by Eva Chase
The clean-up itself hadn’t been all that horrific. Living mortal beings couldn’t travel into the shadows, but inanimate objects could, and my attacker had definitely been lacking in animation after Thorn’s brutal defense. While the warrior had “given the body to the dark,” whatever exactly that entailed, Ruse and Snap had spirited over a few buckets of water from somewhere or other. Based on the chlorine smell, I suspected it’d been a nearby public pool.
Splashing the water over the pavement had washed the remaining traces of blood down a storm drain. And voila! It was as if the dude had never set foot in the alley, let alone attempted to bring a knife to my throat there.
That didn’t mean I was totally at ease with how callously Thorn had dispatched him in the first place… or with the attack and what had propelled me into the alley beforehand. Either I was simply having a very bad day topped with a sprinkling of some paranoia of my own, or someone had taken notice of the investigating we’d already been doing. I wasn’t sure which was more likely, but the fact that the latter was even a possibility itched at me.
Luna would have said it was time to run. Hell, Luna would have been out the door with emergency bags grabbed the second these three had turned up in the kitchen. She was shadowkind, sure, but that meant her warnings about the rest of her kind had held even more weight. Most of them won’t see you as anything more than an inconvenience or dinner, she’d told me. I don’t trust any of them I don’t already know deserve it, so neither should you.
But as questionable as I might find their methods, I thought the trio had proven that they did care about my well-being… and I didn’t even have an emergency bag anymore. I hadn’t needed one in the past eleven years—hadn’t ever needed one except that night when the hunters came for Luna. As I meandered down the hall now, I found myself clutching my purse strap as if holding onto it would ensure everything was okay.
Snap leaned in to examine my face, his own divine visage so close that my skin flushed in spite of everything. The heat didn’t reach my cheeks, apparently, because he knit his brow with concern. “You look a little pale. Should you eat something?”
Of course that would be his answer to the problem. I considered pointing out that there might not be anything to eat in my kitchen anymore, after the way the three of them—especially him—kept pillaging it, but I didn’t want to make him feel guilty.
“No, it’s not that.” I flopped down on the sofa. “I’m just tense after… everything. If I put on some mindless TV and zone out for a bit, I’ll start to unwind.” At least, I hoped so.
Ruse hummed to himself as he sauntered into the room after us. “I think we can do a little better than that to raise your spirits.” He ran his fingers over the shelves by the TV and plucked out a CD case. With deft fingers, he set the disc in the old boombox that sat on one of the end tables.
The buoyant beats of an ‘80s song careened from the speakers. Ruse came over to me and held out his hand to help me up. “You missed out on most of your dancing time—not that the bar was an ideal venue for it. This is more the music that’ll liven you up, isn’t it?”
I let him pull me to my feet, but I gave him a wary look. “Have you been peeking inside my head? I told you—”
He waved me off with a chuckle. “Miss Blaze, I don’t need to read your mind to pick up on your taste in music. Your CD collection speaks for itself.”
He had a point there. Considering CDs had been defunct for years now, I only had a few albums other than the ones from Luna’s original essential stash. He’d picked the Top Dance Hits one—she’d owned every year from ‘80 to ‘89, but only ’86 had made it into the emergency bag set. As the Bangles encouraged us all to “walk like an Egyptian,” I had to admit she’d made the right choice.
“Okay, fair,” I said, only grumbling a little.
He smirked at me. “Who has CDs anymore anyway? Are you as committed to the technology of times past as you are to the music?”
However much my spirits might have lifted with the beat, they sank again at that question. “They were my aunt’s—I mean, they belonged to the shadowkind woman who raised me.”
From the flicker of Ruse’s eyes, he recognized that he’d stumbled onto delicate ground. He twined one hand around mine and tugged me into the middle of the room. His tone gentled but kept the same playful quality. “So that’s where your obsession began. You honor her well by enjoying the era as much as she did.”
I liked that way of looking at it. “I grew up listening to these songs,” I said in my defense. “And they are catchier than a lot of newer stuff.”
“I’m not going to argue. You’re just lucky I even knew how to work that player.” He gestured toward the boombox. “It’s your good fortune that I happened to spend a decent amount of time in the mortal realm during the years those machines were popular.”
He’d been passing over to seduce and feed at least a few decades ago. To look at him, I’d have placed him in his early thirties, but with shadowkind, that didn’t mean much.
I gave him a sharp look. “Exactly how old are you?”
“A gentleman never tells.” He winked. “Let’s just say that on one of my first excursions across the divide, I shared pork rinds with Leonardo Da Vinci.”
My eyebrows shot up of their own accord. “So, you’ve got several centuries on me, then. I never thought I’d be one to go for men quite that much older.”
“I’ve made it worth your while, haven’t I? Besides, age is more a mortal concern. In the shadow realm, we barely notice that time exists. If you calculated based on my visits into your world, it wouldn’t add up to more than a few years.”
I gave him a shove with my free hand. “In that case, I’ve been hooking up with a preschooler. So much better.”
The next song was just starting. The incubus swayed my hand in time with its beat. “What does any of that matter? Humor me. You wouldn’t want me to have to resort to dancing with the mannequin, would you?”
Actually, I’d have kind of liked to see that, but the rhythm was starting to work its way into my limbs. He’d waited awfully patiently. “I suppose I could give you this dance. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Ruse grinned and spun me around, the motion taking my breath away for a moment. When he pulled me back to him, my free hand came to rest on his well-built chest. Gazing up into his roguishly handsome face with that dimple in his cheek made it hard for me to get my breath back.
I forced myself to step away from him, letting the beat carry my feet. It worked its way through me from toes to head. My arms lifted into the air, my waist twisted as I shimmied, and Ruse let out a little whoop of encouragement as he got down to boogie too.
We faced off against each other, sidled over to bump hips, and circled around each other as that song faded into the next. I was starting to work up a sweat, but the incubus didn’t look the slightest bit affected by the exertion. He grasped my hand again to draw me closer and dipped me like he had the mannequin earlier in the evening. A laugh spilled out of me.
Snap had been watching from the sidelines, but something about that moment appeared to spur him to action. He stepped away from the doorway and started to sway with the music too, his golden curls glinting under the overhead light. He didn’t know any dance moves I’d ever seen, but his body caught the rhythm with such fluid motion that it was hard not to watch him. His sinuous style came to him naturally enough to look graceful rather than awkward.
Ruse pumped his fist. “Now it’s a party!”
As if in agreement, Pickle scampered into the room. The little dragon hopped and flapped his clipped wings in a dance of his own as he darted around my feet. I scooped him up to set him on his favorite perch, keeping my hand by my shoulder to steady him as I twirled.
Thorn stood in the doorway as if on guard. His gaze followed us as we danced, but the typically grim set of his mouth suggested he didn’t approve of this kind of frivolity. But it wasn’t as if we had any leads we could be chasing
down in the middle of the night, and frankly, I was a lot more likely to figure out this mystery if I wasn’t all tangled up with tension. A gal had to let loose every now and then to stay sane.
I swiveled, dipped, and sashayed around Ruse again. Pickle bobbed his head in time with the rhythm. Ruse caught me by the waist for a moment, tipping his head to press a quick kiss to the other side of my neck, and heat shot through my body that had nothing to do with the workout.
He let me go, and I turned toward Snap, mimicking his motions as well as I could. I probably looked like an idiot next to his godly form, but what the hell. The heat kept flowing through me—along with a weird tingling that was seeping into my mind. I’d have blamed it on desire if it hadn’t seemed to muddy my senses rather than heighten them.
I shook my head in an attempt to clear it, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. As my feet stumbled under me, Ruse caught me from behind. “Careful there,” he said in that chocolate tone, but my pulse had hiccupped for reasons that had nothing to do with his sex appeal.
“I think—” My tongue was stumbling too. A chill prickled through me under the haze. Something was definitely not right.
The room was spinning now—or was that me? I pressed the heel of my hand to my head, but the dizziness kept washing through me, the fog closing in on my thoughts. My stomach listed as if I were standing in a boat on rough waters.
“I don’t feel so good,” I managed to say, and then I lurched right over to hit the floor on my hands and knees.
16
Sorsha
The smack of my fall radiated through my hands and legs. My stomach heaved, and I almost lost whatever remained of my Jack and Coke onto the living-room floorboards. My head drooped toward the ground.
Hands caught me before I could completely collapse. The music switched off. Ruse’s voice reached me through the fog that had enveloped my mind. “Sorsha? What’s going on?”
Then came Snap’s softer but clear tone. “There’s something in the air. I can’t pick up any larger impressions from it, but I don’t like the way it tastes. It’s thicker over by—I think it’s coming from the hall.”
I couldn’t find my tongue to offer any insight. Heavy steps I knew must be Thorn’s thumped away.
Ruse stroked his hand over my hair soothingly. “Sorsha, something’s affecting you—some kind of drug? I should be able to partly clear your mind so it doesn’t knock you could completely, but I have to get in there first. Your little brooch blocks too much of my power for me to help all that effectively. Can you manage to take it off?”
A breath hitched out of me. My little brooch—my badge. He couldn’t touch it himself—none of them could—at least not without it doing who knew what damage to them. The only way he could remove the badge would be by stripping my dress and bra right off.
I could do this, couldn’t I? Just focus on that one thing. Move my hand off the floor to my chest. Under the fabric of my dress. Yank the badge off. Simple.
It should have been, but I wobbled when I lifted my hand. Even after Ruse steadied me, it took a few fumbles before my fingers caught on my neckline, and by then I’d half-forgotten why I was groping myself in the first place.
A metallic crash sounded from far away. Thorn’s footsteps thumped back toward us. “There was a device at the door propelling some sort of gas underneath. I bashed it down the stairs. No sign of the person who placed it there—” He cut himself off. “Someone’s coming.”
“Watch for their shadowkind weapons,” Ruse warned him. His grip tightened on my shoulder, maybe readying to get on with the stripping if I couldn’t manage the task myself. “The brooch, Sorsha. You can do it.”
Right. Right. I shoved my hand toward my bra. My fingers fumbled over the metal badge and snagged around its edges. There was a clip right… there.
It popped off the fabric cup with a click. I tossed it across the floor with a clumsy flick of my hand, and an instant later a warm tingling spread across my scalp. The sensation seeped through my skull and into my clouded mind.
Within seconds, the floor under me felt more solid, the sounds around me clearer. I raised my head, blinking. Ruse was crouched beside me, his gaze intent. Snap stood braced by the doorway, his eyes flicking between us and the hall, where I assumed Thorn was staked out by the front door.
The door slammed shut. “They’re coming up,” our warrior called back to us. “There are a lot of them—I can’t tell what kind of weapons they have. I can take them on—”
“No,” Ruse snapped, his voice gone ragged. I had enough awareness now to wonder how much the voodoo he’d worked on me had worn him out. That couldn’t be a typical use of his cubi powers. “It’s got to be the same people who came for Omen. You know they were prepared enough to take any of us down. And Sorsha’s still out of it.” His tone softened when he returned his attention to me. “Let’s get you up.”
He hadn’t been able to drive all of the drug out of my system. My limbs still swayed as he helped me to my feet; my vision doubled for a moment before steadying again. My thoughts were clearer, but they jumbled every time I turned my head.
Something banged against the door so hard the hinges creaked. My pulse stuttered at the sound. Ruse gripped my arm tightly. “I don’t think you’re in any condition to stand and fight, Miss Blaze. Do we have any good routes out of here other than that door?”
I could think well enough to answer that question. “Fire escape. Outside my bedroom window.”
“Got it. We’re going to make a run for it.”
He nodded to Snap, who slipped out ahead of us. I snatched the strap of my purse where I’d left it on the sofa. Pickle scuttled alongside me, his head weaving through the air anxiously.
In the hall, Thorn was braced in front of the door. It shuddered again, and his fists clenched where he’d raised them level with his chest. Determination shone in his dark eyes, but when he glanced toward us, taking in my near-stumble as Ruse helped me along, his expression shifted from severe to startled and back again in an instant.
“What have they done to her?” he demanded, and swung toward the door again as if he could pummel the attackers on the other side with the force of his glare alone.
“Some type of drug—meant to knock her out, I think. Either they figured it works on shadowkind too, or they didn’t know we’d be here.” Ruse hustled me to the bedroom. “Come on.”
“If they don’t know we’re here, they might not have—”
“Come,” Ruse insisted. “We can’t know either way. Is it worth risking us all ending up in cages again—or dead? Remember who was right the last time we got overwhelmed?”
Thorn let out an extended curse under his breath and swiveled toward us. At the same second, one final blow to the door burst the hinges if not the deadbolt. As it bowed into the hall, Ruse yanked me through the bedroom doorway.
“Open the window,” he ordered Snap.
Snap shoved at the pane, which slid upward with a grating sound. My gaze caught on the curve of my backpack peeking from beneath the bed, and a cold shot of panic surged through me.
“There’s evidence here—if they see it, they’ll know for sure—I have to—”
My sentences broke with my colliding thoughts so many times I decided I was better off just acting rather than trying to explain myself. I grabbed the backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and then cast a frantic look around the room.
What else might I have lying around that would tell the invaders I was not just interested in Omen but had freed and destroyed the possessions of at least a dozen major collectors across the past few years? Shit, shit, shit.
If word got out that I was the sticky-fingered, monster-emancipating fire-starter, every hunter and collector in the state, possibly the country, would be looking to come at me the way they’d murdered my parents. I wouldn’t be able to turn to the Fund either—they’d probably disown me.
The door clattered all the way to the floor, and shouts rang out from the
hall. Thorn let out a wordless rumble, and there was an impact that sounded like his knuckles meeting flesh, but his own grunt of pain followed it. They had something that could hurt him.
There wasn’t time to come up with a five-point plan of carefully considered action. My mind latched onto the strategy that had been my saving grace every other time I’d needed to cover my tracks.
As Ruse dragged me to the open window, a rush of warm summer air washing away the air-conditioned cool, I dug my bottle of kerosene and my lighter out of the backpack. My arm jerked, splattering the fluid in an arc across vanity, bookcase, and bed. “Thorn!” I yelled, and flicked on the lighter.
With a lurch of my heart, the flame seemed to leap from the tool I was clutching to my target before my hand had even reached the vanity. It licked across the polished surface with a waft of sharper heat and coursed along the trail of kerosene—over the floor, up my mussed sheets.
Ruse let out a hoarse chuckle. I snatched Pickle up, stuffed him into my purse as far as he’d go, and scrambled out the window after the incubus. Snap had already disappeared somewhere below.
More hollers, thuds, and grunts carried from behind us. The flames hissed, flaring higher—and then Thorn was charging through them, his fists bloody, a black mark slashed across his jaw where I guessed he was going to add another scar to his collection.
He spun just as he reached the window and exhaled a massive breath with the force of bellows at a forge. The flames whipped up all across the floor, crawling the walls toward the ceiling. A few figures I could only hazily make out through the flashes of light and the clotting smoke yanked themselves to a halt on the threshold. I tore my gaze away and dashed for the ladder.
The fire would only hold them off for so long. If they decided they couldn’t charge through it, they’d race down to try to cut us off on the street.
A shout from below told me our attackers had been one step ahead. Someone had staked out the fire escape too. I wavered where I’d started down the rickety metal ladder, and Thorn burst through the window.