Dweller on the Threshold (21 page)

Black eyes snapped to mine. “My goddess gave me the strength to fight him and I failed.”

“But you killed the host. Why didn’t that stop it?”

“I believe I was too late. This time, I won’t be.”

“This host—it could be anywhere. How will we find it? How did you find it before?”

“By finding the area with the heaviest concentration of victims.”

Just as I was figuring out where to start with more questions, an alarm sounded. The noise made me jump. Nikolos cursed and bolted out the door.

I followed him into another room to find several screens showing perimeter video. I took in the high dollar computer equipment spread out over several desks, the seven—no, make that eight—computer screens on the wall. Small red lights blinked on several.

“You know, if you hadn’t just showed me the years you’d spent chasing down the scourge of our society, I would be worried about your sanity. Crazy old guy holed up in here watching the world through videos aimed at the outside.” I caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to find more screens against the wall to my right. “Holy shit. You’re tapped into some of the city cameras.” I crossed my arms. “Wow. You’re going to jail. Do you have any idea how that would suck with your lifespan?”

“Yes.”

His one quietly uttered word had me jerking around to really look at him. Hundreds of years on this earth. Of course he’d been in jail at some point. A part of me wanted to know when and how long. The other, more compassionate part held her hands over my ears and started singing loudly. She didn’t want to know.

Clearing my throat, I turned back to the first camera he’d indicated and the reason we’d come in.

Black everywhere. Six of the seven teens on the screens had clothes, boots and hair in that color. The seventh was different only because her butt-length hair had been bleached white. I glance down at my matching black T-shirt and boots and grimaced.

Nikolos’s mouth twisted on one side as he, too, looked at my clothes.

“Shut up.”

He smirked.

I leaned over to get a good look at them. “They’re kids. Punky looking, innocent kids.”

“Kids, yes. Innocent? Not so much. They tried throwing a spell at my wards. That’s what set off the alarm.” He pointed to the first camera. I recognized the parking lot in the front of his store. One kid was reading a crumpled piece of paper then flicking his fingers toward the door. I swallowed a grin. Muddy confusion twisted his features. He wiggled his fingers, then used them to scratch his head. Two kids behind him were laughing. They stood next to a beat-up Honda. One lounged on the hood. I didn’t think the car was theirs because one of the girls was trying to pick the lock. Another kid came close to the front door of the shop and flicked open a switchblade. He grinned into the camera. Zits polka-dotted his baby face. Heavy eyeliner darkened his eyes until they looked like two tiny bruised smudges set far back into those plump cheeks.

“He looks fifteen,” I murmured. “Maybe eighteen if I stretch my imagination. He’s a baby.”

“A baby with a knife and scars.”

Squinting at the screen, I saw the criss-crossed pattern of knife scars on his bare arms. One particularly bad one snaked from under the sleeveless edge of his vinyl vest to swirl over his shoulder. I winced. That looked like it had been bad. What kind of fifteen-year-old would be covered in these kinds of scars? They didn’t look the self-inflicted kind I’d seen on cutters. They looked like battle scars.

I opened my mouth to see if Nikolos had some idea only to catch a fleeting grin come and go on his mouth. I about swallowed my tongue. That grin had put the sexiest groove along his left cheek. He said something and I had to blink and clear my throat rudely. He stopped speaking, cocked his head and I saw something flare to life in his eyes before it disappeared.

“I asked you if you’d like to have a little fun.”

“Like what? I’m not hurting a bunch of kids—even ones who look like they’ve been in knife fights.”

“I wasn’t talking about hurting them. Just surprising them.” He chuckled and that sexy slash in his cheek came back.

I blinked again.

He shook his head. Just then, one of the kids slammed his knife into the camera. “I love to hear exactly what’s going on in that head of yours, but right now, we have a bit of a problem. If you’d like to have a little fun and frighten a few kids into running off, follow me.”

“There’s nothing going on in my imagination except curiosity about why a bunch of Goth kids would be ganging up on you. What’d you do, steal their vampire movie collection?”

“They aren’t here for me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Let’s see then, shall we?” He went through the last door in the hallway.

I followed, curious to see if there was another door to the outside. My mouth fell open when he tugged on the attic door string and pulled down the wooden steps. “We’re going to hide? That’s your fun? Hiding in the attic? Should we at least get the witch and take her up there with us? I know they’re kids, but Blythe
is
kind of little.”

He ignored me and climbed up through the narrow space. Dust flew up my nose and I sneezed loudly. Yet still I followed only to grin when I saw him going up a set of stairs to another door. Cool, fresh, morning air swirled into the room when he opened it. He looked at me over his shoulder. “We’ll jump off the roof right in the middle of the group. Should scare them into running off.”

The building wasn’t really that tall. I could leap to the ground easily. I sneaked to the edge of the roof and glanced over to find that all of the kids had gathered in the front of the store.

Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Too much information was processing in my tired brain. These kids looked like a much needed distraction. I winked at Nikolos and jumped.

Pain spiked my heels as my boots slammed onto the hard asphalt, but I kept to my feet. It was a spectacular landing. I would have patted myself on the back if it weren’t for Phro, who’d come outside right then just to roll her eyes. Fred, standing beside her, bit his lip and looked away from me. I just grinned. “So, what’s up?” I asked. A handful of bees flew in to buzz about my face.

I had time to register shocked expressions before they did the opposite of run away in fear. They rushed me—five boys and two girls. This was nothing like the movies where the opponents held back and approached one or two at a time. No, it was utter chaos. I blinked into the blur of unpracticed punches. “Whoa! Wait a minute! Back off and tell us what’s going on here!”

They sort of slowed, but a boy with heavy eye-liner hauled off and punched my face.

I staggered back, surprised at the strength of his hit—my eyes were watering—and held my hand up. “Seriously you guys, back the hell down and speak.”

The kid snarled and rushed me again. He jumped in the air to kick me, so I grabbed his foot and pushed it aside. Those heavily-lined eyes flew open wide as he hit the pavement. Hard.

I waved the annoying bees out of my face and made sure the boy was okay.

The kids stopped rushing for a brief moment when Nikolos’s heavy frame hit the ground behind me. Instead of being scared of the big man, they were only spurred back into action. Pure shock registered on Nikolos’s face right before one of the girls lashed out.

Nikolos’s startled, slack expression and hesitation cost him as she landed a solid kick to his chest. His breath hitched right before he grabbed her foot, too. Unfortunately, he grabbed too hard. Her body flew up and back, her head making a sickening, cracking noise when it hit the blacktop. He winced and rushed to her, kneeling to make sure she was okay.

Her chest rose and fell, so she was still breathing.

A tall, rangy boy cried out and jumped on Nikolos’s back, grabbing his hair and screaming into his ear.

I lunged to help but got whacked in the nose with the side of a fist. My eyes watered again as pain exploded into my brain. “Ow. Shit!” Blinking rapidly, I jumped back, accidentally hitting one of the other kids with my elbow. I turned, knocked him off balance, and he immediately wrapped his arms around my waist. The top of his head didn’t even come to my shoulders.

We were beating up children.

With one hand over my throbbing nose, I shoved him off with the other and took a deep breath to yell. It was time to put a stop to this.

The second girl chose that moment to drop low, kick out her leg and sweep mine. This time, I hit the pavement. Luckily the back of my hand slammed the ground before my face, but I gritted my teeth as a layer of skin was scraped away from my knuckles. I looked up to see the boy who had been on Nikolos’s back flying toward me, strands of black hair clutched in his fist. He grunted when he fell on top of me.

Nikolos came to help, but one of the boys swung around, lashed out with a right. Nikolos stepped back. “Stop before one of you gets seriously hurt.”

But something was wrong. They didn’t listen, didn’t slow…didn’t even come at us in any logical fashion. It was like they were machines, programmed to attack no matter what. Nikolos and I were bigger, obviously better trained. It didn’t make sense. “I think they’ve been spelled or something,” I said, shrugging the kid off me.

Nikolos grunted when the boy punched his chest, jumped back then tucked, rolled, and slammed into Nikolos’s legs.

I twisted onto my back and wiped at the blood stinging my eyes. To be safe, I kicked out at anyone brave enough to come close. The second girl screeched and jumped on my stomach. Her knees dug painfully into my ribs. “Oof,” I grunted, lifting my hips to heave her off. She went but not before slitting my cheek with one of her dagger-like fingernails.

Phro came close, leaned over to get a closer look, and winced. “That’s not gonna be pretty.”

Ignoring my guide, I jumped up to ward off another kid’s punch, swung around and the side of my hand caught the girl in the mouth. Droplets of blood sprinkled her white hair. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed. I kicked out at the boy still coming toward me and dropped to my knees to grope frantically for her pulse. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I felt it against my fingers.

Just then, one of the topiary bushes near Nikolos caught on fire. He grabbed a boy by the back of his black T-shirt, held him in the air and put out the fire with one boot.

Blood and sweat stung my eyes. I turned toward the last standing kid.

The element of surprise wasn’t going to work with this one. I balanced on the heels of my feet and took in the damage he’d already suffered. An eye had started to swell shut and he lurched side to side a bit. Fury twisted what was left of his face.

“Fighting with that kind of anger only makes you sloppy,” I said.

He jumped. I sidestepped his punch, but I was tired of this bullshit, so I swung him around and brought his arm up into a twist. “I offered you a tip. You should have taken it.” I jerked the arm higher. “Since it’s too much of a coincidence that you guys showed up here today, I can only assume this isn’t some random stupid attempt at vandalism. The grin and the knife in the camera were blatant invitations—so why are attacking us? Did someone send you?”

He only growled and struggled. He wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at the first girl, the one who hadn’t yet moved. His expression was a mix of terror and grief. Jeez. I could tell she was still breathing from here. Her hair was fluttering over her face where her breath hit it. “Your girlfriend is fine. For now. She might need some medical attention and she’s only going to get it if you spill.”

“I don’t know.” The words came between gasps of pain. I had his arm twisted unnaturally high. Not enough to break it. That would make me a monster. I felt bad enough about the couple of accidental booboos I’d inflicted.

“You don’t know. Yeah, right. Okay, let’s try this… why are you here?”

“This thing came to us. Paid us to come here and steal a book.”

Nikolos stood before the kid. “What book?”

“A magic book. Shelly…” He tried to turn his face, but I tightened my grip.

“Blonde or brunette?” I hoped it was the blonde since she was the only one coming around. She’d sat up against the wall of the shop. Her mouth was bleeding but she wasn’t wiping at it, just sitting there watching us.

“Shelly’s my girlfriend. I think he killed her.”

Not the blonde then. “She’s not dead. I told you that already.”

“Look in her pocket.”

Nikolos glared at two of the boys who had gotten to their feet. One shook his head, held out his hands and backed to the shop wall next to the blonde. Nikolos pointed and the other moved to join him. That left two boys still down. And the girl. Nikolos walked over to gently turn her over, cradling the back of her head so it didn’t smack the ground again. Something fluttered in my belly as I watched his tender handling of her—saw the regret flicker over his expression. He pulled out a piece of paper and came back.

It was actually an envelope with writing on the back.

Nikolos chuckled. “It says, ‘Beat up the big, dumb redhead and get the witch’s magic book.’”

Sighing, I let go of the boy’s arm and crossed both of my own. Surely he wouldn’t try anything now. “So, what did this thing you mentioned look like?”