“A hunt?”
“Oh, yeah, they’d release you in the woods at the edge of town then hunt and kill you.” He leaned in. “And not even the Watch could pull them up on it. Territory law still stands.”
I knew this. I’d gotten lucky. No warrant, no encroaching. No invite, no entry. It was standard protocol.
He was standing so close I could feel the heat from his body, still simmering from our fight. He reached up casually to brush some tendrils of hair off my cheek. “You fought well. But if Rich or Jack had gotten in that ring, you’d be dead.”
“I can handle myself in a fight, demon or Moonspawn. I graduated from the Academy, you know, the one you probably didn’t go to?”
His smile was wry. “Do you even know who you just tangled with?”
“Should I?”
His face hardened. “You should always know your opponent. The wolves in that den are Primes, and the only reason you made it out alive tonight is because Rich is a friend of mine. He owes me. My volunteering to fight you was enough to clue him in that you were with me. The others … They would have torn you to shreds.”
My heart was pounding way too hard now. Skin crawling with the knowledge of what could have happened, with what I’d just escaped.
Primes were the original Moonspawn, the oldest, the most lethal, and there was only a handful left. They’d segregated into small packs over the centuries, and they had their own territories and rivalries, but they hadn’t been seen or heard of for a long time.
And here they were, some of them at least, in Scorchwood.
“You should have told me.” I glared stonily at him. “If we’re going to work together, you need to keep me informed.”
“That goes both ways, Kat.”
“I know that.”
The mocking smile was back. “Just checking. And in the interests of full disclosure, I didn’t go there to blow off steam, I went there to inform Rich that a new wolf was spotted in town. If there’s an interloper in Scorchwood, then Rich will deal with it. The civilian Moonspawn are all under Prime pack protection.”
“Okay, so now I know. It won’t happen again.” I rounded the vehicle and opened the passenger side door. The dashboard clock showed it to be almost one in the morning. Four hours from dawn. “Let’s get back and fill in the others.”
“Jay will be glad to know this isn’t a Nightwatch matter,” Kris said. “We’re going to be overstretched as it is. The lead-up to the full moon in a week will be manic.”
It was a common myth that full moons were when all the creepy came out. In fact, full moons were a celebration for the supernatural, a healing, rejuvenating time for most breeds. For the Moonspawn, it was when they were at their full potential, a time for breeding not killing, although if they wanted to kill it was easiest when at full strength. For the weavers, it was time for strengthening wards and weaving powerful spells or constructs.
The lead-up, however, was when things got crazy. It was the same everywhere—a rise in supernatural occurrences—but here in Scorchwood, the magnet for the dangerous, who knew what we’d be up against?
Kris pulled out his phone. “I’ll text Mai and tell her we’re headed back.”
He typed one-handed, tucked his phone in his pocket, and started the engine.
* * *
Tris was already pouring tea when Henri and Mai entered the lounge. Mai was carrying a bag with a scone image on it.
“Donuts, anyone? A treat for bagging a couple of hellions. Fuckers were making out behind the secondary school on Milton Way. Can you believe it, right in the field?”
She held the bag up and waved it before popping it on the coffee table. Kris had already claimed his spot under the window. Tris slid across the floor and handed him his tea.
“Thanks, cutie.” Kris dropped her a wink, and I swear she simpered.
But then she was in an exceptionally good mood after I’d handed her the books I’d picked up.
Jay lounged in his spot by the mantelpiece, his gaze on the clock. “How old?” he asked.
“Randy teenagers,” Mai said. “Too old to be trained, too young to be a menace. Best to send them to the shadow fortress. The knights can release them into the thinning, let the fuckers beyond the mist deal with them, or use them for training cadets.”
Ah, the shadow knights. Occupants of the fortress that overlooked the Academy. Arrogant so-and-sos who thought they were better than everyone else. And okay, so they had speed, strength, agility, and a calling to slay the monsters that invaded our world from the only thinning we’d been unable to close, but it didn’t give them the right to treat the cadets that didn’t make it with derision.
Shadow knights were always male and considered our first line of defense against a foe that we’d been at a stand-off with for eons. It was ironic, considering it was the blood of these ancient creatures, these fomorians that lived beyond the mist, that gave the shadow knights their abilities.
The texts said that a long time ago, fomorians had snuck into our world and beguiled and impregnated human women with their spawn in the hope of taking our world from within. But the first generation of these hybrids had chosen to fight for mankind, using their abilities to fight back the fomorian threat. Along with the aid of the pure fey, the Tuatha de Danaan, we’d pushed the fomorians back through the mists into their world, but the breach had been impossible to close. The fortress had been built, and even though the fey had retreated and sealed off their world to us, the shadow knights continued to be born and to fight.
I’d never seen a fomorian in the flesh, but I’d read the books and looked at the pictures from accounts of the knights that had interacted with the race beyond the mist, and I knew of several clans of breeds of fomorian.
Kris sipped his tea. “Nice.” He sighed in appreciation.
Henri and Mai had already claimed seats. They looked chill. Like they’d had a nice evening out, not like they’d been alert and vigilant on patrol and bagging two hellions. They looked like they’d had fun, and why did that piss me off? I didn’t own Henri. Okay, so I technically did, but I didn’t want to own own him. He deserved to make his decisions and be free, and that meant hanging out with whoever he wanted to, and—
“—fill us in on what happened?” Jay asked.
Shit. Focus, Kat. “Kris and I think that Meredith, the woman who was attacked in the alley, may have been a potential victim of our serial kidnapper.” I said kidnapper because no bodies had been found yet, but … “She fits the profile, but we didn’t get any useful information on the attacker.”
“I’ve let Kiran know,” Kris said.
Jay’s mouth turned down. “Not a Nightwatch matter then.”
“Nope,” Kris said.
“Well, that’s a relief.” Mai sat back and crossed her legs at the knee. “We’re going to have our hands full next week as it is.”
They began to plan patrols, but my brain was already tuning out. Yes, best for them to drop it. That way, Henri and I could follow up on our own and figure out a way to stop the riders, if it was indeed them that were taking humans.
“—murder. Horrific, isn’t it?” Mai was talking to me.
“Huh?”
“Tuned out, did you?” She smiled tightly.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, we were just talking about the murder at the Nightwatch headquarters. Someone leaked it to the Secret Eye. We saw a copy at the diner.”
“It’s not in the Nightwatch Bulletin,” Jay said.
Murder? My heart was pounding. “Did they say who?”
“No.” Mai’s eyes widened. “Oh, God. Your grandfather works there, doesn’t he? You might want—”
I was on my feet and out of the room before she could finish her sentence.
* * *
I flipped open the compact, invenient mihi heart. Please answer.
The darkness dissipated and Gramps’s beloved face appeared. A strangled sound slipped from my lips.
Shit, my eyes
pricked and burned. “You’re okay.”
He frowned. “You heard?”
“The Secret Eye.”
“Spies everywhere. Harrumph.”
“Who was it? Who was … murdered?”
He took a deep breath, and aching sorrow slipped over his features. “Vinod.”
His best friend, and the weaver who’d given me Tris. “Oh, no. How?”
He looked away. “We’re investigating, but Kat, you need to not call me for a few days. Just don’t Call, or call, promise me.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s not safe right now. I’ll contact you when I’ve smoothed things over here.”
Smoothed things … wait … “They know about me?”
“No.” His brows snapped down. “They don’t know anything. Just stay away, okay?”
There was commotion, voices. “I have to go. Do not contact me.”
The mirror went dark, but that split second before it did, I saw an emotion cross my gramps’s face that I didn’t recall ever seeing before. Fear.
The door opened, and Henri carried Tris in.
“Chickie, what’s wrong? Oh, no. Is your gramps all right?” Tris climbed up onto the bed beside me.
“Gramps is fine, but Vinod is dead and … something isn’t right. Gramps told me not to contact him. He looked … scared.”
There was silence and then a knock on the door. Mai popped her head around the door.
“Is everything okay?”
In other words, is your grandfather still alive?
“It’s fine. My gramps is fine. But someone else I knew was murdered. They don’t have any details.”
“Is there anything I can do?” She looked torn, as if she wanted to enter the room fully but wasn’t sure if she’d be welcome.
On any other occasion, I’d have asked her in, but I needed to speak to Henri and Tris in private.
“No, thanks.”
She nodded, hesitated a moment, and then shut the door.
“What do you want to do?” Henri asked.
I wanted to get in the car and drive to headquarters, find my gramps and hug him until his bones creaked, but that wasn’t going to happen. My gramps very rarely gave me orders, and when he did, they were always for my own benefit.
Like coming here.
I was beginning to think that him sending me to Scorchwood may have had more to do with protecting me than with me helping this town. Either way, I was knee-deep in some rider shit, and that was what we needed to focus on.
“Kat?” Henri prompted.
“We work the case.”
Henri was watching me carefully. “You want to go after the reaper, don’t you?”
Ah, how he knew my heart. “I need to. The attacker is a rider, not a human. We can’t just drop this. Meredith fits the profile of the missing humans, and I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“You think the rider is the kidnapper?” Tris absorbed this.
“He’s either the kidnapper or he’s working with the kidnapper. Either way, we can’t drop this. Twelve humans have been taken.”
Henri nodded. “Agreed.”
“And Meredith would have been the thirteenth …” Tris looked contemplative.
“Yes, Meredith would have been the thirteenth … Oh …” One of the things that had been niggling at the back of my mind rose to the surface.
I’d done enough study at the Academy to know that thirteen was a popular number for all manner of supernatural rituals. If the kidnapper had truly been human, the number may just have been a symbolic thing, but if the rider was our kidnapper, then we needed to figure out what he could potentially be doing with the humans.
Tris grinned. “Leave the research to me. All I need is access to Jay’s study.”
“Crap, how are we going to get that without tipping him off?” Unless … “I have somewhere else you could go. The bookstore where I got those books. The owner mentioned he had a private library of reference books.”
“But books on the occult and supernatural?” Henri asked.
“It’s worth a try. Wait, I have his card.” I pulled it out and dialed.
It rang twice before being answered, and there was that lick-at-your-nape voice.
“Hello, Miss Justice. How can I help you?”
“Wait, how did you know who it was?”
“Call it intuition.”
Call it creepy more like. “Fine, look I need a favor.”
“Favors don’t come free.”
“Yes, of course, they don’t. Do you have books on rituals and riders?”
There was a short pause. “I do.” Wariness had entered his tone now.
“A friend of mine needs to do some research. Is it okay for me to drop her off tomorrow night for a few hours?”
“Is this the friend you bought the books for?”
Tris climbed up onto my shoulder and pressed her ear to the other side of the phone.
I shifted to get comfortable. “Yes, it is.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, Miss Justice, your friend can use my library, but …”
Oh, here came the price.
“You’ll owe me.”
“I’d rather just pay up now. The owe you stipulation always seems so creepy.”
His chuckle was low and intimate, but he didn’t retract his request. We needed this. There was no choice, really. Sod it.
“Fine, I’ll owe you a favor equal to the one you’re doing me.” There was my own stipulation.
There was a smile in his voice. “Ah, you’ve done this before.”
“And been burned.”
“Tomorrow evening then.”
“See you then.”
Tris slid back onto the bed. “What a voice. Is he handsome?”
“I guess so. I didn’t really notice.”
“Liar. I bet he has a big di—”
“Library?” I smiled sweetly. “I’m counting on it.”
“What’s the plan, Kat,” Henri interrupted. “We drop Tris at the bookstore and go hunting for the reaper?”
“Exactly. First thing tomorrow night. And I know just the place to look first.”
His frown cleared. “The ghost bar, Good Spirits.”
I smiled. “The one and only.”
We had a plan, and that would be my focus because if I dwelt on what might be happening at headquarters right now, if I seriously considered that they may have discovered my secret, then my resolve would crumble, and I’d be in the Fiat and on the highway in a heartbeat.
Chapter Thirteen
My eyes snapped open to mid-morning sunlight. Seriously? Again? At this rate, I’d get no sleep. Four hours, that was all I’d managed to get. Tris was silent and stone next to me on the bed, and the world was quiet. The others would be asleep right now, adhering to their nocturnal lifestyle, and even though Mai might not need as much sleep, she was probably still in bed.
Henri? No, he might be sleeping too. He said he enjoyed it, and who was I to wake him? An image of his naked silver chest flashed through my mind. What the fuck? Seriously bad form, Kat; mind ogling your golem was a no-no. I needed to get laid. Hey, if I tugged on the rope to summon Emmet, would he send up a hot guy for me to bang? After all, he was supposed to know what we needed.
Killion’s naked, taut butt filled my head.
No. Out. Get out.
I pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed. Best to keep the mind busy. Maybe a little exploration? Bunny slippers and dressing gown on, I headed downstairs. Now, where to explore?
The door to the basement cells stared at me accusingly. Okay, so I’d known exactly where I’d be snooping, I mean exploring, but if Emmitt caught me, I could just claim that I’d come to check on the hellions Mai and Henri had brought in last night.
I took the stairs on the balls of my feet on instinct even though my slippers would have muffled any sound. Both doors were shut and locked, but there was an eye hatch in the left door th
at I’d failed to notice the last time we’d been down here. One ear listening out for Emmitt, I crept up to the door, grabbed the tiny metal knob on the hatch, and slid it open.
The room beyond was pitch black, but the hairs on the back of my neck rippled to attention, quivering in anticipation. There was someone … something in the room. An inhalation was followed by a rustle.
“Raspberries.” The voice was gravelly and rough against my senses.
My fingers tightened on the hatch knob. “Hi. I thought I’d pay you a visit.”
A low, rumbling sound followed my declaration. Laughter?
“Do you even know who it is you’re visiting?”
The voice might have been rough and abrasive, but the tone and inflection were refined and cultured. It was a contradictory combination which probably should have been unnerving but was strangely compelling.
“Why don’t you tell me … In fact, why don’t you show me.” Shit, what was I doing? Maybe it was better not to see. “Come closer.”
Shut up, mouth.
The darkness moved, and a figure detached itself from the deepest shadows. Oh, fuck. He was big. Killion big. No, bigger.
“Who are you, raspberry girl?”
“Who are you? A demon?”
“Pfft.”
“Not a demon.”
“I’m a secret, and you smell divine.”
The urge to back up was equal to the one pressing me closer to the door. “Are you afraid to show yourself?”
“No, but you’re afraid to see me.”
“No. I’m not.”
“I can taste your lie. Mmmm, it’s delicious.”
There were many supernatural creatures that could detect lies, but none that I knew of that fed on them. Not a demon, not a supernatural creature, then what?
“Tick, tick, whirr goes your brain.” That fucking gravelly voice was touching me in all the right places. “I tell you what—tell me a lie, and I’ll light a candle.”
A Ghost of a Chance: The Nightwatch book 1 Page 10