How Beauty Loved the Beast

by Jax Garren

  “We’ll keep it under control together.”

  Her frown darkened. “No. We won’t.” She held up a paper. “This was in Echelson’s office this morning.”

  Hauk snatched it out of her grip.

  “The attack will be tonight around sunset. We know it because that’s when they’ve ensured you’ll be elsewhere.”

  Jolie crowded against him to read. The paper admitted they had Travis. If Hauk didn’t come for him at the temple at nineteen hundred tonight...

  “They’re going to tattoo him,” Jolie said, face grim.

  “It’s a trap, Hauk.” Dr. Echelson’s voice surprised him by its proximity. While they’d read the note, he’d come to stand right next to them. His voice was calm but urgent. “They want our best defense gone and you at their mercy. I know he’s your friend, but you’re not supposed to come back from this, and neither is he. What even guarantees they’ll keep their word? Travis could already be one of them. By going to him, you put yourself and all of us at greater risk.” He bowed his head. “I’ll lead by example and allow myself to be locked in the shop for the night. I beg of you to likewise think of the good of the Underlight and stay.”

  “‘Never leave a fallen comrade,’ Doc.” Hauk shook his head. “I can’t not go.”

  The professor’s lips thinned. “It’s a fool’s errand, Hauk. We need you here.”

  Tally stepped up to the group and put her hands out between them. Her normal cheer was lost in exhaustion; even her hair, normally spiked into a pixie-like halo, had deflated. But her voice was firm, filled with an understanding and clarity well beyond her sixteen years. “Physically defending the Underlight is going to be a moot point if we can’t get the formula reversed. LaRoche is trying his hardest, but he doesn’t think he can do this. Not by the time we’ll need it, anyway. If Ananke has an antidote, that’s what we need more than any plan to keep us secure. A sample, notes on how they made the curse, anything that would give him a clue how to fight it. Without that, we’re sunk. The shop doors won’t hold back a crowd forever.”

  Tally was right, but rescuing Travis and scouring Ananke’s laboratories for an antidote? That was asking for two impossible feats in one trip.

  Two impossible feats that had to be done if he wanted a home to come back to. Hauk nodded, determined. “Mercy’s right. This place can be locked down tight, and she can handle it. They don’t know how to get in unless somebody tells them. Today we make sure everyone is accounted for. We make sure they understand the risks. We lock up as many infected people as will let us. We take whoever’s left and see who can fight. We barricade the entrances and post guards, in case somebody gets through. LaRoche and Tally will keep trying to combat the formula. I’ll go get Travis and the antidote, if there is one.”

  “Me too,” Jolie said.

  Hauk frowned at her.

  “Together.” Her face was unyielding as she reminded him of his promise.

  Reluctantly, he nodded. “Together. Now I’ve got preparations to make. Doc, pick somebody who’s been tested clean to come up with an alternate location to retreat to in case things go south. It’s imperative that only those who’ve tested clean know where it’s located. If Ananke brings the fight here, we’ll need a place for the refugees to gather that can’t be reported back. Anyone not willing to test can find their own retreat zone.”

  The list of things that needed to happen to save the Underlight wasn’t daunting, it was just this side of futile. Dr. Echelson wasn’t wrong. Hauk was walking into a trap he wasn’t meant to get out of alive. As much as he hated putting her in danger, Jolie would be a strong asset tonight. She’d already proved she’d see a mission through, no matter what. Tonight they were getting out in one piece together or going down together. Possibly for good.

  * * *

  Hauk was crazy busy, organizing the barricades, planning a direct assault, discussing the defense plan with Mercy...so it wasn’t hard for Jolie to slip out onto campus. Travis had been smart enough to dump all the information he’d dug up onto a cloud drive they shared. With the little she’d skimmed, she thought he was right. They had a case.

  So instead of moping around the Underlight all afternoon, she’d decided to video phone her friend the lawyer. She and Eddie had kept in steady contact until last summer, when Papa Marcel had passed away and Jolie had moved her life in a new direction. Of all the people from her old life, though, who might laugh and support her down wilder paths, Eddie—Edgar Marcus Reyes III—was top of the list.

  He answered on the second ring. His smile was bright as she remembered, his brown eyes crinkling just a little more at the corners. “Red? Long time no see.”

  She smiled into the phone and relaxed back onto the hillside, where sunbathers and illegal rollerbladers disguised her presence better than a suspiciously dark corner. “How ya been?”

  “Working, working. You?”

  There wasn’t time for a long catch up, so she cut to the chase. “Ever heard of Ananke?”

  As if she’d hit a magic button, his friendliness morphed into lawyer face. “Greek goddess of fate,” he answered. “Why?”

  Undaunted, she continued. “Are you in? It’s important.”

  His façade stayed locked in place as he shook his head. “You?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Married into it and calling to invite me?” He only seemed partially joking.

  She held her left hand up to the camera to show off the lack of ring. “Definitely not. Life’s taken a bit of a turn since I moved to Austin.”

  “So I’ve heard,” he said. “The old Houston grapevine hasn’t completely collapsed.” His congenial expression came back in smaller measure. “Nah, I got introduced a long time ago. It was the main reason Dad didn’t want me to come out back when I was in high school. He feared it would ‘interfere with my prospects.’ I still could’ve been tapped, but I didn’t feel like throwing in with an organization that wouldn’t approve of my lifestyle. Plus, from what I’ve seen anyway, their politics in other ways aren’t up my alley. Why are you asking?”

  She took a deep breath. Eddie’s words and demeanor rang true. She’d been right. “I have a new man, and he’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. But he needs a lawyer who’s willing to take on a goddess. You up for it?”

  He didn’t hide the surprise on his face. “You have a serious man?”

  Jolie stuck her tongue out at him.

  He grinned. “What’s the story? The case. You can tell me the other story later.”

  “Oh, just an international conspiracy, a five-year-old mystery, seven deaths and a raging inferno. Again, I ask, you up for it?”

  He blew out a curious breath. “You had me at ‘Oh.’”

  * * *

  Hauk stood in front of his ancestor altar, watching the smoke rise from incense cones and weave among the sculptures he’d crafted. He lifted the largest one, a Valkyrie-inspired piece with feathered wings and a longsword.

  Val-kyrie, a “chooser of the slain” who winged fallen warriors to Val-halla, “hall of the slain,” to live in feasting and deathless fighting until the end of the world. They held a special place in Heathen myth, both comforting for their power to intervene and feared for their job of selecting who would die and where they would spend their afterlife.

  Beneath the statue was the ring he’d crafted with a blooming rose in the center. The one he’d planned to give Jolie when he got up the courage to propose.

  One day. One day.

  He had a sense that day wasn’t going to arrive. In the Army he’d carried this weird superstition that he’d know the day he was going to fall. That it would have a different tang to it, a peace so strong he could march into battle, recognize what was coming and face it head on.

  Like Odin walking into the jaws of the Fenris-wolf at Ragnarok.

  Logically he recognized there was no sense or reason or predicting who was coming home with their soul intact and who was arriving in a bag. War
was chaos. Yet his gut had never given up believing he’d somehow know.

  Today, somewhere between barricading the south entrance and reviewing the guard assignments for each checkpoint, that serenity had washed over him like Valkyries whispering in his ear. “Today. Prepare yourself.”

  He knew.

  He would leave Jolie the ring. She could do with it as she pleased. The gods knew he had little else of material value to give. Now he had a vow to fulfill and only a few hours left to do it. The plans for the Underlight’s defenses were in place, and other hands worked to finish the final details. He had time.

  He breathed deep of the altar smoke, a last communion with his ancestors before he joined them, and headed for the forge.

  Chapter Seventeen

  No one had seen Hauk in over an hour. Jolie glanced in his room and found it empty except for a lingering smell of patchouli. The only other place she knew to go was the forge. With a full heart, she turned her feet that way.

  Eddie had skimmed the material. His eyes had lit up and he said he’d get back to her. She’d seen that look before. He was fascinated.

  Good.

  Now she had to confess what she’d done. She had something else to confess, though, and this time she wouldn’t let Hauk stop her. With her soul bared and everything right between them, they could get through tonight, get his name cleared and start a life together.

  The door to the forge was wedged shut. Hauk did that sometimes when he wanted to be alone. She knocked anyway, hoping she would be an exception. “Hey, babe. It’s me.”

  A grunt that sounded vaguely like, “Justasec.” The flame of a blowtorch. A light clank on the ground. Then another.

  He was walking without shoes. In the forge?

  The door opened. Hauk stood in the frame, blowtorch in hand, face-shield down and a pair of scandalously short shorts hanging on his hips.

  She swallowed a laugh. “Umm...”

  He knocked up the face-shield with his free hand and tugged her into the room. “Yeah, yeah. Catch-me-fuck-me’s are hilarious.” He resettled the chair against the door and headed back toward the bench, his cheeks red from more than the heat.

  “Catch-me-fuck-me? Is that a request?”

  “The shorts. Standard PT issue for Ranger training. Most intimidating part of Ranger School is walking in on someone doing sit-ups.” He sat on the bench with an embarrassed smile. “They’d look a helluva lot better on you.” Turning, he slid his mechanical leg onto the bench.

  Jolie had never seen it before and approached curiously. The front was solid, gleaming metal from thigh to ankle, but the back was a silver cage housing brass gears and colorful wires. She couldn’t see it, but Hauk had told her wires and tubing surgically connected the device to the nervous system in his thigh, allowing it to respond like a normal leg. The whole thing attached a few inches below his hip with a metal cincture. The way he moved, it was impossible to tell his leg was missing if you didn’t see the metal beneath. Tally had built a miracle unmatched by modern science.

  He crooked his knee, picked up a silver sheath from his workbench and fitted it over the back of his calf. “Hard to get this project done in my leathers, hence the getup.” He dropped his face-shield and pointed to a wall, where safety garments hung on metal hooks. “There’re more over there if you want to get any closer.” After sparking up his welding torch, he began soldering the metal skin over the cage of his leg.

  Fascinated, Jolie grabbed a rubber band from her pocket to stuff her hair back into a bun and headed across the room for a mask and gloves.

  When she got back to the bench, he was finishing up the second side. Unlike most of Hauk’s work, with its fanciful lines and hammered textures, the metal was smooth and contoured in precise realism. He’d been working on these for a while.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said in awe.

  Another grunt as he contorted, trying to reach the line where his calf met his knee. Finally he frowned. “Don’t suppose you know anything about welding?”

  She opened her mouth in surprise. “No.”

  Annoyance twisted his face as he tried to find an angle that would work.

  “How hard is it?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t care if it’s smooth, just that it’s on. So in this case, not very.”

  Nothing about this project said, “I don’t care.” The pieces were not only beautifully crafted, but fitted seamlessly into the casing. “Are you sure? I mean, I’m willing to try, but I don’t want to mess up your work.”

  He gave her a smile with a touch of weariness in it. “It’s the back of my knee. Nobody’s going to see it but you.”

  There was something deeply important to him about having this done. She wasn’t sure she could do any good, but she’d give it her best.

  They spent a few minutes with scrap metal so he could show her how to use the torch and have her practice. Her seams were bubbly and uneven, but the procedure was easy enough. After a few tries he declared her work solid enough to hold.

  “Are you sure?” she asked again, pushing the welding mask up from her latest zig-zagging line. “We could get Tally in here—”

  He dropped a hand onto her shoulder. “No Tally. Just you. Please.”

  She looked from her messy efforts to his gleaming silver leg and up to his face. He was serious. She took a deep breath. “Okay. Lie down.”

  “I’m not going to be able to get the last piece, either. I’ll help you set it in place, but...”

  She nodded and pushed him toward the bench. “In for a line, in for a square. We’re good. Just don’t be pissed when it’s uneven.”

  He lay on the workbench on his stomach, cheek resting on his crossed arms so she could see his smile. “It’ll match the rest of me better.”

  With a laugh, she dropped her face-shield and bent over the project. As she touched the metal casing, steadying herself for the weld, she realized how close she was to him. For the first time, he was letting her touch his leg. He couldn’t feel her fingers, but he knew she was there. Not just to touch but, in a way, to heal him. She ignited the fire and bent to work, determined to do him proud.

  The last line of the calf went easier than she’d expected, and she moved on to the back of his thigh.

  “I love that you sing,” he said.

  She stopped mid-hum, just now realizing she was doing it. “Oh, I hadn’t meant to.”

  “I can tell. I love that about you.”

  Her eyes watered, and she paused to blink away the tears before turning the fire back to his casings. “I love you.”

  He went very still, his eyes boring into her.

  She focused on her work. “You wouldn’t let me tell you last night, but I want you to know. I’m sorry it took so long for me to say it. It’s been true for a long time.” She started the next line, concentrating carefully on metal and fire as she said the words she’d been practicing. “The only good relationship I’ve ever seen is Papa Marcel and David. But David died when I was thirteen and, well, of course they weren’t married, this being Texas and all. Papa Marcel never dated seriously again. To say the least, I don’t know how this is done.” She finished the last line, shut off the fire and pushed her face-shield up. “Stay there while it cools.”

  She moved to the side where she could see his eyes and the ardor inside them. His emotion, unconcealed as always, helped her speak her own. “I do know I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I know that my day is better when I wake up next to you. I know that with you I feel safer, more cared for and like a better person than I’ve ever been in my life. Sex means more than it ever has. And it’s better. I’d be happy with you and only you for the rest of my life. I want it that way. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I’m wearing a welding hat and gloves.” She took them off with a self-conscious laugh. “Sexy.”

  “You have no idea,” he rumbled. There was something anguished in his expression as he pulled her down to his
level and kissed her.

  She wanted to clear all his sorrow away, help him find a new life. A happy one. With her.

  His lips brushed her forehead like a benediction. “I love you, too. I will love you for the rest of my life. And beyond if there is one.”

  * * *

  Hauk let go of the woman he loved as bittersweet emotion flooded him. Jolie spoke the sweetest words he’d ever heard, and if his premonition was right, they would hurt her more. “Let me get some water to cool this.” It would make the joints more brittle, but she didn’t know that. He only needed it to last a little while.

  She smiled merrily as she helped him spray cold water on the jointures. Together they put away tools and scrap. He scrubbed down the table, the last chore to do. While he finished up, she pulled the rubber band from her hair and shook her head.

  Flame-red curls fell around her shoulders. Light from the hearth danced across her face, lighting the freckles he loved to kiss. His heart stuttered. She captivated him. He’d never imagined himself with a beauty like her, even for a night. And yet she loved him. If somehow he did make it through this, he’d put the ring on her finger tomorrow.

  He reached down and felt the seams on his legs. Cool enough that it wouldn’t burn her. It was time to fulfill his vow. Despite his resolve, apprehension made his motions clumsy as he gave the table one last polish and put the brush away.

  As if she read his mind, she stepped up to him and put her head against his chest. He wrapped her in his arms and buried his lips in her hair. She was lightness itself as he picked her up and set her on his workbench.

  Jolie tried to pull him closer but he stepped back. Suddenly shy, he grabbed the hem of his shirt. He’d said he would do this. He was practically naked now, thanks to the stupid-ass shorts, the only thing he owned that allowed him to work on his leg. But still, his gut heaved nauseously at the idea of standing completely naked before anyone. Air touching him from every angle. Fire lighting each grotesque pockmark.

  But it might be his last chance to fulfill his promise. And Jolie loved him. He drew from her words the courage he needed to pull the hem up, baring his chest and back. The shirt dropped to the ground. He didn’t look at her face—couldn’t—as he grabbed the waistband of his shorts. His heart pounded; his hands shook. He dropped the rest of his clothing to the floor.