by D. D. Chance
“But that’s…” I frowned. Frost didn’t know about the letter Mom had written to her family. I hadn’t told him, and the guys who knew about it had kept my secret. It was a secret I couldn’t keep for much longer, though. “She lived here,” I finally said. “I’ve got some of her things I can show you. Maybe you can make some sense of them.”
“That would be—hold on.” Frost broke off for a second, then was back. “Ah…are you checking your messages? Tyler is looking for you.”
“Oh.” I pulled the phone away from my head and saw that I had several messages flagged in my text app. “Yeah, I’m not used to checking it. What’s up, do you know?”
He sighed. “I do not. Robbins has had me cornered for the past two hours. I think he’s shifted his attention to you, which, frankly, does not make my day, but he doesn’t seem like he’s got a specific agenda. You’ll probably have eyes on you, though, from here on out. Be careful.”
I frowned, my gaze shifting to the bedroom. “What do you mean? Like surveillance?” My conversation with Mr. Bellows leapt in my mind—who was the woman he said had noticed my comings and goings? Was that camera a new addition to my apartment, or had I somehow stumbled into some high-rent neighborhood-watch situation with the blue-blooded, blue-haired first families of old Boston? “Does Dean Robbins know where I live?”
“You should assume he does, to be on the safe side,” Frost said, winding my nerves tighter. “As to surveillance—probably nothing majorly high tech, but I don’t want to take anything for granted. Keep your eyes sharp. I know you’ve been asking some questions about your mother… Maybe ease up on that until Robbins makes his next move.”
I made a face, then bent to retrieve the photograph of my mom that I’d let fall to the floor. “You haven’t found out anything about her, even if it wasn’t for certain?”
He sighed. “Not a damned thing. It’s like Janet Cross never existed. There’s no reference to her on any archived social media, and there are no property records attached to her name. There are Crosses in the area, and I’m working through those, but it’s been slow going.”
“I don’t get it,” I muttered. My mom had been a teacher at an accredited college in Asheville, and even though she’d been an adjunct professor, there had to have been some criteria for that. She wouldn’t have been given the job based solely on her good nature. “Do you think she could have been lying about the whole thing?”
“I don’t,” he said, surprising me. “You’re a monster hunter, Nina. There’s only one monster hunter academy in the world—and it’s in Boston, where your mother said she had family. You said you had some of her personal items? At this point, that would help.”
I twisted my lips. “I do. A letter she wrote but never sent, some photographs. I don’t know how much they’ll help, but they can’t hurt, anyway.”
“Agreed,” he said. “Bring them to me whenever you can.”
I tried to stuff down my apprehension of turning my few mementos of my mother over to anyone, even someone trying to help. Maybe I needed to start my search again in earnest. The PO Box she’d provided on the envelope had turned out not to be tied to any post office in the area, but maybe she was from somewhere else in Boston? Or maybe…I didn’t know. There’d been no postage affixed to the envelope either. Almost like she knew…
I blinked. “Hand delivered,” I said aloud as Frost continued.
“If you want you can photograph the items and text them to me, or—what?”
“Never mind,” I said quickly. I needed to think more, but I felt…knew I was right. Mom had never intended to mail her several-page, several-years-long letter. She’d hand it off to someone she trusted. Someone who would understand what to do with it. So, the PO Box listed on the envelope was, what? Some kind of clue? I needed to do more research. “I’ll bring you the stuff I have later today. Maybe you can scan it then?”
“Absolutely, and you should head back to campus anyway. This morning’s demon attack has left everyone unsettled. That might be why Tyler is asking for you, now that I think about it.”
“Yeah?” I asked, sitting straighter against the wall.
“Yes,” he said. “Zach’s…taken a bad turn.”
17
I froze, the phone pressed to my ear. “What do you mean?”
“Liam mentioned that you had some kind of connection building with Zach. Something not intimate, mind you,” Frost added hurriedly, and I barely kept from laughing.
“Yeah, okay, but what about it?” I asked, not sure if Frost would count the kiss in the chapel, but pretty sure Liam hadn’t mentioned it. Liam had already been forced to explain my relationship specifics once, and I suspected he wasn’t too stoked to do it again. There were downsides to being the brainiac researcher of the group. “Did Zach ask for me?”
“He didn’t, but I don’t think you should read anything into that. He hasn’t been able to talk.”
Gripping the phone, I scrambled to my feet. “What are you talking about? Why hasn’t he been able to talk? I left him only an hour or so ago. He wasn’t hurt that bad.”
“The attack he sustained from the demon left a series of marks down his torso. Did you see them?”
I scowled, picturing Zach’s perfect abs as he’d lain ensconced in the red satin sheets. “No. No, that’s not right. Zach wasn’t the one who was hurt. Wendy was attacked, punctured, and Zach sort of adopted her injuries for his own, but only temporarily. I don’t think the demon ever touched him.”
“Well, something did,” Frost said. “Liam took photographs of it, and Zach’s father…” He paused.
“What?” I demanded. I moved through my rooms quickly, ripping a backpack out of my armoire, stuffing clothes inside. I couldn’t stay off campus anymore, I realized. I couldn’t be this far away from the guys. Not if they needed me. No matter how weird it was, if they needed me, I had to be there for them. I eyed the metal box, thought about the camera beneath the mirror. Was my stuff safe here anymore? I didn’t want to lug it over to campus now, but…I needed to. Soon. “What about Zach’s dad?”
“He fainted at one of the library tables,” Frost said summarily. “I found him slumped over his research materials. I didn’t want to rouse him at first, and when I finally made the attempt, he reacted violently. I think he may be caught in the same thrall that’s holding Zach.”
“That sounds pretty awful,” I slung my backpack over one shoulder, heading for the door. I hadn’t taken the time to cover the camera in the bedroom and certainly not to search for anything more, but I didn’t care. If there was nobody here, then whoever was watching on the other side wasn’t going to get much of a show.
“Is Zach in Fowler Hall?” I asked as I rattled out the front door, locking all the locks. I turned and trotted down the stairs.
I barely heard Frost’s affirmative before I hit the front steps, shoved the phone in my pocket, and took off running.
The campus was only fifteen minutes away—I made it in about five. When I reached Fowler Hall, Tyler was there, all Big-Man-On-Campus gorgeous in his blue polo shirt and jeans, his hands lifting to block me before I went bursting inside.
“Hey! Hey, hold on, breathe,” he ordered, and there was a resonance to his voice that did more to slow my pounding heart than even the feel of his hands on my shoulders, the reassurance of his presence.
“Is he okay?” I asked brusquely, and Tyler studied me for a long moment, something in his eyes I’d never seen before, at least not from a guy. It was something bound up with love or affection, but not solely that. Pride, I thought suddenly. He was proud of me.
He leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. “He will be now that you’re here,” he said with such positive force that it nearly bowled me over.
“Jesus,” I muttered as he turned toward the front door of Fowlers Hall, gesturing me to follow. “Are you throwing spells every time you talk now?”
“You like it?” Tyler grinned, and I punched him in the arm…an arm
that was decidedly more buff than it had been when I’d first met him. “I can’t even seem to stop myself anymore. It just sort of happens.”
“Well, try harder.”
He laughed and carded us through the entryway and the foyer door, then took off across the marble floor, moving quickly but not running, giving me time to calm my breathing and refocus.
I’d only been in Fowlers Hall a few times, but it was already starting to feel like home. Never mind that it looked more like a castle then any reasonable sort of residence hall. Marble floors, tapestries, inlaid wood designs, and stained glass panels hung from heavy chains in the main areas, which we strode by to climb the staircase to the second floor, then the third. Actual bedrooms were on this level, but Tyler kept walking for what felt like a football field more, three or four turns away from where I knew his rooms to be, before finally stopping at another door, this one cracked slightly open.
“You guys like to give each other your space, at least,” I said wryly, trying to quell my mounting nerves. There was no sound from inside the room.
He smiled. “It just sort of worked out that way. Liam’s in there, making sure Zach doesn’t hurt himself, but go on in. The last time I entered, it didn’t turn out so well. Same with Grim.”
I blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say there was a lot of screaming and obvious pain on Zach’s part. You’ll be awesome, though. I know you will. He needs you.”
For once I didn’t bother arguing with him. The bizarro of my developing relationship with the guys was something I could figure out later. Right now, I needed to see Zach.
I knocked softly on the door, but didn’t wait for a response before stepping inside. When I did, I blinked hard against the fumes in the room—sulfur, I thought, so much sulfur. My eyes burned with it, and I barely made it across the wide expanse of the chamber without choking to death.
“What’s going on in here? What is that stench?” I rasped, but Liam merely turned to me, his thick brows climbing his forehead as he narrowed his concerned hazel eyes at me.
“What are you talking about? It’s fine.” He gestured to the windows, and I could see they were open to the outside, but the atmosphere in the room didn’t lighten. If anything, as I got closer to Zach, it grew thicker and more difficult to breathe.
By the time I reached his side, I was wheezing. I reached out for Zach even as Liam stood, knocking his chair over in his haste. Strange, I thought distantly, but I didn’t pay any attention to him. I reached for Zach’s hand, while Liam’s mouth opened, his eyes going wide.
“No!” I heard faintly, but it was as if it was a different Liam—a person shouting at me from a movie screen or the pages in a book. Time was away and somewhere else.
Fire.
I was surrounded by fire, and Zach—beautiful gothic angel Zach, all dark hair and fair skin and beautiful, purple-hued eyes—hung in front of me, burning alive. Or what was left of him, anyway. His wrists were lashed high to two metal posts, his body encased in flames as it twisted and writhed. His head lolled to the right, eyelids blackened, the skin little more than char, his mouth stretched wide in a rictus of pain.
The most horrifying thing I could imagine was kissing that mouth, but it was the only thing I’d done before that seemed to help. All this had to be an illusion, right? This couldn’t be real.
I stepped forward, through the solid wall of heat, and got right up on Zach. He stank of burned meat, and my stomach pitched, gorge rising in my throat. Before I could jerk away from him, though, I lurched forward and pressed my lips to his.
Suddenly, I was the one on fire. I was the one burning black. I was the one taking on the pain, the searing torment. Zach was nothing more than a hollowed-out shell, while I staggered under the impossible, bone-melting horror.
The chittering of a thousand voices called Zach’s name, mocking him, suggesting the most foul and despicable abuses they would delight in inflicting upon everyone he held dear. Including me, I thought, but all that was lost in a wave of pain that seemed to dissolve my bones and send a stream of jagged shards ripping through me.
Somehow I managed to frame what was left of Zach’s head with my hands. I pulled him closer to me, deepening the kiss, and with a horrifying clicking noise, his eyes shot wide. But they were no longer the beautiful purple irises I’d come to treasure so much. Instead, his eyes burned black with hate, a crimson flame burning deep within, stoked by an endless terror. This was what Zach stared into, I realized, when he saw into the heart of a demon. This was what he had to save people from. This was why he had to make the sacrifice he did—and why I needed to sacrifice too.
Knowledge and terror flooded me even as fire erupted all around us. Zach convulsed and came apart in my hands, his body becoming its own firestorm. Leaning into him despite the howling wind, I managed to keep my hands pressed tight to his temples, and I leapt onto him much like the demon had attempted to leap on him earlier in the chapel, wrapping my legs around the burning husk of his body.
He screamed.
Or…maybe that was me.
18
The scene shattered into a million pieces, and then we were back inside Zach’s dorm room in Fowlers Hall. With a snarl of rage and pain, Zach shoved me away from him, sending me tumbling into Liam’s arms.
“I’ve got her! I’ve got her,” Liam said, as if Zach were simply handing me off and not rejecting me outright. I didn’t so much mind the rejection this time. I flopped over onto my hands and knees, my lungs bellowing for air.
“Nina,” Zach moaned finally. “Tell me you didn’t do what I think you did. Tell me.”
I turned back to see him lifting his hand to his face, his very normal-looking face, no longer filled with sunken eyes and charred skin. He looked like he’d just recovered from a two-day bender, but there was no blood, there was no…
“You’re not burned,” I managed, not knowing if that would make any sense to him. It barely made any sense to me.
He slowly shook his head, his gaze turning mournful. “You could see all that. You saw. Dear God in heaven.”
Zach’s door burst open. Tyler rushed in first, striding over to me and pulling me around, inspecting me. I opened my mouth to speak, to reassure him, and a thin wisp of smoke puffed out.
Tyler’s eyes shot wide. “Whoa! Are you okay?”
I nodded, and he half turned to Zach, who paid him no attention. Instead, his gaze was locked on me, fierce and resolute. I stared back just as fiercely, wanting that connection, craving it. I didn’t miss the flicker of heat in those purple-hued eyes. That heat had nothing to do with the scourging fire he’d endured at the demons’ hands…and everything to do with me. In his reflected gaze, I relived my decision to push through the flames and gather him close, the moment where we touched, soul to soul. I shivered as Tyler started talking.
“We all tapped in via our tattoos, but we couldn’t see much. Only that it seemed like Nina reached you and pulled you back from wherever you were. It looked like a lot of fire.”
Zach chuckled grimly, the sound like gravel over crushed glass. “Yeah. There was a lot of fire. It wasn’t real, technically.” He gestured with noticeable weakness to his body, clad in a T-shirt and gym shorts that were soaked through with sweat and striped, charcoal-like stains. “But the body doesn’t always understand the difference between what is happening in the real world and what is happening in the mind. I’ve never spontaneously combusted, but…there’s always a price to pay for work in the darker realms.”
I swallowed, Zach’s words jangling harshly around my skull. A price to pay. The demon had said something about that earlier today. But hadn’t he already paid enough?
Liam stared at Zach for a long minute with narrowed eyes, then rocked back on his heels, and stood. “I think we need to let Zach grab a shower and crash—if you can, now? Can you sleep?”
Zach nodded, grimacing as he pulled his shirt away from his body. “Yeah. They won’t bug me again
for a while. Not like that.”
“Good. Because we’ve got our own work to do,” Liam said, still studying him. “You’ve been out for a couple of hours, and there’s something you should know. Frost texted all of us, and if we’ve got the timing right, your dad fainted probably right around the time that you did. Does that happen often?”
“Dad?” Zach’s face cleared, the question serving to focus his attention. I suspected that was why Liam asked it more than anything. “That’s…no. That’s not how it usually works. We’re honestly not linked at all. I mean, there’s no bad blood between us or anything like that, but it’s not like we have some sort of active psychic connection unless he’s fully in the mode of exorcising somebody’s demon. He can’t read my mind—we’re safe from each other in that way. More or less ordinary, if you can call it that.”
“Could be his proximity to you, here on campus,” Tyler put in, and Zach blew out a breath. His color was returning to normal, but he still looked unsteady on his feet.
“Maybe. Is he okay now?”
“Unknown.” Liam held up his left hand, flashing the small tattoo of interconnected symbols that laced his wrist. “As soon as we know something, you will. Unless I miss my guess, he probably broke out of his faint right around the time you came to. So even if you don’t normally hook up mentally, whatever is happening now is definitely linking you together. We’ve got to do some research, find out exactly what this thing is. I have a feeling your dad is going to be a little bit more forthcoming this time around.”
Zach grimaced. “Don’t count on it,” he said. “Dad has made a life out of not telling the truth if he feels that people can’t handle it.”
“Yeah, well, Commander Frost has made a life out of hunting monsters, and since it’s now Bring Your Family Demon to Work day, he can’t let that slide, no matter how private your dad wants to keep the fight. He’ll get what he needs to know.”