by D. D. Chance
“What do you know about the Reid House?” Tyler asked suddenly, speaking to Frost. “Is there anything in the books?”
“Nothing so far,” Frost said. “Which is a red flag right there. Someone has buried any information about them. I’ll keep looking, but there’s a lot of material to go through.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Zach said. “I’m with Grim. This thing is nearby, and closing fast.”
“Let me go out ahead,” I blurted. “It’s probably going to be drawn to me.”
“No,” Tyler countered immediately, but I turned to him.
“Yes,” I assured him, giving him a smile I truly meant. “I won’t be that far ahead, and you and Grim will be right there. You’ll reach me in time if something goes sideways—and you’ll be great. I know you will.”
“Nina—” Tyler began and there was something in his voice that rippled through me, making my heart tug, hard. Not giving him a chance to say anything more, I turned away and hustled down the street, grateful I was able to hide my reaction from the other guys. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed at Tyler’s obvious affection for me. It was that when he’d looked at me, the intensity of his emotions had been multiplied three times over by the reactions of the others.
They were all genuinely worried about me, even Grim, though I suspected he would never admit it. Their concern should have made me more nervous, but it totally didn’t. Up to this point, I’d only fought monsters alone. Now I had an entire team to help me take them down or fight them off. That was a whole new ball game.
Tyler spoke in my ear. “The Reid House is down the street and to the right. It’s got gated walls. If the Boston Brahmin is there, he won’t be on the inside. He’ll be hunting, and probably pissed. Him or whoever is behind him.”
“Got it,” I nodded.
“I’m right behind you. I sent Grim around the other way, so he’ll have eyes on you when you turn the corner. Okay, there, easy does it.”
I continued on for the couple of minutes it took me to stroll leisurely down the block, trying hard to emote victim. I palmed my knife, tossed my hair, swung my arms, and generally acted as carefree and happy as any young college girl would be caught up in her first crush—other than the knife part. I was in such a good mood, I turned the corner without thinking too much about it, only to hear Grim’s sharp, muttered curse in my mind. “Fuck.”
That was all the warning I had.
Once again, the thing that attacked me from point-blank range seemed to be the mirror image of the creature I’d seen standing over Betty. I snapped my wrist and slid my knife forward, feeling the familiar heft of it in my grasp. It was the iron knife I always carried with me, not the spelled one. It simply felt more natural, as did the wide slashing arc I executed to back the thing up.
Only now that I got a good look at this version of the Boston Brahmin, I realized it had changed—and not for the better. Its face was decaying, its eyes bugging wide and almost manic. It took the slash without stopping, its thick layers of clothes ripping, and I wasted precious seconds yanking my knife free—
Then it was on me.
I’d been nearly killed three times in my life by monsters, at least so far as I could remember. One resulted in a bite mark on my right side as I’d struggled to get away. I’d managed to club that monster to death with a metal crowbar, but had nearly bled out before someone had found me. The other two times had been neck wringers, and this bastard, with his long fingers, seemed to prefer that method as well.
He sunk his hands around my neck, somehow almost seeming to encircle it twice, and stared at me, his voice ringing with pain as he howled.
“You dare! You dare try to steal from me—from my family! Your trick will not succeed—never! You will never bring shame to—”
“William!” Tyler called out behind me, and the old man’s rheumy eyes snapped up, his brows shooting skyward. “William, it’s okay. I got your ring back—the letters too. The watch. We’re safe.”
“You lie—” the Brahmin wheezed. “You all are lying to me.”
“Not lying.” My voice cracking with effort as I struggled to breathe, I wrapped my hands around the Brahmin’s bony wrists. The chill from the resurrected bones leached through me, but I pressed on. “Tyler is the best Perkins that ever lived. A born leader, a born fighter. Someone who’ll make you all proud.”
“A Perkins,” the Brahmin breathed, his hands beginning to shake, though they didn’t loosen their hold on my throat. “Not one of those squatters trying to t-take advantage of our family.”
“Not even close,” Tyler said, stepping closer. “I’m a Perkins, just like you. And the family’s safe, thanks to you. You fought hard to save our honor. Very hard. Because you aren’t just born a Perkins, right? You have to earn the right.”
“You do,” the Brahmin breathed, quivering with feeling. “You verily do.”
It still didn’t let go of me, unfortunately, and something shifted in its expression. Smoke began to seep out of its face as William’s thin, aristocratic image was replaced with a black, gaping maw. And this guy was definitely not a Perkins.
Uh-oh.
“You dare…” it hissed, glaring down at me with eyes as dark as midnight, smoke billowing forth—
I was ready for it this time, though. While Tyler had done the world’s best job of distracting the creature, I’d managed to close my fingers around my knife again, and now I turned and buried it deep in the Boston Brahmin’s chest.
Its hands fell away, its howl little more than a bubbling gasp—
Then it collapsed.
29
A sonic boom seemed to shake the entire street as the monster dropped to the sidewalk. I swung away from the guys, from the monster, as everyone burst into motion while all I could focus on was the screaming in my ears.
“Run!” my mother shouted. “Promise me.”
“You dare,” the monster’s voice echoed from the corpse. I’d expected it to catch on fire, to explode—but instead the corpse rolled over, staring at me with wide, frozen eyes. “You dare,” it seethed again. Didn’t this thing know when to die?
Tyler seemed to be reaching for me too, but he was too far away. I felt like I was floundering through Jell-O, trying to reach him, but he kept hovering out of reach. His face blanked with real fear as he turned toward me with a panic that I felt all the way to my bones. He blamed himself for this, I knew. He felt he’d failed me.
I needed to do better.
I would do better. For him…and for his team. My team, too.
For now, anyway.
Forever?
“Nina,” Tyler whispered.
“Run,” my mother tried again—but her voice was falling away…
Time rushed forward again, and I jerked back to awareness as Liam turned toward us and pocketed his phone. “They’re on their way,” he reported, and I shook my head, hard. Clearly I’d missed some critical seconds in the transition.
“Who?”
“The kind of cleaners magical families require to take care of their messes,” Tyler said. “We didn’t want to leave Willie to decompose on his own.” I could feel his focus on me, warm and sure, while I peered around curiously.
The only onlookers we’d drawn were the upper crust homeowners of this neighborhood, silent witnesses who stood and watched as Grim and Zach covered the body with tarps pulled from Liam’s backpack. They continued watching as a large, unmarked conversion van pulled up.
“Cleaners, you said?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Liam said, practically bouncing. “I’ve never seen these guys in the wild, but I knew they existed. The families used to employ them all the time, when magic was a bit more…loosely regulated. The fact that Frost had them on speed dial still is pretty friggin’ awesome.”
Three people exited the van, two men and one woman, all of them dressed in dark-gray coveralls, gloves, and knit caps. They nodded to Tyler, then moved smartly to the tarp-covered body, shooting a questioning gla
nce at Liam as he stood back.
“Keep it,” Liam said. Then he checked himself. “Can I have your card?”
A brief flash of gray card stock appeared in one of the workers’ hands, which then disappeared inside Liam’s backpack.
Was he planning to follow up on the removal process of the monster? Or was he collecting new names for his contact list? In any event, the body looked like it was already well on its way to disintegration, based on the diminishing size of the figure wrapped up in plastic.
Tyler followed my gaze as I watched them load it into the van.
“Decomp is already happening. Sort of like any monster, yeah? This poor guy was human, but he’d been made into…something else.”
I nodded, shifting closer to him. It felt good to be on the other side of a monster fight. And even better to not be alone.
“Let’s go,” Tyler put in quietly. “These people watching us aren’t moving until we do, I don’t think.”
“Kind of creepy, you ask me,” Zach said under his breath as we turned and began walking away.
“Well, they haven’t seen hunters in a while,” Liam offered.
“That they haven’t,” Tyler agreed. “And remember what Frost said—we’ve got nothing on this family. So having this scene play out on their doorstep is probably throwing everyone off a little bit.”
“Why here?” I asked, squinting at the house. “This isn’t even in Beacon Hill. Why did the Brahmin end up here?”
Tyler blew out a long breath, but before he could speak, Frost’s voice crackled in our ears.
“I may have the answer to that,” he said heavily. “But get back here first. Don’t rush, don’t draw attention. But get here.”
Obligingly, we made our way back to campus at a normal pace, for which I was eternally grateful. By the time the walls of Wellington Academy came into view, my adrenaline rush had nearly evened out. I couldn’t help the sense of apprehension that I had, though, as I approached the campus.
“So what happens now?” I asked. “After I kill a monster, or at least chase one off, I usually treat myself to junk food and crawl into bed for a while, if I can. But is there actually, like, a protocol you’re supposed to follow here?”
That question stopped all the guys, and we paused at the threshold of Wellington Academy, a school that had been founded originally to do exactly what we’d done today: hunt and kill monsters. But nobody knew what to do next.
Frost broke in. “An excellent question, Ms. Cross. One that our students haven’t had to deal with for quite some time. But there is a protocol, reports to be filed, and an after-action review is to be completed. That’s why I needed you return. Report to the library. I’ve canceled your classes for the rest of the day.”
We headed into the campus and down the main street, but everything was different. There were as many students as there always were, but, much like the people at the Reid House, they looked at us oddly. Some of them surreptitiously, over their coffee cups and books, some of them more deliberately. Some of them curious; some of them openly hostile.
“Did we miss a memo?” Zach asked. “The last time I got eyeballed like this, I was standing beneath a church revival tent facing rumors I was the antichrist.”
“There are probably parallels,” Liam chuckled. “I bet the word got out.”
“How?” I protested. “Nobody knew where we were going, and it’s not like the Reids’ neighbors had a phone tree set up.”
“Wellington Academy was first and foremost a monster hunting academy set up to protect the richest and most powerful families in Boston,” Tyler said thoughtfully. “What if it’s something that’s hardwired into the system? What if all of Wellington’s students could be mobilized if needed?”
Grim stirred beside us. “That would be a very bad thing.”
Zach nodded. “You’ve got that right. These guys aren’t equipped to do what we do. Hell, half the students here think monsters are little more than oversized teddy bears. If something actually tapped their limbic brain to go to war, they’d probably freak out.”
“Guys, I think it’d be a good idea if we got to the library sooner rather than later,” Liam murmured.
I felt it too, the encroaching awareness of the students, and another pressure I didn’t recognize. Was it the school itself? The creatures we kept in the monster quad?
By the time we reached Lowell Library, my skin was crawling. Tyler opened the door, but before we could enter, someone called out. “Mr. Perkins.”
We all turned. At the bottom of the steps stood a man in a somber charcoal gray suit, his face aristocratic, his hair slicked back with the barest hint of silver at the temples.
Tyler visibly started. “Mr. Wellington,” he said. My eyes widened at the name.
“I understand you’ve had a bit of excitement today,” said the man, who was maybe, what…the owner of the school? I stared. “All of you.” His gaze lingered on us, finally coming to rest on me. If he was surprised to be meeting the newest student at Wellington Academy, he didn’t betray it.
“We haven’t had to file a formal report for some time,” he continued. “I trust Dean Robbins has given you the information you need?”
I barely restrained a frown before remembering Dean Robbins was actually in charge of the monster hunting minor, not Commander Frost. Tyler, however, recovered smoothly.
“All the paperwork will be filed by the end of the day,” he assured Mr. Wellington. “We look forward to any counsel that will improve our handling of such matters going forward.”
Wellington’s brows lifted. “You expect there to be additional opportunities to field-test your skills?” He spoke with supercilious condescension, but I couldn’t tell whether he was mocking Tyler or truly curious. He might simply speak asshole as a first language.
Tyler shrugged. “I couldn’t say, but we’re here, and we’re trained. We’ll serve the school as well as we can, for as long as we can.”
“I see,” Wellington said, his eyes narrowing for a second. His expression cleared. “But carry on, all of you. The initial reports I’m receiving have been quite positive, and if it wasn’t the sum total of your purpose at this academy, I would say congratulations are in order. As it is, you apparently comported yourself well today, at least pending a full review. I look forward to following up with Dean Robbins.”
Tyler shot him a megawatt smile, so blinding in its enthusiasm that even Wellington’s lips twitched upward in response. What was this, some sort of new magic that Tyler had dialed in to? If so, it was powerful stuff.
Wellington gave the rest of us a brief nod. “Gentlemen, and Ms.… Cross, is it?” he asked, once more settling his gaze on me. It felt cold, with a touch of steel. I nodded and smiled back.
“That’s right,” I said and left it at that.
“Indeed,” Wellington said. “We’ll be seeing more of you, I suspect.”
He turned away, effectively releasing us from his spell—or what felt like a spell, anyway. I didn’t know what Wellington or anyone in the administration might want with me…but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to enjoy finding out.
30
We all seemed to feel the same level of oppression from Mr. Wellington’s surprise appearance. We headed out again, not saying anything more until after we entered the library and crossed the main foyer, heading for the war room deep in the stacks.
“Well, that was pretty creepy,” Zach said finally, breaking our silence.
“I’m not liking all the Dean Robbins references either,” Liam said. “He’s a waste of skin.”
“Well, he’s skin that we need to pay more attention to,” Tyler said, his words thoughtful. “Like it or not, he’s in charge. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me…”
Grim lifted his head. “You’re right,” he grunted. “We’ll be watched the moment we enter that room.”
“Ditch the pins now,” Tyler said tightly. Minding the cameras, we pulled the jeweled communicators free and handed them
over to Liam, who shoved them into his bag.
I swiveled my gaze between the two guys, but didn’t have time to ask any questions before we entered the war room.
It had undergone a massive transformation. Gone were the jumbles of old texts and scrolls, the souped-up, industrial strength laptops, and the lit-up screens. Instead, five very ordinary-looking campus laptops lined the table. Frost sat to the side, not paying any attention to us, apparently texting his bestie on his phone. But the real star of the room was a man who had to be Dean Robbins. Tall and painfully thin, with paper-white skin, an unexpectedly pink, pursed mouth, and heavily hooded eyes, he peered at us down a long patrician nose and equally pointed chin. His closely cropped hair was so dark, it seemed nearly blue in the fluorescent lights, and he wore a fussy, gray, well-tailored suit with the kind of ease that made me wonder if he ever took it off. He looked like a particularly ugly mannequin in an off-priced men’s store display. I’d never seen him before, and he didn’t pay me any attention.
“Before you prepare your reports, gentlemen…” He paused, his gaze finally slithering to me, then back to Tyler without acknowledging me further. “I have only one question. How did you know the attacks were happening?”
That question was so open-ended that it was impossible to tell where it was leading, but once again, Tyler had a ready response. “We didn’t,” he said. “We were off campus, heading for lunch, and the monsters found us. Or at least the first one did.” He shook himself. “It was pretty intense. After that, I can’t really describe it, and obviously, we’ll make it sound more official, but it was like we knew. All those tracking classes paying off, I guess. But we understood we had to follow them and pick them off one by one, all the way to Reid mansion.”
Robbins’s brows lifted. “And how were you able to identify it as the Reid house? That family hasn’t been part of Boston society for generations.”
“We didn’t. These guys did, after the fact,” Liam lied smoothly. In his hand, he held the cleaners’ card, and I forced myself not to stare. “You may want to talk to them. They seemed way more in the know than we were.”