Crave the Darkness: A Shaede Assassin Novel

by amanda bonilla

  “I asked her to wait in the foyer,” the Shaede said, as if she’d picked up on our private exchange.

  Raif raised a brow in question. “Hell if I know,” I answered. I glowered in Myles’s direction. I wasn’t done with him yet.

  “I’ve got this.” Raif and I almost didn’t need words to communicate anymore. He’d known what I was thinking. “Go receive your guest.”

  I trudged up the stairs, not particularly excited to have a visitor. Until now, my luck hadn’t been stellar. I doubted the woman waiting in the foyer was here to bring me good news. As I hit the top stair and rounded the corner, I clamped my jaw down tight. I just couldn’t catch a break. My night had become progressively worse.

  She had her back to me, but the shining length of her honeyed-chestnut hair gave her away. I threw my shoulders back as I walked, made sure my stride was long and sure, my footsteps echoing as I approached. I might have been thrown when she’d opened Tyler’s door. But she’d come to me, and I considered this my home turf. I wasn’t going to run from her this time.

  “Can I help you?” I couldn’t hide the sneer in my voice as I echoed her earlier words. I doubted my voice was as beautiful, but I knew it carried a hard edge and that’s what I wanted.

  She turned to face me, a Miss America smile plastered on her face. I gave her a head-to-toe appraisal, from the top of her frizz-free hair, down the length of her sleek silk dress, and stopping at her designer heels. I looked down at my own black boots, thick-soled and scuffed from wear and tear. Delicate, I wasn’t. But strength could be beautiful, too.

  Ty’s new girlfriend didn’t seem to mind my roaming gaze. In fact, she seemed to revel in it. I let my fingers linger on the hilt of my dagger. Intimidation was something I was good at. And I needed the upper hand in whatever this was.

  “I didn’t realize who you were the other day.” Her voice held a soft, buttery quality that fit her perfectly.

  I stuffed my left hand in my pocket and Ty’s silver ring caught on the hem. It felt heavy on my finger, cold against my skin. I kept my mouth soft, my expression blank. Emotional pain wasn’t a weakness I could afford right now. “And now you know who I am?” I wondered how my voice sounded to her.

  “I do. And I thought it was only fair you know exactly who I am.”

  “Well, then, exactly who are you?”

  “I am Adira.”

  Of course. Awesome. I balled my fist in my pocket, resisting the urge to rub the stabbing pain from my sternum. Adira smiled when she saw the recognition in my eyes. It must have been a nice ego boost for her that I knew the story of how Tyler had come to exist and that Adira had found him in the desert and taken him in. A moment of self-realization was all it took. Jinn are born from magic. They have no mothers, no fathers. No family. But they’re drawn to the magic in one another, and Adira had found Tyler roaming the deserts of Sudan. He’d spent a few hundred years or so with her before they’d parted ways. But apparently they’d kept in touch over the millennia. Who else would rescue Ty from hurt and heartache but Adira?

  God, I needed a drink.

  “I have no intention of asking you to break your bond with him.” She flipped her long hair over her shoulder as she spoke. “He has, after all, pledged his protection to you.”

  I wanted to laugh. She knew damn good and well there was nothing she could do about Ty’s bond with me. It was one of the rules. Jinn are forbidden from interfering with the bonds of others. I’m sure she hoped to come off as gracious, but really, I knew the truth. If it had been within her scope of power, our bond would be as good as broken. “That’s big of you,” I said. I kept my right hand wrapped around the hilt of my dagger for effect. “Is that all you came here for? To tell me Ty’s bond with me is good and intact?”

  Adira smiled. Lovely, really. “He’s happy,” she said. “I know him better than anyone, and I’m what he needs right now. That is what I came here to tell you.”

  “Well.” I hadn’t meant for the word to come out as a single thought. But I couldn’t wrap my head around anything more coherent to say. It was like getting a kick to the ribs while you were down. She’d already slapped me in the face with her presence in Tyler’s life. Was she expecting me to turn the other cheek? “You don’t have to worry your pretty little head about me. I can take a hint.”

  “I’m not worried about you, Darian,” Adira said as if I were totally inconsequential. “I just thought you needed to know where everything stood.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Adira gave me one last, blinding smile. The air shimmered around her, and she faded from sight.

  Something about her energy signature struck me as familiar. As if I’d felt it somewhere before. Probably from Ty. They were both Jinn, after all. Thoughts slogged through my brain like slush in a wintery creek, too congested to search through memory for confirmation, though. I relaxed my fist and pulled my hand from my pocket as I backed against the wall. Slumping to the floor, I took a few deep breaths in a desperate attempt to squelch the anxiety rising up from the pit of my stomach. The need to flee was strong, overpowering any determination I might have had to stay put. I twisted the ring on my thumb and paused. It was the only thing I had that connected me to Tyler. With a tug, the ring slid up to my knuckle, but I didn’t have the willpower to remove it completely. What a coward I was.

  I needed some air. And the walls of Xander’s house felt like they were closing in on me. As if I hadn’t already seen with my own eyes the evidence that Tyler and I were through, now I had to hear it as well. A stellar end to a shit-tastic day. Pushing myself up to stand, I reached out to the shadows, entreating them to join with my flesh. No need to bring undue attention to myself. What I needed was a bit of peace and quiet. If anyone knew I was leaving, I could expect a babysitter. That was the last thing I wanted. And so, as my shadow self, I made a stealthy escape and left the protection of Xander’s house behind.

  Chapter 13

  I hadn’t been back to my apartment since the morning Xander had ordered me to his house and back to work. Just as he’d promised, Raif had installed a state-of-the-art security system, complete with camera. I stared up at the tiny, inconspicuous glass bubble, confident the high-tech lens couldn’t see me in my shadow form. I didn’t even know the security code to disarm the system. But again, shadows worry little over such things.

  My mailbox was stuffed to capacity, and I retrieved the pile before going up to my studio. Most of it was junk mail, but it couldn’t hurt to weed through the stack and make sure I hadn’t ignored something pressing. Besides, I needed the distraction, otherwise I’d be forced to think about my visit with Adira. And at this point, I’d rather be dunked in a pot of boiling oil than revisit that conversation.

  I dropped the pile of mail on the table, and it scattered in a disorganized mess. I looked around my apartment, my heart sinking into my heels at what I saw. It hadn’t been so long ago I’d been holed up here, depressed and on the verge of something rash. What a fucking mess. My bed was unmade, the sheets twisted, blankets balled up and tossed to the floor. Dirty dishes sat in neglected piles on the countertops and empty cereal boxes mingled with empty bottles. Bourbon, mostly. The place smelled stale, reminded me a little of The Pit. Thankfully someone had the presence of mind to take out the trash, though that person hadn’t been me. Discarded clothes made minimountains near the bathroom, and a thin layer of dust covered almost everything.

  Jesus. Miss Havisham, anyone?

  Eventually, I’d have to address the mess. But not tonight. I sifted through the ocean of mail, most of it a waste of perfectly good trees. Almost all of my bills were set up for auto-pay, so really, the paper bills were more of a formality. A flash of color caught my eye, and I fished through the expired sale ads and catalogs. My fingers shook when I picked up the postcard, a lovely picturesque view of Battery Park. Charleston, South Carolina was scrolled across the top.

  I flipped it over to find, Wish you were here! written in black ink. Not that I
was surprised. This made three postcards in just over six months. What the fuck was going on?

  “Who are they from?” Raif asked from behind me. I should have felt his presence, but my concentration had been elsewhere. The air pressure changed, a shifting of matter as Raif passed from shadow to his solid form. He stepped to the wall where a keypad had been installed, and a series of beeps was followed by a long, drawn-out tone—at least someone knew the security code.

  “A dead man,” I answered, becoming corporeal myself. “Still following me, huh?”

  “Someone’s got to keep an eye on you. Who is he, Darian?”

  I turned to face him and leaned my hip against the table. “His name was Lorik. He was the son of Vasili Egorov, an Armenian mob boss who’d been a pretty big deal on the west coast in the thirties. Vasili asked Azriel to hide Lorik after he’d gotten in deep with one of the old man’s rivals. I don’t know the hows and whys of it, but Az helped Lorik lay low—pretty much all over the country. I think he figured Lorik would be tougher to pin down if he was always moving. He sent postcards from every city he settled in. But . . .” My voice trailed off, lost in memories.

  “But what, Darian?”

  “He’s human, Raif. By all rights, Lorik Egorov should be dead.”

  Raif stood, contemplating. His right hand contracted into a fist and relaxed.

  “I never should have killed him, Raif.”

  He lifted his eyes to me in question.

  “Azriel. I never should have killed him.”

  “You’re afraid.” Raif’s voice was just louder than a whisper in my quiet apartment.

  “Yes. I mean, Lorik was nothing more than an overindulged playboy. He never took anything seriously as far as I know. I have no reason whatsoever to fear him. And yet . . . how can I not be scared? No one knew about the postcards but Lorik, Azriel, and me. No one. What does this mean? How many secrets did Azriel keep from me and how many of those are going to rear their ugly heads? I’ll never know. Azriel is dead and took his secrets to the grave.”

  Raif averted his gaze. I knew he refused to look at me because he agreed with me one hundred percent. Thanks to Azriel and his deceptive bullshit, I’d be looking over my shoulder for the next few hundred years. Maybe longer. Who knows what waited to jump out at me. Raif took a seat at my bar, trying not to look disgusted by my utterly neglected studio.

  “I was bad, wasn’t I?” My voice sounded hollow, emotionless.

  “Bad is an understatement,” Raif scoffed. “Look at this place.”

  I was ashamed of how I’d let myself go. Usually tidy, only an act of god could have reduced my living space to such a disastrous mess. I supposed a broken heart could produce a storm to make nature cower in its wake. But I’d lived through it, right? Or was I simply waiting in the calm eye of the tempest, catching my breath before I rushed through to the other side?

  “The woman who came to the house tonight . . .”

  “Adira,” I said, interrupting Raif’s thought. “She’s the one I saw in Ty’s apartment. She stopped by to clear the air, I guess.”

  “And is it?” Raif asked. “Clear.”

  I chewed on that question, for some reason unwilling to answer. Adira made it crystal clear that she and Tyler were happy. I couldn’t shake the image of Tyler’s face that day as I stared past her in the doorway, though. The look of affection and—maybe—regret on his face was so deep, so honest. Could it be that some part of him held on to what we’d shared? Even when he’d left me all those months ago, he said he loved me. Our love had made stone flesh; it almost merged the realms of time. How could something that strong be so easily cast aside?

  “Darian?”

  “It’s as clear as it’s going to get,” I answered at last. “I don’t have time to worry about it. Any word on how the police are reacting to today’s shootout?”

  “According to the news, the humans are under the assumption it’s gang related, though if the human shooters have no recollection of their actions, it’s going to complicate matters for the human law enforcement.” Raif sighed. “I’ve contacted a friend at the PNT to notify them of the situation and he’s assured me that he’ll deal with both the shooters and the human authorities. We don’t want to draw any undue attention or arouse the suspicions of any ambitious detectives.”

  For the most part, humans lived in ignorant bliss of the supernatural community. But the circumstances surrounding the shootings today were bound to pique someone’s curiosity. I could only hope that Raif’s friend at the PNT would nip any investigations in the bud. “What about Anya’s Mercedes? Are you going to tell me about those bullets you recovered?” Raif had yet to delve into the evidence left by Anya’s mystery assailant. Now that we were alone, it was time to get down to business.

  Always prepared, Raif produced one of the bullets from his pocket and held it out, placing it in my hand. “I figured the actual evidence would be better than a picture. I’ve cross-referenced the symbol with everything I know. Nothing.”

  I turned the bullet over in my hand, running my thumb over the etching. My gaze wandered to Tyler’s ring and the bear carved into the silver. “It’s not meaningless. Anya knows what it is.” I returned the bullet to Raif, who stuffed it back in his pocket.

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m inclined to agree with you. For the time being, though, I’d like to keep that between you and me. If the rest of your team grows suspicious of Anya, their loyalty might falter. They’ll get sloppy.”

  Agreed. “So, what made you come around?”

  “It’s too neat and tidy. Political motives would bring this to Xander’s door, but then, Anya wouldn’t be the target, would she?”

  “No. I’m sure Xander’s pissed off enough people to raise an army against him, but this isn’t about him. It doesn’t explain why she won’t tell us anything, though.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Everyone has secrets, I suppose.”

  Wasn’t that the truth. I was beginning to hate secrets. “Raif, Xander said that when you first met Anya, you’d caught her breaking into his house.”

  “Mmm, yes,” Raif said, remembering. “At Xander’s estates outside of London. Sixty or so years ago. She was just a child. Nineteen or twenty. Dirty, waifish, packing an atomic bomb’s worth of attitude. I think she was looking for something of value she could pawn. She had no idea whose house she’d broken into. I wanted to teach her a lesson. But my brother found her . . . amusing.”

  Xander and his pets. I brushed my fingertips across my lips, wondering, had I become one of them? “Sounds like she was running from something.”

  Raif’s hawkish gaze met mine. “Or someone.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, each of us lost in thought.

  “What are you going to do about your problem?” Raif gestured to the postcard on my table.

  “Nothing. Yet.” Really, there was nothing I could do. Not until Lorik, or whoever this was, decided to come out of his hole. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

  Raif stood. “If you need me . . .”

  I smiled, glad I could count him as my friend. “I know.”

  His footsteps echoed off the floor and then faded to silence as he passed into shadow. “Don’t worry about Anya. I’ll keep her close to home for a while. Maybe she’ll decide to tell us something. The alarm code is thirty-six, ninety-three,” he said. “Be sure to activate it when you leave.”

  A rustling near my bed drew my attention and I wandered to the far corner of my apartment, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Could have been my imagination. My once comfortable home now had a haunted quality that sent a shiver down my spine. I stuck around my studio for only a few minutes after Raif. I couldn’t bear to look at the mess I’d made of my life, to see the physical proof of how I’d let myself go. Perhaps my and Tyler’s love had been like an act of nature. A source of power . . . beauty. And at the same time, a force of great destruction. I had a sinking suspicion that it wasn’t
done with us, either.

  * * *

  Before heading back to Xander’s I decided to stop at The Pit. Raif had hit a brick wall searching for the symbol engraved on the bullets retrieved from Anya’s car. But that didn’t mean he was the be-all and end-all of arcane knowledge.

  As I fiddled with the pen, careful not to tear a hole in the napkin I was drawing on, I wished I’d had the presence of mind to keep the damn bullet. I’m no artist, and I was having a hard time giving Levi a basic sketch to go from. He looked at my drawing and raised a dubious brow.

  “What? It’s the best I can do.”

  “I think I’ll have better luck if you can get me the actual bullet.” Levi gave my sketch a last appraising glance, and with a grimace stuffed the napkin in his pocket. “When you’re dealing with symbols of any kind, an abstract isn’t going to do much good.”

  I brought the soda I’d been sipping to my lips. I still had an aversion to alcohol after my months-long bender. Just smelling it made my stomach turn. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, is this enough to get something started?”

  Levi gave me one of his pearly-white smiles and shrugged his shoulders. It made him look much younger. “Honestly, I don’t know. But I’ll see what I can do. I have a friend who studies symbology and an ex-girlfriend who’s high up in one of the local covens. I can ask her what she thinks.”

  Coven? I paused midsip. “You used to date an actual witch?”

  He grinned again, this time looking more like an imp of Satan than innocent kid. “She was wild in bed.”

  I hid my smile behind the rim of my glass. A question scratched at the back of my mind. Something I’d wondered about for a while but hadn’t ever pressed Levi about. I jabbed an ice cube with a cocktail straw before swirling it around my glass. I didn’t meet Levi’s gaze.

  “You wanna ask me something, Darian?”

  I took a deep breath. Held it. Exhaled.