Hearts of Stone

by Mina Carter

  “What happened here?” a voice boomed behind them, and Holly squeaked in fright, somehow managing to go a shade even paler than white. It was Frankie, the coffee shop owner, who really, really disliked breakages.

  “My fault, boss,” Cal rumbled, winking at Holly before looking over his shoulder to catch Frankie’s eyes. “Too many plates and missed a customer standing up. Crashed into him. He was a little one, and you know how I miss the smaller humans . . .”

  Just like that, the annoyed look on the petite woman’s face disappeared, probably because of what Cal had said more than because he’d uttered more words than he usually used in a month. He was a para, and there were rules about how para workers were treated. Antidiscrimination laws and all that.

  “Yeah . . . well, try to be more careful in the future. Holly, finish up there, and then it’s time for your break, I think? Before Cal’s shift ends.”

  “I got this,” he rumbled, knowing she wanted to escape Frankie’s all-too-perceptive gaze as quickly as possible. “You go.”

  “No problem, boss. Thank you,” Holly whispered to him, grabbing the escaped cutlery before she got to her feet and disappeared into the kitchen.

  Cal continued clearing up, moving some chairs to block the messy area before carrying the broken plates into the kitchen. After grabbing a mop and a bucket, he headed back to clean up. The journey took him through the main part of the coffee shop, and that was when he spotted her. Sitting in one of the corners, with her back to the wall, was his pretty little human.

  Deliberately slowing his walk, he checked her out on the way past. Like normal, she was with a friend, but the tall blonde in the fancy clothes didn’t hold his attention at all. Instead, all his focus was on her companion. Small and curvy with dark hair that flowed over her shoulders, she always wore a leather jacket and jeans, usually with a shirt beneath. Combat boots completed the look. It was a casual, no-nonsense look that suited her . . . and the gun she had in a holster under her arm. She was good, moving so it was always concealed, but his sense of smell told him it was there. The smell of gun oil was unmistakable. He had no clue what her name was, or even where she worked, but she fascinated him.

  He took another look at her over his shoulder as he disappeared into the L part of the shop to finish cleaning the floor. He’d gotten away with claiming the broken crockery, but if a customer hurt themselves and decided to sue the shop, Frankie would be more than pissed. And it wasn’t just his job on the line then, but also his brother Gran, who worked the morning shift.

  The area cleaned, he worked his way back through the shop, making sure to stick around by the main counter with his brush while Frankie served. Not for any other reason but it gave him a perfect line of sight to watch the object of his interest. She was talking to her friend, the one Cal had mentally tagged “lawyer lady.” He had no clue whether she really was, but she sure dressed like one, and with a host of legal offices a couple of blocks over, it was a good bet.

  His little human, though . . . she was not a lawyer. The gun said police or something of the like—not many people carried unless they had a reason to—but he didn’t think so. She didn’t move like a cop, and he’d seen plenty in his time. If anything, he could see her as a soldier, rifle in hand. At that thought, the protective side of his nature brought a snarl to his lips, one he quickly squashed. She was so tiny and delicate. She should be protected, not the one doing the protecting.

  “Cal?” Frankie called from the kitchen. “Bins need taking out, hon. Could you handle that for me?”

  “No worries, boss. On it,” he called back, casting another quick glance at the two women. His heart stuttered right there in his chest as he caught his mystery woman looking right at him, speculation and interest in her eyes. She looked away instantly, her lips curving as she brought her mug up to her lips, but he’d caught the look. Pleasure spread through him as he made his way into the kitchen and started to empty the bins.

  She’d looked at him like a woman looks at a man, awareness in her dark eyes, and even the memory sent heat through his blood straight to his cock. Every cell in his body came alive, desire and need surging through him as every instinct he had urged him to turn around, walk through the café, and kiss her like his life depended on it. Closing his eyes, he grabbed the front of his now too-tight jeans and eased his stiff cock into a more comfortable position. It was a good thing he was alone in here. Hiding a boner was hard enough, but when your physiology was stone-based most of the time . . . to say he was as hard as a rock was a damn understatement. Which reminded him that she was human and he wasn’t. What kind of human, especially a pretty lady like that, would want something out of a nightmare like him? As soon as she found out what he was, that interest would disappear faster than he could say the word. It always did.

  Getting his primal urges under control, he easily hefted the two big bags of trash and headed into the back alleyway. Crowded in on all sides by high-rise buildings, it was always dark with shadows back here. He stomped over to the dumpster. Dropping the bags in, he slammed the lid shut and turned to head back. Holly was still sitting on the steps outside, coat on and her arms wrapped around herself.

  After dropping next to her, he nudged her with his shoulder. “Hey, girl . . . you okay? That wasn’t your fault, you know? That guy was a total jerk.”

  “Thanks. And for the cover-up. I really appreciate it.” She smiled up at him, patting his arm. For some reason, Holly was one of the humans he had no trouble talking to, the words not drying up like they did when he was faced with anyone else.

  “No worries. You’d do the same for me.”

  She chuckled. “Yeah, I would. But the guy would’ve just bounced off you and hit the floor instead of the plates.” She pinched his arm. “You’re built like a mountain . . . oh, errr . . .” Suddenly her cheeks flushed as she belatedly remembered that he was, in fact, a gargoyle and sometimes was actually made of rock, the main constituent of mountains.

  He chuckled and patted her hand where it had stilled on his arm. “I am. You’re quite right. Not that I’d let many people say that to my face. But you’re my favorite squishable.”

  “Squishable?” she asked, a half grin on her lips.

  “Humans.” He wagged his eyebrows. “We call you guys squishables.”

  That did it. A giggle burst from her lips, and the worried look faded from her eyes. “No way . . . really? Why?”

  “Because you are?” He winked as he levered himself up and held out a hand to help her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get you back inside before Frankie yawps about us all going over our breaks again.”

  Chapter 2

  The walk back to her apartment wasn’t a long one, so Iliona decided to give herself a break from the mad crush the subway would be this time of day and turned right when she walked out of the café.

  She shoved her hands in her pockets and wove through the crowds with the ease of long practice. She’d lived in the city all her life until her job had taken her elsewhere. Her lips compressed. She wasn’t proud of that period of her life.

  A convoluted career path had somehow ended up with her working with a “paranormal observation and control unit” attached to the military. A hit squad in effect. They’d tracked what they’d been told were dangerous paranormals and put them down. At first, she’d thought they were doing good. Keeping the main population, human and paranormal, safe and all that jazz.

  Until they’d tracked down a mother basilisk in her nest, killing her and capturing her babies. Babies who had been ripped from their dead mother’s scaled body and shipped off to research facilities all over the world. Only . . . they weren’t. Always good at investigation, a half glimpse at an email had named those “research facilities” as buyers instead. In between legitimate missions, her bosses had been targeting innocents for sale on the black market.

  Iliona’s shoulders crept up at the memory of that event and those that had followed it. She’d not only challenged her crooked bosses b
ut brought the whole network down. At the cost of her career. Forced from the service, she’d ended up back home with no job and references that couldn’t be relied on.

  So she’d done the only thing she could. Taking the bull by the horns, she’d set up her own business. Part security service and part private investigations. Tracking down cheating husbands and bail jumpers had kept the money coming in until things had taken a surprising turn. Taking on a case for a witch had gotten her name out among the paranormals in the city, and slowly, they’d started talking to her. Then one day a wolf had turned up looking for work . . . and the Paranormal Protection Agency had truly been born.

  Looking up as she turned the corner, she flicked her hair out of her face and continued walking. Night was coming in thick and fast now, but walking the streets at night had never bothered her. Not with the Glock nestled under her arm.

  Her cell buzzed in her pocket, and she fished it out. The text was short and sweet. Stone was undercover on a surveillance job. As the family dog of the house opposite. Sure did help having a bodyguard who could infiltrate a location so easily. One slipped lead and he was in, sniffing around and making mental notes about everything he saw. Good thing he had a photographic memory. Wasn’t like he could take notes with his paws.

  Ignoring the still unread message from Kenneth, she flicked the screen off and slid the phone away in her pocket. Which was when the skin on the back of her neck prickled. Someone was following her. Making sure to maintain the same pace and rhythm in her walk, she moved to cross to the other side of the street, using a quick glance up and down the street for traffic to spot her little friend.

  The street was still busy, so it took her a second or two to filter through the crowds to try to spot anyone out of place. She’d always had a sixth sense about these things. It was one reason she was so good at what she did.

  Movement a hundred paces or so back caught her eye as a figure in a hoodie and jeans slid into cover behind a doorway, covering his face as though to light a cigarette. Smiling, she continued across the road, that split-second glimpse telling her all she needed to know.

  Gotta get up earlier in the morning than that, handsome, she quipped mentally, taking the next right and ducking into an alleyway. A quick sprint took her to the end and into cover.

  Holding her breath, she waited in the shadows, Glock in her hand like it was an extension of her body. Silently, she counted. She hadn’t reached five before the sound of boots running toward her reached her ears. Male, about five eight but with a lean build, she decided, waiting until he was almost on her.

  Would he be garden-variety human or something a little more exotic? She didn’t care either way. Silver bullets mixed with normal ones in the magazine, and a pocket full of iron shavings would deal with anything fae in nature. She was loaded for bear, boar, and the fairy king himself should he show up.

  She made her move as soon as the male stepped around the corner, blindsiding him and slamming him up against the dirty brickwork. The lamp overhead fizzled and popped into life, casting an erratic strobe onto the face of her tail, one side mushed up against the brickwork as she shoved the muzzle of the Glock behind his ear.

  At the pressure of the cold, hard steel, he froze, hands up. Human, she realized, and let out a slow breath of relief she hadn’t known she’d been holding. Not that going up against anything paranormal bothered her . . . well, actually, most things paranormal scared the shit out of her and would any sensible person. But that didn’t mean she was going to back away from a fight.

  “Wanna tell me what you’re doing following me, sweet cheeks?” she hissed into his ear, pressing a little harder. He whimpered in response, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face.

  “I’m sorry, lady. I thought you were . . . were . . .”

  “You thought I was an easy mark, you mean. Didn’t expect to be looking at the business end of some hardware you can’t handle, eh?”

  She grabbed his jacket, spun him around, and slammed his back against the brickwork with enough force to make the air leave his lungs in a rush. She stepped back, gun still aimed.

  “Oh, jeez, kid . . . how old are you?” she exclaimed, looking him up and down.

  Her arm didn’t waver. Finger still curled around the trigger, she could easily put two bullets between his eyes within a heartbeat. But just because it looked like a duck and walked like a duck didn’t always mean it was a duck.

  He still held his hands up in surrender, wriggling against the brickwork like he could slither out of view. Even so, something flashed in his eyes, and male pride reasserted itself as he stuck his jaw out. “Eighteen.”

  She chuckled. He didn’t look old enough to shave properly. The bum-fluff on his cheeks was probably a couple of weeks’ worth of careful growth. “Yeah, right. If your balls have dropped then I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

  Sighing, she slid the Glock away in a smooth move. “It’s your lucky night. I don’t feel like running you down to the local PD. But I never forget a face. Don’t let me catch you out here again, or I’ll make you regret the day you were born. You reading me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Loud and clear. Thank you!”

  Before she could change her mind, he was gone, the sound of his running footsteps ringing in the air. By the time she emerged from the alleyway, he was nowhere to be seen.

  Shaking her head, she continued her journey. The crowds on the streets thinned out the farther from the city center she got. She turned down a side street to take a shortcut and sighed when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled again.

  “Really?” she muttered to herself. “Again?”

  Turning, she looked around to see if she could spot whoever was following her, expecting a couple of thugs intent on a mugging. Looked like they’d be having a conversation with Mr. Glock, and then she’d be spending the night filling out paperwork at the local police department having hauled them down there. Her patience had run out with the first kid, so this lot were about to get the full force of her wrath.

  But the street behind her was deserted. No, not just deserted . . . empty. Isolated. Devoid of anything. Even the pools of light cast by the streetlights seemed to crowd tighter to their posts as though squeezed in by the darkness all around. A shiver rolled up her spine, and she took a step back before she could stop herself, her eyes widening as she tried to take in every detail of the scene in front of her. Something was wrong, very wrong.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded, fingers itching to go for the pistol under her arm again. Instead, she thrust her left hand into her pocket, closing it around the iron filings loose in the bottom.

  Her breathing rasped loudly in her ears as she withdrew her hand, holding it loosely at her side as she backed up slowly. Half of her brain screamed about looking like an idiot, walking backward as though the darkness were dangerous, while the other half screamed at her not to take her eyes off anything in case a shadow manifested fangs and claws to rip her throat out.

  One step became two, then three and four as beads of sweat joined the cold chills running down her spine. Her heart pounded in her chest, all but drowning out every other sound, and suddenly she wished she were safely behind a barred door like superstitious villagers of old. Hell, right about now, she’d be happy hidden under the bed, an all-protective duvet wrapped around her like a burrito.

  The shadows in front of her moved, and she screamed, throwing the filings from her pocket in a hail of metal in front of her. They hit something, sparking in midair, and she bellowed, gun in her hand as she fired blindly at the . . . whatever it was forming in the blackness in front of her.

  There was a growl, and the gun was slapped out of her hand, flying across the road to skitter across the opposite sidewalk. With a yell, she dove after it, but the blackness was faster, grabbing her around the waist and hurling her the other way. She slammed into the wall, the rough brick scraping her cheek as she slid down its unforgiving surface. A malicious growl kicked her survival instincts
into high gear, and she shook off the blackness trying to claim her. If she passed out now, she was a goner, pure and simple.

  Scrabbling backward, she pulled more filings from her pocket and hurled them into the air. They sparked again, and she made out the shape of her attacker. It was big and man shaped. Gathering her strength, she got her legs beneath her and lurched forward, ducking under its “arm” as it swung for her again. Whatever else she did, she needed to make sure it didn’t land another blow and knock her out. Who knew what it would do to her then.

  She darted to the side, trying to sprint across the road to where her Glock was. But less than three steps later, something hard wrapped around her ankle and yanked her off her feet. She hit the asphalt, the impact driving the air from her lungs in a rush.

  “No, no, no!” she heard herself moan as she was flipped over again. Kicking and punching, she tried to break the grip of whatever had her in its hold. Two eyes manifested out of the darkness above her, red pinpricks that grew and spread into rings of flame around pupils blacker than midnight and fixed on her with hatred.

  “Huuuuuuumman,” it growled, the deep voice reverberating through her very bones and bringing stampeding terror up from the depths of her soul. Demon. She’d never seen one before, but she recognized it instantly. Like it was encoded in her very DNA, in the DNA of every human that had ever lived, passed down through the generations in case anyone ever should encounter one again. The only problem with that? Recognition was fine and dandy, but genetic memory didn’t give her any clues on how to fight the damn thing.

  She. Was. Screwed.

  ❖

  She was gone.

  Disappointment rolled through Cal at the sight of the empty table by the window. He hadn’t been out in the alley long, just a couple of minutes, but already one of the waitresses had cleared away the mugs and plates and was wiping down.