by Gina LaManna
“That’s why.” Nurse Anita’s eyes were full of sympathy, but her voice was clipped and businesslike. “We need to run some tests on him. The medicine will be experimental. He’s the only vampire I’ve ever treated, and I’m calling in some special forces.”
“Special forces?”
“Help from The Isle,” Anita said. “Give us some time. I won’t let him die, I swear to you, Detective.”
“Die?” I echoed. It was the first time I’d really, truly let the word cross my mind. My ribs felt as if they were made of dust, crumbling to ashes, littering my heart with debris. A painful tug in my chest had me stumbling back against my brother.
“It’s not going to happen,” Anita promised again. “I’ll call you if there’s any news.”
“You mean when he gets better,” I said. “When I can see him.”
She gave a hesitant nod. “Or the second he takes a turn for the worse. But he’s unresponsive now, Detective. He won’t know if you’re there or not.”
“I need...” I shook my head. “I can’t sit still.”
“I don’t expect you to,” Anita said knowingly. She pulled me close, dragged me into a hug. Her hand pressed against the back of my head and her fingers knotted in my hair. As she clasped me to her, she whispered in my ear. “Find who’s responsible for this, Detective. You hear me?”
I pulled back, gave a nod. If nothing else, I appreciated the raw grate of emotion in her voice, the grit and determination.
“Go rest, honey,” she said. “I’ll Comm you with any updates.”
“Let me bring you home,” Nash said helplessly. “Let me take you to Ma. She’ll know what to do.”
I raised my hands. “Don’t touch me.”
“Dani, listen—you can’t go out there right now. It’s too dangerous, and you’re not in your right mind.”
“Don’t. Touch. Me.” I narrowed my eyes at Nash. “Don’t anyone come after me.”
“Where are you going?”
I glanced at Matthew, leaned closer. Pressed my lips to his forehead.
Then returned my gaze to Nash’s. “The Depth.”
“You can’t go in there alone,” Nash said. “You won’t make it out alive.”
I raised my arms, tightened my still-damp bun. “Watch me.”
Chapter 12
My feet pounded along the pavement.
The underside of my work shoe thwacked the asphalt as I sprinted through the streets of Wicked. I’d flown out of Matthew’s house in a rampage and hadn’t stopped once. Nash must have instructed the others to let me go—a smart choice on his part. I didn’t doubt he’d come after me at some point, but for now, I was alone.
Prying eyes glanced at me as I flew down the streets, past the dusty road just south of the pizzeria. I turned down a street and blew through yesterday’s crime scene. I paused, huffing for breath, and stood where the body had been found. The body that had led to the love of my life being mutilated. If she hadn’t died, Matthew wouldn’t have been attacked.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to focus. To remember, to think clearly, to keep Detective-Dani present even while Girlfriend-Dani ached. It wasn’t the vic’s fault, I reminded myself. The poor girl had been a victim as much as Matthew. She hadn’t even been given the chance to recover. Dead within minutes, Sienna’s report said.
The overwhelming emotions returned. Before Girlfriend-Dani could edge out her detective counterpart, I launched into another dash. This time my footsteps faded from pavement to grass, to the shallow thump on dirt as I edged south of the Howler and straight into The Depth.
I couldn’t say why. Or who, exactly, I was looking for. At the back of my head, I knew it was dangerous—especially now. The full moon had recently ended and a vampire had attacked a newly blooded wolf—the pack would be hankering for a kill. Matthew had been a warning, a deadly warning.
Blood must have blood.
Well, they could have me, I thought, barreling down the dusty, overgrown trolley tracks. Trolleys no longer ran through the wilderness; they didn’t edge close enough to locations considered dangerous. Some years ago, the forests had supposedly been a different place entirely. A home to fairies and pixies, flowers and tangled trees, wolves and vampires alike.
As Nash had said, it was now a death sentence. Pixies had migrated out to find jobs in the service industries. The daring fairies kept to the tops of trees where ground-bound creatures couldn’t reach them. Gnomes and trolls had all but retreated to their small corner of the borough. And witches and wizards avoided it completely.
I aimed my trajectory for a narrow, tunnel-like opening. Its dark mouth loomed before me and promised uncertainty and adrenaline. Danger lurked between the knitted branches drawn together like crossed fingers, holding tight against intruders.
Taking a huge breath, I ducked beneath the foliage crowding the entrance to the blanketed forest. I didn’t slow even as branches ripped at my arms and tore at my clothes. A branch raked over my forehead and I felt the thorny sting of a wound as I pressed deeper into the darkness.
I leapt over a log, dodged around a shallow stream, and stilled only for a second when a set of eyes appeared behind an overgrown patch of blackberries. I didn’t bother to wait for the creature to identify itself before I muttered an illegal hex I’d picked up on the streets during one of my recent cases.
“Blood and bone and firestone,
Loose this flame, let it be thrown!”
I hurled the flaming fireball at the set of eyes in the darkness. They blinked out, disappeared into blackness as the flames tore through the brambles and left a singed hole gaping through the center.
I stopped, felt my shoulders sag. The release of energy felt good. Invigorating.
Laws were entirely different in The Depth. Throwing fireballs was definitely frowned upon and illegal, but when the world around me was do or die, law had a way of crumbling. And if there was nobody here to enforce it...
I prepared another sphere of fire and carried it above my shoulder as I let myself fall into a jog again. This time my pace was slower, more cautious, aware. I looked around, waiting for someone—something. I was hankering for a fight, ready for a tussle. Better yet if it were a werewolf.
My adrenaline pounded, my senses were on high alert. Maybe this was how Matthew felt all the time, except amplified tenfold. I wondered if he felt pain more acutely. Why wouldn’t he? He saw, heard, felt, tasted everything else more intensely than the rest of us.
The thought sent a primal ache through my gut. It stole my breath, stopped me running in my tracks. I sank to my knees. Sticks and stones dug into my skin. Branches reached for me, tentative, brushing with a breeze across my skin.
I let the fireball grow, larger, larger, letting the energy wash through me until I felt strong enough to stand. That’s when I saw it. Or rather, him.
“You,” I growled. “What have you done?”
Grey stepped forward, arms raised. He was in his human form. I wondered if he’d tracked me here as a wolf and transformed, or if he’d tailed me on two feet.
“Dani, relax. I didn’t—”
“Your kind did this to him!” The fireball pulsed with each word, growing, spiraling until the sphere was the size of my head. It sizzled larger still, warm against my skin as I wound up, aimed. “You did this to him!”
“Dani, please—”
I didn’t wait to hear more before I sent the fireball hurtling in Grey’s direction. He was calm, so logical, so composed, and it broke any self-control I had left. I stumbled backward, reeling from the effort of loosing the illegal hex on my former friend.
I tripped over a stump and landed in a huff of bushes. Grey fell out of sight as the fireball approached him, and for a moment, the reality of what I’d done washed over me.
I was wretched with remorse for Matthew, for Grey. If I hurt him, or worse...
The boom shook me, loud enough to rattle the forest floor and send my heart skittering in its cage. A flash of light followed that had me
seeing stars. My ears rang as I crawled forward and drew myself over the misshapen trunk of a weeping willow.
I blinked my eyes open, shaking away the remnants of the sparkles in my vision. Grey strode through the darkness looking more than a little miffed. I couldn’t blame him, seeing as my fireball would have killed nine out of ten creatures in the forest.
Grey, like Matthew, was far above average in every way.
I hadn’t seen how he’d cleared the fire, but bits of it sparked off him. His shirt was singed in an unfortunate way over his left sleeve, and as I watched, he raised a hand and flicked a rather large piece of charcoal from his shoulder.
When he looked up and met my gaze, his eyes were hard. “I sure to hell hope that’s not the way you say hello these days.”
The fight slipped out of my body and so did the flight. I couldn’t run any further—I had no clue how far I’d gone, but my legs had pulled me deeper into the forest than I’d ever gone before.
“Dani?” Grey closed the distance between us. “What’s wrong? Why are you alone this far in the forest? Where’s Matthew?”
“You don’t know?” My mouth tasted dry.
“No, that’s why I’m asking. I’m coming from home.”
“How’d you know to find me here?”
Grey gave a tap of his nose. “I was making my way to town in my, ah, other form and caught a familiar scent. I couldn’t think of a reason you’d be this deep into the forest by yourself, so I investigated.”
I barely had enough energy to give a shake of my head.
“I see you’re practicing your pyrotechnics?” Grey gave me a smile, his eyes softening. “You know, if I was anyone else, that would’ve burned my head to a crisp. And here, I thought we were friends.”
“Matthew,” I murmured. “He’s...”
Grey moved closer. “What’s happened, Dani? You’re... I thought you were angry, but it’s more than that. Talk to me.”
“They got to him,” I said. “I thought it was you.”
“Me? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“A wolf attacked Matthew.”
“A werewolf?”
“I don’t know any werewolf that can fell Matthew,” I shot at him. “Nor do I know any wolf he’d let get close enough to surprise him in his own home, let alone hurt him.” I dragged my head up, caught his eye.
“Except for me,” Grey murmured. “I didn’t—you’ve got to know I didn’t do anything, Dani. Last night, I all but called a truce between me and Matthew to protect you.”
“Matthew thinks you had other motivations.”
Grey eased into a sitting position on the curve of the weeping willow’s trunk. “Motivations?”
“He said you had interest in me that wasn’t solely relegated to The Hex Files.”
“I do have an interest in you.”
I tilted my chin higher to meet his gaze. It was exhausting. “What?”
“You’re a friend,” Grey said softly. “You were the only one there, the only one offering a shoulder when Lorraine died. How could I not care for you?”
“It’s nothing more?”
Grey hesitated, then glanced at his feet. “What happened to Matthew?”
We both ignored the awkwardness as I cleared my throat. “He was slashed head to toe. Nurse Anita says it’s almost definitely the marks of a werewolf, but we can’t be certain yet. It’s just strange how someone—something—could get so close to Matthew. He’s a protective sort of fellow.”
“I’d never have guessed,” Grey said dryly. “I take it he’s okay?”
I swallowed, raised a shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Ah.” Grey gave a knowing nod. “Hence the fireballs at my head.”
“Sorry.”
Grey slid closer to me, pulled me into a sitting position and propped my weight against him. “If that’s the worst you’ve got, you’re not so bad.”
I couldn’t break a smile. I could only lean against his warm figure and feel relief. Relief at the fact that it wasn’t Grey. Being here with him, I knew he couldn’t have attacked Matthew. If for no other reason than he knew it would destroy me.
“We’ll find who did this,” Grey murmured against my head. “And we’ll make sure they never do it again.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “About everything. I didn’t think you’d actually attacked Matthew. I wasn’t thinking straight at all.”
“I figured. You made it nearly five miles into The Depth alone on sheer adrenaline.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Listen, you can’t keep wandering out here alone. If there really are werewolf attacks happening...”
“Do you think it’s related to The Hex Files?”
“It could be,” Grey said. “But it could also be retaliation. The pack lost a member of their ranks yesterday. I felt it, the Elderwolves all did. We feel every time we lose one of our own. It’s impossible not to. And we’re not even part of the pack—The Sixth Pack would have been revved up. Seeing as Matthew’s the only vampire in town, they would have gone after him out of rage.”
“Like I went after you,” I said, hanging my head. “This is such a mess.”
Grey’s hand came out, cupped my chin. He tilted my face up so my eyes stared directly into his. “You’ll get through this. Matthew will be fine, and you’ve got me for support, too. Understand?”
“I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know where to start.” I rubbed my hands against my temples. “None of this makes sense. And according to the chief, I’m not even supposed to be on the case. How the hell does he expect me to stay away when the love of my life has been attacked?”
Grey stiffened, ever so slightly. “The chief pulled you off the case?”
“Officially. Off the record, he wants both Matthew and I to find the vamp who killed the girl. But look where that’s gotten us.” I shook my head. “If it’s anyone’s fault this happened, it’s the chief’s. He should have kept Matthew on the case. By pulling him, it made him look guilty.”
“I think you should come home with me, take a rest. I can give you a Sleeper Spell.”
“I don’t want to sleep.” I pushed away from Grey and stood. The branches of the weeping willow wrapped around me, cascaded down my shoulders in a fitting cloak of leafy tears. “I want to get back to work. I’ve got to get back to the hospital and check on Matthew, and then I want to talk to Chief Newton. Can you...?”
I gestured, and Grey’s lips quirked into a half smile. “I didn’t think you appreciated getting lifts?”
“Desperate times,” I said. “Will you help me?”
“Of course.” Grey took his shirt off as he stood up.
I raised a hand, blocked the view. “Must you do that?”
“Don’t look,” he said, and then stepped behind a tree.
I stood impatiently beneath the weeping willow and stared directly at its trunk, trying to ignore the sounds of the man disrobing and transforming behind me.
When I heard a soft yip, I turned around. Grey stood there, ready and waiting. His snowy white coat shone bright, rippled with bits of sunlight that shone through the leaves. As I surveyed him, he bent his front legs toward the ground and nodded his head for me to climb aboard.
I slid onto Grey’s back and gripped his fur as tightly as I dared. With barely a warning, he took off, bounding through the forest to cover the distance back to civilization. It must have taken me over an hour, but Grey and I were back in minutes.
Grey let me slide off his back steps away from the border of The Depth. The sun shone through the heavy foliage, peeks of brightness helping to banish the shadows. I turned to the large white wolf, rested a hand on his head.
I looked into his soulful eyes and hoped he could understand my silent thanks. Then he leaned a massive head forward, nudged me at the hip. Without looking back, I climbed over the low brambles, feeling the acute sting from an array of cuts and scrapes I’d accumulated during my reckless jaunt t
hrough the woods.
By the time the sunlight glossed over my injuries, Grey was gone. I stared deeply into the forest after him, but I understood that he’d only come to help me. He cared for me, and I realized that in an inadvertent way, I’d hurt him. My lack of reciprocal feelings would always hurt him, and there was nothing I could do about it.
With that, I set my sights on the hospital. I dragged my feet through the streets of Wicked, ignoring the curious stares falling on me. One older woman asked if I was alright and gestured vaguely toward the blood on my arms. At my nod, she backed away, and I realized I looked quite frightful.
The hospital loomed before me. The pit in my stomach worsened as I stood outside. When I’d left Matthew’s house, Anita had seemed unsure of his path to recovery. Anita was never unsure. But Matthew couldn’t die. He just couldn’t.
“I’m here to see Captain King,” I said to the front desk. “It’s urgent.”
The pixie behind the desk glanced up, her lips puckering with concern. “Oh, Detective,” she said, fluttering her long, glittering eyelashes. “I’m so sorry.”
Chapter 13
“Sorry?” I yelped. “Sorry about what? Where is he?”
She blinked again. “He’s—er, he’s upstairs in Nurse Anita’s wing, of course. He’s under the best possible care.”
“Then why’d you say you’re sorry?” I screeched. “Is he... did something happen?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know,” she clarified quickly. “I’ve just heard the two of you are involved once again, and the call was rather urgent. It’s—it’s the captain, Detective. He doesn’t stick around the hospital long if he can help it.”
I brushed past the receptionist without another word and snatched a guest pass from beside her computer. I shoved it unceremoniously to my hip and jogged the stairs to the next level. I stomped by each consecutive doorway, impatiently peeking through the doors for glimpses of the patients inside.
I turned a corner and instantly knew I’d found Matthew’s room. There was a cluster of people hanging outside—medical staff, law enforcement officers, and plainclothes visitors crammed around two tiny plastic chairs and one loveseat. Everyone was too polite to sit, which meant all the chairs were unused.