The Truth About Night

by Amanda Arista

“You can wail on me later. Can you get him over here?”

  Rutherford stepped close to me quicker than I’d ever seen him move before. He loomed over me, his voice low and between us. “I’ve been after this guy for a year now and damn it if you didn’t find him first. Now, I can work a spell that might slow him down if you can get him within two feet of the cage.”

  I opened my mouth to barrage him with questions: questions about him, magic, lies. My father.

  Rutherford grabbed me and covered my mouth. “Listen, Lanard. I will let you question me until next Tuesday, but after. We have the same mission now. We have always had the same mission.”

  When I didn’t fight him or move to ask another question, he slowly let me go.

  “How do I get him over here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Use that sparkling personality of yours. Makes me want to punch you sometimes.”

  I glared at him. Rutherford. But seriously? Straight-laced, steadfast Rutherford was a Warlock? Crap, the next thing I was going to learn was that Hayne was some sort of headline predicting psychic.

  I snorted. Why not? My life was upside down anyway. “Two feet?”

  Rutherford nodded as he picked up a rough looking piece of metal from the ground and held it to his wrist.

  Instead of watching Rutherford cut himself, I hurried to the front of the cell, my mind running on overdrive. Demon Cartwright was preparing a table, well, actually, it was a thick board of wood on two wood horses. He had book open and was marking the makeshift altar with symbols in white chalk. My good old friends the Old Speak runes probably. Complete with black candles. Joy.

  But now was not the time for sarcasm or speculation.

  So I had to go on the facts, what I did know? Who? A group of minions stood around, like they were waiting for a show to begin, and not the best-looking people. Thirty at a rough count. Those higher up on the totem pole of evil were very apparent. They were fed and decently dressed, but his thugs only numbered ten.

  Where? Emily and Cleo and the children were trapped in the adjacent cells. The cages were well constructed, so this Cartwright family really was handy with a welding torch considering he’s had less than a week to change his location. We were in the tunneled-out basement of the office building.

  When? I looked down at my cell phone with no signal. It was fifteen minutes after eleven. Levi should be ready to invade. Any time now.

  What? What could I do to get him to come closer?

  The plan became a lot clearer when one of the thugs walked forward and plunged a needle-full of something dark into Rafe’s arm. I cried out. “No!”

  Rafe stiffened and shook as if the darkness were burning through him. His eyes locked with mine. He put his hands up as if to say ‘stop’ and nodded.

  But nodded at what? He couldn’t possibly be telling me that he wanted this. Wanted the same thing to happen to him now that happened before. To be so full of this Demon blood he went feral again.

  A feral wolf wouldn’t be strapped to a chair for long, though. If he thought his wolf was stronger than a few thugs, he might even the odds until the others got here. And if I knew anything, it was that I could bring him back. He didn’t have the weaknesses that had made him easy prey for Jovan. He would come back to me. Like he had the first time.

  The truth of it echoed through the power itching along my skin and turned it to silk for a moment as the plan solidified in my head. Play to our strengths: me being a pain in the ass and Rafe’s experience with magic’s dark side.

  I put on my softest face. It wasn’t one I used often. I called through the bars, “Just no more, okay?”

  The Demon slowly strutted closer to the cage. “Why not?”

  “If you’re going to kill him, just kill him. But not that.”

  One of the men prepared another syringe from the tray. I’d seen freebasing before, but I’d never seen blood used as the liquid. The man sprinkled in a white powder before he held it over a white candle to purify the mixture. He pulled the plunger up on the syringe and it filled with the dark liquid.

  I stared at Rafe as the man injected him, this time in the neck. Even from across the room, I could see fingers of darkness streak across his pale skin.

  “He’ll let me in. They all do, and then maybe …” The Demon paused to think. “Maybe make him kill himself.”

  So not only was this Demon cocky, he really didn’t think things through. The last time they had done this, Rafe had escaped in wolf form and the blood on his snout hadn’t been his. How could Cartwright forget that? Or did he just not care how many minions he lost, if it meant he gained a permanent host?

  I was momentarily offended at the notion of someone so stupid was trying to steal my body and the truth flew from my lips. “You’re not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, are you?”

  The Demon cocked his head and smiled again, if you could call it a smile. His gums were yellowed and bloodless above his brown, rotting teeth. The demon’s hunger was sucking even the nutrients out of this body.

  When his eyes turned toward Rafe, mine followed. At the silent command, the man pushed in another full syringe of the drug. Rafe’s face flushed red, but even as he struggled, he looked up at the ceiling. From the corner of my eye, I saw as the other Shifters did to. It was that synchronicity the pack had. Reinforcements were coming.

  Thank you, Levi, and your pointed head.

  I hoped Rutherford’s spell was almost ready, because I didn’t want to have to keep pushing the Demon, who in turn was pushing the blood into Rafe.

  “Well, first off,” I started. “If you are going to put up protection sigils, you have to put them on all the entrances into the space, windows included.”

  The Demon looked up and with a flick of his hand, the loitering minions in the back sprang to life like marionettes, charged through the door, and started scrambling up the stairs.

  “And secondly, you’re pumping that into a Primo, not just some Shifter. And his wolf is more powerful than your proxies.”

  “Doesn’t matter. My men can handle it.” The Demon looked over to Rafe and laughed, before taking a step closer to me “Besides, he doesn’t believe he can beat me.”

  “It doesn’t matter, because I do.”

  The Demon moved even closer and his eyes met mine. He was within an arm’s reach. I actually had annoyed him into striking distance. Perhaps that is a new superpower I hadn’t discovered yet: being both annoying and armed to the teeth with portable electronic weaponry.

  “Not sure what the security situation was last time you were on this plane of existence, but you really need to have someone do pat downs at the door.”

  I jammed my arm through the bars with the Taser crackling.

  The Demon was too fast and grabbed my hand holding the charged weapon. The Taser’s blue light gleamed against his face. It illuminated the real Demon behind the thin skin, the gruesome thing that wore the face. A dark skeleton of something not human, not of this realm.

  My heart stopped for a moment at the sight. My skin prickled as he took the plastic box from my hand and threw it across the floor, his fingers wrapping around my wrist.

  “And you’re supposed to be the bright one in this situation?”

  “Yep.”

  His grip tightened on my arm. “You know your father talked too, tried to distract me with his words. In the end, I found his weakness and climbed in.”

  “What was his weakness?”

  “His precious family. When I threatened to possess your mother, he volunteered, carved the mark himself.”

  “My mother?” I snapped.

  “Her Lilin blood would have made an excellent host – and those curves …” he whistled through thin lips.

  “My mother’s blood.” I couldn’t believe it. My June Cleaver of a mother without a pearl out of place was the true Lilin.

  “Ripe with demonic power that one.”

  The truth sunk in my gut and made me a stone for a moment. “My father was human
.”

  “Clever little man with that train trick. Took me nearly a decade to get all my bits back together and find another willing Cartwright. This one was ready for me. At his lowest, thanks to you destroying his plans with the Mayor. He was all too happy to make you my first sacrifice.”

  The timing. The timing was all making sense to me now. It really was all about me. “The construction bribes.”

  “Slipped into sonny boy here right after he was found out, and now we are dancing, Miss Lanard.”

  My mother was the Lilin, my father was the human, and I was Merci Lanard. Ace reporter who never even had a clue.

  A tear pooled in the corner of my eye and I sniffed. “I loved my father, but he didn’t have what I have.”

  The Demon laughed. “What’s that?”

  “Backup.”

  Light coursed around us, and for a moment, I was showered in lava as the spell burned through me and enveloped the Demon. Though the pendant protected me from the spell, it didn’t protect me from the melting flesh of his hand locked around my wrist. I yanked my arm away, pulling a layer of his skin with me. The strip of flesh ate at my skin like acid and I rubbed it against the bars to get it off.

  Skin dripped off the figure before me. Half his face gone, light danced along the Demon’s black cheekbone and the socket of the once steel-eyed man was replaced by a void that my eyes ached to behold.

  The Demon pulled away and clawed at his face, creating a clearer divide between Demon and man. I was too focused on the teeth that went all the way back to where the man’s ear was still hanging on like a bad Halloween mask. The figure shook and I could feel as the Demon pulled energy to him, to heal himself or to ready himself for a little pay back, I didn’t know.

  Three people at the edge of the room shriveled into piles of bone. The Demon laughed as he stood straight and looked over at me. “Good one, Witch.”

  Rutherford pulled me away from the bars. I held my burned arm as I watched the Demon recover. It was hard to watch, like looking into a black hole not quite formed yet, but it was solid nonetheless. That was how much he had already taken from humans, taken from innocents in my city—enough to be half corporeal on this plane.

  A growl echoed across the room.

  Everyone’s gaze jumped over to Rafe, or where Rafe used to be. The chair was on its side and a wolf stood over the body of the thug who had been injecting the serum into his system. Blood covered his snout and I couldn’t see Rafe in its eyes.

  Another growl caught my attention, another wolf. In the cages at my right, the children had shifted, caught up in the ripple of Rafe’s power.

  Emily stood there, her fists at her side. “Levi is here.”

  “Ready to punch something?”

  “Hell yes.”

  That’s when the building rumbled and the ceiling caved in. Rutherford grabbed me, throwing himself over me as the rubble fell. Something heavy landed on us, but Rutherford bore the weight of it. It was deafening and I cursed Levi for not using the stairs like a normal person. But then again, I hadn’t broken the protection sigil upstairs so guess he’d had to compromise with explosives. Bless his furry little construction foreman head.

  As the dust settled, I watched the flood of animals pour through the hole in the ceiling. The explosion loosened one wall of my cell enough to make it fall. Gingerly, Rutherford pushed the wall of bars up so I could slink out from under him.

  It was chaos. Beautiful, rescuing chaos.

  As the dust still settled, I could smell cinnamon in the air. A reminder that Piper was protecting her people the only way she could, by fueling them with her power, through her connection to them, making them stronger, faster. And it was incredible to watch.

  The animals went for the thugs, the puppets, for everyone. Like a chaotic wave of fur and maybe a few feathers, they flooded the basement and crashed against the men standing unprepared. Screams ricocheted through the dust.

  As I tried to find Cartwright in the chaos, I stood there for a moment reveling in the cacophony of howls and screams and hissing pipes. Just taking it in, letting the melee of it all soak into me and sizzle across my skin. The bear rose up on its hind legs and took out two minions as if they were made of paper. Three wolves moved on a Shadow Man like a synchronized swim team as two pulled at his arms and one went for the throat. The smell of blood and rot filled the air as bodies dropped to the floor. There was a perfection in it, a life that I appreciated on a cellular level.

  I finally saw Cartwright, for an instant across the battle floor. Honestly, it was pretty easy to find blinding white hair in the dim room. He was staring at me, across the river of wolves and prey, seething.

  Emily appeared at my side. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  I had to shake my head to focus on her words. “I can’t leave until Cartwright’s dead. You go. Take the kids.”

  “You need to not be here with him,” she said logically, as she should have argued to any sane person.

  But I was not that sane person. “This needs to end.”

  Something crossed her eyes, something between awe and frustration. It was a look I was getting used to. Emily nodded. “What do we do?”

  “Go. Kick some ass. I’ll be—”

  A baseball bat hit me in the back and I stumbled forward on the rubble. Emily eyed my attacker and there was almost a smile on her lips. “I’ll be right back.”

  She swooped around me and I followed her with my gaze, turning to watch. There was a unity in her motion as she ran at him in human form and jumped at him, shifting in midair to her wolf form. It was beautiful.

  “Get the girl,” Cartwright screamed over the howls and hisses, desperation pinching his voice into something gnawing and thin.

  With his own dwindling army of warriors synced to his will, the human minions turned toward me. The animals scrambled to pull at clothing and legs, dragging them away from the new hoard to be dealt with one-by-one.

  Wolves appeared between me, the fray, and Cartwright. A furry line of Roman soldiers. A black one stood directly before me. Levi. He howled and the howls of the others echoed through the night, making my hairs stand on end.

  That wasn’t going to attract attention at all.

  Rutherford came up to me, shielding me with his body. “You got any idea how to take this guy down.”

  “Not a clue. But Rafe …” I looked at my line of protectors and didn’t see his silver shape.

  “I need to find Rafe. He’s …” I didn’t really know the phrase for it. “Lost.”

  I searched the basement. In all the commotion, it was hard to pinpoint him. I closed my eyes. He was Rafe. His energy was as much a part of me now as my truth was. I could find him. Just like I had days before in the warehouse, I breathed in and reached out.

  There was an itch at my elbow and I turned to the left.

  A silver wolf paced along the far wall, climbing over the rubble, nose to the ground.

  I climbed over half a wall of drywall and had to pull my coat off of iron bars, but I finally got to him.

  “Rafe.”

  The wolf stopped and slowly turned to me. A slow snarl curled across his muzzle.

  I gasped. He didn’t recognize me. Not yet. But I could do this. I would bring him back to me.

  The chaos of the fight around us faded away, the whole world becoming him and me, the quiet hum of us together. Nothing else mattered except him coming back. I needed my partner to finish this.

  I ripped off the pendant. He needed to feel me, my power. He would know me then, I was sure of it. He had come to me before. He would again. I let the Charm fill me, pulled all my power to me as best as I knew.

  He slowly looked up and sniffed the air. I knew he knew me.

  I knelt down and met that cool blue stare at his level. He turned to face me and his head sank lower than his broad shoulders. I reached out my hand to him, my skin pale in the light.

  He filled my vision and echoing across my mind was a line from Byron. “Love will
find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey,” I whispered the words.

  The wolf’s ear flicked and his head rose. He took a hesitant step forward.

  “So that’s what it’s going to be? My strange predilection for misquoting literature. Well, here’s some Foster. I love you with too clear a vision to fear your cloudiness.”

  He nuzzled my palm and slipped under my hand until he was nearly nose-to-nose with me and my hand was resting behind his massive ear. His fur was so soft and I could feel the life of him beneath it.

  I licked my lips and could feel my wild pulse in them. “Real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil in the world.”

  It was the Dickens that did it. His figure shimmered, a mirage before me and I blinked and turned away.

  His hot face ran beneath my fingertips as he leaned into my hand. His whisper trailed down my inner wrist. “Merci.”

  His hand shook as he reached out to me. Our hands met in the middle and I wove my fingers into his. I pulled him to me.

  His nose pressed into my neck. “I thought I was lost.”

  “Nope. I’m right here.”

  He pulled away from me and his blue eyes were back. He was back. “I’m really naked.”

  “Why does that happen sometimes but not others?”

  “I have a book about it.”

  “Of course you do.”

  I pulled off my coat and he slipped it on. There were certain advantages to your boyfriend being the same size. Whoa. I’d just thought the boyfriend word.

  I helped him to his feet, and as one, we turned to the rest of the battle. Except there was no battle. The room was still and everyone was looking at us.

  Rutherford was among them. I searched the pack to find the familiar faces, and not a single dull-eyed puppet or thug was left standing. These Shifters were thorough and brave. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on their leader.

  I carefully moved over the rubble, around bodies I couldn’t tell were alive or dead, and over to Levi.

  They had the Demon cornered and trapped in a circle of white crackling energy. I stopped next to Rutherford and stared at what was left of it after the fight.

  “You’re pretty handy with a protection spell,” Rafe said to the cop as he leaned against me.