasn't ready for sleep. Exhausted as he was, he was amped up on endorphins and his body wasn't about to give in to what it so desperately needed that his blinks resembled a cartoon.

  "Isabella," Scottie whispered. "What was all that?"

  I laid him backwards on the bed and peeled off his bloody socks. "Never mind," I said. "I'll explain later. Right now you need rest."

  His shoulders were hunched and he sagged over his lap. Spent of adrenaline, he didn't have the energy to lift his face to mine. He just numbly let me peel his ragged and bleeding clothes off him. He lifted one arm so I could drag the sleeve off before pulling it across his back and down the other arm. His hands fell limply to the bed. He reminded me of a boxer who had taken too many blows to the head. Punch drunk.

  I wondered at the willpower that kept him upright.

  Just lie back," I said and lifted his feet sideways onto the mattress. He collapsed backwards onto the pillow.

  "What's going on?" he said. "Did I really just see all that?" His words were slurred and mumbled.

  "You touched the weapon, didn't you," I said, giving him the best explanation I could. "I told you it was dangerous."

  "The bag," he said. I put it in the safe. But it kept calling to me."

  I ran my fingers across his forehead, sweeping his hair back and blotting aside clots of blood from his cheek. His eyes were still a remarkable shade of blue. My breath caught in my throat. Whatever I thought of him, whatever brutish things he'd done over his years, he had risked it all to save me.

  "Thank you," I whispered and leaned over to plant a moth of a kiss on the least bruised place on his cheek.

  He was already comatose when I lifted my head.

  I let go a heavy sigh. I needed a shower. But more than that I needed rest. And there was the phone. I really should call Maddox. If not just to make sure he hadn't taken that railroad trip to Hell in a handbasket.

  All intentions aside, I woke up—I wasn't sure how many hours later—lying across the bed with my arm over Scottie's waist.

  He was turned in to face me. Those piercing blue eyes, not so many hours earlier drugged and bloodshot, were now bright and inquisitive.

  "That rock was able to do all of that?" he said.

  I nodded, my face scraping against the satin pillowcase.

  "And what exactly was it all about?" he said, his brow creased with the intrigue. He was already measuring out how it could benefit him.

  Looking at him so close, I knew I couldn't lie to him. I explained as much as I could without giving him too many details. The gist of it was the stone was able to send the handler to hell, that there was a supernatural world parallel to our own. That goblins and vampires and banshees were real.

  I did not tell him he had come a hair's breadth from immortality.

  He listened without interrupting until I finished and he stared at me for a long while, digesting it all.

  "My throat is a ragged mess," he said, coughing through the words.

  I fingered the candy bowl and found a cherry flavored cough drop.

  I held it in my grasp as I regarded him. We'd just lain together for hours and I was no worse the wear. He seemed different somehow. Maybe I wanted it to be so or ma
ybe Hell had mellowed him.

  I climbed onto the bed and kneed my way toward him. He watched me with half slitted eyes until I unwrapped the candy and pinched it between my fingers. Then he popped open his mouth like a baby bird and I laid the lozenge on his tongue.

  He sucked the candy, his cheeks hollowing in. A small sound of pleasure rumbled through his chest.

  "Better?" I said.

  He eased his eyes closed and nodded.

  He looked so damn broken. There was nothing vicious about the man that lay there.

  He'd been ravaged by a fight that must have cracked open his very soul and left it to bleed like an egg from its shell. He wore the struggle of it in the set of his shoulders, the way his leg lay crookedly against the bedspread. Exhaustion and the effort of breathing made his skin sallow.

  The Scottie of my youth peeked out from the shadows of the pain that crested and let go on his face. He winced with each movement and held his left arm tightly against his stomach like a broken wing.

  And yet he'd survived.

  And then he'd risked his life once more.

  For me.

  Something in me cracked. I found myself lying down next to him, snuggling in tight the way I'd done for years in the early morning. My memory jogged back to a sunny kitchen, the smell of fragrant coffee fingering its way down the hall, the happy sound of him snoring next to me while I waited for him to wake up.

  The times after that didn't matter. I wanted him to change, to soften, and maybe if I wanted that, I had to offer him the same thing.

  Forgiveness.

  I think I sniffled.

  "Poor Sis," he murmured. "All alone through all that."

  I raised my eyes to see him looking at me.

  "You believe me?"

  "Fuck," he said. "I lived it."

  He ran the back of his knuckles over the crest of my cheek. "You shouldered that all alone?" he said. "My brave Sis. Such a warrior."

  The pad of his thumb whispered along the line of my bottom lip, tracing the ridge until his palm found my cheek. He heeled his hand until it burrowed in my hair, and he cupped the nape of my neck with his palm.