The Truth About Night

by Amanda Arista

  I leaned back against him, pulling his arm tighter around my waist.

  “How did you stop it?”

  Rafe reached out for the medallion that swung from my neck and flipped it over in his fingers. He held it up the light. The symbols on it had never looked darker before. “It’s a protection charm against magic. A seriously strong one, iron covered in stainless steel. The Demon couldn’t make the spell work while you were protected. But when I took it off when we were, you know … it left you vulnerable.”

  “What kind of spell was it?”

  He ran his finger over the scar on my upper forearm. “Blood control. It’s literally the oldest trick in the book. It allows the controller to take over another’s body like a puppet. But it’s not possession, he wasn’t inside you—”

  “Just using me as a meat marionette. Nice distinction.” I closed my eyes and watched the lightning storm crackle across my brain.

  “You’ve been wearing this, which protects you from location spells, control spells, anything they could have been doing to find you.” He spun the medallion around in his fingers and then dropped it, letting it swing against my stomach. “The moment after I managed to get it back around your neck, the spell was broken. I’ve never seen the likes of this before.”

  “So Ethan’s medallion protects from magic?” The truth snapped me like a rubber band, sharp and quick. “This was why he could lie to me.”

  Rafe nodded, rubbing his scruff along my shirt. “I don’t think he wanted to lie to you, but it probably made it easier to keep the whole truth from you.”

  I curled my fingers around the medallion and held it tight. Two years and how many lies later and he was still protecting me.

  “I have no idea where he got something like that,” Rafe said softly.

  “Probably the same place he got the camera lens that photographs magic. Ethan had a guy on the side, someone else who was putting these things together for him. Emily didn’t even know who it was.”

  Pain, loss, the essence of grieving rippled across his energy. He nestled in closer. The longer we were together, the calmer he grew. He hadn’t been lying; I was a safe spot for him, a dock in the harbor on a stormy afternoon. His arm curled around my waist. He was nearly sitting on the same chair as me now. But he was still there, despite the horrorshow of tonight.

  I took in a deep breath and shuddered able to finally see the truth of what was going on. “So it really is out to get me?”

  “Wanted a more hands-on approach this time.”

  “Too bad he didn’t pick up on my penchant for wolves.”

  Rafe chuckled and rested his head on my shoulder. “We really need to identify which Demon this is,” he said calmly, like talking about Demon blood was an everyday occurrence.

  “And how the pack can defeat something that has permeated the city without hurting anyone else.”

  “And how to kill it.”

  “And I’m going to have to figure out what to do with you in general.”

  Rafe took my hand and nuzzled his nose against my palm, then held it to his face, his budding beard tickling my wrist.

  A chill ran through my core and I tried to pull my hand back to my lap, tried to pull my body away from his.

  A streak of anger flashed across his eyes and he held my hand tightly. “No, Merci. You’re not running from me. I’ve had enough of that for one night.”

  I didn’t know what to say to him. Being around me had almost gotten him killed and I couldn’t live if I lost him too.

  I closed my eyes and tried to find the actual truth, the actual words that I needed to say. It was like looking for gold coins in a haystack. And when I did find the words, it felt more like a glacier I was trying to haul out of the ocean than gold. “I’m scared.”

  “You said you weren’t afraid of me. That I made everything stop,” he protested quickly.

  “No, I’m scared of what I will turn this into. No one can tolerate truth all the time. It’s Chinese water torture. You will break at some point. And I’m afraid of what will happen without you.”

  He looked down at our hands in my lap. “I’m already broken, Merci.”

  “Rafe, I—”

  “No, Merci. I mean I have been broken and the scars make me stronger. I know my penchant for temptation, which is why you will always have to tell me the truth. The good and the bad.”

  I let out a shuddering sigh that reminded me of the burn in my body and the tremble in my hands. “Wow, the truth is scary as hell.”

  “Amen.”

  My head spun in the honesty of his affection and the ache of the evening. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Then sleep. It’s nearly three a.m.”

  “I want nothing more. But there is a story to chase, Rafe. Hell is empty and all the Demons are here.”

  He smiled, then chuckled, then leaned back in the chair, still holding my hand. “Like a dog with a bone.”

  “At least I don’t avoid the truth like a plague?”

  He looked up at me. Those brilliantly blue eyes so full of every answer I think I’d ever been searching for. “Are we done with the wordplay?”

  “I hope we aren’t done with the word play for a very long time.”

  My feet were cold. That is what technically woke me up. My feet were ice cold and sticking out from under my blanket. Which meant I had kicked my socks off in bed, which means I was hot, because I’d fallen asleep last night curled tightly in Rafe’s embrace.

  The memory surrounded me like his smell on my pillow. I’d slept dreamless dreams, which has probably for the best, and I was more like Merci than I had been in a month. I stretched and tested myself. My legs, my arms, my toes. Everything seemed to be in working order.

  I sat up and adjusted Ethan’s medallion to hang forward. I got my tank top into the right place as well and reached for a hair tie to pull my curls out of my face.

  There was an energy in the air, something that flicked at the Charm like a fly to a horse’s hide, something on the edge of today I could already feel. I’d gotten the feeling before. Before a big break in a story. Before my mother had called to tell me she was getting remarried. So today could go either way.

  After freshening up, I joined Rafe at the kitchen table. He was awake and dressed and already halfway through a pot of coffee.

  “Oh, God. You’re a morning person,” I grumbled as I poured myself a mug.

  “It’s not morning anymore,” he said as he caught my hips and turned me toward him. “How are you feeling?”

  I didn’t need to lie to him. “I feel good, rested, stronger. Thank you.”

  He smiled and I thought I saw a faint blush on his cheek. He was never going to survive me if that was going to make him blush. He took my empty hand and nuzzled his nose into my palm.

  “Why do you do that?”

  “It’s a universal sign of affection in my breed. Does it bother you?”

  I could still feel his breath against the inside of my palm and the scruff of his cheek on my fingers. “No. It’s just different.”

  “You really should rest. Doctor’s orders.”

  I snorted. “You have a doctorate in Literature. And I am …” I had to glance at the clock on the wall. It was nearly four in the afternoon. “Seriously behind.”

  “No worries. Haven’t really missed much. I’ve just been reading. I rang Piper and let her know what we found out about the spell.”

  My skin tightened. “What about the blood control?”

  He shook his head. “We handled that. You don’t dare take this medallion off until that Demon is dead. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” I surveyed the books on the table. “What language is this one in?”

  “An archaic version of Welsh. It takes a wee bit to translate, but they have the best fairy lore, so I thought it was worth the read after what we found last night.”

  “How far have you gotten?”

  “Not much farther.”

  He pulled me to the table, and it l
iterally took me two seconds to get from snuggly mode into dead body mode. That was how my brain worked. I could go from tender to torture in under thirty seconds.

  “If I am translating everything properly, the Gia’r DLoom needs five, not four. Everything refers to five. So we just need two pieces of information.”

  “Where and who?”

  “Close. Where and, considering the twisted nature of the spell, who is going to be the last sacrifice?”

  “What?”

  He flipped the magical book toward me and pointed to a passage handwritten in a language that was beyond dead. “I knew the center stone needed blood to seal it, but it appears that the person who gives the blood fuels the spell, like they are the battery that keeps the protection spell up.”

  “Okay.” I reoriented my brain to what that meant for the Demon. “So he is looking for the blood of the person who will be feeding from the spell to complete the spell? Wait. Is that me? Is it my blood?”

  Rafe nodded slowly. “This really is a type of elegance in magic that hasn’t been used in centuries.”

  I glared at him. “Can you not wax poetic about the demon who wants me as a meat suit?”

  He looked down at the table appropriately scolded.

  I studied the runes, at the map, at the books. Something was off. It itched at me and I let the static of the Charm fill my brain, as every one of my neurons sizzled with the magic.

  But it was my journalist training to lay everything out like dominos, to make sure that every inch of the investigation was covered.

  “Let’s walk through it. The demon probably got the blood the first night, when I was supposed to be the first sacrifice.”

  “Ethan fought them off, but they would still have your blood on them.”

  “So Demon gets a whiff of the blood, goes, I want that meat suit and tries to do a spell to find me. But he can’t because I’ve been wearing Ethan’s medallion since that night.”

  “Could you please stop calling yourself a meat suit?” he asked.

  “Fine. Is corporeal host better?”

  “Yes, thank you. Continue.”

  I turned back to the maps. “So he goes back to Benny, and when Benny refuses to help him, he takes Tay-Tay.”

  “You’re missing one.”

  Four bodies. “Right. John Mitchell attacked me the night before he died.”

  “Do you think he was possessed?” Rafe asked.

  “No. Mitchell was an ass, but that night he was just doing his job. He ripped the bandage from my arm. If any of my blood had gotten on him, could the demon have tracked that?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the Demon works the spell to find me, finds Mitchell instead. Drags him to the first sacrifice point and the spell is begun.”

  “Then Tay-Tay, Beakman who was obviously some sort of statement, since he was killed in the convenience store, and then Benny.”

  “And it’s been game on since then. Demon tortures Benny and uses Dot to find me. We’re drawn out. It find us, his minions take you, you come back to me, it tries to take me, I come back to you and …”

  Running my finger over the map, the information clicked, the big picture, the last domino lined up perfectly. I flipped through my notebook for the addresses of the death spots. The truth trickled down my arm as I pointed to a popular area of town for dance clubs and the place for young co-eds to get attacked in the dark. “This is where Dot was supposed to die.”

  Rafe licked his lips and travelled the city with his fingers. “But this is where Benny actually died. The fourth death spot.”

  He grabbed a black marker from his pocket and we transcribed the locations of the four dead bodies on the Cartwright holdings map. Using the edge of a folder and referring back to the sigils in the book, he connected them like the hourglass drawing I’d seen in my Dad’s journal.

  When he was done, I slid the map back in front of me. “Oh that’s good.”

  “What?” Rafe asked.

  “As far as Benny knew, the epicenter was supposed to be at Schuylkill and Bainbridge, based on where Dot was supposed to die. But we forced a change of plans and Benny’s death shifted the epicenter of the spell five blocks north.”

  I wanted to do a happy dance. “It’s not highlighted. Cartwright doesn’t own that one. He might be scrambling, rushed, getting desperate.”

  Rafe finished my thought. “He might make a mistake.”

  My journalist muscle flexed. “I could case the new place, see what I can get from the cops around the area. I’ve done more with less.”

  Rafe didn’t have to say how unhappy he was with that suggestion, it was written in bold furrows across his brow.

  “What? We know where he is now. We can find him.”

  “Just listen to yourself. You really want to run toward a demon who wants to kill you. Have you no self-preservation?”

  I stopped. “But if I stay put, he’ll just use Jeffery Cartwright’s blood and finish the spell anyway. And he could feed off anyone within the Gia’r DLoom perimeter, have any number of hosts.”

  Rafe brushed a curl behind my ear. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, he clutched his chest and his body was ripped from me, like some invisible lasso had yanked him backward and out of my arms.

  “Rafe?” I gasped.

  He took in a deep breath and his shoulders relaxed. “Piper is sounding an alarm.”

  “She can do that? Just pull a string or something and you know?”

  Rafe nodded. “Every Shifter.”

  “Wow,” I breathed. Now that really was a Den Mother.

  My cell phone rang. Levi’s name appeared across my phone. I stared at it for a moment and then answered the call.

  “It’s Levi. The troops are gathering.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Get here ASAP. I’ll text the address.”

  “Aye, Aye, Captain.”

  Levi hung up without any more ceremony. I dropped the phone to the table.

  Rafe was staring at me.

  “Must be huge if Levi is calling me.”

  I buzzed at the door and waited. I kept my eyes peeled to the darkening street and buzzed again and again until finally someone answered. Even Rafe’s heat at my back couldn’t stop the new caution of shadows, the exposed feeling of the night.

  “Yeah,” the speaker box barked out.

  “It’s Lanard.”

  The speaker went dead and the door buzzed open.

  The elevator was cold and rickety and I took a moment just to take in Rafe. His eye was still bruised, but on the purple side of healing. His lip was split and he had the ancient Welsh book tucked under his arm.

  I’d been unable to hide the new fingermark bruises on my throat and no amount of concealer could cover the circles under my eyes. I had my usual arsenal cluttering my messenger bag, including Ethan’s camera.

  But we were here together. Partners.

  When the elevator stopped, Rafe threw his weight against the metal door and I caught a whiff of that musky sandalwood. I inhaled deeply and took the strength I needed to walk into the loft space. Following Rafe, I organized my thoughts with each step, separated facts from speculation, guilt from truths.

  The familiar faces of the pack were gathered around a table, the same faces I’d seen around the Ping-Pong table. Other packmates huddled in the corners and watched as I joined Levi and the other pack leaders. The table was scattered with the familiar printouts I had given Piper two days ago. It seemed so long ago. So much had happened. I’d pissed off a Demon, gotten a declaration of love, been blood controlled. It was shaping into a very strange week.

  Xenom, the other Riko, spoke. It was the most I’d ever heard him say. “Piper got a distress call from a few pack members. We think they’ve been taken. We’ve got a few people out still searching, but even Piper can’t locate them.”

  I looked to Levi, who turned away from me. I was never going to win over Levi, no matter how many times I saved his ass. But I didn
’t need friends, I needed people I could trust. Speaking of people I could trust.

  “Where’s Emily?” I asked.

  No one answered my question. I scanned the faces again. “Where’s Cleo?”

  Levi’s only response was a clenched jaw hard enough to break teeth.

  Emily? They had taken Emily. Cartwright was going after them to draw me out, probably irate that I had been rescued by a Shifter again. More innocents on the line because he wanted my blood. By taking the first person who truly accepted me, who I could call friend.

  The storm started to brew, but it was different this time. Darker, deeper. It came from a place that wasn’t my head, but more from my chest and I felt the thunder of it in my bones.

  “How did it happen?” I asked. I wasn’t going to push anyone for answers, but I used the static to keep my ears sharp and my brain focused.

  “After school. Emily and Cleo went to pick up the kids for their lessons. They didn’t make it to the park.”

  “He took kids?” I clarified.

  “The three youngest of the Thompson pack.”

  I could feel the lightning crack up my spine, the sizzle of it. Something to chase and this bastard didn’t know what was going to hit him. Cartwright was getting desperate. He didn’t need the kids for the spell. He only needed me. This was just to guarantee that I would make it there. I looked at Rafe and confirmed that he was thinking the same thing as I was.

  The moment of silence between us was the breaking point for Levi and the façade cracked. He thrust his finger over the table between us. “If you and MacCallan are holding back any information, I will personally rip your throat out.”

  And he was telling the truth. Didn’t need the Charm to tell me that.

  Levi shoved the maps at me. “Your informant said they were holed up at Schuylkill and Bainbridge. It’s a solid Cartwright holding. We go in, get our people out.”

  “We have new information. We can’t go rushing in,” Rafe said.

  “They can’t take our people and think they can get away with it,” Levi roared, pushing out a hot wave of energy that was far from puppy and more like vicious guard dog.