Crimson Night (Night Series Book 1)
Page 25
My nostrils flared, and what I felt then wasn’t hot anger, but the cold, the kind of cold anger that settles deep and burns brighter. “What do you mean?”
He stepped back, and I gasped as the pressure against my body finally eased. I rubbed my aching hips.
“You’re smart. Figure it out.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, suppressing the urge to run over to Grace, straddle her, and stab her through the heart until the hurt inside my own stopped.
“Even if I do it, she’ll know. She’ll know I went to Hell, and she’ll know I know the truth now. I can’t work with her. Everything’s shot.”
“No.” He shook his head. “When you leave, I will seal the portal. She’ll have no way of contacting Chaos or Wrath. The truth will remain with us.”
Hissing, I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know about Chaos? Were you there? Did you know she was planning this?”
He was silent so long I thought maybe he’d refuse to answer. “I have suspected for a while now that she was working outside the order’s directives.”
Outside the order’s... my thoughts took a swift detour. “What a second? Are you saying she’s rogue?”
His silence spoke volumes.
“Dammit!” I snarled, but the fury soon gave way to laughter. And not because this was funny. It so wasn’t. This was irony in its purest form. She’d set me up. Made me track down a rogue Neph when all along she was the double agent.
“So the order has no clue what their Little Miss Sunshine is up to? How the hell does this happen?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out. But to do it, we have to work together.”
It all sounded so easy. “Yeah, and what do you get out of this? And don’t lie, because we both know this isn’t altruism on your part.”
“I could tell you many things, Pandora. But you’re too smart to believe any of them. You have a partner in this.”
I snorted. “Partner. Yeah. Weren’t you the one telling me to trust no one? You’ve also tried to kill me, so you tell me... why should I trust you?”
“Because I can be your greatest ally, or your worst enemy. The choice is yours.”
Shaking my head with disgust, I stared at the shadow-swathed figure, mentally running through many different scenarios. Why I should and shouldn’t trust him. I barely trusted Luc at times. Now here was a creature that I didn’t know, one so powerful I couldn’t afford to make my enemy, telling me to pick him.
“So you’re telling me you have my nuts in a vice, and if I don’t chose you you’ll chop them off. That it?”
This time there would be no answer from him. The infinite black depths that were the mysterious Gray Man stared back at me.
“You make me sick.” Swiping up my knife, I walked away, not bothering to look back. To hell with all of them.
There was only one person left in the world who’d I’d die for. And though it was only one, his was a life I would never gamble. It wasn’t worth it. I’d fight with the Gray Man if that’s what it took to take Grace down, but I was a demon too. If he screwed me, I’d use every weapon in my arsenal to bring him down with her.
I ported back to the carnival. The machines had been taken down already. Aside from a few winking trailer lights, it was dark. A blood-red moon hung heavy in the sky.
I kicked at a rock with the toe of my boot and watched it skip across the blades of grass.
I glanced at Luc’s trailer and looked away. I didn’t want to go there. I hugged my arms to my chest, never feeling as alone as I did right then. What was I gonna do?
“Pandora?” Vyxyn’s soft voice cut through my melancholy.
Her hair was powder blue and caught up in a short ponytail. She was dressed in a Hello Kitty tank and shorts sleep set. She looked ready for bed. I wondered if she’d been looking out her window, waiting for my return.
“I know I always give you crap,” she said. “But mostly it was because I always thought you too weak.”
I snorted and glanced away. Like that was a shock.
She touched my shoulder. “I never thought you’d kill Kemen.” She said it with respect and a touch of awe. As if she was seeing me for the first time.
“How dare you?” I slapped her hand away, lashing out at her with all my bottled frustration. “I loved him. I didn’t kill him for fun. Screw you.”
I shoved past her and ran with no destination in mind. In Vyx’s own way, she’d tried to show me respect, make an apology, and any other time I would have been able to understand that. But not now. Not while my heart still bled and grieved for a man I’d never see, never hold again.
I’d loved Kemen. He’d been family in every sense of the word. Blood or not, I’d loved him. Everybody else had put up with him. But to me, he’d been special. Perfect.
I stopped, suddenly realizing where I was headed. I stood in front of his silver-bullet trailer. My hand trembled as I pushed open his door.
His clothes still lay in piles. Video games and equipment scattered all over the place. On the table sat the wire. It didn’t look like he’d even touched it after our talk yesterday.
Had it only been yesterday morning since I’d last seen his smiling face?
Walking over to one of the piles of clothes, I grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it on. It smelled like him. Deep and masculine, I breathed it in.
I still felt him. So alive. In this place. All around. Everywhere I looked, I saw him. It helped.
I moved to his bedroom. Lying on the carpet atop his pile of books was my guitar. I’d forgotten to take it home the other night.
Grabbing it, I sat down cross-legged on the bed and started tuning, tightening the metal strings until they rang clean and pure.
I plucked at the strings, following the melody where it led, and I found myself back at the song I’d sang the night I’d first met the priest.
My voice cracked, and many times I had to stop. But I forced myself to finish it, not because I wanted to play the part of the martyr. No, I did this for one reason.
Because I couldn’t go to the funeral, and this was my way of saying good-bye.
The last note hung in the air like a delicate strand of spider silk. I hugged the guitar to me, and the last tear I would cry for Kemen tracked slowly down my cheek.
Grace had made the biggest mistake of her life screwing with me, and someday she’d live to regret it.
“I love you, Sandman. I promise. I’ll make them all pay.”
Finis: The End is just the Beginning
Outside, shadow is slinking. I feel like something is watching me, stalking me... my hand is trembling as I try to jot this down. There are only so many places I can hide, eventually they will find me. I can only hope that it will not happen until I tell the whole story. You see what Grace did, Wrath luring me into Hell... that’s nothing compared to the rest of my story. The zombies... my God, what I found there. What he did to me there, who the Gray Man really is... there is so much more to say, to write, but I think I hear something. It’s closer now. I have to go. But just know this: This story is far from over...
Author’s Note
I wrote this story years ago and decided long ago I wasn’t going to publish it. It was just supposed to be a book I wrote that broke all the rules. Like breaking down the fourth wall and having Pandora speak directly to you, the audience. At the time I wrote this, first person narration was very unpopular, so I’m actually quite surprised to be publishing this now. But it felt right to do it. While I know I explored some themes in here that feel uncomfortable, when I put myself in a demon’s shoes, I realized their world was definitely not pretty nor even at times palatable. Trying to make sense of a character that definitely has the capacity for evil isn’t an easy one to write about, at least not and have the audience still root for them. But that’s what I find so intriguing about all of them. The choices they’ll make, whether for good or bad, is what makes these monsters who they are, and I want to tell their story. So this is me, just saying thank you
for giving my bad little demon a chance... and I’m super stoked to be writing about zombies in the next book. Seriously, I love me some zombies!
About RS Black
Nothing really to tell. RS likes writing. Reading. And taking long walks on beaches, or even at times riding his/her unicorn (Thunder) when the weather permits, those beasts can be totally crazy in bad weather.
RS Black is the seekrit pen name of a NY Times and USA Today bestselling author, she/he (cause yeah, if I tell ya, it wouldn’t be much of a secret now would it?) has a FB page and you can contact him/her on www.rsblackwrites@gmail.com if you just wanna say hi.
RS Black Books
Night Series
Crimson Night—Urban Fantasy (Book 1)
All Hallows Eve—Urban Fantasy (Book 2)
Howlers Night—Urban Fantasy (Book 3)
Red Rain—Urban Fantasy (Book 4): COMING SOON