by Rhys Ford
It was where I was finally going to be able to dump Robbie Malone out of my car and into the questionably maternal arms of his aunt Sarah, one of the Post’s directors.
The parking lot was mostly empty, with a few cars in the employee spaces at the edge of the drive. Circling up to the main lot, I spied Jonas’s beat-up truck angled under a weeping pepper tree, and gave Ryder a dirty look. He returned my glare with one of his smug expressions, looking much like the entitled lordling I’d opened my door to months ago.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Malone groaned from the back seat.
“Swallow it,” I growled. “You call him?”
“Yes.” Ryder’s chin lifted, his nose a long stretch of arrogance I could have easily wiped off his face with my knuckles. “Because… with what you’re going to be dealing with, you should have your family around you. I’ll take care of Malone. You go talk to your… uncle. Make things right, Kai.”
Pulling into the space next to Jonas’s truck, I let the Mustang idle, its engine purring softly. I couldn’t hear Malone horking behind me, so he was safe for the moment, but there was always a chance he’d let loose something over my upholstery and carpet. Still, I weighed my options, torn between ripping into Ryder for making decisions for me and the rightness of what he did. I knew my faults. I was stubborn and prideful more often than not, choosing to shoot first and ask questions later. Suspicious and paranoid—those traits kept me alive, my senses on high alert for anything odd or out of place. Trust was something I was always reluctant to give, and I’d handed it over to Jonas before I ever learned humans were as wicked and cruel as any elfin. He’d been a constant in my life, a rock I could lean on when the raging waters battered against me, and to find out he’d been willing to pass me over a line for a handful of silver… hurt.
The pain was raw, abraded wounds from losing Dempsey roughened by the sharp scrape of rejections I hadn’t known existed. Ryder was asking a lot of me, more than what I ever asked of myself. Betray me once and I walked away. Even taking Malone up to the station with us was an aberration. Although, as tempted as I was to leave his bruised and dinged body where we found him, it felt right to pour him into the Mustang.
I still regretted letting Ryder talk me into bringing him down with us, but I was a sucker for Ryder’s green eyes and soft pleas. In a few years, I imagined our nieces would be able to wrap me around their little fingers and I’d be bringing home baby nightmares for them to use as ponies because they’d asked for one.
Sure, there was that tug between me and Ryder, the curling tickle of want and lust driven down into my guts by some genetic pull and, oddly enough, my growing fondness for him. I liked the way the sun hit his hair, picking out the metallic gold strands from the sunrise blond, and while he wasn’t strikingly handsome compared to other Sidhe, he was still breathtaking. More because he was honest with me, something he’d learned along the way. He was willing to stop pushing at me and listen, hearing me when I explained why there needed to be a trade in dragon bones and other artifacts to keep food on people’s plates. And he always pulled the trigger whenever I needed him, despite sometimes disagreeing with my methods and reasoning.
He trusted me. Fully and unconditionally.
It was about time I did the same for him.
“Okay. Grab the shotguns and any other weapons we’ve got up front. Post rules—no firearms.” I put the Mustang into Park, then turned off the engine. Ryder said nothing, but I caught the wisp of a smile as he undid his seat belt. “And don’t gloat or I’m going to jiggle Malone until he pukes all over you. It’ll be like a fire hose of egg salad sandwiches and sweet tea.”
“I didn’t say a thing,” Ryder murmured, stepping out of the car.
“You didn’t have to,” I shot back, reaching for my weapons from where I’d stashed them out of Malone’s reach. “I can hear you breathing smugly.”
I FOUND Jonas sitting in the open walkway at the top of the parking lot, a ways away from the Post’s main doors. The wide cement walk curved and dipped through the Presidio’s green spaces, a slatted wooden cover following its path, its posts scavenged from the old Gaslight district. The verdigris metal stands were wired for light. Perhaps they always had been, but I’d rarely seen them on. The Post wasn’t someplace I hung out after dark, although I know quite a few of the old-timers spent evenings at the Stalkers’ Wall, drinking heavily and telling stories about the dead.
It was ironic to find Jonas sitting on a bench at the fork in the walk, one branch leading down to the Post where Stalkers came and went, burdened with money or contracts, while another path led to the dead, the silenced hunters whose ashes were pressed into hard bricks with only a brass plaque to remember them.
Stands of weeping pepper trees grew behind the walk, their ash-green leaves brushing the posts when the wind picked up. Brilliant golden-throated hummingbirds whipped through the trees’ bristling frond branches, stopping long enough to dip their sharp beaks into the nectar-rich flowers growing in planters every few feet, the enormous barrels still bearing the stamp of the North County winemakers who’d donated them to beautify the city’s parks. I’d wondered why no one ever thought to paint the damned things until it dawned on me no one would see the names of the donors otherwise. Like all things, even charity came with a price—favors traded or promises made.
Of course, the same could be said about practically everything else in life.
Somewhere close by, a pair of peacocks screamed out challenges, the birds a remnant of some rich guy’s need to have a pair of arrogant pheasants with butts full of cat toys wandering around his property. I caught sight of one farther up in the gardens, a place meant for picnics and family gatherings for anyone visiting the Presidio, but no one took into account most Stalkers didn’t have family. Jonas was an exception to the rule, building up a clan around a four-way marriage and a pack of children raised wild and free. I walked up the slight incline toward him, stopping a few planters away, unsure of what I wanted to say or even what to do. My anger whimpered under my need to connect with someone I’d admired and even loved, both sides of my mind whipping into a frenzied argument about betrayal, blood, and family.
“Jonas, I’m… I screwed up.” Admitting my anger and hurt was hard, the words scraping out of my throat like I’d chewed sandpaper and was spitting it back up. “I was just… so damned mad. Still am mad. Dempsey—”
Jonas took care of my indecision, standing up, then closing the distance between us with a few long strides, his powerful legs quick and sure. He was in front of me before I could say anything, a towering hard-hewn black man with broad shoulders, a bit of gray in his neatly shorn hair and smelling of the earth and peppermint. As tall as I was—especially compared to most humans—Jonas dwarfed me. He was a giant of a man with a reach long enough to snatch the biscuit off of my plate from across a wide dining table if he wanted it.
Those arms were around me, pulling me into his chest, smashing my nose into the rough scrubby denim of his overalls, digging a metal button into my cheek and nearly lifting me off my feet. Breathing became difficult, and I tried fighting him, pushing at the mountain of muscle holding me, but it would have been easier to eat the Mustang with a blunt spoon. Jonas wasn’t letting go.
So I hugged him back, hoping he’d feel it before my body went numb and I slipped off into unconsciousness.
“Jonas,” I tried to say, though it came out garbled and all I could taste was dust and denim on my tongue instead of air. Pretty sure Jonas heard nothing but me mumbling. Possibly felt me squirming, but it was hard to tell because I couldn’t see or hear anything other than faded white denim and his heart pounding behind his rib cage. “Dude, let go. People… watching. I’m a Stalker, for fuck’s sake.”
“Just… let people hug you sometimes, boy,” Jonas murmured into the top of my head. I was surprised I could hear him, but my ears seemed to be open. If only I could breathe through them. “Nothing shameful in being hugged. And I know you’re
feral and probably going to bite me to blood once I let go, but I… just let me hug you. No one’s going to think you’re weak for letting me hold you. You’re my boy. My son. Just as much as you were Dempsey’s and—”
A flash of metal caught in a bit of sun was the only warning I had and one I couldn’t even act against. The knife came down quick, slashing into Jonas’s arm and straight for my face. Twisting about, I fought free, pulling myself out of Jonas’s slackening hug as a rush of steaming hot blood splashed over my jaw. Cursing, Jonas yanked himself back, stumbling over the curb. His legs kicked out, trying to find some purchase, but he was too off-balance, too much in shock from the deep gash in his upper arm. His overalls’ thick fabric possibly blunted the attack, but his arm had little protection, clothed only in the thin T-shirt he wore underneath.
With Jonas fallen back, the man who attacked us leaped at me, his fleshy face twisted into a hungry expression bordering on lust. I knew him, knew him to be a Stalker, but the only thing I had eyes for was the large blade he held out in front of him, ready to skewer me with its glistening tip, Jonas’s blood sliding down its length and onto the man’s fat fingers.
My knives were out before I took another breath. Kept in oiled sheaths at my back, they were an easy enough draw, and while I mourned the empty holsters on my thighs, the blades were going to work fine. I spared a quick glance at Jonas, just enough to make sure he wasn’t bleeding out, and a giant of a man lunged at me, taking advantage of my shifting gaze.
Broad and lumbering, our attacker either just came off a run or wasn’t too in touch with his hygienic side. Like Jonas, he was wearing a pair of worn-down overalls, but they were filthy, pitted with acid burns from skinning ainmhi dubh, and the henley he had under them wasn’t in much better shape. Up close, he smelled of caked-on sloughed-off skin and unfiltered cigarettes, his hands stained a dark brown from nicotine and Iesu knew what else. As slovenly as he was, he knew enough to keep his knives sharp, because the edges were scraped tight from a good stone with no burrs along the hone.
Circling around, I placed myself between him and Jonas. He followed, keeping his knife low, its wicked hooked tip canted up. I would have to be careful of how he struck. The tip would be all he needed to sink into me, digging down past my skin and sliding up or down through whatever meat he wanted to carve out of me. I’d used those kinds of knives before, liked them for monsters, but on people? Never. Too much damage. Too much to go wrong with guts and all the squishy stuff held in by skin and firmed up by bones. Him using a hooked-tip knife told me a lot about the man and what he intended.
The son of a bitch came to kill me, because once I put myself in front of Jonas, I was all he saw.
“Clyde.” His name came to me, striking the front of my brain like I’d smacked into a low-hanging beam. “Fat Clyde Gibbons.”
He wasn’t going for small talk. Instead his dark eyes narrowed, his heavy brow dipping down low in a frown, and he shuffled forward quickly, far faster than I’d have given odds on for a man whose belly strained to burst through his overalls. His heavy boots scraped on the asphalt, kicking up small gravel bits into the curb. Caught between the walk and the parking lot, I was at more of a disadvantage than I liked, not knowing how far the walk was behind me or how far up it was. One wrong step and I’d be on my ass and Gibbons would be on me, carving under my skin with his blade until my intestines spilled free.
A lot of people think fights last forever. They just feel that way. Anything longer than fifteen seconds and the adrenaline wears off—if the fighter is sober—and fatigue sets in. The knife gets heavy in the hand, and if there’s blood, it slickens the hilt, making it hard to hold on to. I’d seen bar fights where two guys went at it for a full minute and the one everyone placed bets on winning faltered in the end, his body drained of strength, and I’ve also been there for those times when a well-aimed kick-and-slash puts someone on the floor in seconds. There are only two ways to win a fight—fast and quick or simply to outlast the other guy.
In Gibbons’s case, it was going to have to be quick, because he moved, conserving his energy until he needed to strike, making him a dangerous fighter. And since it didn’t look like anyone from the Post was coming up the hill to rescue me or shoot his head off, I was on my own.
Fast and hard it was going to be.
Or at least I hoped so, because damned if the asshole pulled the one thing I didn’t expect him to but it was my own freaking fault I let him get that close.
Jonas’s loud moan took my attention off of Gibbons. I was more worried about his dying on me than losing the fight, and in that moment, Gibbons made his move. He jumped in close, too close for a punch, then grabbed me around the chest, pinning my arms down and lifting me off the ground.
And here Jonas said hugs weren’t dangerous.
There were bands of steel built into Gibbons’s flabby body, hidden pockets of strength most people wouldn’t have given him credit for. But this was a man who made his living hunting and hefting ainmhi dubh—solid blocks of mass with heavy bones and acidic blood. It made for powerful thighs and rock-hard arms, both thick enough to crush a man—or an elfin chimera—if he had enough motivation.
Considering the price Samms told me was on my head, there was more than enough motivation for Gibbons to squeeze me hard enough to pop my eyes out of my skull.
“Son… of… a….” I grunted, flailing to get a good kick in, but Gibbons’s stranglehold on my torso was tight and there wasn’t any wiggle room. I was losing feeling in my hands. Then my fingers went numb, my knives dropping to the ground. I gave myself a few more seconds before I blacked out, and then I’d be meat under Gibbons’s blade and there’d be nothing Jonas could do to stop him. “Shit… Jonas.”
“Bleeding out and gone.” Gibbons’s sour breath choked out what little air I could get into me. “He ain’t coming to save you.”
Something in me cracked. I felt it ping, the crunch of bone following the telltale aching sting of resonating pain. As tortures went, this was small potatoes compared to what my father could do, but Gibbons was probably hoping to crush me into unconsciousness and either slit my throat or toss my limp body into the trunk of his car. Either way, if I didn’t do something quickly, I was going on a one-way ride to somewhere I wouldn’t like.
“Come on, you bastard, go down,” he growled, probably disliking the fact I could actually get by on a lot less oxygen than the humans he’d more than likely pulled this on before. Another squeeze and another crunch, this time one farther up across my chest. The damned asshole was powerful, I had to give him that. “More money for you if you’re alive, but if I’ve got to take you in dead, I’m good with that. Won’t be the first time I’ve gotten a bounty on a pair of pointed ears.”
Jonas was still moving. I spotted his foot jerking up and a brush of his knee at the corner of my eye. Still, Gibbons would take him out if he could, eliminating any witnesses. It didn’t matter that I was elfin. I was still a Stalker and an official law enforcement officer for SoCalGov. The cops might hate Stalkers, and not many people love my species, but I still carried a badge. That had to count for something, and Gibbons’s endgame was to get me down and taken out before anyone could see him. It was a good plan.
One I had no intention of letting him execute.
“Die, you damned son of a bitch,” Gibbons practically shouted in my notched ear, his teeth too close to my lobe for my liking. “What’s it going to take to kill you?”
“Hell of a lot more than what you’ve got,” I muttered between my teeth, unable to force more than a whisper out of my lungs. Red splashed across my vision, anger and frustration seeping over any rational thought I had left. I’d survived a hell of a lot and didn’t plan on dying in a parking lot, being squeezed to death by some overgrown bald yeti with bad teeth. “Ain’t dying today.”
Pressed up against Gibbons, I went with the weapons I’d come into the world with.
My teeth.
I sank my fangs into his fac
e, digging down into the meat of his cheek, and latched on tight. His blood was hot and bitter, pumping out onto my tongue and down my neck. A bit dribbled down my throat, and I fought not to gag on its metallic taste. Rage and pain shifted the odor of his skin from an unwashed, embedded grime to something sour and ripe. Clamping down harder, I felt my teeth meet, and I jerked my head quickly, rending off a bit of flesh, and with a hard yank, I ripped his cheek clean off the bone.
Gibbons dropped me, howling and clutching at his torn-open face. Landing on my feet, I spat out the foul mouthful on my tongue, grabbed my knives, and went in for the kill.
Okay, sometimes there were more than two ways to win a knife fight, but it always comes back to the blade. Even with my face painted red with Gibbons’s gore and my teeth filled with the shreds of his flesh, I was going to peel him apart and crack his bones open so Odin’s ravens could suck out his marrow and shit out his fingernails like discarded shrimp shells.
“Kai, no!” Ryder yelled at me from somewhere past the murderous fog I’d pulled around me. I had Gibbons on his back, shoulders pressed into the asphalt, blood running in rivers down his increasingly ashy skin, and there was Ryder, begging me to be… merciful.
I was in no mood for mercy.
I wanted Gibbons dead. I wanted him to be splayed out on the ground, spatchcocked and bled white with only the thinnest flaps of skin holding his meat together. There were other voices, shocked murmurs and rumbles, warning someone else to stand back while another deeper voice—a woman’s voice, Sarah’s voice—urged people to let her through.
My knives were against Gibbons’s throat, their edges dipped down into his skin, and I dragged them down toward his Adam’s apple, peeling back a layer until a bit of pinkish serum dripped down the curve of his wattle. My knees were pressed down into his belly and crotch, pinning him. He could have tossed me if he wanted to risk slicing his own throat open, and I half wished he would try. Any shift of his limbs would be enough of an incentive for me to carve him open, and I wasn’t even sure I would wait for that.