Shadow of the Ghoul (Halfblood Legacy Book 2)

by Devin Hanson

  I switched my browser over to incognito mode so nothing from what I was searching would be saved locally on my laptop, then started digging through forums. Even here, where the users were djinn or existed within the periphery of the supernatural world, everything was couched in equivocation.

  It was frustrating, digging through the topics and trying to read between the lines. I started finding references to “the fifth form”, but none of what I was reading made any sense. They were dead, but alive. They had a physical form, no, they were nothing but spirits. There were some things that everyone seemed to agree on: they were evil, remorseless killers, and willing slaves to the vampires.

  I heard a thump and looked up. Ryan was leaning against the door jamb, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Water dripped from his hair and ran in rivulets down his chest. We locked eyes and I felt a stirring of lust coming from him, then he cleared his throat and it vanished.

  “Ah, sorry to interrupt you. I was hoping to do a little laundry. All of my stuff is pretty filthy.”

  It was a little difficult to keep my eyes on his face. I got up from the couch and stumbled as my left leg made it known I had stayed in one position for too long. My laptop slipped from its precarious perch on the edge of the couch and I grabbed after it, barely catching it before it hit the floor.

  I hopped on my good leg and propped myself up on the back of the couch. Pins and needles rushed down my calf to my foot and I grimaced.

  “You all right?” Ryan had stepped closer to me, I guess to help or something, before remembering he was mostly naked.

  I blushed furiously and rubbed my calf before stamping on the ground. Best to get the pins and needles over with quickly rather than drag it out. “Urg. Yeah, my leg just fell asleep.” I waved him off, cursing to myself. Way to make a good impression. “Give me a moment and I’ll show you were the laundry room is.”

  Rather than standing there awkwardly for a minute, I led the way to the laundry limping and wincing as every other step sent waves of prickles shooting through my leg.

  I made it to the laundry without falling over and pushed the door open. At one point there had been several washers and several dryers, but only a single pair remained. “It’s right in—”

  I turned around and almost bumped into Ryan’s chest. I smelled the clean soap on his skin, saw the pebbling where the cold air had tightened the skin on his arms. I started to stumble as I pulled away from him and he caught my arm to steady me.

  “Woah. Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a grin.

  For a moment I stood close enough to feel the warmth coming off him, then I pulled away and took a measured step back into the room. “This is the laundry,” I said unnecessarily, giving a little wave at the machines. “Uh, feel free to use them whenever you need to.”

  Ryan nodded his thanks and stepped into the room, looking around. “It’s a lot smaller than I remember it being. Funny how everything is bigger in your childhood memories.”

  I edged around him and got to the door without catching any more of his scent. “There’s detergent in the cabinet. I, um, saw the front of the building. You did a good job with the painting.”

  He grinned at me. “Thanks. It felt good to do some physical work.”

  “Speaking of physical…” I swallowed then shook my head. “I mean, if you want to get some exercise, I have a martial arts class tonight. You’re welcome to come along if you like.”

  Ryan’s grin slipped a little. “Ah, I think I’ll pass.”

  “What, don’t want to get sweaty again?” I cocked my hip and fixed him with a challenging smile. “Or are you scared of getting your ass handed to you by a girl?”

  He snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  I nodded. “Scared. I understand. Hey, I would be too.”

  “I’m fresh off deployment,” he said, irritation starting to tighten his voice. “I hardly think the local girl’s kickboxing class is going to challenge me.”

  I widened my eyes at him in mock confusion. “Kickboxing? We are drilling eskrima and judo.”

  Ryan hesitated. He eyed me, and I saw his eyes flick to my arms. I had been working out the last two months, and I had developed muscle tone. “Okay, I’ll admit, I’m curious.”

  “Good!”

  “I’ll have to beg a ride from you, though.”

  “No problem.” I grinned at him. “You can ride behind me on my scooter.”

  Chapter Three

  Ryan wasn’t super thrilled about riding behind me. His mood wasn’t improved by being forced to wear the only spare helmet I had, a periwinkle-blue girl’s helmet that had belonged to Ilyena. By the time we reached the gym, he had sunken down into a morose funk. Not even the prospect of getting to hold onto my waist for the ride over did much to soothe his bruised ego.

  I parked in front of the gym and Ryan climbed off hastily. He shucked the helmet and stepped away from the bike with a disgusted look on his face. I ignored him; he’d get over his wounded masculinity. Ethan was standing out front, a welcoming smile on his face.

  Ethan was one of my few good friends, tall, dark and handsome, and an overly successful private investigator. He had a discrete and wealthy client base, and had once offered me a job. As much as financial security appealed to me, I don’t know that I’d be able to deal with the sheer boredom of mundane investigating. Ethan’s clientele were wealthy, but I doubted any of them would want me to investigate a walking, homicidal corpse.

  “Hey, Alex,” Ethan waved to me. “This is your friend Ryan?”

  “Yep. Ryan, get over here. Ethan, this is Ryan Halsin. Ryan, Ethan Bishop.”

  Ethan and Ryan shook hands and smiled politely at each other. Beneath the façade of civility, I saw the inevitable male silent jockeying for understanding: who was this other man, and what claim did he have on Alex?

  I left them to it and headed inside. When Ethan had first talked me into attending the class, he had insinuated that I wouldn’t be the only girl in attendance. While in a literal sense he hadn’t lied, the judo class that preceded our meetings was more suited to college students and young housewives whose worst-case scenario was having to fend off an overly amorous drunk at a bar.

  That was the class that Ryan had been rightfully scornful of. What was taught there might keep a young woman’s modesty intact against an under-committed assailant, but it would look pretty weak when trying to fight back against a marid strong enough to punch through sheet steel.

  I had need of a different class of self-defense techniques. The adversaries I faced were dangerous and violent. Their purpose was to kill, not to molest. I needed to know how to fight back against whatever I might run into.

  Judo was the first step in that. Knowing how to use an adversary’s own weight against them was critical. I had put on some weight in muscle over the last two months, but I was still well under a hundred and forty pounds. I would never be able to grapple with a four-hundred-pound marid, but with judo, I wouldn’t have to.

  In theory. Two months of practice hadn’t made me an expert by any stretch of the imagination. Despite my strength, there were others in the class that could tie me in knots without much effort. Still, I wouldn’t get anywhere unless I started at the bottom. Compared to where I had started, I was well on my way to being at least competent.

  While judo was what would keep me alive, eskrima was what would eventually give me the ability to fight back. There weren’t many martial arts that focused on using edged weaponry. Most of the time, knowledge of how to fight had been ritualized over the years into a sport, with emphasis on safety and respect. What I would be fighting against gave zero shits about fair play and sportsmanlike blows.

  Eskrima was a martial art with an emphasis on dealing lethal or crippling blows as swiftly as possible with a variety of batons and knives. While judo was approachable for a novice and I had quickly gotten the hang of the basic throws, I still wasn’t allowed onto the eskrima dueling mats, even with rubber knive
s. Eskrima practice, for me, came down to screaming abuse at a dummy while I feinted at it with a wooden dowel.

  The open room of the gym was lined with various weight machines, punching bags, and the usual gym paraphernalia. In the center of the room, bright lights illuminated a padded mat some twenty feet square. There was a dozen or so women timidly trying out throws on each other in the space, with a bent old Asian gentleman watching with an eagle eye.

  I sat on the bench press seat and watched Cho coach a pair of girls my age, walking them through how to use their hips to shift their center of balance. It was amusing to see him exaggerate the hip movements, and the vaguely sexual nature of the motions wasn’t lost on the two girls.

  Finally, exasperated with their giggling, Cho looked up and saw me watching. “Alexandra, come here please.”

  I got up and kicked off my boots before walking onto the mat. I ducked my head at Cho and gave the two girls a polite smile. “How can I help?”

  “Alexandra is in the advanced class,” Cho introduced me. “Alexandra, I would like you to demonstrate the throw with Trina here. Julie, watch how Alexandra performs the motion, then you will take Trina’s place.”

  I nodded and pulled off my jacket. When I turned to put it down at the edge of the mat, I saw Ryan and Ethan had entered the gym and were watching. I walked back to Trina and shook her hand. “Hi Trina, I’m Alex. I’ll go through it slowly so you can feel the weight shift.”

  “Who’s the stud?” Trina asked. Her eyes were fixed over my shoulder.

  “Which one?” I sighed.

  “Either. Both. They’re yummy.”

  “Focus, please,” I said irritably. I snapped my fingers at Trina and she scoffed at me before assuming the starting position, standing behind me with one hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t think that ass of yours is going to keep their attention,” Trina said in my ear. “Guys love a girl with blonde hair.”

  I glanced at Cho and he gave me the tiniest nod of his head. Permission to teach a lesson granted. In one fluid motion, I grabbed Trina’s wrist and pulled her close. She shifted her weight forward, and in an instant, I had twisted my hips and flung her over my shoulder. If I were in an actual fight, I could have thrown her at the ground and broken bones on the impact. Instead, I pulled the force of my throw at the last moment and caught some of Trina’s weight as she came down, so she only landed on the mats with a gasp of surprise.

  Trina gaped up at me from the mat at my feet, her chest heaving as she struggled to pull in air. I must have knocked the wind out of her. Well, that should teach her to pay attention during a sparring session.

  I felt a surge of lust and turned, looking for the source. Julie stared at me, her lower lip caught in her teeth, one hand half-risen to her face. She met my eyes and flushed. Huh. I wonder if Trina knew her sparring partner was gay.

  “You bitch,” Trina finally groaned at my feet.

  “When you are on the sparring floor, you must defend yourself at all times,” Cho chastised Trina. “This is not a game. A mistake could mean a broken bone or worse.”

  Trina climbed to her feet with only a little muted cursing and ducked her head in an unwilling bow to me. “Thank you for demonstrating,” she said.

  The lack of sincerity was amusing. I shrugged. “You’re welcome. Watch while I demonstrate with Julie. Try and follow how I shift my weight.”

  Julie came up behind me and rested her hand on my shoulder. I could feel her fingers tremble. Unbidden, images of Ilyena came to mind, her white hair tangled and damp with sweat, her mouth open, lips wet with—I gave my head a little shake. Now was not the time for that. I grabbed Julie’s wrist and performed the throw, gentler this time, so the girl only rolled off my hip to the ground instead of being flung through the air.

  She bounced to her feet with a smile for me that I returned without much enthusiasm. Julie was pretty enough, but the nights spent with Ilyena to the contrary, I wasn’t really interested in women.

  Cho glanced at the clock against the wall and clapped his hands loudly. “Time! Thank you, ladies, good work! I’ll see you here on Thursday at 5:30.” The sparring partners broke up and headed to the locker room, laughing and talking amongst themselves.

  “What are you doing after the class?” Julie asked me shyly.

  I glanced over at Trina and saw her making a beeline for Ethan and Ryan. “I have my own class,” I said, trying to keep the amusement out of my voice. “What about your friend?”

  Julie made a face. “Does it look like I have anything with Trina? What time does your class end?”

  “Julie, I’m sorry, this isn’t going to work. I’m flattered, but not interested.”

  I could see the conflict on Julie’s face. She was desperately shy, but that wasn’t enough to keep her from hanging on with everything she had. “What could it hurt?” she pleaded. “Just a drink and an hour to talk.”

  Before I could think of a way to shut Julie down without being cruel, Ethan stepped up next to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Hey, Alex. Who’s your friend?”

  Julie’s face fell and she turned away, a flush of embarrassment pinking her cheeks. I looked over at Ryan and saw him pinned into a corner by Trina. Julie headed for the locker rooms, her head ducked down, with only a single glance thrown back at me.

  “Thanks for that,” I sighed.

  Ethan dropped his arm from my shoulders and chuckled. “Hey, it was mostly self-defense. That blonde is tenacious. Feel a bit bad for leaving Ryan though.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he’s suffering horribly.”

  Trina’s laughter tinkled through the air and she put a hand on Ryan’s arm. She had a pretty face and an impressively large chest for her waist size. She either had a boob job or spent hours in the gym every week. Considering how weak her arms had felt when I had thrown her, I was betting on the first option.

  “Looks like Ryan’s going to have company tonight if he’s not careful,” Ethan said.

  “You’re not into blondes?” I asked.

  Ethan eyed me sideways. “I’m not into fake. What about the brunette, though? She was cute.”

  I rolled my eyes. “No thanks.”

  “Not into that?”

  “Ethan…”

  “Hey, I’m not judging. If that’s what you like, who am I to complain?”

  “Ilyena was a one-time thing,” I said shortly. A one-time thing that I missed rather badly, if I was being honest with myself. It hadn’t been the sex that had drawn me to Ilyena, though that had been fantastic. It was the whole package that had caught me. There weren’t many people in the world with the force of personality Ilyena had possessed. Of course, now the hinn was back in Russia and her owner wasn’t likely to send her anywhere near me in the foreseeable future, considering what had happened the last time we had been left unsupervised.

  Ethan made a non-committal sound in his throat. “I’m sorry that didn’t work out, you know. The two of you seemed happy.”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  “No problem.”

  We stood in silence and watched as Ryan wilted under the relentless flirting of Trina.

  “Ten bucks says he goes home with her tonight.”

  “No bet,” I shook my head. “Actually, I hope he does.”

  “He’s, ah, not with you, then?”

  “Not like that. He’s just helping me do some of the repair and maintenance stuff at home.”

  “That’s what he said,” Ethan shrugged. “I thought he was being euphemistic.”

  “Not this time. He painted the front of the station this morning. It’s finally starting to feel like a home, and not like I’m squatting in a government building.”

  Ethan shook his head. “I still can’t believe David gave you that. It must have cost him a pretty penny.”

  I shrugged. David could afford it. He had an underground cavern filled with literal piles of gold and treasure. Mention of money brought to mind the job I had start
ed with the police. “Hey, I forgot to say something earlier, but I’ve got a gig with the police again.”

  “Nothing too dangerous, I hope?”

  “Hard to say. I still don’t really know what it is I’m looking for. But that’s why I’m taking these classes, right?”

  Ethan grimaced. “Anyone ever tell you the best way to not get stabbed in a knife fight?”

  “No,” I shook my head. I hadn’t heard this one.

  “You run away.”

  I snorted. Well, he wasn’t wrong. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always an option. “I’ll keep that in mind. Have you heard anything strange going on? Graveyards being robbed, bodies going missing, that kind of thing?”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow at me. “No. Do you want me to ask around?”

  “If you can be subtle about it.”

  “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Cho walked into the middle of the mats and clapped his hands. “If you’re finished socializing,” he called irritably, “can we start practicing? Ethan, lead us in stretching please.”

  Ethan gave me a quick grin before walking over to stand next to Cho. The rest of the class joined him on the mats, eleven of us, counting Ryan. Before Ethan could start stretching, the door banged open and a pair of men walked in.

  I use the term “men” loosely. They were male, but they were marid. Seven feet tall and change, easily weighing four hundred pounds each. They had to squeeze through the door frame, turning sideways and ducking their heads to fit through. It was unusual enough to see two marid, but that wasn’t what made my heart sink.

  I knew these marid. The one in front, taller by a few inches and sporting a curling tribal tattoo on one shoulder was Savit, a Red House soldier with a short fuse. The other was Amat, another Red House soldier, one I hadn’t been beaten nearly unconscious by.

  “Shit,” I muttered.