My Dangerous Pleasure

by Carolyn Jewel

  She got the dishwasher loaded and some laundry started, and when that was done, she made the butter cookies Iskander liked. The rolled-out dough was chilling in the fridge when her sense of the fiend who was watching the house bubbled through her with painful intensity, then… vanished, followed immediately by a bang outside loud enough to rattle the windows. She held her breath, wondering if it was an earthquake and, if it was, whether the shaking would continue.

  Her phone was upstairs and there wasn’t any landline. The windows stopped rattling, but now there was a roar outside she couldn’t place. A bonfire? That made no sense. Outside, somebody shouted. Other voices joined in. She walked to the front of the house. She still didn’t feel the fiend who was supposed to be watching for Rasmus. Sirens wailed and instead of fading, got louder and louder. When she reached the front room, the lighting was all wrong for seven-thirty on an overcast morning. The smell of smoke wafted into the house.

  Those were flames outside the window.

  She peeked out, standing to one side so no one would see her. A car in front of the house was on fire. In the short time she watched, the flames shot higher than she could see. Heat pushed at the windows, and air around the fire rippled as if it were water. She wasn’t sure but she thought she saw the outline of a body in the car.

  A gray-haired man was fighting the fire with a garden hose, but he gave up and joined the knot of people backing away from the heat of the fire. Even Paisley leaned away.

  The first fire truck arrived, lights filling the room with alternating flashes of color. The siren wound down to the point where she could hear the crackle of the radio. A patrol car rolled up. The gawkers backed farther away, leaving only one man in the street.

  Rasmus.

  He had his arms crossed over his chest, a familiar, satisfied smile on his face. His eyes met hers, and while she watched him, horrified, he made the shape of a gun with his finger and thumb and pointed it at her. He mimed pulling the trigger.

  Paisley yelped and jumped away from the window.

  She kept her body low and her head down and hurried back to the bedroom—Iskander’s room—for her cell phone. Her fingers shook when she snatched it off the bedside table.

  Rasmus had set that car on fire. She knew it. And now he was waiting out there, just one of a crowd of rubberneckers. No one would think he was stalking anyone. She didn’t bother calling the police. She called Iskander and got voice mail. She left a message and dialed the other number Iskander had given her. There was a pop from downstairs, and the lights went out. The line on the other end rang and rang and then stopped.

  The man who answered was annoyed. “What?”

  She almost hung up. But she worked for Nikodemus, and she was in trouble, and they were all supposed to have her back. “It’s Paisley Nichols.”

  “Kynan here.” His voice gentled, and she could have sworn she felt something click in the back of her head. “What’s up?”

  “Iskander told me if something happened I should call this number.” She was talking too fast and having a hard time getting enough air. She told him about how her sense of the fiend who was watching her had vanished, about the fire, and about how Rasmus Kessler was outside and had mimed shooting her.

  “Is he alone?”

  “I think so.”

  “Are you sure? If he brought magehelds, would you feel them?”

  “Yes. I don’t feel anything.”

  “I’m on my way. Don’t do anything stupid before I get there. Sit tight—unless he sets the house on fire. Then get the hell out.”

  Downstairs, someone rapped on the door, followed by, “San Francisco Police.”

  Her pulse jumped into overdrive. “The police are here. I think they’re evacuating the houses closest to the fire.”

  Kynan said, “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Probably less. Wait for me.” He hung up, leaving her listening to dead air.

  The police knocked again.

  Cell phone in hand, Paisley walked to the door. The minute she opened it, the screams lanced through her. She would have slammed the door closed, but the officer, who looked like he was all of twenty years old, caught the edge of the door. Behind the officer, Rasmus smiled at her, his eyes jittering. She went on the offensive and pointed at Rasmus. “What is he doing with you, Officer?”

  “Ma’am.” The cop put a foot over the threshold so she couldn’t shut the door when he held up a hand. His other hand curled over the butt of his gun. The holster was still latched. “He was concerned for your safety, ma’am.” He did that looking-around thing cops did when they were assessing a situation. “And the safety of his residence.”

  “His residence?” she said. The fire trucks were still outside, and the firefighters were spraying water on the fire and the surrounding roofs. A nearby tree was on fire, too. The car, an SUV from the looks of it, was burning down to a blackened hull. The air smelled like chemicals and smoke. “He told you this was his house?

  Rasmus’s grin widened. “You shouldn’t have started the fire. We could have talked about this the way I asked. Rationally.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. She stared at the cop’s chest and read his name off his shirt. “Officer Haines, whatever story he’s told you is a lie. He’s been harassing me for weeks. Please get him away from me. Now.”

  “You see, Officer?” Rasmus said. “Just as I said, she is not cooperating.”

  “Leave me alone, Rasmus.”

  “Do you mind if I come in?” the cop asked.

  “Yes.” She kept her hand on the door. “I do mind.” Rasmus looked smug, and that bothered her. Why, when the law was on her side? “This isn’t my house, for one thing.”

  “Of course not,” Rasmus said. “As I said.”

  “The owner isn’t home. And he”—she pointed at Rasmus—“doesn’t live here. He never has.” Her arm shook. There weren’t any other cops that she could see, and the firefighters were still working on the SUV.

  “Ma’am—”

  “I don’t know what he told you, but he doesn’t own this house or rent it.” She did her best to stay calm. Where was Kynan? “We never dated. We were never friends. He’s a disturbed man, and all I want is for him to leave me alone.”

  “My love,” Rasmus said. “Please calm down. Officer, my apologies. She’s off her medication again. This happens from time to time. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Don’t you dare pretend you know me.” The screaming from him was horrific. “If he won’t get you away from me, I’ll call one of the officers who knows about my case.” She lifted her phone and brought up her contacts. “This time they’ll arrest you,” she said. “And you’ll go to jail.”

  Haines shot out a hand and slammed the door open. She had to jerk back to avoid getting hit in the face. He reached for her, and as he did, she saw a quarter-sized area of his skin on his wrist that shone bright pink. But he didn’t go for her. He went for her phone and slammed it onto the landing. It shattered.

  Her chest flexed and just like that, her phone was whole.

  Rasmus muttered something, and Haines stomped on her phone, pulverizing it. He pushed the door hard enough to get her off balance and took a step over the threshold. At the same time, she heard something break at the back of the house. Her heart stopped, and a thrumming started up in her chest. Enough to hurt.

  Rasmus gripped the side of the door, and something above him gave out a pop that made Paisley’s ears hurt. He yelped and jumped back, his eyes skittering madly. “Did you see that? She assaulted me.” He got in the cop’s face and spoke with emphatic clearness. “You will arrest her. Now.”

  “I wasn’t anywhere near him.” Behind her a dog growled. The sound made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She looked around for Kynan. Anyone. And didn’t see a thing.

  The police officer reached behind him for his handcuffs. In the same motion, he grabbed one of her hands. His fingers squeezed her wrist hard. She locked gazes with him, and her stomach droppe
d to her toes. His eyes were devoid of life, but what terrified her was that his pupils were vibrating.

  With eerie calm, the cop said, “Hands on your head, ma’am.” At the same time he stepped forward and pushed her away from the door and into the house. Rasmus tried to follow, but there were several more pops. If she hadn’t been restrained, she would have clapped her hands over her ears. The cop twisted her wrist behind her and pushed her outside with her arm up behind her. He snapped on the handcuffs.

  Behind her, something clicked on the floor. She twisted around and saw a large brindled dog trotting toward the open front door. Bigger than any dog she’d seen before, its eyes glowed with a golden light she knew wasn’t natural. The dog lowered its head and dropped its massive shoulders as it continued toward the door, snarling with its lips bared from its teeth.

  Rasmus hooked his fingers into her hair. He pulled her backward toward the door and jerked her head hard to one side. The screaming was unbearable. He positioned himself just outside the doorway with Paisley in front of him. “Come even one step closer,” he said, “and I will snap her neck.” He gestured with his free hand. “Officer, shoot the dog. Aim for the head or it’s no good.”

  The brindled dog kept growling. The air around her felt hot and sticky, and her stomach roiled to the point where she thought she might throw up. She flinched when the cop fired and hit the dog in the shoulder.

  Rasmus reached for the cop and there was a flash of light. She smelled burning air. The mage shouted once in pain, but he yanked the police officer out of the house, bringing Paisley with him, and slammed the door shut.

  In full sight of the neighbors and firefighters, the cop goose-walked her to his squad car and opened the rear door, pushing her head down so she didn’t hit it on the car as he muscled her inside. She slid onto the hard plastic seat. The door crashed shut. There were no door handles and no locks. Rasmus got in the front passenger side and turned to look at her through the plastic and wire grill that separated the back from the front of the patrol car.

  It wasn’t him looking at her. Not really. It was someone else inside him.

  The cop got behind the wheel, ignoring the dashboard laptop and the squawking radio. He started the car.

  “The Palace Hotel,” Rasmus said.

  As the patrol car pulled away from the curb, she saw Kynan run out of the house. Blood covered the front of his shirt. He loped after them, closing the distance, keeping up. On foot. He had a phone clutched in one hand. He caught up and stretched for the door. Paisley really thought he was going to make it.

  Rasmus turned on the front seat and leveled the cop’s revolver at her.

  Kynan stopped running. Rasmus said something urgent to the cop, and he hit the gas. Trapped in the back, Paisley turned onto her knees and stared out the rear window. The cop turned on the siren and gunned the car into traffic.

  CHAPTER 36

  San Rafael, California

  Something was happening to Paisley.

  Blood dried and flaked off Iskander’s arms while he sprinted to Nikodemus’s Reventón. His business here was done, bloodier than requested because he’d had to end things quickly once he realized something had gone wrong with Paisley. Inside the car, he grabbed his phone. He needed information. Blasting off without that might get Paisley killed, so he forced himself to calm down while he scrolled through the texts and e-mails that had arrived while he was busy.

  Fifty-two texts, four voice mails, and a hundred and ten e-mails. He checked the text messages first. All the recent ones were from Kynan.

  Where r u

  Call me

  F nkdms call

  Mt ur hs urgnt

  rk hz ur grl

  call when u gt ths. Will updt

  He switched to voice mail. On the face of it, there was nothing alarming in the list of messages. The oldest was from Alexandrine. There were two from Kynan in the last hour. He ignored them to listen to the one from Paisley that had come in about three hours ago.

  His heart slammed against his ribs when he heard his fears confirmed. The fear in her voice made him want to punch someone. He widened his psychic link to her, but she was fucking resistant, and all he got back was a faint echo. He’d never get in without being closer. She wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t all right either.

  He called Kynan next. Rasmus lived in Berkeley, but he didn’t know for a fact that was where Paisley had been taken, and if he headed to the East Bay only to find out she wasn’t there, he’d be screwed by horrendous commute traffic and two bridges. He squeezed the steering wheel with one hand while he waited for the call to connect.

  Kynan answered on the first ring. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  Taking care of Nikodemus’s business. “Where’s Paisley?”

  “I have a line on that. Get back here, understand me?”

  “I’m in San Rafael. Give me half an hour.” He thought about Alexandrine’s call and got a chill. “Wait a sec.” He put Kynan on hold and listened to her voice mail. He switched back to Kynan. “He took her to the Palace Hotel. Meet me there by the registration desk.” He called Durian next, got voice mail, and left a message. Gray was next.

  “What’s up, Iskander?” she asked.

  “You anywhere near the Palace Hotel?”

  “I’m not far from downtown. You need something?”

  “I’m giving you a potential sanction. Nikodemus authorized me, but you can call him if you need to confirm.” He switched to his Bluetooth so he’d have his hands free. He intended to drive like a goddamned demon.

  “Not necessary. Nikodemus warned us you might call.”

  “Get a room at the Palace Hotel and text me your room number as soon as you have it.” He started the Reventón and headed south to the Golden Gate Bridge. “Kynan’s on his way. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Who’s the sanction?”

  “Rasmus Kessler.” He spoke over the silence at the other end. “Maybe Fen, too.”

  “On my way.”

  He checked the time. Nine o’clock in the morning meant the commute was barely winding down. The Reventón had some after-market work, illegal, that had removed the car’s speed limitations for the U.S. market. He knew for a fact he could get it to one-fifty. At this time of day, there was a chance he could do close to that in the car pool lane for some of the drive into the city.

  Twelve minutes later, his phone dinged with a text, and seven minutes after that he had the Reventón parked on the street in a red zone with a haze of magic over it to keep the police from noticing. Kynan was already heading for him. He read Gray’s text while he waited for the warlord to dash across the street, found out she’d sent another one with a new room number, and without doing anything more than signaling to Kynan to follow, he went inside.

  In the lobby, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. There was a fucking mage here, no question. Kynan made a low sound. Yeah. He felt Kessler’s magic. His sense of Paisley got stronger, but she was still locked down tight. Every oath he’d made to her kicked in. Kynan had much the same reaction because she was sworn to Nikodemus, just like the rest of them. She was as good as kin, and important to Nikodemus. Good, because a pissed-off Kynan was a fucking dangerous beast.

  They got into the elevator and went to the room Gray had reserved. She opened the door before they got there and stood aside to let them in.

  “Smart,” Kynan said. “Calling Gray.”

  True enough. Gray was a human woman who had, through a series of events that had not been entirely her choice, taken on the magic of one of the kin. She’d ended up training with Nikodemus’s assassin, Durian, and though she didn’t have the same set of skills as Durian, she did have an idiosyncratic and no less deadly set of gifts all her own. The fact that she was human and had something of a grudge against the magekind gave her an ironic edge when she got sent against a mage or a witch, as had happened once or twice.

  The tall, slender woman shut the door after them. She wore black jeans and a bl
ack long-sleeved T-shirt. Her short hair was black. “Kessler’s on the next floor up, three rooms over.” She pointed at the ceiling in the direction she meant. “I changed rooms once I figured out where he was, then did some recon.”

  Kynan nodded his approval. “Excellent. Magehelds?”

  “Eleven,” Gray said. “Xia and Alexandrine weren’t available, so Carson’s on her way.” She shot a glance in Iskander’s direction, but her next words were directed at Kynan. “I hope you don’t mind that I called her.”

  The warlord shrugged. Everyone more or less knew that Kynan had once been ordered to rape and murder Carson. She was lucky to be alive.

  “Good thinking,” Iskander said. Carson would sever the magehelds, releasing them from their enslavement to Kessler.

  “Last check,” Gray said, “there were four in the lobby, two on guard outside the room. Best guess is five inside with Kessler and a human woman. I couldn’t get close enough to be sure. She could be a witch. I assume it’s Paisley.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the mental condition of the magehelds?” Kynan asked Gray. “Can you tell?”

  “I don’t know about the ones in the room, but the others are a bit off. Not insane, but off. Carson will have to be careful.”

  Kynan pulled out his phone and called Carson. He put the call on speaker and explained the situation.

  “I’m parking at Minna Street. Should be there in less than five,” she said. “Have Gray meet me in the lobby in case I need her to terminate any of the ones there when I’m done.”

  “On it,” Gray said. She handed a key card to Iskander while Kynan disconnected the call to Carson. “Extra room key, just in case. I’ll text you when Carson and I are done. You let us know where you need us next.”

  Iskander nodded and Gray headed out.

  “What the hell happened, Kynan?” Iskander said. He was hyped up, looking to kill himself a few magehelds and, if he got lucky, a mage. And Fen, if Gray didn’t take care of that for him. He forced himself to settle down so he could hear Kynan’s recitation about what had happened to Paisley. When he was done, Iskander filled him in on Nikodemus’s orders to keep Rasmus alive if possible. Not that he cared right now, but orders were orders and he didn’t want Kynan in trouble if he could help it.