Rising from the bed, I looked around, searching for some clue as to where I was. Oddly enough, this interior decorating nightmare didn’t seem to be his idea of comfortable digs. A glance out the window told me one thing—we were still in St. Louis. I’d know that skyline anywhere. Downtown, even. And pretty high up.
Hotel, maybe? I flicked another glance around, decided that was entirely likely. The suite of rooms was pretty large but it didn’t seem to be a condo.
The knife’s grip was sweaty in my palm and my heart was racing harder than I could ever recall. I’d faced some scary shit. It was stupid that this man would terrify me like this.
“Who are you?” I asked. I hated to hear my voice shaking like that. But I couldn’t stop it.
“Nobody you’d know.” He stood, arms crossed over his chest, head cocked.
“That’s why I am asking,” I snapped, even though some part of me was whispering “be nice to the crazy man who can kill you with a blink.”
And I had to wonder if maybe that wasn’t a fanciful thought. He all but burned with power. Maybe he really could kill me with a blink.
“You’re a puzzle,” he said, his voice soft.
“No. I’m an open book.” I gave him a dazzling smile even as I surreptitiously looked around. I was wearing most of my clothes. Not my boots, though, and half my weapons were missing, I could tell just by a few shifts of my body.
I needed those weapons, particularly the guns.
“An open book.” His words were flat, but the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Perhaps one that was written in ancient Sanskrit. How many lives have you lived?”
That was the last thing I expected to hear.
Dumb, I stared at him.
My mouth went dry. I cleared my throat, had to do it twice before I managed to speak. I didn’t quite manage the are you out of your mind tone I’d been shooting for, either. “How many lives?” I lifted a brow, thankful that at least my facial expressions would cooperate even if my voice wouldn’t. “Did you crack your head or something? I’m pretty sure we only get one trip on this crazy ride, man.”
“The lucky ones, yes.” His tone was bored. “And you’re lying.”
Without looking away from his face, I gauged the distance between him and the door. Could I make it? I really didn’t know. But I’d damn well—
“You won’t make it. If by some miracle you’d reached the door, I’d simply stop you from moving, from opening it. It won’t be hard. Now, why don’t you answer my questions? It will go much easier if you do.”
That did it.
I lunged. I was fast. People never, ever believed how fast I was—it hadn’t occurred to me how odd it was until I saw how slow everybody else seemed to be.
I’d cleared three quarters of the distance between the bed and the door even before my brain processed my movement. Victory was a jubilant song in my head.
And then—just like that, my body froze.
Literally.
It froze.
I couldn’t move.
I barely managed to breathe.
There was a sigh behind me and then, wheeling my eyes around, I saw his shadow fall across the floor as he moved to stand between me and the door. “Woman, I told you it would go much easier if you would just answer my questions.”
He stood in front of me now, so close. Too close.
Terror was a slithering, whispering hiss inside and then that odd force that kept me captive disappeared. I fell back so abruptly, I ended up on my ass, scrabbling away from him like a crab.
“What are you?”
He wasn’t one of them.
That much I knew.
He wasn’t one of them.
But somehow, that didn’t reassure me.
“How many lives have you lived?” he asked again, ignoring my question.
I had to make a choice, I realized. I could tell him what he wanted to know and hope for the best. Or refuse…and prepare for the worst.
Either way, I had a feeling it would be a good idea to just buckle down and get ready for the shit to hit the fan.
A fist grabbed me by the throat. I kind of wanted to sob.
Because I hadn’t found him yet.
It wasn’t supposed to end, not now. Not until I saw him.
But that wouldn’t matter to the man in front of me.
Slowly, I rose to my feet. No matter what happened next, I wasn’t going to stay on my tail, cowering like a terrified animal. Even if I did feel like one. I backed away, placing myself near the window. The coolness reached out, kissing my skin through my shirt, chilling me even more as I stared into alien, unreachable eyes.
Unable to avoid it, I answered, giving him the secret that nobody else had ever been told.
“As far as I know, this is my fifth…or maybe the sixth.”
He lifted a brow.
I shrugged and looked out the window. “There was another life—one I don’t remember. I think it was the first. The first time I died. But I don’t remember anything from it.”
It wasn’t really a lie.
I had bare fragments of memories of that life, echoes of dreams. And his name. “Why do you think you keep coming back?”
“If I could figure out the answer to that, I’d fix whatever the problem is so I could get off this crazy train,” I murmured. Abruptly, I was exhausted. I’d estimated that I’d lived less than a hundred years, all combined…except for that first life I couldn’t quite grasp. And in that moment, I felt the age of every one of those years. Never mind the fact that I was, in actuality, only twenty-six.
Dropping down on the wide lip of the windowsill, I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling a cold that cut me to the bone.
Turning my head, I met the man’s silver eyes.
“So. How do my nine lives concern you?”
She had old eyes. He’d known mortals who’d lived more than a century who didn’t carry the age this woman did.
Instead of answering her question, he asked another of his own.
“What do you remember of each life?”
She made a frustrated sound and he almost smiled. The more irritated she became, the less fear she felt. So he would irritate her. A lot. He didn’t like scaring people. It hadn’t always bothered him. Now, though, he realized he could hardly stomach it.
Mandy, he suspected, Mandy and her too-mortal ways were wearing on him.
Or maybe he was just too old for all this rot.
“You haven’t answered a single one of my questions.”
Inclining his head, he replied, “It seems that you’re not in a position to make demands, mortal.”
Her lids flickered.
Even though she tried to control the terror she felt, she sucked in a breath. He heard the rush of oxygen into her lungs and he fought the urge to swear a bloody blue streak.
“Mortal,” she said, the word a tight whisper. “The way you say it, I have to wonder what that makes you.”
“At the moment, your jailer.” Then he gestured to the door, injecting enough arrogance into his voice that he thought it just might make her grit her teeth. “Unless you’d rather go for the door again.”
“You are an asshole,” she said. It was spoken in such a calm voice she might have been discussing the weather.
There she was…back to anger.
“I’ve been called that more times than you can possibly imagine.”
She bared her teeth in a grim mockery of a smile. Then she folded her arms over her chest. “If I answer that question, you answer one of mine.”
“A bargain?” He narrowed his eyes. “What makes you think I can’t force the information from you?”
“If that was how you rolled, you would have already done it,” she pointed out.
“How I roll?” Will chuckled. The sound
was rusty. He imagined it would be for decades, centuries. It wasn’t until Mandy forced life back on him that he’d even remembered what humor felt like. Now he did—it was as painful a blade as caring, at times. But he couldn’t fight that keen edge of amusement as he studied her.
He really, really didn’t want to kill her.
But he wouldn’t be able to decide anything if she didn’t answer his question.
“Very well. One question…but I am far from done with the questions I have for you. You will answer them. If you ever want to leave.”
She paled. But nodded.
Her answer, when it came, explained her courage, that almost unending well of it.
Baldly, and without flinching, she met his gaze and said softly, “I remember dying. The clearest, and the oldest memories I have are from how I’ve died. The past two lives are the clearest, but there are vague memories of the one before that as well.”
“One more question.”
“Hey!”
“One more,” he snapped, moving to her. Mind whirling from what she’d said, he didn’t think to check his speed and it wasn’t until he was two inches from her, her eyes wide with shock that he realized what he’d done.
“What?” she whispered, the words thin.
“How old were you when these memories first began to come?”
She looked away then, but not before he saw the misery in her eyes. “Always,” she murmured. “I’ve always known.”
His eyes glowed now.
That was some freaky shit there.
He stood there, staring at me and those silver eyes of his glowed as if somebody had flicked on some kind of switch inside his skull.
Maybe he’s a robot.
I fought the urge to laugh in hysteria. He was so very not human with his lack of expression, his speed and strength—if I let my imagination get away with me, I could maybe even let myself believe he was some sort of robot. I almost wished he was just another demon, because then I’d know how to handle him.
Or at least how this would end.
If I couldn’t get away, then I’d just die.
Probably after a lot of pain and blood… I suppressed a shudder. My greatest fears lie in those thoughts I never let myself think. But it could only last so long. I was stronger than a lot of humans and I was faster. But I was still only human. I had to eat. I had to sleep. I could be injured. I bled. And I would die.
There was the faintest noise, like the sound of clothes gliding over that big body, but that was the only warning I had and I whipped my head, staring at him as he placed himself in front of me.
“The first life. Tell me.”
“I can’t,” I said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth. “Nothing was clear those first few lives. It wasn’t until the last couple that anything really…stuck.”
He lifted a brow.
Flushing, I jerked my head away and stared at the wall. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to stare at with that eye-searing red, but better the wall and those hideous prints than at him. “There are just echoes from that first life, like I’m waking from a dream and all I have are the fragments.” There was always Tommy, though. Always him. I didn’t say his name, though. “So I don’t really count it. I remember…shadows of the next one. That is when I started keeping track.”
“If you can’t remember it, how do you know you even lived it?” he asked. It was a very logical question.
Turning my head, I met his stare. “Because I feel it.”
There was something in that life that mattered. Something I’d needed.
Somebody. My heart tightened and Tommy’s face flashed before me. I knew him. I still didn’t know how, didn’t understand why. But I knew him. I needed him—or I had. Once.
I wanted to sob, as simple as that. Sob for the life I’d lost.
He was part of that life, this man with whiskey eyes and hair shot through with red.
That was why the only time I felt complete in any life was when I saw him. It didn’t matter that each time had been right as I stood facing down death. The memories came then, memories of blood spilling into my throat, of a fiery pain ripping through my chest, too many deaths, too much pain—they swarmed up and tried to take me under. Slammed into my mind.
There was another memory, one that my mind tried to block from me even now, but it became clearer all the time.
The shadows of one of the earlier lives.
Breaking glass. Broken screams. Blood thick and liquid in the back of my throat…and Tommy’s unforgettable eyes glowing down at me.
A hand touched my head, grabbing me. Instinctively, I jerked away.
But his other hand came up and I was trapped there, pinned by the man with weird silver eyes. “Chase it,” he said, his voice implacable.
I tried once more to jerk away, but there was no escaping him and then, even as I opened my mouth to rage at him, I felt him inside…inside my head, inside my thoughts. Pushing at the wall that I so often hid behind, knocking it down…and dragging me along with him.
Then I was there.
Chapter Seven
England 1885
All around her there were screams.
Tilly stood in the corner, in front of three other girls. Alice had a knife.
Tilly had a gun.
She wasn’t sure if it would be enough.
One of them…
Think of it and you’ll go mad, she told herself.
“We have—”
She clamped her hand over Ellie’s mouth but it was too late.
The footsteps she’d heard out in the hall changed position. They’d been near the narrow staircase. Tilly didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. All the other girls were panting, a couple of them close to sobbing.
She lifted the pistol, leveled it at the door.
She knew how to handle the weapon in her hands. Once, a man who’d liked to hit her while he had used her had staggered out of her bed drunk, and sick. He’d ended up that way after she’d slid something into the brandy she’d been told to fetch for him.
He’d left his pistol there, along with a ring. She’d hidden them, lied, and when the madam hadn’t believed her, she’d taken a slap that had knocked her to the ground.
It had been worth it. She’d sold the ring a month later and kept the pistol, practicing with it every chance she had.
That had been seven months ago and her hands were steady as she held her breath and waited.
“We have t’ leave,” Mary whispered, her brogue thickening until Tilly barely understood her. “Out the window, now.”
Tilly ignored her.
The door creaked as it swung inward.
All the noise faded away. The groans coming from downstairs, broken, ragged pleas, and the occasional scream. The scent of blood hung in the air…blood and death.
Monsters walked through the whorehouse that night, but the monsters wore the faces of men.
Right now, the man smiling in at her had a devilish hunger in his eyes and he licked his lips as he raked her over with a look. He came inside, closed the door behind him.
“Well, well,” he said, his accent the flat one of an American.
He glanced past Tilly and winked at the women clustered there. Mary stiffened. Ellie whimpered. “Hush now,” Tilly said, wishing she could offer some comfort, some reassurance.
“You ought to put that down, love, before you get hurt.” He smiled, offering what might have been a charming smile if his eyes hadn’t been full of deadly, seductive promises.
“If I put it down, then I wouldn’t be able to kill you, then would I?” Tilly said, taking aim.
A bark of laughter escaped. She’d amused him. Lovely.
He moved toward her.
She squeezed.
She didn’t know who was more surpr
ised by the fact that her bullet took him square between the eyes—the girls at her back, or the man himself. He hit the floor.
She heaved out a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived. Ellie started trembling, a whimper falling from her lips. Trepidation tripped up Tilly’s spine as she turned to the girl.
“No,” the girl whispered, her head whipping from one side to the other as she fell back. “I won’t…I won’t!”
Mary dropped her knife and caught the girl. “Ellie!”
Ellie screamed, and then, she went limp, sagging to the floor. Her knees hit the wood and instinct pulled Tilly back. Shudders wracked the girl.
“Ellie, what’s wrong…tell me!” Mary caught the girl’s shoulders, shook her.
“Mary, get away from her,” Tilly said.
Mary didn’t even seem to hear.
The other two girls looked over at Tilly, but before she could even understand how to say what needed to be said, there was a flash, light glinting off metal.
And then, the arcing spray of blood.
For one macabre moment, Mary remained there, one pale hand rising to staunch the flow of blood as she stared at Ellie. Then, slowly, she toppled.
“Get away,” Tilly said to the other two. The twins. Brown hair with bright green eyes and giggly voices, they’d always annoyed Tilly with their inability to make a decision without the other.
But in that moment, she feared for them.
They were so close.
“Get away from her,” she said again.
As one, they swung their heads to look at Ellie—or the thing that now controlled her.
That was the last thing they did. More blood. Tilly raced forward, but she was too slow.
Her foot slipped in the blood and she went down, sliding in the obscene red. One twin went down, then the other.
And Ellie turned on her.
“I’m displeased with this turn of events,” Ellie said, her voice…odd. Flat. Strangely deeper.
She started forward and Tilly lifted her pistol.
Ellie went still, her gaze wary. “I don’t like taking the body of a woman. Now I’m trapped here until this thing dies. It’s a cursed bother. I—”
Furious Fire: Grimm's Circle, Book 8 Page 8