by M. J. Scott
I kept walking.
"Besides," Damon continued, "Lizzie has magic. If she runs into anything, she can defend herself. You, apparently, do not."
"Neither do you. The only way there being two of us will help is that it’ll divide the attention of whatever it is for a few seconds."
"I'm pretty speedy. I lettered in track in high school." His expression was deadpan.
Damn. Now I was imagining him sweaty and buff in running shorts. Gah. "What sort of self-respecting nerd letters in track?" The path came to an end in front of a row of plane trees that stood behind a bank of green bushes and ferns.
"The kind who goes to schools that insist on well-rounded curriculum," Damon said, coming to stand beside me. "This is the rear boundary." He nodded at the trees. "So how do you want to do this? Some sort of grid pattern?"
"I guess that would make sense. I don't suppose you have a map of the grounds handy?"
He pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and waved it at me. "Here's one I prepared earlier."
Right. He'd done this before. I unfolded the paper and stared at the neatly gridded diagram of the garden. Security sensors and cameras were clearly marked. There was one a few feet away from us. I wondered if anyone on his security team was watching. Odds on, they were. Which explained why Damon had insisted on coming with me. "You came with me so you could give me an alibi or something if anything happens, didn't you?"
He tilted his head. "If I had, would you be mad about it?"
I hesitated. Part of me was pissed that his team continued to have me on the undesirables list. But Damon himself was doing his best to shield me from that. Hard to be mad about that. "No-ooo," I said slowly.
"You don't sound sure."
"No," I agreed. "But then I'm not sure about anything to do with this." I waved the grid in an arc that took in Damon, the garden, and perhaps the whole damned world.
He snorted. I took that for agreement.
I smoothed the grid out and aligned it with the fence behind the trees. "Okay, I guess we start in the far-left corner, work our way across, and then come back."
Damon shrugged agreement. "Lead on."
"If you're trying to save me from dastardly magic by being here with me, shouldn't you lead on?"
"Maybe. But of the two of us, I'm the one most likely to blunder into magic with no chance of recognizing what it might be and set something off. You go first. I'll be the rearguard."
It took us nearly half an hour to work our way across the first row of the grid. In that time, I scored muddy shoes, leaves in my hair, a closer-than-I-wanted encounter with a couple of bees, and grubby hands from pulling back branches and pushing leaves off objects half-hidden in the soil. Which had all turned out to be rocks. Gloves would have been a good idea. Maybe Damon's gardener had a stash.
So far we'd found nothing I classed as suspicious.
I stretched, arching my back. Apparently my DIY-earned muscles weren't quite the same ones used to crawl around garden beds.
Damon studied the grid. He'd managed to stay cleaner than me somehow. He'd donned a nanohide jacket before we'd left the house. I hadn't thought to bring mine with me. Nanohide looked like leather but weighed hardly anything, was stronger and more flexible, shed dirt, and did temperature control. It cost a bomb but was a smart choice for trawling through a garden on a hot day. I'd left my denim jacket in the house, not wanting to get any sweatier than I had to.
It didn't matter. I was sweaty anyway, my hair damp under my cap, and my tee shirt uncomfortably clammy. "What next?" I asked. The faster we worked, the quicker we'd be done and could join Lizzie in the much cooler confines of the house.
"Maybe we should do this column back down toward the house next. Then we can have a break for coffee and whatever once we reach it."
I liked his thinking. Though if we took a break every hour, this was going to take forever.
I pulled my datapad out of my back pocket. Nothing from Lizzie. Apparently her search was going as well as ours. Which, I supposed, was actually good news.
"Coffee sounds good," I said. "Show me the grid again."
Rather than passing it to me, he moved closer so I could see. Too close for comfort. Suddenly I was hot for reasons completely unrelated to the sunshine and the physical activity.
Focus. I squinted at the grid. "What's that?" I asked, pointing to a square about halfway between where we stood and the house and set a little way away from the fence line.
"One of the garden sheds," Damon said. "I don't think Frank uses it much now. There's a bigger one on the other side, and he has a small greenhouse over there, too. More light." He pointed them out on the map.
Sheds and greenhouses. That was going to slow things down even more. So might as well get one of them out of the way. "Then let's take this column," I said and stepped into the next square of the grid.
The trees lining the fence along this side weren't as densely underplanted, so we made slightly better time. Still, by the time we got to the shed, I was beginning to dream of coffee and giving my feet a break.
Also getting far away from Damon. Who stayed close—which, granted, was hard to avoid in a six-foot by six-foot grid square. But my hormones didn't know he was only close because he had to be. They were too busy flashing back to all the memories that the smell of him and the way he moved and his voice triggered.
I tried to focus on our search and keep him out of my eye line, but I was already a nervous twitchy mess and we'd only covered 10 percent of the damned grounds. I eyed the shed, wondering if it would be totally unreasonable to lock him in it out of the way until I was done. Tempting, but I suspected the sight of me shoving their boss into a small structure and locking the door would only confirm all the worst suspicions Damon's security team had about me.
"I'm assuming that will let you in," I said, nodding at the palm scan that seemed out of place on a shed, which was a rustic style that blended in with the natural-but-deliberate aesthetic of the garden. But I guessed the idea was to not provide any hiding spots for anyone who managed to get onto the grounds.
"Unless Frank has jerry-rigged it, then yes, it’ll let me in," Damon said.
Unless Frank was a gardener who'd previously been a hacker or a top-tier burglar, I doubted he could have hacked the lock. I knew the brand. Expensive. And good.
I eyed the top of the shed. It had faux gables and a window and an old-fashioned tiled roof. The kind that had fallen out of favor since the Big One. They disintegrated too easily, but maybe that wasn't such a concern for a mere shed. The other thing about tiles was that they could be lifted...and things hidden under them. The angle of the roof suggested there could be a small crawl space.
"Inside or outside first? And do you think there's a ladder inside?" I asked.
"A ladder?"
I pointed up. "We'll need to check the roof. And by we, I mean you."
"Why me?"
"I'm not overly fond of ladders."
He snorted. "That must be hard when you're renovating a house."
"I'm fine with a ladder to paint a wall or something. Roofing I leave to the experts." If there was ever another big quake, I'd rather be squished than plunge to my death from a height. Not exactly rational, but there wasn't much I could do about that.
Damon eyed the shed. "It's about ten feet high. You'd probably survive."
I folded my arms. "Which means you'll be fine. So let's open the door and find the ladder."
He snorted at me but stretched out his hand toward the scanner. I grabbed his wrist. "Wait."
Damn. I hadn't thought about the lock itself. Could that be magicked? If my magic had been working, I might have had a chance of knowing, might have been able to see the energy field surrounding it. But now, I was flying blind.
I stepped in close and studied the lock. It looked perfectly normal. No smudges or scratches or mysterious runes. The metal surrounding it was a bit dingy, but it seemed normal for a scanner designed to be left out in t
he weather. The wood on either side of the lock seemed fine, too, nothing marring the paintwork. I reached out a tentative finger and touched the edge of the lock, avoiding the palm scan itself, not wanting to set off an alert because I wasn't authorized.
One breath, then two, then three. Nothing happened. Phew. I stepped back, waved Damon forward. "Seems safe enough. Scan away."
The door swung open obediently at the touch of his hand, releasing a waft of dust-scented air. The lights within blinked on automatically. Only high-tech garden sheds for Damon.
I followed him in, scanning the room quickly. Nothing caught my eye. Some of the tools hung in neat rows on the back wall looked dusty, as did the wooden workbench along the left-hand wall.
Damon checked the security log on his datapad. “This says no one has been inside for weeks. But there’s a gap from the power outage, of course.”
Meaning we couldn’t rely on what the system told us.
We went over the room methodically before taking the ladder hanging on the wall back outside so Damon could climb up to the roof.
I held the ladder and tried not to wince as he clambered over the structure as blithely as a goat. Did he have to be good at everything? A comment about being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound seemed appropriate, but he didn’t need an ego boost.
I half held my breath until he was safely back on the ground. He stowed the ladder and locked the door again, then bent to tie his shoelace.
"Might have been better to do that before climbing a ladder," I pointed out.
"It was fine then," he said, glancing up with a grin. "Don't be a worrywart."
That made me laugh. Damn it. I hated that he could still charm me. "A worrywart? Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?"
"The cool kids don't worry about people having untied shoelaces."
True, because most of them wore nano-enhanced sneakers that laced themselves. I preferred old-school. It was comforting to think that my shoes couldn't stage a rebellion and send the laces up to throttle me in my sleep or something. Besides, boots were my go-to these days unless I had to get dressed up for a client. Work boots, “nice” boots, or hiking boots like the well-worn ones I wore. It was hot, but I’d been thinking about avoiding creepy crawlies getting into sandals or flip-flops.
Damon started to straighten, lost his balance, put his hand out to catch himself. I don't know whether I saw something beneath the leaves coating the ground beside him, but I lunged forward to grab him before he could make contact. Lunged and missed. His hand hit the leaf-covered dirt, and there was a weird popping sensation in my ears as though I'd suddenly gained altitude accompanied by a faint hiss of noise that I wasn’t certain I'd actually heard or just imagined. Nevertheless, I lunged a second time and hauled him up and away from the spot where he'd made contact.
"What?" he said, looking confused.
I reached for his hand, turned it palm up. There was a dark smear of something that could be just dirt on his palm. But I couldn't be sure. The back of my neck prickled as I stared at it. "Does that hurt at all?"
He flexed his fingers. "I didn't fall far. It's fine."
"I'm not talking about the fall.” I reached into my back pocket, pulled out my datapad. Then into the other one for the small pack of bio-wipes I'd stashed there in case one of us needed to clean our hands of something gross in a hurry. I shoved the wipes at Damon, dialing Lizzie with my other hand.
"Clean that off," I said.
Lizzie didn't pick up.
The prickling on my neck intensified. "I think we should head for the house," I said, shaking my head slowly, trying to rid myself of the sensation.
"I'm fine," Damon said. "Really." He scrubbed at his hand with the wipe and held it up. "See? All clean."
"You didn't hear anything?" I asked, fighting the urge to grab his hand and pull him back toward the house.
"I was too busy trying not to fall on my ass," he said. Then he went still. "Wait, are you saying you heard 'something'?" His air quotes were slashes in the air.
"I'm not sure," I said. "Maybe. So I think we need Lizzie." She still hadn't answered. Which didn't make me feel any better about our immediate situation. "Let's go back to the house." I tapped out a quick HELP! message to Lizzie and sent it.
Damon nodded. "Good plan."
He held out his left hand—the one that hadn't hit the dirt—and mine closed around it before I could remember why that was a bad idea. We started walking fast but hadn't gotten very far when the breeze shifted and I caught a flash of rot in my nose. Not good garden compost type rot, more death and decay and things my brain told me weren't good news. I knew that smell. The smell of something related to a demon.
I planted my feet, pulling against Damon's grip. "Stop."
If there was an imp or any other nasty magical creature in the garden, it could well be between us and the house. Blundering into its path would be dumb. Trouble was, I didn’t know how to figure out where it was. The breeze had dropped, and I couldn't smell anything.
"What is it?" Damon asked, voice low.
"I'm not sure. An imp, maybe." He'd been with me the first time either of us had encountered an imp. "Can you smell anything or hear anything?"
I strained my ears for either the sound of Lizzie coming to our rescue or the sound of something coming to try and eat us. Imps weren't stealthy creatures. They tended to strange noises and gibbering. Then again, I'd only ever seen two. Perhaps stealthy ninja imps existed.
But if they did, I had no desire to meet one. Lacking any clue as to where the creature might be, the house still seemed like the best option.
Damon's hand was firm on mine. "What do you want to do?"
On the heels of his words came a faint chittering sound from behind us. Back toward the shed somewhere. I caught a whiff of rot as the chittering came again.
"We should try for the house," I said, lowering my voice. "Fast."
We took off at a run, barreling along the angled path, heading to the junction where the paths met and opened onto the lawn immediately behind the house. It hadn't seemed far when we'd been walking down earlier. Now it felt like miles.
I risked a glance back, trusting Damon to lead me forward. I couldn't see anything, but the leaves in the garden beds lining the right-hand side of the path were swaying, as though something was making its way through them. I couldn't see what it was, but there was definitely something there. And I doubted it was a neighbor's cat or dog.
Not unless it had been rolling in something that had been dead for weeks. The smell caught in the back of my throat. I wanted to gag, but stopping would slow us down. Instead, I turned back to face the way I was running and tried to speed up.
I nearly stumbled when an echoing screech—now far too loud to be called chittering—rose behind us, making every hair on my neck and arms stand to attention. My body knew something bad was coming. It wanted to get away.
Apparently Damon did, too. He pulled me forward as I recovered my footing. A gun had appeared in his right hand. But I had no time to wonder where the hell that had come from. We made it another few feet, almost to the front lawn, and then the screeching came again. Louder.
Closer.
Too close, my brain whispered. Do something.
The first time I'd been chased by an imp, I'd fried it with magic I hadn't known I possessed. Now I knew I possessed it, but I couldn't use it. But whatever part of me it was that the magic came from was telling me that the imp—or whatever the hell it was—was too close. We wouldn't reach safety. I had to stand and fight. I let go of Damon's hand, no idea what to do as I whirled around.
The creature moving steadily down the path toward me was in the same family as the imps I'd dealt with before but not identical. Those had been oily black, the color of gasoline and black mold. This one looked more like it had been bleached and then rolled in some sort of grease. There was a dull gleam to the mottled white skin. And it was bigger than the other ones. Maybe half again
as tall...over four feet rather than about three. It paused for a moment, studying me with eyes the color of rust, then screeched again, revealing rows of gray needlelike teeth.
"Maggie, get down," Damon said from behind me.
Down? What was he going to do, shoot it? I had no idea if a gun could hurt an imp. I did know you could fry one.
I held out a hand, trying to remember what the hell summoning fire had felt like. "Burn," I hissed desperately. Nothing happened. My stomach plummeted. The creature screeched at me, and from behind me came a crack of noise. Gunshot.
A smear of black appeared on the creature's shoulder...if the place near the top of one of four arms could be called a shoulder. The bullet, if it had hit, didn't stop it though. Instead, it screamed again, face twisted, took two steps closer to me, and leaped, soaring over my head easily. I twisted, trying to follow its trajectory. It landed with a thump on the lawn a few feet from Damon, who had the gun pointed squarely at it.
The gun wasn't going to help him. It was going to reach him. Tear at him with those fangs and claws. Kill him.
Panic surged through me, and I lifted my hand again as my pulse beat in my ears. "Burn," I shouted so loudly my throat hurt. This time I felt a blinding surge of power in response, and the creature burst into flames.
As I stared at the burning imp, Damon fired again.
My gaze jerked up to his face, which was twisted in grim concentration as he continued shooting until the gun ran out of bullets.
"I think that's probably dead," Lizzie's voice came from behind him. She ran across the grass to stand by Damon's side, gently pushing his arm down. He stepped back but didn't let go of the gun.
We all watched the green and orange flames blaze as the imp got smaller and smaller. They were terrifying little hell beasts, but it was handy the way they burned to ash.
Fire, it seemed, had become my go-to.
"What was it?" Lizzie asked.
"Imp," I said. "I think. It was a weird color."
She frowned at the flames, head tilted. "It just appeared?"
"No," I said after looking up at Damon to see if he wanted to answer. Apparently not. He was still staring at the ashes, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "Damon touched something over there—" I pointed to where we had been. "—and then it appeared."