A Ghost of a Chance: The Nightwatch book 1

by Cassidy, Debbie

  “Hi.” I grinned up at him. “Kat Justice and Henri for the VIP lounge please.”

  He arched a skeptical brow and then leaned in. “Are you going to hand me more receipts for coffee?”

  I tilted my head to the side. “Are you going to tell me what you are?”

  He stood back with a small smile. “Now, where would the fun be in that?”

  “Our friend said our name would be on the list,” Henri said. He made it sound like some super-secret list like we were covert agents or something.

  Big bad bouncer raked me over with eyes so dark they were almost black, and then studied the VIP clipboard. “Kat Justice … and Henri …” He looked up at Henri. “Just Henri? No surname?”

  “No.” Henri stared back, stoic.

  They locked gazes for a long beat, and then the bouncer bared his teeth in what was probably meant to be a smile but came across as more of a warning or challenge.

  “You kicked off last time. Do that again and you’re barred, understand?”

  Henri smiled thinly. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Have a nice night.” The bouncer stepped aside to let us in.

  Inside, the music enveloped us and sucked us in. Bass beat and the thud of a hundred heartbeats were a toxic symphony that made my gums ache to release my fangs. It had been too long since I’d drunk from the vein. Maybe tonight I’d do a little indulging.

  “Kat! Henri! Over here.”

  I could hear Mai but not see her. Damn being short.

  “Over there.” Henri jerked his head to the left.

  “Yeah, Henri, that’s really helpful.”

  I expected a sarcastic reply, but instead, he linked hands with me and began leading me through the crowd.

  We were holding hands. His fingers wrapped around mine, and it hit me that this was the first time we’d had such intimate physical contact. It felt … nice, and there was no ignoring the appreciative looks he was getting as he cut a path through the throng—female and male attention. Yeah, Henri was hot both in his metallic form and his human glamoured form.

  “Yay, you made it.” Mai held out a shot glass.

  “Did you have doubts?”

  She gave me an arch look. “Honestly, yes. I thought you’d ditch and then make an excuse.”

  I downed the shot and glanced about. “Where’s Kris?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Getting his freak on with some human, no doubt.”

  “No doubt at all.” Kris appeared beside us, bringing the scent of a zesty cologne with him.

  He looked good, hair pulled up in a knot, face all sharp angles, eyes dark and gleaming in the club lights. He was wearing a navy shirt that hugged his biceps and cinched in at the waist. His jeans were dark denim, and the ensemble was topped off with heavy black boots. Mai was the same with the footwear. Boots.

  I guess you could put the Nightwatch on leave, but you couldn’t take the Nightwatch out of them.

  We were all wearing boots we could tussle in if needed.

  “Oh, oh don’t look now, but there’s a group of exceptionally beautiful women coming our way.” Kris painted a sexy smile on his face. “Watch the master at work.”

  The women, three of them, stopped a little way down the bar, but their eyes kept sliding our way. Kris picked up his shot glass, held it up to them, and then downed it. It was all the invitation they needed to join us.

  “Hi,” the brunette said. But her attention was on Henri. “I don’t usually do this, and if one of these ladies is your girlfriend, then I’m sorry, and I’ll just piss off, but I was wondering if you’d like to dance?”

  Her cheeks were flushed, and it must have taken a lot for her to come over like that.

  Henri looked down at her. “No, thank you.”

  She made an “o” with her mouth and then gave a nervous laugh. “Okay.” Her friends shot him dirty looks and then herded her away.

  Mai slapped Henri in the chest lightly with the back of her hand. “What was that?”

  He shrugged. “I’m a golem. I beat shit up and kill monsters. I don’t dance.”

  “Oh, really?” Mai grabbed his hand. “Well that, my friend, is about to change.”

  He shot me a terrified look before he was whisked off onto the dance floor.

  Kris cackled. “Trust Mai to want to pop his cherry.” He offered me his hand. “Care to dance?”

  There was a wicked glint in his mercury eyes that was irresistible. “Fine but keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Same goes to you too.”

  We wove through the dancers, and then Kris swung me to face him and fell into the rhythm of the music. His body moved easily with the beat, fluid hip-snaking moves that had my chest heating and my pulse beating faster. He was primal and sexual, and yes, the women on either side of us were closing in, eyeing him up. He chuckled and pulled me closer, slipping his thigh between mine to move me with him.

  “Whoa, too close.” I pushed at his chest, and he released me with a laugh.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  I looked up at him. “I’m not the one who needs to be afraid.”

  He arched a brow and then leaned in, so his mouth brushed my ear. “Is that a challenge?”

  I turned my head slightly, so my mouth grazed his jaw. “No. It’s just a fact.”

  My few sexual encounters had been aggressive, to say the least. It was just the way I was wired, and it was why I’d steered clear from letting the monster off the leash since the last time. Poor Brenton had nursed a broken rib and more than a few bruises from my enthusiasm, even though at the time he hadn’t been complaining.

  “Color me intrigued,” Kris drawled.

  His closeness, the thrum in my veins, and the beat of blood around me had the hunger surging up sudden and violent.

  I pressed a hand to his chest lightly. “Excuse me.”

  He leaned in to say something, but I was already gone, weaving away from him into the crowd in search of a quick bite. I found him alone, a wallflower, cute but nerdy. His eyes widened as I approached, but then my words were in his head, and his blood was in my mouth as he writhed against me. To the casual observer, it would look like we were making out, but for me, this was bliss. The hit I needed until the next time. I finished up and laved the wounds to close them. He stared at me, star-struck, and I pressed a light kiss to his parted mouth.

  “Really?” Kris said from behind me. “You’d rather—”

  I turned to face him, the bloodlust still a red glint in my eyes.

  “Oh. Okay. Do you want a different kind of drink?”

  I smiled. “Sure.”

  * * *

  Mai leaned up against the bar as we crowd-watched. She’d done what she’d set out to do and turned Henri into a dancing machine, and he and Kris were rocking it on the dance floor.

  Mai swigged from a beer bottle. “Are you having a good night?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I don’t do this for fun very often.”

  “No nights off at Ravensheart?” she said with a teasing smile.

  “Nope, we got nights off, I just never went out like this.”

  “Why not?”

  Because no one ever cared to ask. “Being a Justice makes people wary of you.”

  “Pfft. Hell, that would make me want to be your friend even more. Get in with the in-crowd.”

  “Oh, really?”

  She snorted. “That is not what I’m doing, though. Hell, I’m just desperate for some female company. It’s been me and the guys for so long, and after Lark died ….” She puffed out her cheeks and ducked her head.

  “You two were close?”

  “You could say that.” Her eyes widened. “We never made it to lovers though. No rules were broken, okay. We both knew we couldn’t be together in that way.”

  I snorted. “You’d be surprised how often the rules are bent. Weavers stationed at prisons get up to all sorts. They just make sure their explo
its don’t get back to the weaver council.

  Her eyes were sad. “It would have been more than a fling for Lark and I. We both knew that.” Her smile was nostalgic. “He was sweet and funny and all kinds of geek chic with his spectacles and pushing them up his nose all the time. God, I … I miss him so much.”

  It probably wasn’t the best time to ask, but my mouth was doing its thing regardless. “What happened to him?”

  Mai jerked her head toward a booth and then led me across the floor to it. The noise was less there. We could have chatted where we were, our heightened senses made it easy to hear above the music and commotion, but something about a nice cozy spot made conversation so much more pleasant.

  The booth was cushy, with a wooden table and a fancy light fixed to the wall beside it.

  Mai popped her bottle on the table. “A few months ago, we had a spate of hauntings in the town.”

  “More so than usual?”

  She laughed. “The humans of this town don’t realize the half of what goes on here, and the ghostly presence is put down to the town having an atmosphere, but a few months ago shit got real. Actual poltergeist-like hauntings. The church was involved, and the pastor, Reverend Carter, called us in to help. He’s Moonkissed.”

  “What did you do? I mean, it’s not like you can communicate with the spirits.”

  “No, but Lark, he was special. Part of his weaving ability was being able to draw back the veil and speak directly to spirits. No need for vessels like Ouija boards or séances. He could just talk to them, and they spoke back. It’s why he was stationed there in the first place. His talent is rare, almost unheard of.”

  My heart was beating faster. Another person who could speak directly to the dead. Someone almost like me.

  “Jay and Lark were on patrol that night when it happened. They were attacked by an angry spirit. Lark tried to reason with it. Jay said he went into a trance-like state and then … then he evaporated. Just poof into thin air. All that was left were his spectacles. We searched, we had other weavers reach out to the beyond to see if they could contact him, but nothing. They concluded that he’d been ripped.”

  My hand flew to my mouth to catch the gasp that fell from my lips. “No, that’s a—”

  “Myth? Yeah.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “That’s what I thought, but no. It’s rare, but it happens. It seemed Lark connected with the Shade, a place between the living world and the spirit world, a place beside limbo where the souls that have descended into insanity are found, amongst other things. The living aren’t meant to cross over there. Whatever it was pulled him through, and the transition killed him.”

  “Jay’s never been the same. He hasn’t been on a patrol since. Kris and I think he’s suffering some kind of PTSD, but he won’t talk about it.” She toyed with a beermat.

  There was more, but she was holding back. “What is it?”

  She puffed out her cheeks and shook her head slightly. “Nothing. It’s getting late, or should I say early? You want to call it a night?”

  “Yeah.”

  She slid out of the booth. “Let’s go wrangle the guys.”

  I made to follow her, but my eye caught on an ethereal form by the fire exit toward the back of the club. The face was familiar, blurring in and out of focus, the ghost girl from the ghost bar. She waved frantically in my direction and then slipped through the fire door exit.

  Well, what was a Nightwatcher to do?

  Chapter Sixteen

  The door opened onto the alley behind the club. Ah, my familiar dank-walled friend with the special dumpster aroma, we meet again. Now, where the heck was the ghostie? A flash of silver, ethereal and wispy, and then she materialized before me. Sweetheart features and huge doll eyes—this one had been a beauty in her day.

  I moved closer. “You know something?”

  “He … has …. not where ….”

  Fuck, she kept cutting out, as if the reception was bad. “Not where?”

  “Abandoned warehouse … barren corn … farm … full moon.” She drifted closer, and her essence pressed against mine. A whisper filled my head, leaving it momentarily woozy, but then she pulled back.

  Her eyes went wide, and her body tensed as she looked over my head.

  I tracked her gaze. “Mother—”

  Riders whizzed out of the wall behind me and slammed into the ghost girl and began to tear at her.

  Her screams echoed in my ears. “Help me.”

  My body acted on instinct, and I leaped into the fray, clawing at the riders with my other sense, the one that could feel their rotten essence saturated with menace. I yanked and pulled.

  Her eyes locked on mine through the ropes of ether lancing out of the riders. “Run …”

  The word reverberated in my mind, a single syllable of terror that instead of loosening my grip, reflexively tightened it. The world around me darkened, and the alleyway grew hazy.

  The slam of a door.

  “Kat!”

  Henri?

  I looked over my shoulder to see my golem racing toward me, arms outstretched, and then the world was rushing away from me. Needles stabbed at my flesh, and then my body hit the ground hard. Gray sand beneath my fingers. Gray skies above. Where was the ghost? Where were the riders?

  Wisps of silver floated in the air, a shower of stars that winked out when they hit the ground. The riders circled above. They lunged at me as one, their mouths yawning wide, eyes drooping as they got closer. Crap. I brought my hands up to protect myself, and the air above me shifted, and then they were gone.

  Okay, calm down. I got in, so I could get out. Fine, so I was ignoring the fact that the riders had dragged me here, and now they were gone, but if I focused on that, then hope would be lost.

  This had to be the Shade place that Mai had mentioned, and the riders … The riders had ripped the ghost. Why? Because she’d been trying to tell me something, to warn me. Something about an abandoned warehouse and the full moon.

  Fuck, I needed to get out of this place. There was nothing but sand dunes and scraggly leafless bushes all around me. No neat door to lead me back to my world.

  One foot in front of the other, Kat. There had to be a clue to jumping out of this place.

  I headed toward the nearest rise; better to get the layout of the land from up there. Strange malevolent sounds drifted on the breeze. Keep it together, Kat. Just don’t panic.

  I crested the rise and froze. The world below was flatlands littered with outcroppings of rock formations and twisted dead trees. Shadows flitted between them, some serpentine, some hulking. There was life down there. Maybe something or someone with an answer to how to get out of this place?

  I made my way down the dune, slipping and sliding toward the hard-packed earth below. The sand just stopped here, cut off as if a line had been drawn in the ground. Weird. Rock arches and pillars jutted up out of the ground. Wait. Not rock, but black crystal. The ground was also littered with the crystals, tiny sparkling gems that were stuck in the earth, growing out of it. I walked between two pillars and further into this no man’s land.

  Things skittered and scurried to the left and to my right. My pulse hammered in my veins, but fuck it, I was Nightblood, I could take whatever was out there. My hand went to the spot where my dagger normally lay snug in its sheath in my jacket. No jacket, no dagger. Shit. Damn clubbing wear.

  The sounds were growing closer, and with it, an oppressive feeling of rage laced with desolation. My senses struggled to comprehend the atmosphere, and then the periphery of my vision was dotted with forms. Twisted, shadowy forms with gleaming eye whites in their gray and black faces. They moved closer, jerky, disjointed movements that almost stopped my heart. Oh, God, wait. I turned a circle on the spot. Surrounded.

  I was locked in.

  Time to panic and flee. Except when I backed up, they closed ranks. Growls and snarls and strange chittering sounds filled the air. But the forms … The forms weren’t animal, they were humanoid. Some on all fours, s
ome standing. Limbs were longer, triple jointed, and lithe. If I ran, they’d catch me.

  But there was no option but to try because their intent was a wave of hunger that beat against my suddenly feverish skin.

  They wanted to devour me.

  I turned and ran back toward the dune.

  My preternatural speed was a bonus, but these fuckers were fast too, switching from the creepy horror movie stilted movements to crazy-fast zombie runs. I leaped and kicked out, knocking one out of the way to break through the barrier they’d tried to ring around me. The dune was up ahead, gleaming in the gray-tinged light that shone down on it from a sky that was nothing but swirling, bubbling clouds. There was no sun, no moon, nothing, and okay, I was distracting myself from the fact that I had strange long-limbed humanoid monsters on my tail. Something snagged my ankle, and I went down. My face smashed into the earth, and blood bloomed in my mouth.

  And the crowd goes wild.

  The sound of moans and groans was deafening as I flipped onto my back to beat off the fingers raking at my clothes. My brain shut down, body taking over in fight mode. I grabbed the wrists of the monster, twisted and flipped it onto its back before punching it in its faceless face and running. Fingers tore at my hair. Go faster. They scraped at my calves.

  Faster.

  The dune was here, and I was slipping and sliding up it, and below me, the monsters groaned in frustration. Up. I had to get up and away. A quick look back showed them in pursuit, but slower, as if the sand was a deterrent.

  Good, that was good.

  Maybe they’d give up?

  The thought spurred me on, and then I was at the top. No time to collapse but just a split second to take a breath.

  The ground beside me began to tremble, and the sand began to shift, caving inward like a mini vortex. I backed up, scrambling away from the spot where the sand was being sucked down. Black claws appeared out of the hole, raking at the sand to gain purchase. A low rumble, like a very large stomach gurgling in readiness, drifted out of the aperture, followed by a dry panting sound.