Medusa's Dagger: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Aya Harris Collection Book 1) (11 page)

I looked up at the glass ceiling of the station. No stars were out tonight. Only clouds rolled over the building, their grey masses blending into the inky black of the night sky. The pale light of the crescent moon occasionally permeated the clouds, shining its weak light down on me. Despite the terror teetering on the edge of my conscious, my eyelids grew heavy. The hollow emptiness of the train station was like a quiet lullaby, humming me to sleep with its song.

The echo of footsteps brought me back to Earth. I sat straight up, turning wildly to find the source. Nicky stepped out from behind a giant white stone pillar on the other side of the lobby. Although we were still a hundred feet away, I could already spot several ways he’d changed since I last saw him.

The brother I remembered couldn’t grow a beard. This Nicky had a dark scruff that covered his chin and jaw. His jet black hair was longer, too. It fell in a soft wave across his eyes, and was tucked behind his ears. He’d also put on a layer of muscle which sculpted his arms and chest into that of a man.

I blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t a hallucination. When his figure didn’t disappear, I stood up from the bench, uncertain what to do next. Nicky hadn’t moved from his pose near the pillar. There was no sign of Johnny. I didn’t want to think of what that could mean.

“Where is he?” My voice echoed in the openness of the station.

Whatever spell had bound Nicky in place broke, and he beckoned for me to follow him. He led the way through a door labeled for
Employees Only,
and up a flight of cement stairs. They opened up to a rooftop access.

I walked out into the darkness of the roof, my eyes adjusting to the sudden lack of light. If Nicky wanted to exterminate me, now was his chance. No one would see us on this roof. I doubted anyone would come if I screamed. We were all alone.

A muffled shout came from behind me. I spun to see Johnny standing with his hands bound, and a piece of silver duct tape across his mouth. His eyes blazed with terror. If I’d been afraid before, it was nothing compared to now.

Johnny was my rock. He was the type of roommate who would be the first to take out a burglar or tackle the purse thief on the street. I’d always thought of him as fearless. If he was scared, I had no chance.

Nicky stood next to him, waving a knife in his hands like it was a toy. He rested his lean body against a heating unit, one leg on the ground and the other bent, resting casually on the grate protecting the heater. A thin white scar that I hadn’t seen before ran from his temple to his mouth, as if someone or something had tried to peel his skin off.

“Hey, sis. Glad you could make it.”

The tone of his voice filled my head with rage. This was no joke.

“What do you think you’re doing? Let him go.”

Nicky frowned, dropping his foot to the ground. A long bronze chain with an oval pendant hung from his neck. “I don’t plan on hurting him. I just had to make sure the SI didn’t follow you here. I know they’ve been talking to you.”

I didn’t have a clue how Nicky knew that, but that was the least of my current problems.

“Well, they’re not here. Let Johnny go.”

Nicky grinned. It pulled at my heart to see that old smile. Even though I knew his tricks, he’d still been able to work his charms on me a time or two.

“Not yet, Little Bird. Although I’m glad you didn’t bring Agent Ward. I would’ve been very disappointed to have my own sister turn me in.”

Something in the way he looked at me told me Nicky knew I’d never turn him in. He raised an eyebrow at me, mischief twinkling in his eyes.

“What do you want from me, Nicky?” Even I could hear the weariness heavy on my voice. I didn’t want to play his games. “Why are you doing this? How could you kill those people? I thought you were better than that.”

“I didn’t kill them!”

Nicky took a step forward, the muscles in his arms tensing beneath his fitted long sleeved t-shirt. I flinched and retreated a step, watching the knife dangling between his fingers.

He blew a controlled breath through his lips and relaxed his shoulders. “I mean, I didn’t kill your neighbors. That was someone else. Someone I shouldn’t have trusted with my secrets.”

“Who killed them, then?” I cocked my head at him. Surely he didn’t expect me to believe that someone else had murdered Mr. and Mrs. Yonas with the same M.O. he’d been using for the past several years.

“I know him by the name of Theo, but I’m not sure if it’s his real name,” Nicky said in a flat tone, as if reciting a dull story. “We met in a bar outside Helena a year ago. We got to talking and eventually, he confessed to me that he held many of my beliefs. He felt the same about the evil supernatural that walk among us. He’s a Gorgon. I thought I could trust him. Could train him. So, I took him under my wing.”

My eyes trailed to Johnny’s, who was sitting and shaking his head. He didn’t seem to be buying my brother’s innocent act either.

“So, you trained this Theo guy to murder?”

Nicky hissed, switching the knife to his right hand. “Not murder. I trained him to hunt down evil and exterminate it. There’s a difference.”

With Johnny on the other side of the roof and Nicky between us, I didn’t want to argue the point. “Okay, so you trained him. Are you saying he went off track and took the Yonas family?”

“Yes. He disappeared a month ago when we were tracking a pair of demons up in North Dakota. I thought they’d killed him. Imagine my surprise when I heard through the grapevine that he’d survived North Dakota. That he was going rogue, and harvesting powers for his own.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, disgust clouding his face. “I tracked him to Arcana when I heard about the single raven’s feather left at the scene. That was my calling card, not his. He didn’t have a right to use it.”

I had to admit, the snakes in my vision made more sense now. If Theo was a Gorgon, he was related to Medusa, the most famous Gorgon of them all. Greek myths described Medusa as having a head full of snakes. We had ancient pottery at the museum with Medusa’s head painted on them, snakes and all. But, I wasn’t convinced yet.

“How do you know it was him?” I asked. “Anyone could’ve copied that. Left a feather to pin it on you.”

With the pale light of the moon, I spotted a lead pipe in the shadows to my right. If I inched close enough, I could grab it.

A cocky grin spread across his face. “The SI keeps that fact under wraps. I know because I have my own contacts in their organization.”

It was true that I’d never read about the feather in the news blogs covering his crimes. The only reason I knew it was his calling card was because I saw it at his very first crime scene, lying next to Mrs. Beckett’s decapitated body.

“Why would Theo take that family? They never hurt a fly.”

Even by my brother’s faulty sense of justice, the Yonases were guiltless. They lived simple little lives.

Nicky’s face clouded over. His grin faded into a pained grimace. “Theo isn’t what I thought he was. He has no thirst for good or justice. He wanted to learn my methods for harvesting magic, and he used me. That family just happened to have a power he craved, so he took it. And he’s going to take all of it if I don’t kill him.”

I stopped inching toward the lead pipe and put all my attention on Nicky. “Are the other two alive? Do you know where he is?”

“Yes and I’m working on it. I’m closing in on him, I just know it. But, I need you to help me.”

Here it was – finally, the reason he’d called me out here alone.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Your museum has something I need.”

He held up the knife in front of his face, his dark blue eyes examining the shiny surface. I took the opportunity to take another step toward the pipe, and paused when he looked back at me.

“A dagger. Medusa’s personal weapon. Legend says it was imbued with venom from the snakes on Medusa’s head. It’s the only thing that’ll kill Theo.”

I wracked my brains, mentally scanning through all the weapons in the museum. I’d never heard of such a thing. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have your dagger.” 

“Yes, you do. I dug it up in South America and sent it to your dinky little museum. It was the only way to get it safely out of the country.”

With a gasp, I realized what he was talking about. The dagger that arrived just yesterday, was the weapon Nicky needed to stop that monster. I’d just thrown it aside for examination, not realizing the very thing I held in my hand was the tool that could save my neighbors.

He grinned when he heard me gasp. “See? You do have it. Hand it over and I’ll take care of this.”

He wouldn’t even need to be a part of this if he’d just hand the reins over to Gideon and Agent Silva. We already had the weapon.

“Why don’t you just tell the SI where he’s at and let them take care of it?”

“It’s personal.” Nicky leaned back against the heater. “I’m going to see this thing through. No one crosses me. Theo needs to pay for his evil deeds and I’m going to be the one to dole out the punishment.”

“Nicky, there are innocent lives at stake. You can’t fool around.”

All this talk about Theo and getting justice was making me nervous. It was like Nicky didn’t care about the victims at all, only about getting his revenge.

“This is my mess to clean up. I’m not leaving it to amateurs.”

As my brother plucked at his fingernails with the tip of the knife, Johnny made a run for it. He sprinted toward me, hands still bound together. At the same time, I sprung for the lead pipe, snatching it off the rooftop. Nicky jumped off the heater and dove into Johnny, side tackling him to the ground. They landed hard, each scrambling to get their footing.

“No, Nicky don’t!”

I rushed forward with the lead pipe over my shoulder, like a bat. Nicky still had the knife clutched tightly in his right hand. If I didn’t do something soon, he was going to use it on one of my best friends.

“Get back,” Nicky yelled.

He raised his left hand toward me, his right hand clasping the pendant. A cloud of flames and scorching heat swirled up in front of me, throwing me to the ground. I felt the lead pipe roll out of my hand as the world dissolved to black.

Chapter Nine

I struggled against the dark, reaching out for something to pull me back. Nicky still had Johnny trussed up like a calf. There was no telling what he’d do to him. I had to regain my footing. I had to save him.

Blinking away the haze, little by little, I pushed myself up into a sitting position. Nicky was busy tying Johnny to the heating unit. My lead pipe had rolled a good three yards away.

If I could knock my brother out with it, I wouldn’t have to worry about his knife. As useful as my talons were, I didn’t relish the idea of getting close enough to Nicky for him to use his weapon on me. I began to crawl toward the pipe, intent on making no noise.

“Don’t touch that.” Nicky pointed at me without taking his eyes away from the knot he was tying.

Enough of this crap. I scrambled across the roof on my knees, the pipe in my line of sight. Nicky shot toward me, his knife tucked close to his side. We both landed on the pipe at the same time. I reached for it, but Nicky knocked it further away and grabbed my wrists.

“Stop struggling,” he grunted.

There was no way I’d go down without a fight. Nicky should’ve known better. We’d had our scrambles when we were young, and I always held my own.

I tore away my right hand and felt my talons protract. With a swift slash across the space between us, I left three thin trails of blood across Nicky’s face. He grimaced, but didn’t show any other signs of pain.

Instead, he grabbed my wrists again, and threw me up against the second heating unit, crushing me with his body weight and pinning my arms down. We were so close I could smell a combination of engine grease and sweet cologne coming off of him.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Nicky pressed the knife against my side until I gasped. “But if you move again, I’ll be forced to end this little tiff. I’ve got work to do.”

I turned my head away. The angry tears were back. My own brother would dispose of me, just like that, without a second thought. He wasn’t the brother I remembered. But then again, maybe I never really knew him.

“What happened to you?” My voice sounded bitter, even to my ears. “Why are you doing this?”

Nicky blinked at me, his mouth stretching into an insincere smile. “Nothing happened. I just had my eyes opened, that’s all.”

“Opened? To what? To murder?”

He was talking like a born-again cult member, drinking the Kool-Aid and joining the commune.

“No, little sister, to the evils of our kind.” He pulled back the knife from my side. “The supernatural creatures of our world can’t just go around taking lives without consequence. There are rules. And morals. We’re all subjects of law.”

Nicky had always been a big thinker. He’d been fascinated with the moralists of the past. He’d gone through a Gandhi phase, a Socrates phase, and even a John Locke phase. But those had been people from different times. They certainly didn’t go hunting creatures down the way Nicky was doing.

“We have the SI to do that,” I said. “Just let me give your info to the SI and you can walk away from this.”

“Oh come on, you grew up in the same family I did.” Nicky chuckled and shook his head. “Since when have harpies believed in a governmental form of justice? The government just gets in the way. They take ages to prosecute. Years to dole out punishment. This is better.”

Nicky must’ve thought that he was his own carbon copy of the HQ’s justice system. If they could get away with it, so could he. There was no reasoning with his insanity. Someone would get hurt if we delayed this much longer.

I sighed and met his gaze. If I didn’t know better, I’d think those blue eyes were sincere. An almost pleading look washed over his face. He couldn’t go after this monster without my help. I just wanted to get it over with.

“Okay, I’ll get you the dagger.”

In response to my surrender, Nicky’s crushing weight eased a little bit. I squirmed against the grate, freeing my back from its painful position.