Winter Shadows

by Richard Amos

  “Great,” she said. “Oh, how rude of me.” She giggled. “This is Fred. Say hello, Fred.”

  “H-hell-o …” He struggled to get the word out between sobs.

  “Let him go,” Nay said. “It’s us you want to deal with.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said. “Fred here is my new … what is he? Not a friend, nope, more like a pet. I like pets. I particularly like human pets.”

  I noticed his right hand was behind his back.

  “He is bound to me because I want him to be,” she said. “I like him, don’t you?”

  “I’d like him even more if you let him go free,” I said. “He’s got nothing to do with you and me.”

  “But he has everything to do with you and me, Jake. He’s a resident of this city you want to free so badly. And I want it free too, free for me to go out and get all the pets I want from all over the world. I want variety. Anyway, you want to protect him, I don’t. You see? Push and pull.” She smacked poor Fred around the back of the head. He stumbled forward, so she yanked him back into position by his hair.

  She was going down. “Enough,” I said. “You wanna fight? Let’s fight. Been brewing for one, right?”

  “Four against one?” she said. “Do you think I’m stupid?” She folded her arms across her chest. As Nay was really into blue, Dana was all about the purple. I used to like that color, but now it made me want to smash things up.

  “Scared?” Greg said.

  “Honestly, I don’t want to end up dead because of pride.” She gestured with her head at my hands. “Those nasty things have taken down some valuable beasts. Poor Crystal.” She smiled.

  Greg remained silent.

  “Well, you’re here now,” I said. “So, get to it. What do you want?”

  “Oh, you know what I want,” she said. “Fred?”

  Fred’s right hand revealed itself. In it was a gun. He pointed it at me.

  “What the fuck!” Dean roared.

  My guardians immediately leapt in front of me.

  Dana chuckled. “Do you remember this gun, Jake? You had it with you the night you arrived at Coldharbour.”

  I’d lost it in my pursuit of the white eye guy.

  “Careless of you to let it fall into the wrong hands,” she added.

  Shit! She was right! I’d been a careless prat! But more pressing issues had come up when I’d found out I was a weapon that could kill these beasts. Fuckfuckfuck!

  Needaline…

  No! I shut that down, that voice of my old cocaine-addict self. I didn’t need a line, I needed Dana dead. That would be better than any white line going up my nose, no matter how much I missed it sometimes.

  Being clean and staying clean was tough work when stressful bullshit like this came along.

  “What do we do?” I whispered.

  Nay threw a potion and the sand exploded around Dana, her and her pet got a face-full of grains.

  “No!” she roared.

  “Run!” Nay cried.

  I didn’t need telling twice.

  Nay threw a heat vial. Flame burst forth and Fred screamed. Poor guy. Shit! How could we run and leave him like that?

  Gun.

  Bullet to the head.

  That was all it would take for this to be over or for one of my friends to be dead.

  Shit.

  We ran back to the main road, making a beeline for Greg’s silver car. I yanked the back door open as the gun went off. The crack ripped the night, a bullet whizzing past my head. There were a few people nearby and they screamed, running into the nearest buildings.

  Oh, my God!

  Greg went down as another bullet was fired.

  “No!” I yelled.

  Ohmygodohmygod!

  Another shattered the front passenger window.

  Dean pulled Greg from the ground. He was alive and awake, his teeth clenched. He’d been hit in the thigh, blood poured from the hole in his jeans.

  “We need to put pressure on it,” I said. “You’re gonna be okay, mate.”

  “Knew we should’ve looked harder for that gun,” he said.

  I helped Dean bundle him in as Nay jumped into the driver seat and fired up the vehicle.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  I was just about to take the seat next to Greg when my shoulder exploded with pain. I collapsed to the side, smacking my head on the open door, tumbling into Dean.

  “Jake!” Dean pulled me up and stuffed me into the car and got in too as Nay slammed down on the accelerator.

  I’d been hit in the shoulder. Fuck! It hurt like hell!

  Dean was straddling me as I sat upright in the seat, Greg spread out as much as his bulky frame could be. Nay tore up the asphalt.

  “Jake?” Greg said. “Is he okay?”

  Dean took my face in hands. “Jake? Jake?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “You’re not fading or nothing?”

  “No. Greg? Are you fading?”

  “Just hurts like a motherfucker,” he said, wincing.

  Needalineneedalineneedaline …

  Dean’s palms were amazingly soft on my cheeks, so reassuring and warm. Seeing as he was half-fae, that was probably a given.

  “What if … what if she takes … him on a shooting spree? Fuck!”

  Any moment now, the healing light would come.

  The car increased in speed. “Hold on, guys,” Nay said.

  Dean leaned over to Greg. “Bullet still in there?”

  “Think so,” he said.

  “I’ve got some stuff back home that’ll draw it out,” Nay said. “Why the fuck doesn’t this car go faster?”

  I glanced at the speed dial. She was already doing 90 mph.

  Dean returned his attention to me. His body weight on mine, the scrutiny of his dark eyes, his warm breath on my face, lips so close, his scent of exotic spice was all so incredible, caressing every sense at once. What the fuck? This was inappropriate! Just like my horniness after killing the toadies was bloody inappropriate!

  My healing power kicked in, making the pain fade.

  “Can you feel a bullet in there, Jake?” he asked gently.

  “No. I don’t think so. We have to go back. She could make him kill others with that gun. And it’s my fault. It’s my fault!”

  “Shit!” Nay cried.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Headlights. Another car coming right up behind us.”

  Chapter Two

  Nay took the car to its limit, tearing round corners, up and up and up until she got it through the wards protecting the mansion. The car skidded to a halt outside the main doors, where Mr. Douglas, the butler, was waiting.

  He was carrying a sniper rifle.

  Purple wasn’t planning on having her pet shoot up Rainbow Mile. No, she wasn’t done with us yet. Of course, she wasn’t.

  “Do the wards stop bullets?” I asked, clambering out of the vehicle after Dean. My shield hadn’t kicked in to stop one.

  “Get inside,” Dean said. “Now.”

  “Greg—”

  “I’ll help Greg. You need to be inside.”

  Mr. Douglas took aim.

  The scream of brakes. I turned to see the car spin to a stop outside the mansion gates.

  Fuck.

  Mr. Douglas fired a shot.

  “Inside, Jake!” Dean roared. “Now!”

  The cannons came to life—huge weapons ready to riddle an intruder with bullets whether it could die conventionally or not.

  My sparks were going wild.

  A shot from Purple’s pet went off but nothing happened.

  The wards had stopped the bullet.

  “Did you get a hit?” I asked Mr. Douglas.

  “I hit her arm,” he said.

  The car sped off into the night then. Purple was obviously super-pissed that her fun had been ruined.

  “We need to go after her,” I said. “She’ll—”

  “Look,” Nay said.

  Fred, the man pet, was s
tanding there watching us. I couldn’t make out his face fully, but he looked like a hollowed out man lost in the dark. And he still had the gun in his hand.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked.

  “I will have to shoot him,” Mr. Douglas said. “He is a danger to the city.”

  All of this was my fault. If I’d been more careful with that friggin’ gun, this wouldn’t have happened.

  “I have a clear shot,” Mr. Douglas said. “I will—”

  Fred lifted the gun to his head and blew his brains out, the death mess splattering up the shimmering red wards.

  My shoulders sagged. “That poor man.” That wasn’t the first time she’d used humans in her little schemes of evil.

  Nay came over, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We will get the bitch, Jake. I promise.”

  I reached up and touched her hand. “I hope so.”

  Dean and Greg were gone. I should’ve been inside, I knew that. What the fuck was I still doing standing here, going against important orders? A bullet could’ve got through and killed me, and all the hope of freeing the city would’ve died with me. No amount of healing light would cure a brain ripped open. And I didn’t want to find out if it would.

  “We need to get that gun in here,” I said.

  “I shall retrieve it,” Mr. Douglas said, adjusting his waistcoat. Nothing about his steely demeanor was ruffled, not even his slick salt and pepper hair.

  Nay pushed a hand through her cropped blue hair. “Come on, let’s check Greg.”

  My sparks were still active. “Wait,” I said to Mr. Douglas. “There could be more beasts.” I lifted my hands.

  He pointed above me. I turned to see Luke watching from his pearlescent tube. The large hamster run—I couldn’t get that out of my head—ran all around the mansion, holding Luke inside. He was our resident cat-shifting beast who wasn’t like the others and was quite content to eat tuna all day as a cat, or stroll around as a naked man with the matted blond hair of a surfer and a body that was sun-kissed—clearly not something he got from Coldharbour.

  Crystal had murdered his girlfriend.

  The tube at the main doors lifted up into an arch, going above the mansion entrance. Luke was in human form, sitting cross-legged with his balls pressed up against the wall of his cage for all the world to see.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “For the loss of another human.”

  “Hi,” I said. “I have to go in now, to see Greg. He’s been shot.”

  “I saw. I am sorry for that too.”

  “I’ll go get the gun with Mr. Douglas,” Nay said. “I’ll meet you in the medical room.”

  Just because my sparks were on because of Luke, that didn’t mean the coast was clear. “I—”

  “You were meant to be inside anyway, babe,” she said. “First sign of trouble, you’ll know.”

  There was a twenty-minute wait to see Greg as Karla had refused entry into the medical room while the scans were running.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “He’ll be fine,” Dean said. “Man’s a rock.”

  Well, a golem.

  “I just wanna see him.”

  “Let Karla do her work,” he said. “You okay? No lasting effects from the gunshot?”

  “Nothing,” I said, touching the hole in my jumper the bullet had made. “See?” I showed him the circle of healthy flesh there.

  “Good.” The way he said it made me shudder. It was deep and sensual, and I really needed to get a grip. Damn his fae nature and its pulse-quickening ways.

  “This is bollocks,” I said, clearing the tension for myself. I started pacing.

  “I know.”

  “I need to …” I started to chew my nails. My friggin’ right eye was having a good twitch. The more I paced, the bigger the bubble of frustration swelled.

  “You need to what, Jake?”

  Do a great big line of coke! “Punch something.”

  “You want to go down to the gym and train?”

  “No, I bloody don’t!” I snapped. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve seen Greg.”

  It was all crashing down on me, the blend of rage and helplessness, the desire to kill Purple, kill them all. Kill and feed, kill and feed …

  And fuck my brains out …

  I roared and Dean grabbed me by the shoulders with a firm grip before I could deliver a knuckle-sandwich to the wall.

  “Jake,” he said.

  I froze in his hold. My eyes roamed his face, taking in his oriental features, his dark eyes, his delicious lips, the curve of his dark lashes. The rage ebbed, and a powerful heat flowed through me.

  “Calm down,” he said.

  I wanted to move my lips closer, to taste him. What did a fae kiss feel like?

  “Jake?”

  My cock stirred. I wanted to fu—

  I lowered my head. “I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I let you go, you won’t go beating up the walls?”

  “I won’t.”

  He patted my shoulder. “Good boy.”

  He released me. Man, did I feel like shit, my heart heavy. Wanting to know what it was like to kiss Dean? That was messed up. The only kiss I wanted was Michael’s, and I wasn’t getting that again in this life. I hated the power of Dean’s gaze, how it seemed to penetrate into my soul, making my stomach flip. It felt like a betrayal to Michael.

  DI Williams knows what his kiss tastes like … what his dick feels like …

  I had a brief flashback to the time I headbutted Dean’s pierced penis and winced internally.

  “Listen, I’ll be back in a bit,” he said. “You good? Karla will let you in soon.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Need a quick word with Nay before she comes down here.”

  I nodded.

  “See you in a bit, mate.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ten minutes later, Karla called me in.

  Greg was down lying on the bed in the chrome and white room, a yellow poultice on his gunshot wound. Karla was mixing something in a bowl in that expert way she did, even if she was blind. It never ceased to amaze me.

  He was stripped down to his boxers, ebony skin gleaming with sweat.

  “Fever?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “just so hot in here.”

  It was actually.

  I sat down on a stool beside him and took his muscular arm in my hands. It was hot to touch. “You sure?”

  “There is no fever,” Karla said. “I can promise you that, Jake.”

  “See?” Greg said. “No worries, mate.”

  “You got shot because—”

  “Don’t even start with that crap,” he said, cutting me off. “I know what you’re gonna say.”

  “But—”

  “I said no.”

  I zipped it.

  “Better,” he said. “That gun is not your fault. You took it in desperation. We all do stupid shit in the heat of the moment.”

  “Fred the pet is dead,” I said.

  “Shit.”

  I explained what’d happened.

  “Thank God everyone’s all right.”

  “Mr. Douglas will deal with it,” Karla added. “Have no fear of that.”

  I didn’t. Mr. Douglas was an expert at clearing up messes, getting rid of bodies. How he did was a mystery, and I was quite happy to leave it as such.

  “She’ll do anything to get to Luke,” Greg said. “We so need to take her the fuck out.”

  Purple wanted to free some creepy shadow entities locked inside Luke—as he was some kind of walking prison. Once free, they could help restore the essence of Lilisian, a nasty beast high up in the beast ranks, to a body that was not the current one of an old lady at death’s door stuck in a wheelchair. That particular state of being had been the result of a curse put on her during a massive showdown that’d wiped out the majority of the supernaturals who’d been protecting Coldharbour, keeping up the lie that it was st
ill a regularly functioning city. Seeing as she was a Supreme beast—the ranks going Lesser, Gentry, Regal and Supreme—the goal of getting her back into shape was one me and my guardians would continue to thwart as best we could.

  “She ain’t having Luke,” I said. “He’s ours now. Got used to having him around.”

  “Really? Even with the TV blowing up stuff?” Greg said.

  “Even with that.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. He’s a nice guy.” He chuckled lightly. “Can’t believe I’m saying that about a beast!”

  Despite the chuckle, there was a sadness in Greg’s amber eyes that stung to look at. He was my friend as well as my guardian, and I hated seeing him hurt. But he’d lost someone he’d loved, and I knew all about the bastard that was heartache. All I could do was be there for him.

  I squeezed his arm. “You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”

  “By the morning,” Karla said. “This poultice will draw out the bullet, and then this mixture will work on healing the wound. Luckily, the bullet did not hit anything to cause any complicated damage.”

  “Thank God for your medical room of wonders,” I said.

  “Thank the goddess,” Karla corrected me.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  The door opened and Naomi strode in. “So, how is my little soldier?”

  Greg snorted. “Have a word with yourself.”

  “He’s fine then, eh?” she said, throwing me a wink.

  Her alabaster face was marked with scratches. One of her green eyes looked a little bloodshot.

  “You okay?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, nothing I can’t fix.” She went to one of the chrome cupboards and took out a bottle of ointment and some eye drops.

  “That was some nice driving, Nay,” Greg said.

  “I know.”

  “Shouldn’t you be saying that you learned from the best?”

  “And who’s that?” she asked, administering the eye drops.

  “Why not take a syringe and stab me through the heart?” he joked.

  “I’m too busy right now.”

  “See how she treats me, Jakey?” he hadn’t called me that in a while.

  “Don’t drag me into it.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “The side of not being dragged into it!”

  “So, sitting on the fence. Coward. I expected more from you.”

  I laughed. “You idiot.”