by Kait Nolan
“Oh God. Oh God, no. Amanda.” Daddy’s voice was choked. The sound of it solidified the wrongness of this whole game.
Marley couldn’t help it. She let out a whimper.
Daddy went quiet. So did Marley. She’d promised Mama.
Unlike the man who was Mrs. Benson, Daddy came straight to the air vent and undid the screws. “Marley.” He sounded glad to see her. “Come on out, baby.” He held open his arms.
Marley didn’t move. There was something wrong with Daddy’s eyes and his teeth looked sharp. She clutched Spud tighter and pressed herself into the corner.
Daddy bowed his head, scrubbing both hands over his face like Mama sometimes did when she was tired or worried. When he looked at her again, he was just Daddy. “It’s okay, Marley. You hid just like your mom told you to. But you can come out now.”
“The bad man hurt Mama.” It was the thing that had been circling around her brain.
Daddy’s face spasmed. “Yeah. Yeah, he did. But I won’t let him hurt you. He won’t get to you. C’mon now, Marley.” He flexed his hands in invitation.
Daddy would fix it.
Marley crawled out of the air duct. His arms came around her, tight, tight, and this time she didn’t squirm. She burrowed into him, pressing her face into his shoulder and absorbing the familiar scent of sawdust and evergreens.
“He took Natalie,” she said in a small voice. “I can’t sleep without Natalie.”
A low growl rumbled in his chest and he squeezed so tight, she whimpered.
He eased his grip. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Hang on to Spud. We’ve gotta go, love,” he said, rising. Daddy held her tight as he crossed to the front door.
Just before he shut the door, Marley twisted her head to peek into the living room and saw a lump under a blanket on the floor. The tip of a hand showed at one edge. The nails were painted a soft shell pink. Just like Mama’s.
~*~
The scream clawed its way out of Marley’s throat after twenty-five years of enforced silence. She jackknifed up, scrambled to escape the terror and found herself restrained. Blind with panic, she struck out with fists and feet, nails and teeth. Her efforts had no effect. The arms wrapped around her like steel didn’t loosen.
“Easy, easy. It’s all right. You’re safe.” A voice trickled through the hysteria, familiar and trusted, and she fought for calm.
The man who restrained her was fully dressed. The buckle of his belt dug into her hip. For a moment, her own mind blanked under the onslaught of a new fear. But no, she was also dressed except for her shoes.
“You’re okay,” he said. “You’re safe.”
Ian.
Marley took in the room in snatches. Walls of golden pine. A window set high on one wall, blinds drawn so she couldn’t tell if it was day or night. Utilitarian furniture and a big soft bed beneath her. Her eyes lit on her backpack, tossed into the rocking chair in the corner. The corner of her sketchpad stuck out from a gap between the zippers. The sight of it galvanized her to fresh action.
“Let me go. Let me go!”
As soon as he did, Marley shot off the bed, scrambling for the bag.
“It’s all there,” he said, but she ignored him, focused only on grabbing the sketchpad and her charcoals.
The image was still in her mind. Fresh and crisp as a photograph. She had to get it down before it faded, before she lost their faces forever. Fevered, she poured herself into the drawing. The woman’s face was round, softer than Marley had imagined. Young, unspeakably so when the— No, her mind veered away from that, back to the business of the face. Slight up-tilt to the nose, pert and small. Lips, top-heavy and lush, just curved to a smile. Long, dark hair, like hers, and eyes that laughed from the page.
She moved to the other side, began another sketch. He had a sharp face, with high cheekbones. The eyes were deep-set, with a Slavic tilt, and though she drew them with an expression of grief, she knew they could as easily turn predatory. Marley hesitated as she reached his mouth, charcoal hovering over the page. There was something in her memory about that mouth, she couldn’t quite grasp. Then she could see it clearly again and finished with quick, bold strokes. A serious mouth with just a hint of a smile. Fair hair tumbled across his brow, saving the face from being too stern. He was never stern with her. Except for once. She balked at that thought too, focusing on the details. As long as she looked at details, she didn’t have to think, didn’t have to process what she’d seen. She refined, shaded, blurred, until the likeness of them both was almost clear enough to step off the page.
Finished.
The charcoal fell from her fingers. Marley just drank in their faces, barely aware of the ache in her legs from the almost feral crouch she’d adopted so she could balance the pad on her knees. It was both glorious and agonizing to finally, finally see them. Because she knew now why she’d always been alone.
“Who are they?” The question was quiet.
“My parents,” she whispered.
“What did you see?”
Marley looked up at the question to find Ian crouched beside her, gaze steady and worried on her face. She shook her head. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to talk about it. Wasn’t even sure if she would talk about it with him. Because before she’d passed out, he betrayed her. The memory of that had her rising to her feet. She staggered as blood began to rush back into cramped muscles. He didn’t quite make it to his own feet in time to catch her.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“My personal safe house in eastern Tennessee.”
She jolted. “How long have I been out?”
“Almost thirty hours. I was getting worried. How are you feeling?”
She rubbed at her temple, registering the headache lodged behind her eyes. “Like somebody’s trying to jackhammer their way into my brain.”
Ian snapped back to alert and stepped into her space, gripping her around the arms. “This is very important, Marley. Do you have any tingling in your hands or feet?”
She blinked up at him, heart hammering in response to his sudden tension. “No.”
“Do you taste any blood in the back of your throat?”
“No. Ian, what—”
“In a minute. Any blurred vision? Sensitivity to light or sound?”
Rolling through the checklist, she said, “No, no, and no. Well, light a little bit.”
“Do you feel nauseous?”
“No. Actually I’m starving. What’s wrong?”
He relaxed, letting himself down degree by degree with a slow exhale, until he dropped his forehead to hers. “Then the Dream Walkers didn’t get to you.”
She felt the warmth of his breath against her face. He was so close, so solid and warm. A couple more inches and she could taste him… Marley shoved him back, irritated with her body’s reaction to having him near. The subconscious desire to trust him galled her. He’d betrayed her.
Lines creased the skin around his eyes. His already hard features seemed sharper as he stepped back without protest. Marley squashed the instant rise of sympathy as she looked, really looked at him. “Have you slept?”
“No. It wasn’t safe for both of us to be out.”
He’d been awake for more than a week now.
He watched over you while you slept. Kept you safe. He didn’t abandon you. That’s more than anyone else has ever done.
Marley slammed a mental door shut on the voice trying to wheedle her past being angry with him. He’d lied to her, and he needed to answer for that.
“You should catch some shut-eye,” she said.
“I’m fine. I can go a long time on just meditation.”
No bid for sympathy. Maybe he was trained to go ridiculous amounts of time without sleep. Fine, she’d take him at his word.
“Bathroom?” she asked, unwilling to keep standing here while he stared at her.
Ian gestured to a door on the other side of the bed. Without a word, Marley picked up her backpack and shut herself inside. Moving on auto
pilot, she stripped down and stepped in. The hot water was hard and plentiful. After a week of washing her hair in rest stop sinks and the one shower in the crappy motel, his tiled shower was as glorious as any spa. She soaped and scrubbed off all the layers of road dirt, real and psychological, until her skin was pink and raw.
Dressed again, she followed her nose through a living room with vaulted ceilings and into a small kitchen.
Despite the coffee she smelled, Ian was just pouring water from a kettle into a teapot. “I thought you might like something other than coffee.”
She mumbled, “Thanks.” She didn’t want him being solicitous and taking care of her.
You would prefer he be a douchebag so you can stay angry?
Bite me.
Arms wrapped around her torso, she paced the kitchen.
He opened a cabinet, pulled out a stack of tan plastic packages. “I’m afraid I don’t have a great deal to offer. I can only keep non-perishables, as I’m not here very often. We’ll go into town for real food later.”
Marley wasn’t at all sure how much “we” there would be moving forward.
Something of the thought must’ve shown on her face because he said, “Please don’t do something that might put you at risk just because I handled things badly.”
“Is that what you call it?” she asked.
“Given your limited exposure to the Mirus world, to the people in it, would you honestly have agreed to see Scarlett if I’d told you the truth ahead of time?”
“I don’t know.” Probably not, she thought. “But not telling me what you had planned, not giving me a choice, just expecting me to go through with it without having time to consider the ramifications because you thought it was the right thing was definitely not the way to go. Regardless of practicality, force is still force, and it’s not okay. It’s never okay.”
Ian went motionless. “Who hurt you?” His voice was quiet, controlled, in contrast to the complete and utter fury in his eyes. “Is that what you remembered?”
“No,” she said quietly. “And no one. I was one of the lucky ones. But I know plenty who weren’t.”
He closed his eyes, and she could see him reaching for control, trying to leash the quick burst of rage. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it like that.”
“Of course you didn’t. You’re a man. You don’t live your life with the threat of being victimized in the back of your mind. But you can think about it now. I won’t be made to feel a victim, Ian. Or like I’m not in control of my own life.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how many other ways I can say it. There is no guidebook for this. I’m fumbling along trying to protect you the best way I know how.”
Part of her wanted to crack at that because everything he’d done so far could be seen in that light. But it just didn’t play for her.
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
“Because I don’t think you should be punished for someone else’s mistake.”
“Yeah, yeah, no collateral damage. Except nobody does that, Ian. People get smacked around on the street and other people walk by and pretend they don’t see it. It’s how the world works.”
He strode around the counter until he stood toe to toe with her. Temper rolled off him in waves as he got down in her face. “Listen up. I don’t have to be here. I’m saving your ass, and you aren’t the only one who’s lost something because of it. I don’t owe you a damned thing, least of all an explanation. My actions should speak for themselves, so why don’t you think about that while you’re trying to decide whether to trust me again.”
Chapter 7
The war of Marley’s tempers was evident in the swirl of colors around her, and in the midst of it all were thick ribbons of regret and shame.
“I don’t understand you,” she said.
“I know.” He stepped back and struggled to rein his own anger in as he turned to deal with the food.
Not productive, he reminded himself. He was so fucking tired, and more than a little pissed off because she wasn’t entirely off the mark. How many times in the past had he done exactly what she’d said? Ignored and moved on because those were his orders. But how far in the other direction did he have to go to get a little damned credit?
“Ian, I’m sorry.” The words were quiet, more meaningful because they hadn’t been said on a reflex.
It scraped at him, that she’d led the kind of life that made it so difficult for her to believe someone would get involved only because it was the right thing to do.
“What’s done is done. Now’s the time to regroup and assess our options. I want us to go into town later. I have a contact there who might be able to help us.”
Her tension was palpable. “Another mind wiper?”
Ian set the food on the table, met her eyes. “A warlock.”
She paused a beat before dragging out a chair and sitting. “Naturally. And what exactly will a warlock be able to do?”
“Well, a couple of things. There may be some sort of cloaking spell to hide you from Dream Walkers. And, I hope he might be able to give us a lead on the warlock who came to your apartment. Each warlock’s spellcraft has a unique signature. Identifying him might give us a better idea of what we’re up against on that front.”
She considered. “And if there is a cloaking spell?”
No matter how inconvenient, he wouldn’t screw this up again. “Then it’s your decision whether to use it.”
The topaz haze faded. “Okay.”
It was a victory. A small one, but a victory nonetheless.
They lapsed into silence. Marley shoveled in the pasta, the spiced apples, and the energy bar from the MRE with no complaints or change in expression. It was the kind of single-minded focus of someone who didn’t know when or if the next meal was coming. Another question about her past that pulled at him, but he didn’t give it voice. None of his business.
When she’d finished, Marley wrapped her hands around the mug of tea and sipped. “My mother was murdered by some kind of shapeshifter.” Her inflection indicated only mild interest. It rained last night. But her aura boiled black with grief.
Ian wanted to pull her in, comfort her. Instead, he picked up his coffee and waited.
“She must have known it was coming somehow because she hid me in the air return. He didn’t find me. I was a good girl. I didn’t make a peep.”
Horror choked him as he imagined her wedged in the tiny space while unspeakable things happened only feet away.
“The bastard took my favorite doll. What kind of asshole steals from a child?”
“The kind of asshole who wanted proof of that child’s existence and the ability to track her. Jesus.” Ian set the mug down before he crushed it, and scrubbed both hands over his face, as if that would somehow cage the frenzied rage roiling beneath his skin. Inexcusable. No law, no mission, no justification existed anywhere for assassinating a child.
“Do you know who had your memory wiped?”
“My father. He came home, got me out of the vent. He said it wasn’t safe with him, and he had to go away. When he took me to the woman, he said she would make the bad dreams go away.” She gave a humorless smile. “She went a bit further than that. I didn’t speak for more than a year.”
God, no wonder she’d rebelled at the idea of a memory wipe. “That’s a lot of detail for something that happened when you were three.”
“I know. It’s weird. I thought it would fade once I really woke up, like a dream. But even though some parts are still kind of fuzzy, I remember a lot of what came before the block like it happened last week.”
“Normal memory decays over time with normal forgetting or interference from new information. It could be that the block shielded those memories somehow.”
“Maybe,” she acknowledged.
“What happened to him? Your father?”
“I don’t know. I went to sleep and when I woke up, I was in Social Services. He left me behind.” She shrugge
d in a gesture meant to downplay the impact of that decision, but Ian could see her devastation.
Only a child. Alone and terrified.
A thousand and one questions churned in his brain, but he wasn’t about to interrogate her, so he asked only one. “When you say shapeshifter, do you mean changing from one human form to another or changing between human and animal?”
“The first. He came in as our next door neighbor. Mrs. Benson. Gained entry by casserole dish.”
“Can you describe him?”
“I’ll one up that.” Marley retrieved her box of charcoals from the bedroom and turned to a fresh page.
This sketch came much faster than the one she’d done of her parents. Quick, efficient, a series of lines and shading that rapidly worked into the recognizable shape of a man. She was good. Very good. Without a word, she shoved the sketchbook across the table to Ian.
He didn’t recognize the hulking man with a thin slash of mouth and diamond chip eyes. He hadn’t really expected to. A doll dangled like a dead animal from one meaty hand. The perspective made him appear a giant. But that fit with Marley’s view from the air vent. He was garbed in dark clothes, generic black pants and black t-shirt with no insignia. No visible weapons, but she might not have seen any. A tattoo swirled up the left side of his neck, bony fingers wrapping around his throat.
“This isn’t a Hunter,” he said. “At least not one sent by the Council.”
“You said the same thing about the warlock in my apartment. How do you know?”
“Council-sanctioned Hunters all wear a specialized gauntlet as a mark of their rank. Runs all the way from fingertips to shoulder.”
“That seems…I don’t know. Kind of weird. Like advertising ‘Hey, I’m a badass, and I’m here to kill you.’ Not exactly subtle. How does that fit in with the whole keep it secret thing?”
“They don’t have to be subtle. They do most of their work in the dark, and their targets rarely escape. Plus some of them really enjoy the extra layer of fear that goes along with recognition.”
“Well that’s just sick.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”