Crown of Death

by Keary Taylor

  She gives me a little wary smile, looking up at me from under her eyelashes. “We’re talking about…if we might get married someday.”

  “What?” I gape. I actually fling my spoon in a big arc, sending a splatter of ice cream onto the window beside me. “Married? Slow down on me, Amelia. You two just moved in together. Is this for real?”

  She blushes harder and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Yeah,” she says. “I mean, we’re all in this. I don’t know a timeframe, but I feel like this is the right move.”

  I study her. My best friend ever since I started at Greendale Community College. My five foot-nine, blonde babe best friend with the pouty lips and the green eyes of a siren.

  Talking about getting married.

  “Wow,” I breathe. “Amelia, that’s amazing. I’m…I’m really happy for you.”

  “Really?” she asks, sounding wary. The look in her eyes tells me how much she’s been dreading telling me. “You really mean it?”

  I laugh, reaching forward and grabbing her hands. “Just because I have the worst luck in the world and can’t seem to ever catch a break in the happiness department doesn’t mean you’re doomed, too. You and Tanner are great together. He worships the ground you walk on. Trust me, he recognizes that you’re out of his league.”

  She laughs at that, smiling brightly.

  “And even though you’ve already abandoned me in that apartment,” I say, gazing at her through my laugh. “I’m happy for you. You have my full support.”

  I’ll never tell her that because she moved out, because of my debt to Shylock, I can no longer afford the rent on my own. That I’m getting kicked out. That the eviction notice on my door said I had to be out in two weeks.

  She doesn’t need that guilt on her mind.

  She does this relieved groan, leaning forward and kissing my cheek. “This is why you’re the best, Lo. Thank you, thank you!”

  I laugh, shaking my head.

  She launches back into the shenanigans of her life, telling me about her upcoming semester this fall, continuing in her pursuit of going into human resources. And eventually, she turns to teasing me about wanting to work with dead bodies for the rest of my life.

  We finish dinner around nine and Tanner texts her, asking her which of two movies she wants to rent that night.

  “Do you want to come over?” she asks. “I promise we’ll keep our hands to ourselves.”

  I shake my head with a laugh. “Go. Enjoy your boy toy. I’m beat. I think I’m just going to go to bed early.”

  “Fine,” she says. With a kiss to my cheek, she says goodbye and heads to her car.

  So, alone, I hop in my own, and head back home, feeling like a loner for being on my own on a Saturday night, heading home early.

  I park and climb out.

  And I slow as I approach the stairs up to my apartment.

  Sitting on the bottom one, is Eli.

  An exasperated sigh slips between my lips. “What are you doing here?”

  He stands, his dark eyes fixed on me as he does. “I came to apologize for the way I acted before. And to…talk.

  We stand there in the darkening light, in the parking lot of my seedy apartment building. Staring each other down, I can just see it there in his eyes. He doesn’t actually regret anything he said to me earlier.

  “I’m not moving,” I say, folding my arms over my chest.

  Though suddenly I realize—I am about to be homeless. I can’t afford next month’s rent, there’s no way I can back-pay what I owe. Moving back home really might be my only option right now.

  Not that I’m going to breathe a word of that to Eli.

  “I’m sorry for how I presented it to you before,” he says, standing tall and rigid. “I should have been better with my reasoning and presentation. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I just stare at him, because he’s making it very obvious that he doesn’t think the heart of what he was saying was wrong.

  “Can we go inside?” he asks, his eyes drifting up to the second floor.

  My fingers curl into fists. Heat rises in my veins.

  Because if he’s requesting we go inside, he must think there’s going to be a scene.

  “I think we’re good out here,” I say.

  I’m angry. On edge. Ready to throw verbal punches if I have to. Even if Eli is one of my best friends. Even if he is family.

  “Okay, then,” he says with a little nod. “But can you just try to see that I only said what I did because I care about you?”

  “Sure,” I say. My blood is growing so hot. “You can care about me. But expecting me to just pick up my life and move, is a little over the top, don’t you think?”

  “No, Logan,” he growls, his tone rising. “I don’t. You might be an adult, might be working your dream job, might be living on your own, but you don’t know everything like you sometimes seem to think.”

  “Are you trying to sound like a condescending asshole?” I seethe, my tone rising. “Because you’re doing a pretty damn good job, Eli!”

  A scream cuts through the night.

  Piercing.

  Loud.

  Utterly terrified.

  And I look toward the street, just in time to see…something.

  A motion.

  A blur.

  One figure. And then another.

  “No,” Eli breathes.

  And I see every muscle in his body tighten. Constrict. Prepare.

  “Get inside,” he says.

  The entire moment plays out in slow motion.

  His eyes slide back to mine. Filled with terror. Filled with fight.

  And for just a fraction of a second, I swear I see the faintest flecks of yellow in his dark eyes.

  “Get inside, Logan,” he says as a second scream pierces the night.

  And then he’s running.

  Through the parking lot. Around the corner.

  And despite how utterly pissed off I am with him right now, I still chase after him into the night.

  Another scream rips through the night, only it’s cut off.

  I race past the vape shop. Around the gas station.

  And there ahead, between an apartment building and a Mexican grocery store, I see Eli slip into the darkness. He hides in the shadows, watching.

  And there’s yelling.

  Shouts.

  A cry—not a scream.

  And a roar.

  Something inhuman. It reverberates off the walls.

  I step into view of the dark, narrow space in time to see brilliant red glowing eyes fix on me.

  A man, tall, muscular, backs away from two other figures, leaving a motionless female figure lying at his feet.

  “You’ve had your fun these past two months, Rhys,” a female voice says. “But you know how the Houses and Court feel about exposure.”

  The man with the glowing eyes laughs. “You and your Houses. Don’t you ever get tired of being on the leash? Don’t you ever get tired of holding it, Edmond?”

  “I don’t know,” a male voice says. “Don’t you think it suits me?”

  Rhys laughs again. And I don’t even see it, have no idea how he does it, but suddenly he lunges at a wall. He uses his momentum, kicking off the brick. He launches over the two figures.

  He clears the alley, into the street.

  Just fifteen feet from me, where I stupidly stand on the sidewalk, gaping.

  His glowing red eyes lock on me. And I’m frozen as he lunges forward.

  A thick set of arms wrap around him, and the two figures collide in mid-air, tumbling over the concrete.

  Eli tackles the man, turning over, rolling.

  A scream rips from my throat and I dart forward two steps.

  But before I can get within ten feet, the two figures from the alley explode from it.

  I don’t know what happened.

  One second Eli was wrestling Rhys.

  The next a head is rolling down the road, the man and the woman panting, lo
oking at Eli and me with equally brilliant red eyes.

  Chapter 4

  Eli swears.

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard him swear before. But he does. Loud and blunt.

  “You’ve both seen an awful lot in the last sixty seconds,” the man says, looking up from Eli to me from beneath his dark eyelashes. “And for some reason you seemed to think you could do something about our little scene.” He directs his words at Eli. “Why?”

  Eli slowly rises to his feet. He holds his hands out slightly, as if to hold the two of them back. That’s fear in his eyes. Genuine fear.

  Justified. Considering the decapitated man lying in the street. The lifeless woman resting in the alley behind us.

  What… Oh, lord. What…what is happening?

  Why are their eyes glowing like that?

  How did they move like they did?

  “I just heard a woman scream,” Eli says as he takes a slow step sideways toward my side. “I came to help. We…we didn’t see anything. I swear. We’ll go.”

  The woman laughs and my blood chills.

  We’ve just been witness to…to what? We watched them kill that man. And that woman he killed…

  The man before us narrows his eyes at me. He takes two steps forward, searching my face. “What’s your name?” he asks. His voice is smooth like butter, and carries a faint Spanish accent.

  My mouth opens just slightly to answer, but no sound comes out.

  “She’s no one,” Eli interjects before I can even answer. “I promise, we’ll cause you no trouble. Just let us go and you’ll never hear a word from us.”

  “I’m afraid this is a bit of a problem for us,” the woman says, taking a step forward.

  My heart rate doubles. Sweat breaks out onto my palms. Fear crawls through me like a million ants.

  “No,” the man says, taking two more steps forward through the darkening night. “I know you. Don’t lie to me. What House are you affiliated with? Sidra? Martials?”

  “Hou…house?” I stammer, looking from him, to Eli. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The man’s eyes flare brighter, red and brilliant.

  A hiss rips from his lips and he becomes a blur. And then he’s in my face.

  Fangs, pointed, glistening fangs in my face, he growls, grabbing the front of my shirt, pulling me an inch from his own face.

  “Tell me your name,” he growls.

  Eli leaps at us, only the woman plows into him, knocking them both to the ground. He’s swinging, wrestling, roaring. “We’re no one,” he bellows. “Release us and I swear on my life we will cause you no trouble.”

  “Why did you follow us?” the man hisses into my face. “Who are you spying for?”

  “I’m not a spy,” I say. A lick of anger flares in my blood. I shake my head, my entire body shaking violently. “I swear. We’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  His eyes harden, and he suddenly steps away, but his hand latches around my wrist, and he yanks me forward. I stumble, nearly tripping. I cry out in pain as his hand tightens around my wrist. Like steel clamps.

  “No,” Eli yells. “Please. You don’t have to do this.”

  The woman yanks him forward. She’s surprisingly strong, because as he tries to yank out of her grasp, she wrenches his hands behind his back, twisting him into a painful hold he can’t seem to break.

  The war inside of me, of emotions swinging between terror and raging anger, is very real. “Please,” I plead, fear reaching frantic levels in my blood. Anger and confusion make my vision blur. “I swear, we won’t say anything. Just let us go!”

  Neither the man nor the woman say anything as they march us down the road.

  I debate screaming. Letting a blood curdling scream rip from my lungs, calling for help.

  But I look over to Eli, and see that the woman holds a blade in her hand, wedged into his side.

  Two blocks we trek, and then we turn into a door. It’s a big steel one, industrial.

  There are no lights on in the building. It smells strongly of gasoline and rubber.

  My captor unlocks the door and shoves me into the dark.

  I’m going to die. This is where they will kill us.

  Pitch dark swallows me as I’m shoved inside, stumbling over a hard floor. The sound of keys echo once more, and I hear a heavy lock sliding into place.

  Eli’s shoulder bumps into mine in the dark. He continues pleading for our release, but is only met with silence.

  Hands grip me once more and I hear the clanging of chains against metal and then a snap.

  I’m shoved down and I fall into a seat. The next moment my wrists are yanked back, and a chain is looped around my wrists and something clicks into place.

  I’m a prisoner. Locked up. About to die in the dark.

  Yep. This is just my luck.

  I should have gone with Amelia to Tanner’s and watched that movie with them.

  I should have gone with Eli into my apartment to talk.

  Any number of paths that would have led to a different outcome than the one where I am about to die.

  There’s the sound of a match being struck and then a candle casts dim light.

  Cinderblock walls surround us, all the way up to the ceiling, maybe twenty feet above our heads. A garage door is half bricked up, and a single steel door marks where we entered.

  My guess is that it was once an auto-body shop.

  The man steps back into view, walking toward me. He bends over, bracing his hands on his knees, looking me in the eye.

  “Who are you, and who are you working for?” he says, his voice calm and even.

  “We’re no one!” Eli demands again. He’s growing more frantic by the moment.

  I look at my captor. He’s in his mid-to upper-twenties, I’d guess. His complexion is a little darker. Black hair sits atop his head, messy, but purposeful. Dark, dark brown, nearly black eyes have taken over the glowing red. He’s cut, in incredible shape beneath those jeans and that black t-shirt.

  “I know I’ve seen you before,” he says again, his voice even but dangerous. “Tell me your name.”

  “My name is Logan Pierce,” I blurt, my voice trembling. “I’ve lived in this area my entire life. And I can say without a doubt that we have never, ever met before.”

  His jaw clenches and his eyes grow harder as he presses his lips together. He straightens and stalks over to the chair where Eli is chained, his wrists fastened to the arms of the chair, his ankles shackled, as well.

  “You’re certainly more capable than you smell,” he says, placing his hands on the arms of Eli’s chair, leaning down and studying him. “What are you? A hunter? Were you following us? Looking to take us out?”

  “I have no weapons on me,” Eli says, his voice evening out just a little.

  “Oh, but that’s a lie,” the woman says, stepping forward. In her hand, she holds a pointed bit of wood, maybe ten inches long. “I pulled this from the waist of your pants.”

  My eyes widen, and flick back to Eli.

  The look on his face tells me she isn’t lying.

  “Eli?” I breathe, immediately realizing my fatal mistake in giving away at least his first name. “Do you…do you know what’s happening? Why would you be carrying a stake?”

  He won’t look at me. He only stares the man down.

  The man hisses. His eyes drift down, studying Eli. And he goes still as his eyes fix on Eli’s hand.

  And the ring that rests on his middle finger.

  “Conrath,” the man growls as he grabs Eli’s hand and yanks it toward him, the chains clanking. “You little liar.”

  He looks over at me and studies my face again. Deeply. Searching.

  My eyes. My nose. My mouth. My jaw.

  He’s taking in every single detail of me, memorizing my features.

  And slowly, slowly, a wicked smile grows on his lips.

  “No,” Eli says. “No! She has nothing to do with anything. She’s not
hing more than my friend. She has nothing to do with the Houses.”

  “Oh, you are such a liar,” the man says. He releases Eli’s hand and stands straight. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone.

  “She’s no one,” Eli growls, growing angrier and more desperate by the moment.

  “A guardian from the House of Conrath and a face that looks so achingly familiar?” the man says as he dials a phone number and then holds it up to his ear. “I don’t think so. You know what I think? That Court will be very, very interested to get a phone call from the House of Valdez.”

  He goes quiet and listens for a moment. He turns his back to us and slowly walks toward the other side of the space as he talks quietly.

  “What’s going on, Eli?” I breathe through my quivering lips. I’m shivering violently. “What is he talking about? Why the hell are you carrying a stake? Who is he calling? What does Conrath mean?”

  At the word Conrath, Eli noticeably flinches. His jaw tightens.

  But he doesn’t look at me. His eyes remain fixed on the man in the corner, quietly talking into the phone.

  “He is wearing the Conrath crest,” he quietly says. “I’m telling you, she looks just like her.”

  He’s quiet, listening.

  “Who does he think I am?” I ask, starting to feel frantic. “I look like who?”

  “Quiet,” Eli finally says, a little bark to his voice.

  “I understand that doesn’t mean she’s anything but human, but I’m asking you to consider the fact that this man is here guarding her,” our captor says. “That has to mean something. And considering it’s the House of Conrath? From what I hear, he and their leader have some…interesting history.”

  Eli’s breathing grows heavier.

  I look over at him. And I consider.

  Guardian.

  That’s what the man said Eli was to me.

  Guardian.

  Have I ever been more than just a few minutes away from Eli? Was it merely coincidence that he moved in just a few doors down? That he moved to Greendale as soon as I did? That he is always around?

  “Eli?” I breathe. But I can’t bring myself to ask the question. Did you plant yourself in my life for a hidden reason?

  “Thank you,” the man says, sounding absolutely relieved.