A Touch Menacing

by Leah Clifford

  He sighed. Fake, she thought instantly. Practiced. He’s acting. Madeline took an unconscious step back, but he reached for her. “Now, now. None of that,” he growled as he yanked her in front of him, against his chest. He leaned his chin on her shoulder. “Didn’t Gabriel tell you the Bound are gearing up for an extermination of the Siders?” he asked.

  She swallowed hard. Her days as a double agent had apparently come to an end. “Yes. A few days ago.”

  “So you know Upstairs has openly declared war and you’re shopping?” Luke demanded as he loosened his grip.

  Madeline smirked. “I’m multitasking. Give me some credit.”

  “Right now, all credit’s going to Kristen. I’ve been told she’s organizing the Siders. That she’s having a ball. Bringing the territories together.”

  “Yes,” she answered carefully, surprised that he knew. She and Kristen had decided having one big group meeting would be the best way to earn the other Siders’ trust. Everyone who attended would be on the same page, everything out in the open. Of course, Kristen had immediately wanted to make it into one of her gothic eyesores. Though, even Madeline had to admit, there would be a better turnout for a ball than a strategy meeting.

  “Will Gabriel be there?”

  “Of course not,” Madeline said. It was a Sider event, Sider business. At least that’s what Kristen’s excuse had been. Madeline herself didn’t trust him, now that he was Bound again. So who told you, Luke? she wondered. Kristen? When Gabriel had Fallen and Kristen had gone missing, Luke had been scarce. Madeline knew they’d been together. The very night Gabe became Bound again, though, Kristen had come out of hiding, sane and in control of herself. Despite her best efforts, Madeline hadn’t learned what game Kristen had been playing with Luke, where her loyalties truly lay.

  “My favor . . .” Luke drawled, making her muscles clench. Relax, she commanded herself. The key to dealing with the Fallen was to stay calm. Never run when they see you as prey. Never show fear if it could be helped. “Convince Kristen to make it a masked ball. I’m attending, but I don’t want to cause a stir. Quite the opposite, actually. I want no attention drawn to us.”

  In the reflection off the window, she couldn’t make out Luke’s face. A slow nausea started in her stomach. “Us?”

  “I’m bringing along friends from Downstairs.”

  Her jaw dropped in disbelief. Spying for Luke, giving him information, was one thing. Sneaking him in crossed a line she would have trouble justifying even to herself, let alone Kristen. What he asked was impossible, not to mention ludicrous. The Fallen. Demons. Luke wanted to bring them to the ball.

  “Why?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “Multitasking,” he shot back. “Kristen broke a promise to me. I need to collect.”

  Madeline cocked her head, studying his reflection, the strange challenge in his tone. What on Earth did Kristen get herself into with you? “I need her, Luke. Kristen and I are the strongest. Together, we can lead the Siders against the Bound. If you want me to pass along a message to her, I will, but I can’t do what you’re asking. Even you alone . . . It’s not right. If you’re going to hurt her . . .” The arm around her waist cinched tight. She swallowed her gasp of pain. Gabe had told her tales of Luke’s wrath, what he was capable of when denied. She couldn’t set Kristen up to be a victim. Even if it meant facing his anger herself. “Luke, I can’t—”

  “Shhh,” he whispered in her ear. She heard amusement in his tone. “You’re overreacting. Kristen will not be harmed at the ball. You have my word. I just need you to ease our entry.”

  Knowing he never bothered with outright lies did nothing to quell her unease. She shook her head. “Crash it if you have to. I can’t stop you. I want no part in whatever you’re plotting.”

  “That is disappointing.” He released her. She winced away, but he only opened the door to the jewelry store. Holding it ajar, he gave her an expectant look. When she didn’t move, he rested his hand on the small of her back. “Give me a chance to change your mind.”

  The slight pressure of his fingers pushed her through the door, across the store, and to the counter.

  “Can I trouble you?”

  The salesgirl glanced up at Luke’s voice, then did a double take. She rushed toward them, practically tripping over herself. “Is there something I can get for you and your . . .” Her gaze flitted over Madeline, then slipped to Luke’s arm around her. “Sister?”

  Madeline snorted. The girl blushed fiercely. When Luke wasn’t busy with devilish plots, he channeled his charisma and swoon worthy vocal skills into fronting his band. A band this girl clearly knew.

  “There’s a beautiful display of emeralds in your window there,” Luke said, pointing with his free hand. “If you’d be so kind as to bring the earrings?”

  As soon as the girl scurried off to retrieve them, Luke leaned in close to Madeline. “The Bound see the Siders as pathless, uncontrollable. Not only out of Upstairs influence, but through Touch, able to loosen any hold the Bound have on mortal souls. You’re their worst fear come to pass. To the Fallen, though, that chaos is very attractive. And every day, there are more Siders.” He leaned an elbow against the glass counter. “Can you imagine a world comprised only of the Pathless? Immortal and gone wild with no fear of punishment? To me, it sounds delightful.”

  When the salesclerk returned, he held out his hand for the earrings before waving the disappointed girl away. “You’re smart, Madeline. More clever than you let the others see. You must know the Siders can’t face the Bound on their own. At this ball, not only will the Siders be together, they’ll be willing to listen. I’ll have a chance to explain that the Fallen are not to be feared by your kind. Our goal is the same. The Siders’ survival. A new world.” His grin widened. “A devil’s playground.”

  “And all your protection will cost us is Kristen?” she snapped sarcastically.

  Instead of arguing, he went for her hand, gently working open her fingers. “Kristen will come to no harm,” he repeated. “I just need her in a position of surprise. If she’s given time to, she’ll argue.” He dropped the emerald studs into Madeline’s palm. After a moment, he raised an eyebrow and gestured to her ear. “Let’s see how they look.”

  Madeline fingered the emeralds. Finally, she put them on. “Well?”

  Luke took her chin in his fingers, tipping her head first one way, then the other. “They were meant for you,” he said as he handed over a card to pay.

  “If it goes bad, I can’t have this traced back to me,” she said quietly as she stared into the mirror on the counter. “Despite your bribery.”

  “Merely a gift,” Luke said as she regarded him in the reflection. “To remind you how kind I can be to my friends.”

  She tapped a finger against the counter, not missing his threat. If she turned him down, chances were he’d approach the other leaders. She’d be left alone against both the Bound and the Fallen. Or worse.

  “I get Kristen to have a masked ball,” she said. “That’s it?”

  He nodded.

  She tried to picture the world he no doubt imagined, damned and out of control. A world built for Luke and his kind. One that could save herself and her friends.

  She rotated a fraction and the emeralds caught the light. Their sparkle was brilliant. “I think I can do that.”

  At her words, Luke’s snapped his fingers to bring the attendant back. “I’ve changed my mind,” he told her apologetically. “Bring her the necklace, too.”

  Madeline turned to him in surprise.

  A corner of his mouth cocked up. “My clever friend needs something around her neck to remind her of me while I’m away.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The hem of Kristen’s black dress tickled against her calves in the breeze. At the head of the grave, a preacher quoted a passage from the Bible while the crowd sobbed softly into handkerchiefs. Gears creaked against the cold as the coffin lowered. “Ashes to ashes,” the preacher went on, �
��and dust to dust.”

  “May God rest his soul,” Kristen said, and tossed a handful of dirt into the hole.

  Her house had been chaos. Decorations and rearranging furniture and finalizing the preparations and it wouldn’t stop until the conclusion of tomorrow’s ball. She’d needed space. She’d needed air. She found herself in the cemetery, standing in quiet repose at a stranger’s funeral. From the turnout, the man had led a good life, died old and loved.

  All the things you’ll never be, her brain spat. You were happy with Luke. Safe and sane. And now the Bound are coming for you. Gabe will abandon you again. What then?

  Kristen cut off the thought. No regrets, she reminded herself. She’d made a promise. No longer would she blame herself for giving in to Luke’s lies, for believing him capable of caring about her. She would bear no guilt over choosing him when her Second, Sebastian, had come for her. No guilt over abandoning her Siders. No guilt over mistakes.

  She concentrated, picturing the inside of the coffin, mentally locking her lingering feelings for Luke inside. Soon they’d be buried, gone. Another woman stepped forward. Another scattered handful of dirt.

  You miss him. The wind whisked through Kristen’s hair, tangled the strands into snarls. You were stronger with him.

  A small boy crept to the edge and dropped in a rose.

  On the antennas of the cars in the funeral procession, flags snapped in the wind. The crowd thinned.

  A man gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said.

  She nodded gratefully. “It’s better this way,” she said. It wasn’t until his confused frown that she realized what she’d said. “With no more suffering,” she added.

  Her voice was embarrassingly loud, but she liked how strong it came out.

  You were hardly suffering. Luke gave you everything you could ever want. He considered you an equal.

  “Then why did he betray me?” she whispered as the man walked to his car, leaving her alone.

  Kristen kept her eyes open until the air dried them. She hadn’t shed a single tear for Luke, for what they’d had, for what could have been.

  Still could be, a stubborn voice persisted. It wasn’t a delusion, as much as she wished it were. The thoughts were hers.

  Somehow that made everything worse.

  A handful of dirt flew over her shoulder, hit the coffin, and skittered off the lid.

  Kristen whipped around to see Madeline brushing off her palms. “Friend of yours?” she asked.

  “How did you find me here?” Kristen demanded. She’d told no one, not even Sebastian, where she was going. “Did you have me followed?”

  Madeline gave her a Cheshire cat grin and batted her lashes innocently. “You think I’d know by now to call before popping up unannounced! You never were one for surprises.”

  In Kristen’s early days as a Sider, when Gabriel had found her ravaged by her schizophrenia and squatting in a funerary chapel, Kristen had thought she was mad with her need to touch others. After healing her as best he could, Gabriel, who’d been observing Madeline from a distance, had brought them together. The years since had seen herself and Madeline somewhere between friends and adversaries but never outright enemies. Despite their differing loyalties to Upstairs and Down, she respected Madeline. She’d thought Madeline did the same. She’s been watching me, Kristen realized. The idea of Madeline’s spies catching a glimpse of her when she’d been weak sickened her.

  Madeline fiddled with a garish earring, the stone an impressive fake, but far too large to be real. The green only intensified her eyes—deep, wet forest colors. “Can we take a walk?” she asked. “We have a problem.”

  They strolled away from the open grave, threading through the tombstones and crypts. “This is far enough,” Kristen said, stopping between two crypts, out of sight of any stragglers left in the cemetery.

  Madeline gradually slowed. “So I told my Siders about the angels. I held this big dramatic thing,” she said with a flourish of her hand. “Called everyone in and told them about the Fallen and the Bound.”

  “They took it badly?” Kristen guessed. Her own Siders had reacted with stunned surprise, though honestly they’d handled it better than she expected. All things considered, she wasn’t sure why it should be such a stretch for a room full of immortals to believe angels existed. Of course, telling them those angels wanted them exterminated was a different story.

  “Not exactly,” Madeline said. “They did pretty well with the whole holy war issue. The problem is . . .” She trailed off for a moment before she rocked uncomfortably, snow crunching under her high-heeled boots. “Look, I don’t want to piss you off, but here’s the deal. They aren’t happy about being”—Madeline raised her hands in air quotes—“paraded around in front of the enemy.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You know I didn’t invite Gabriel. He wouldn’t harm them anyway!”

  “You can’t guarantee that. But they weren’t talking about Gabriel.” Madeline mirrored her frown. “They were talking about you.”

  “Me?” Kristen scoffed. A cloud of breath hovered in the air between them as the words sunk in, her anger slowly replaced with confusion.

  “They started asking questions—how I knew about the Bound and how I knew we were being targeted—so I tried to explain that you were close with Gabriel, but all they seemed to hear was you’re on the side of those that want to kill us.” She stared off into space for a moment, her brow wrinkled in thought. Finally, she shrugged. “They’re scared, Kristen. Can you blame them?”

  This is how it starts, Kristen thought. She twirled a ring around her middle finger, her nail clicking against the stones. She’ll draw the others away, turn them against me. When Kristen spoke, her voice didn’t have the bite she’d wanted. “You threw me under the bus.”

  “I told them what I thought they could handle. They need time.”

  Her head snapped up. “You could have mentioned I’m not the only one close to Gabriel. And we don’t have time,” she said, fighting to keep her emotions in check. “Everything is already in place. Erin’s coming from Staten Island. She agreed to a truce with Vaughn, if we can find him.”

  Erin had left her territory in Manhattan when she heard Vaughn was selling Touch to mortals and had torn down the whole operation. If Vaughn and Erin were able to set aside their differences, they understood the direness of the situation. And yet here Madeline stood, calm and collected, prattling on about how her Siders weren’t coming.

  “I made sure Vaughn knows about the ball,” Madeline said. Kristen shot her a look, but Madeline didn’t clarify how she knew where to find him. She didn’t need to. Her spies had apparently been busy as of late. “None of us are enemies now, right?” Madeline’s grin didn’t exactly set Kristen at ease. “Stop being paranoid.”

  Kristen glared. “Stop being paranoid? Tell that to your crew!” Her face flushed in anger. “You’re in charge of them. Demand they come!” She twirled away just long enough to regain her composure. When she turned back, she made sure her voice was steady before she spoke. “Madeline, if we can’t get everyone to work together, the Bound are going to trounce us.” At her waist, she laced and unlaced her fingers. The vulnerability she felt sickened her. Even worse, she knew Madeline picked up on it.

  “Kristen, my God, you’re a wreck!” she said, her voice brimming with sympathy. “Relax! I got them to compromise.”

  “What?” she managed.

  “You didn’t think we were going to pull out?” Madeline smiled reassuringly.

  “What else was I supposed to think?” Kristen said through gritted teeth.

  Madeline’s eyes sparkled nearly as brightly as her earrings. “Someone had the rather brilliant idea of asking you to make it a masked ball. That way, everyone’s anonymous. My Siders will be satisfied, and I’m sure Vaughn’s group wouldn’t be opposed to concealing their identities.” She dug a heel into the graveled walk. “Thoughts?”

  Kristen tried to keep her
relief from showing. “Masks? That’s it?” Madeline nodded. “Well,” she said carefully. “Can you pass along word to Vaughn? I’ll tell Erin.”

  For just a split second, Madeline glanced away.

  “Is there something else?” Kristen asked.

  “Kristen, I talked to . . .” She pressed her mouth into a hard line, then gave her head a shake as if talking herself out of whatever she’d been about to say. “Vaughn and Erin are covered. What about Eden?”

  “No,” Kristen said instantly, and started back toward the entrance of the cemetery. “Absolutely not.”

  “Can you please for once not act like a child?” Madeline said, throwing her hands into the air. “Look, Eden didn’t exactly beg Gabe to kill her. She didn’t ask for this any more than we did.”

  Kristen kept her voice low, a quiet threat. “Listen to me very carefully. Without that girl, Gabe never would have Fallen in the first place. The Bound wouldn’t be after us. And I—” would never have gone to Luke, she thought, part of her wondering if it would have been better that way, another not wanting to know. “I won’t have Eden and her pathetic minion dragging us down. That’s final.”

  Madeline sighed. “Without us, she’s on her own. And she’s already lost Az, Kristen. We could use her—”

  “What about what I lost?” Kristen shouted. A flock of blackbirds flapped out of a nearby tree, cawing their displeasure.

  Madeline’s gaze followed the birds as they flew over a frozen pond and settled again on the peaked roof of a small mausoleum.

  “Let it go.” Kristen’s voice was flat. “She ruins everything she touches.”

  “We all do,” Madeline said quietly. “Kristen, she called me. Just before I got here. She’s sick, and on the run.” Madeline tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat. “Her apartment wasn’t safe. She needs Touch to survive, and now she has no way to find Siders.”

  “If she’s that weak, she’s a liability anyway.” Kristen felt her dress snag on the rough edge of a gravestone.