by PJ Friel
David’s hand jerked to his holster and I gave him my best psychotic laugh. Shoot me. Shoot me so the medics have to open this door, because as soon as they do, I’m gone.
“Don’t do it, Detective,” Jace said. “It’s what he wants.”
I punched Jace in the jaw, sending him sprawling across the cell. “Don’t listen to him. You wanna shoot me? Shoot me.”
The damage was already done, though. Shelton had raised his empty, trembling hand to his face. No gun. No shooting. No medics.
That was fine. I had another desperate ace up my sleeve and the times were calling for it.
“You want to know what your son really is, Shelton?” I taunted.
“Mackenzie, don’t you dare!”
“Shut up, Jace, or I will rip your fucking head off.” I met his gaze and let him see how serious I was. Before he acted, he needed to understand that I wasn’t bluffing.
“There’s no coming back from this,” Jace argued.
I stared at him. Maybe he wasn’t at that place yet with Dezi. Maybe that’s why he didn’t understand how far I was willing to go to keep Bryn safe. I had to make him understand that she was it for me. She was my everything, my other half, my wyrd.
“There’s no me without her, Jace.”
“Forty minutes, man. Less now,” he pleaded.
Frustrated, I growled. “She could be dead in seconds! Tell me you’d do anything different if it was Dezi.”
He dropped his gaze and shut his sense-talking mouth. Yeah, he understood.
“I’ll tell you all about your son, Shelton, but you need to let me out of this cell.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You tell me first.”
David Shelton was probably a smart cop. Bryn didn’t deal well with stupid. But he was a terrible poker player. It was all right there in his eyes. He wasn’t going to let me out of this cell. He was still playing by cop rules.
I’d left rules behind a long time ago.
The Monster rattled its cage and I let myself drift into its presence. It smiled and tilted its chin up, sniffing mockingly. I got the message. Desperation clung to me. I was the next thing to suicidal. If I let this thing out and off its leash just a bit, I could show some teeth and fang, give Shelton a glimpse of what humans were never supposed to see. It was a risk. He might be too scared to let me out afterwards.
Or I might not be able to yank the thing back where it belonged. The last time I’d caged it, Mordechai had helped me and the bars of that prison were already a little bent.
“Jace,” I called over my shoulder. “If I go off the rails, you need to put me down.”
“What are you—” I cracked open the door to the Monster’s cage and Jace’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Oh, shit. No. No. No.”
Its teeth sliced into my bottom lip as it leered at Jace. “Yessss.”
“What the fuck are you?” the human outside the cell whimpered.
“The thing that wants her safe,” it growled and rattled the cell door. “Open.”
“No.” The human shook his head.
The Monster lunged across the cell, knocking Jace to the floor. Sitting on his chest, it pinned Jace’s arms to the floor under my knees, grabbed him by the hair and jerked his head to the side, exposing his throat.
“Open or he dies,” it growled.
Shit, I hadn’t expected that. I jerked back on the reins, but it was like they weren’t attached. All that my attempt accomplished was to make the thing raise my arm and unsheathe my talons.
Holy fuck.
It was going to behead Jace.
“Sweet Jesus!” Jace’s fangs glistened in his mouth and he struggled hard, but I had him pinned. His berserker was no match for the Monster. “Just throw it the keys, Shelton!”
“Okay, okay! Stop!”
Keys flew through the bars and hit the floor a couple of feet away. The Monster crawled off Jace and reached for them. A heavy hand clamped onto my shoulder.
“Hail Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,” Jace’s voice boomed in the cell.
White light blasted from Jace’s hand and every nerve in my body crackled. The beast howled and I shoved it back into the cage and slammed the door. Jace dropped to his back on the floor. I curled into a ball beside him, trying to stop the muscle spasms.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” He finished the prayer, took a deep breath, and started up again. “Hail Mary, full of grace.”
“You know that wasn’t a demon, right?”
“Could have fooled me.” He gave me a look that said he was dead serious.
“What the fuck are you people?” Shelton yelled.
I narrowed my gaze on him as I crawled to my feet. A few staggering steps put me at the cell door and I slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and swung the door open. “I’ll explain it after we’re out of the police station. Let’s go. You’re walking me out of here.” I looked back at Jace, who was still lying on the floor. “You coming with?”
“Nope. I don’t want the warrant and someone needs to be here when Grimm and Harry arrive or there will be hell to pay.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Do you know where Bryn is so we can catch up with you?”
“No.” I tapped my nose. “But I’ll find her.”
“Call us when you do.”
“Yep.” I gave Shelton my death glare. “If you fuck me over with this, he’s not going to be around to put that thing back in its cage. Got me?”
“Understood.” He adjusted his gun holster, trying to put on a badass air.
“Just so you know, that gun won’t do a damn thing to me.”
Shelton looked at Jace. Yeah, because the Catholic con man was more honest than I was. I shrugged out of my torn tuxedo jacket and bowtie and dropped them on the floor.
“He’s not lying,” Jace said.
“Good to know.” Shelton nodded at Jace. “Thanks.”
“Trade me shirts, Jace. Mine has blood on it.”
He rolled his eyes, but did as I asked.
“Ready, Detective?” My sneer told him exactly what I thought of his deductive skills. He nodded and I followed him out into the precinct.
No one even looked at us funny as we walked through the building and out of the front door. Freedom was within my grasp. “Let’s go to your car.”
Shelton jerked his head towards a white Impala. “Now tell me about my son, asshole.”
Figured he’d drive something white. Knight in shining armor complex, one hundred percent.
“You’re lucky Bryn cares about you.”
I punched him out and then stole his cell phone and car.
CHAPTER 40
BRYN
“We’re here, Bryn,” Levi said.
Turned out if you held a knife on a man, he started to call you by your first name.
Violence, bringing people together.
Levi had been driving me around for the past hour while I tried to figure out what to do with my mess of a life. I’d finally decided to chance going to my apartment, so I could grab my go bag and leave Ohio.
“Sorry,” I said, reaching for the door handle. He was probably eager to get the heck away from me.
“Please wait for me to open the door.”
My chin quivered. I cleared my throat, but couldn’t get any words out. He gave up waiting for a response and took my silence as acquiescence. With a nod, he opened his door and walked around the front of the limo, then opened mine.
I stared into the pockets of darkness around my apartment complex and shuddered. Trygg should have been here to walk that gauntlet with me, but he wasn’t. I’d made sure of that. My vision blurred and I wiped angrily at my eyes.
You are stronger than this. You’re Bryn…
Bryn who?
Bryn Ullman?
Bryn Pruedatter, Aesir Royalty?
B
ryn, Princess of Svartalfheim?
Bryn, Dezi’s best friend?
Bryn, Trygg’s lover?
“Was there somewhere else you wanted me to take you instead of here?” Even after I’d threatened him with my dagger, there was nothing but kindness in Levi’s voice.
I didn’t deserve it.
“There’s no place else for me to go, Levi.”
Except away. I had a go bag to collect and an identity to burn. That was the one piece of advice from Frank and Eugenia that I gave any consideration to.
If an Outlander ever found out who I really was, it was time to cut and run.
The decision still hadn’t been easy. Hence, the hour of deliberation.
I got out of the car.
“Thank you for being so kind to me, considering...”
“A little empathy never hurt anyone,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Sometimes, people do bad things for good reasons.”
“Maybe in your world. In mine, a little empathy will get you killed. So will dresses.”
I grabbed up my skirts, and standing right there on the curb in a pool of street lamp light, I hacked them off at mid-thigh. Levi’s expression said he thought I was nuts. Just another example of my world versus his.
“Bye, Levi.”
He drove away without another word as I stood there in a puddle of purple with a dagger clenched in my fist. Now, it was time to plot an assault on my apartment that may or may not be filled with bogeymen.
Maybe I was nuts.
So what.
At least I didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s crazy anymore. My heart bled a little more. I’d kill for one of Frank’s memory erasing spells right now. Pull a Bourne and show up somewhere, unknown and unknowable.
Frank would help me figure things out if I went to him.
“I’m not going to Frank,” I muttered.
Bella Villa Apartments stood in front of me. Six stories, over a hundred units. It was populated and bright with security lighting. That was part of the attraction for me when I’d hunted for my own place and decided on BV. On the rare occasions that I’d ventured out at night, this place had never let me down. Figures tonight would be the night the bulb would be burned out in that one square area under the front entrance awning.
Darkness.
Shadows.
Coincidence?
I snorted.
I was out of my gourd most of the time and sure, sometimes I could be paranoid. I would even admit to being shortsighted on occasion. However, I most certainly was not naive. There was no room in my life for a fool me once, let alone twice.
Trygg had been under orders to bring me in. Why lie to me about who and what he was all this time to just suddenly reveal it tonight? There had to be a reason and that reason could only be that my birth father’s men had found me.
There was a rear entrance, usually well lit, too. I wasn’t going to waste my time verifying that it wasn’t in that condition tonight. The facts stared me in the face. There was a bogeyman in the dark and he was going to grab me. I could creep towards my fate like the terrified little girl Trygg had rescued nineteen years ago.
What are you most afraid of, little Brynja?
Or I could be a woman who rescued herself.
I’d seen firsthand what Trygg had done to free seven-year-old me from that nightmare. Was I prepared to do the same in order to maintain my freedom? It meant someone would die tonight.
Me or the monsters that lurked in the dark.
I had the skills to keep myself alive, but I wasn’t sure that I had the will. Who was I living for at this point? Everyone I loved had betrayed me or turned their back on me. All I had left was…me. A little girl, afraid of the dark.
I guess she would have to be enough.
I put my head down and charged towards the door.
Twenty feet and four seconds through darkness. Such a short distance, so little time. Even if someone jumped out at me, my momentum would carry me through them and into the light. I could fight anything as long as I could see it.
I was going to make it.
Ten more feet. On the other side of the door was an inviting reception area and the elevator to my apartment. I had enough weapons and illumination devices there to take on an army of bogeymen.
Svartalf. They’re just Svartalf.
I had this.
A form separated from the box of darkness. Svaltarf. I lowered my shoulder and prepared to ram him through the door. He braced. We collided.
And there was no warm golden light.
He’d dragged me into a colorless X-ray world. The walls of the apartment building behind him turned transparent and everyone inside was in full view. Icy coldness sucked the air from my lungs and when I tried to draw in a breath, there was no air to breathe.
Screwed. So screwed.
What are you most afraid of, little Brynja?
No! Not this.
I slashed at the Svartalf, but he blinked to the side. Before I could pivot to face him, he stripped the knife from my grasp. With no air and my fingers tingling from the cold, it was as if I had never trained a day in my life.
I had to get some distance. I took one step to the side and suddenly I was ten feet away from where I started. Was every rule in the normal world null and void in this shadow plane? I staggered and dropped to one knee. My chest felt like it was bursting as the last of the air in my lungs tried to escape in a shallow, icy pant.
An arm wrapped around my throat and dragged me up against a wiry body. In the scuffle, I kicked my dagger and it zipped towards the X-ray version of the street like it was on ice. When it hit the edge of the shadow under the awning, it shimmered for just a moment then abruptly disappeared through whatever barrier separated the shadow plane from the everyday world. Just like the knife in my apartment the other night. If it could get out, so could I.
Kicking both legs high up off the ground, I forced the Svartalf to bear all my weight. He crumpled, dropping us both to the ground. I spun out of his hold and dove towards where my dagger had disappeared.
Immediately, the warm air of the material plane surrounded me and I sucked in a deep breath. Keep moving! I scrambled away on my hands and knees, sent my dagger skidding out of my reach.
Behind me, the Svartalf growled. I dove for my dagger, fingers raking it into my palm. He shoved me onto my back and lunged on top of me. His eyes rounded in shock when I jammed the knife into his chest. We both froze.
Blood bubbled from his lips. His shocked expression crumpled into a pained grimace, then he collapsed to the side. While his hands scrabbled at the dagger, I rolled into the center of the pool of light I’d stood in, not five minutes ago. Panic fought me for every oxygen-rich breath I took.
“Keep...coming,” he gasped out.
I stopped breathing and listened.
“Princess.”
“I’m not your princess,” I whispered, curling around my drawn-up knees.
“Belong...to us…Princess of Svartalfheim. Never stop...coming.”
I watched as the life left his eyes and I started to drown in the enormity of what I’d done. It wasn’t just blood staining my hands. I had taken a life, self-defense or not.
Never stop coming.
Those words dragged me back into the moment. I truly was Brynja, Princess of Svartalfheim, because they wouldn’t allow me to be anything else. I would be hunted for the rest of my life and this man wouldn’t be the last to stain my soul.
Oh god, get up! I need to get out of here!
There could be more coming at any second. Just because I hadn’t seen any more inside the shadow plane, didn’t mean there weren’t a dozen just waiting. I had no idea how that place worked.
What should I do with the dead Svartalf, though? He looked perfectly human, but perched on top of his head was some weird looking, ventilated mask with runes inscribed all over it. That could cause questions, not to mention my DNA would be all over the guy. If I left him here, more than just King Alvis
’s men would be looking for me. I stared at the dark square under the awning.
Fear roiled in my stomach, but there was something else, too. It was a beckoning that I’d been feeling more and more after the night I’d dropped my dagger into the abyss. I shivered and buried face against my knees.
Ignore it. No good will come of it.
But I had to do something to clean up this mess. Any minute, someone would pull into the parking lot, see me with a dead body, and then it would all be over. I looked at the shadows again then back to the Svartalf. And I knew.
From the shadows he came. To them he should return.
I jumped to my feet and dragged him to the spot where he’d grabbed me. He had to have been waiting for me in there, but there wasn’t any oxygen. How had he stayed hidden without breathing? Popping in and out would have given away his position if someone had been watching.
The mask, maybe? Was it some kind of oxygen system, like divers used in the ocean? One way to find out. I tugged it off him, pulled it over my own mouth, grabbed my dagger. Dread was a rock in my stomach. I took a reluctant step towards the shadow plane.
Nothing happened. I was still in the normal world. What the heck? I stepped back. I stepped forward. Still nothing.
Oh my god. What was I supposed to do, some kind of hokey pokey? Let me in! I stepped forward once more and arctic temperatures curled around my bare legs. I gasped and drew in an actual breath. The mask was an oxygen system. I looked around. There wasn’t another Svartalf in sight. I smiled and then backed out. It must be driven by intent. I had to want to go there.
That would explain why neither I nor anyone else had ever accidentally fallen in. That I knew of anyway. This put a whole new spin on sudden disappearances.
Think about that later. Focus on the current problem.
I hooked my hands under the Svartalf’s arms and dragged him with me back into shadow. The cold was nearly unbearable, but at least I could breathe. I had no idea how long it would last, but I only needed it for the few seconds it would take to drop this guy off and get out.
And search him, you idiot.
He had a bunch of weapons that he hadn’t even tried to use on me. Interesting. And some cash, but nothing else. No identification, no cell phone, no business card that would lead me to his evil boss. Once again, I was floundering in the dark. Literally. But this time my cover was blown and King Alvis’s men were coming for me.