by Carina Cook
The girl didn’t attack, though. She held herself at the ready in a defensive stance, and Citrine’s opinion of her rose even higher. Perhaps here was a warrior who held to the standards of honor. She wouldn’t let this one get away like she had with Derek.
“Peace,” she said. “I mean you no harm.”
The girl gave her a closer look. “You’re not from here, huh?”
“It’s that obvious?” asked Citrine, allowing a hint of a smile to rise to her lips.
“You could say that,” said the girl with a smile of her own. “You better watch out. Some drunk assholes will take a body blow like that as an invitation to swing at you.”
Citrine absorbed the advice thoughtfully and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
Hex made to walk away, but Citrine stepped in the way before she could go.
“Wait, please,” she said. The girl stopped, raising an inquiring brow. “I am new here, and I am looking for a place to stay.”
Now the girl stopped and gave her a closer look. The metal stud in her nose glinted as she tilted her head.
“No money, huh?” she asked.
Citrine shook her head. “But I can fight. I am good to have around for protection.”
“You’re such a tiny thing that normally I’d laugh in your face, but I believe you. You move kinda like my cousin’s friend. She’s no bigger than you, and she taught me how to fight. Beat my ass about a hundred times in the process, too.”
“Where I’m from, losing a fight usually means you’re dead,” offered Citrine. “I’ve been in more than a few.”
“It’s not quite that bad here, but on the streets, it’s nice to have people around who can handle themselves.” The girl considered for a moment and said, “Okay. Come with me, and I’ll show you a place to crash. I’d take you to my place, but my roommate is on a bender, and I can’t get out of the lease for another couple of months. My name’s Hex.”
“Citrine.”
“Man, and I thought I had a weird name.” Hex grinned and gestured. “Come on. It’s late, and I’m about to fall asleep on my feet.”
Citrine needed no further urging. She followed Hex off the brightly lit street into the darkness beyond, still clutching Derek’s card. She didn’t know by what magic it worked, but she would use it, and she’d find him again. She had questions to ask. Like “are you part dire wolf?” and “how did you survive that blow?” and the ever-important “can I see you naked again?”
Hex led Citrine onto a transport she called a “bus.” It was a fragrant vehicle, full of smoke and old sweat, and the two of them moved in wordless concert to the very back where no one could sneak up behind them. They attracted more than a few glances, which Hex returned with glares and Citrine with stony silence, but no one made a move.
Citrine looked out the window, trying to soak in as much as she could about her surroundings, but the darkness made that difficult. She saw quite a few people still on the street. Some were clearly intoxicated and looking for trouble. Others seemed to live there. She hoped Hex wasn’t taking her to sleep on the street, but then again, it would be better than the dungeons. There was nowhere to go but up.
Hex remained silent, which was fine with Citrine. She’d once been in a cell with a fae girl who had been afraid of silence and just jabbered on and on about nothing at all for hours. She’d felt almost relieved when the girl had been sent out into the arena to fight for Ilimitaine’s amusement. The jabbering girl had died quickly, but that didn’t keep Citrine from feeling more than a little guilty about the whole situation.
Eventually, Hex gestured toward the door, and the bus stopped, and they both got off. This street looked no different than any of the other ones to Citrine, and she felt a wave of relief at having found someone to guide her through this strange world. Of course, Hex could be leading her into a trap, but Citrine didn’t think it. She didn’t seem like the duplicitous sort. More like the sort of person who would stare you straight in the eyes before punching you in the face. She’d want you to see her coming and know that you were in deep trouble.
And if Citrine was wrong? Well, then, she’d handle it.
Even more interesting was the faint tingle of magic that hung around her new friend. Citrine could barely pick up on it if she concentrated hard enough. Most fae would be able to sense that kind of thing automatically, and her mother Thelisyle had always had a particular knack for it. But Citrine’s stunted magic didn’t clue her in to magical undertones unless she really focused, and sometimes even then it failed her. She considered herself lucky that the Wand of Doors had responded to her hand. If it hadn’t, she might have died of despair right there on the spot.
But it had, and now she was following Hex down the street in the dark and wondering exactly what she was sensing. Maybe Hex had come into contact with a magical object. Or maybe she turned into a dire wolf too, and this is what Citrine would have sensed if she’d carefully evaluated Derek instead of being so distracted by the attraction of his body. Or maybe…maybe Hex was Ilimitaine’s lackey.
Maybe he knew where she was, and he’d sent Hex to come find her and lure her in. Citrine’s heart immediately began pounding in her chest. She wouldn’t go back to the dungeons. She’d die fighting for her freedom, if it came down to that. If only Derek were here to fight by her side. They’d worked well together. But he was lost to her now, and she had only her own skills to rely on.
She took a deep breath as Hex turned a corner, leading her onto a street full of buildings that looked ominously identical. They were all colorless, like sand. Each one looked exactly the same, the same doors and same roofs and same shapes. Only a few signs distinguished one from another. What kind of monster made everything the same? There was no beauty or art in that approach. Even Ilimitaine wouldn’t stoop so low.
So perhaps he wasn’t behind all of this after all. Really, when Citrine thought about it, he wouldn’t need someone like Hex to come and fetch her. If his magic was strong enough to find her, it would be strong enough to bring her back without intermediaries. Citrine needed to stop being so paranoid and start enjoying her freedom. Maybe not in the same way that she’d done with Derek, but still, she’d do her best.
Hex led her to the end of the street, where the skeletons of a few new buildings stood. Based on their bones, it looked like they would match all of the rest, but one lacked windows, and another had holes where walls should be. Monstrous orange contraptions stood at the ready, their giant claws half full of dirt. She knew that this kind of mechanism was a human form of magic, but it was still awe inspiring to see. She would be interested to watch them eat the dirt when the opportunity presented itself.
“Here we are.” Hex broke the silence, gesturing toward the building with no windows. “They’re under construction, see? As long as we leave the place exactly like we found it, and we get out before they start work in the morning, we can crash here. I’ve been using the place until I can get out of my apartment. Nobody bothers us here, and my cousin owns the construction company, so their security will give us a pass if they find us. So long as you follow the rules, you get me?”
Citrine nodded. “I will treat my surroundings with respect.”
Hex chuckled, shaking her head. “Girl, I don’t know where you’re from, but we have to get you to stop talking like you live in 1909.”
“There is something wrong with my speech?”
“Just…loosen up, will you? It’s like you’re waiting for someone to jump out of the shadows and try to slit your throat.” Some of Citrine’s past must have leaked onto her face, because Hex paled. “So that’s how it is, huh? They going to follow you here?”
Citrine felt that this level of insight deserved as much of the truth as she could tell. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“I’ll introduce you to some of my people tomorrow. We look out for each other. We won’t let anybody mess with you, okay?”
Hex put her hand on Citrine’s shoulder, and
strangely, Citrine felt like crying. She never cried, not after the most brutal of beatings. But this human girl she’d only just met was offering to risk her life to keep her safe. It was a level of kindness she hadn’t even dared to allow herself to hope for.
She swallowed hard against the tears and said, “Thank you.”
CHAPTER 4
When Jenny Logan unlocked the office door at 8:25 the next morning, Derek was already at his desk nursing a giant cup of black coffee. He hadn’t slept well. That was par for the course when he had a new case—he tended to obsess over the details until he made sense out of them—and this case had hit him particularly hard. How many Citrines could there be? It was an unusual name. And Ben’s description of her had convinced him that they were talking about the same person.
The whole situation had resulted in a sleepless night, and he’d finally gotten up at 5. Still, he’d waited for Jenny before he started working on the case in earnest. They had an agreement that he’d never initiate work on a new case before talking it over with her. How could she back him up or send help if she didn’t know where he was, or who he was working for? He could have called her in the middle of the night, of course, but he figured Citrine had bedded down somewhere close. According to Ben, she had no money and wouldn’t have even been able to afford a bus ticket. She’d be squatting somewhere close by, so he let Jenny sleep and tried to do the same.
His alpha’s widow gave him an understanding look as she closed the door behind her. Jenny had changed a lot since he’d met her. Back then, he’d been an arrogant young werewolf who thought he ruled the world, and he’d chafed under Mark’s strict leadership. After the hundredth time he’d mouthed off to Mark, who had always met his attitude with unflappable calm, Jenny had marched straight up to him, smacked him across the face, and reamed him up one side and down the other. She wasn’t a shifter, and she might lack their physical strength, but her indomitable will had bowled him over. He found himself apologizing without entirely understanding what had just happened.
That was years ago, and Jenny was solidly middle aged now. Since Mark’s death, her hair had begun to go grey, and she’d cut it into a responsible bob, and her hips had widened from too much consolation chocolate, but she still put her foot down when it came to Derek. Some people might find that annoying, but he didn’t feel that way at all. He’d lost his parents young, and she and Mark had never been able to have children. They each filled an emptiness for the other.
These days, she read him as easily as a book.
“New case?” she said, lifting her own travel cup to her lips.
“Yeah, and I’m eager to get started. Get settled, and then we’ll debrief?” he suggested.
“Sure, just give me a minute.” She moved to her desk and quickly stashed her personal things—a slim leather purse and a battered paperback. “I take it that means that you didn’t call Felicia?”
Derek shook his head, trying not to grin. Jenny had been trying to set him up with girls for years now. She wanted grandbabies, she’d explained to him once, before she was too old to spoil them properly. At least she’d always been tactful about it. She’d never made promises on his behalf, and if he honestly didn’t feel a spark, she’d let it drop. But she seemed to have a never ending source of potential dates to suggest. Either she walked around with his photograph on a sign, or maybe she’d created a Tinder profile in his name, not understanding that Tinder wasn’t the best place to go scouting for wife material. He couldn’t decide which would mortify him more.
He shook his head. “Nah. But I did meet a girl last night while I was working the Lancaster case.”
Her eyes lit up, and she paused with her hand in one of her desk drawers, looking through the open doorway between their offices. “Really?” she exclaimed. “Do tell!”
“In a minute, I promise.” He said, laughing. “And Gary Lancaster has a gambling problem. You’ve got all the evidence in your files. Can you check over my report and send it all to his wife today?”
“Sure thing.” She came into the room, juggling her coffee, a notebook, and a small handful of pens. If one of them ran out of ink, she had at least four backups. She was covered for sure. She settled into the chair opposite him and looked at him eagerly, her blue eyes alight with excitement. “Tell me about the girl. Just a sentence or two so I don’t die of curiosity, and then we can get to work on the new case.”
“Actually, they’re linked, so I can tell you about both at the same time.”
“Really?” She opened her notebook and readied Pen #1 above it. As much as he might tease her for her obsessive note taking tendencies, her thoroughness and keen insight had led to more than a few cases going into the solved files instead of the dead ones. “Okay, start at the beginning.”
“This may seem odd, but it will make sense at the end. I swear.” He took a deep breath, marshalling his thoughts. “So I’d finished up the Lancaster surveillance and was heading back to my car when I smelled something strange.”
“Describe, please,” she interrupted promptly, the pen still scratching away at the notebook.
“Cave mold. Earthy. Old.” He paused to give her time to record that before continuing. “Definitely not typical for the Strip, and it caught my attention. When I tracked it down, I saw—”
“Where?” she interrupted. “Cross-streets?”
It took them a moment to bring up a map on Derek’s cell and locate the correct alley, but eventually they did, and he continued.
“So I came around from behind. The alley ends at a chain link fence, and I climbed up it to see…” He shook his head, trying to figure out how to describe it. Jenny would believe him—she’d seen plenty of things herself in her time with the pack. But she would demand complete accuracy. She knew just as well as he did that the smallest mistake could claim lives. If it hadn’t, Mark would have been at his desk on the other half of the room, sitting quietly and taking every ounce of evidence in before he finally gave his opinion. “The creature was about seven feet tall. Maybe seven-and-a-half. Made completely of rock.”
“Like that golem you and Mark took out at the Luxor?” asked Jenny.
“Same general principle, but I don’t think this was a golem. The golem was clearly a constructed figure; you could see the tool marks on the stone. And it was symmetrical. This thing looked like a bunch of boulders smashed together and given life. It had two arms and two legs, but none of the limbs matched. It looked like something that grew rather than something that had been built. It was moldy too. Didn’t seem like a desert creature; the things growing on it would need more moisture than we’ve got.”
“Interesting… I don’t think I’ve seen anything like that in the records, but I can go looking.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Derek meant it too. The packs of Las Vegas had kept meticulous records dating back to the early days before the settlement had had a name. If such a creature had ever been seen here before, Jenny would find it. The records would describe everything the pack had learned about the creature, and Jenny would add their details to the list so that future wolves would benefit from their experience if she or Derek wasn’t around to tell them first hand.
“So what was the rock creature doing?” asked Jenny.
“Fighting.”
She arched a brow. “Fighting whom?”
“A woman.” Derek could picture her easily. “A tiny little thing. I doubt she’s five feet tall. Kind of shaggy brown hair, all floofed around her face. A thin build. She looks like a stiff wind would blow her over. Ripped up purple dress. Leather boots. The most startling violet eyes. Her name is Citrine Avonmora.”
Jenny had stopped writing. She was watching Derek carefully. “Magic user?”
“Not that I saw. She was just…fighting it. With an overgrown knife about as long as her arm.”
“What shape?” asked Jenny. Sometimes they’d identified creatures based on their weaponry. A creature that carried a traditional Indian blade mig
ht come from Indian mythology, for example.
“Nothing I’d ever seen before. A bit like a Bowie, but…” He gestured to her, sketching the weapon into the notebook for her. “Kind of like that.”
She squinted at it. “Looks vaguely familiar, maybe. I might be able to make something of that.”
“Good. Anyway, I didn’t see any obvious spells or scent any magic, but she was fast. I might have a hard time catching her myself. Much stronger than she looks. And fearless! One blow from that creature knocked me unconscious, but she was fighting it solo when I got there. And smiling as she did it.”
A slow smile had begun to grow over Jenny’s face. “And what happened then?”
He shrugged. “We fought it together. She suggested pack tactics. I figured maybe she’d fought alongside a shifter before. It knocked me into a wall, and when I came to, it was gone. She’d been trying to drive it into a portal—I imagine the one it had come out of—and I assume she’d finished the job while I was out.”
“And then?”
“We…” He blushed. “We talked. Flirted some. She…” He found he couldn’t go on. There were something things you didn’t tell your mother, even if she wasn’t exactly your mother.
Thankfully, she seemed to get the picture, and from the looks of it, it delighted her. “If I’d known you had a thing for badasses, I would have been haunting the boxing gyms.”
He couldn’t help it. He laughed. “Well, she left. But I gave her our card. And then I came home to find a scary bastard in the office.”