the Darkest Edge Of Dawn (2010) (10 page)

I didn't answer, instead letting my angry footsteps carry me up the stairs. I refused to argue about it. The beast needed to go back to Charbydon. I was too pissed off to stay in the same room with Rex right now. He continually went behind my back and broke all my rules. What the hell was that going to teach my kid?

I removed my boots and jeans and then pulled on a pair of Lycra yoga pants and sneakers, stopping to look at myself in the full-length mirror to put my hair into a ponytail. Though my appetite had been insane the last two months, I'd still lost weight since the darkness ritual. Shadows lurked beneath my eyes, and I knew it wasn't just weight I was losing. My body was worn out, tired of fighting on the inside. Having two opposing powers inside of me was taking its toll, exhausting me.

I gathered the long, wavy hair that fell to the small of my back. It was darker than Emma's auburn-brown locks, but it fit my personality, and I liked the way the copper and mahogany tones mixed with the brown and matched my eyes. My lips pursed, taking the natural fullness out of them as I examined my reflection. My skin was paler. Hips a little thinner. But otherwise, I looked like the same old Charlie. Only exhausted.

A long exhale breezed through my lips, as my reflection dimmed.

What the--

My image completely disappeared along with the mirror, until I was looking at the wall beyond. I blinked hard, seeing strange linked patterns behind my eyelids. Damn. I must be more tired than I thought. I shook my head, knowing it wasn't possible to see
through
the mirror; it was just my mind playing tricks. When I chanced a look again, the mirror was there and my reflection scowled back at me.

The back door slammed, echoing through the house. I stepped to the right, leaning toward the window to see Rex's shadowy form in the yard below, leading Brimstone to the kennel. Emma's door down the hall slammed, too, this one rattling the walls and making me flinch. Terrific. Now everyone was pissed.

I rubbed my hands down my face, hearing Rex return from the kennel. I thought about going downstairs to reinforce my argument. But it was pointless. I was right, he was wrong. And we'd do nothing but go around in circles. I was the parent. Emma might hate me for it, but my job was to protect her.

Trying to get through to Rex might be pointless, but my kid was another matter.

My need to have her understand propelled me down the hallway to her room. I knocked softly, wondering what had happened to the old days when she thought I could do no wrong and sought me out for the smallest comfort. She didn't answer. I pushed the door open to find her lying on her stomach across her bed, using the large, brown, stuffed bunny Will had given to her last Easter as a pillow.

I sat on the bed. "Emma, you have to think rationally about this."

She rolled onto her side, raising up on one elbow and looking down the length of her thin body to where I sat. Her finger twined around the bunny's ear. "Mom, you don't know Brim. You can't say that unless you spend some time with him." She sat up, cross-legged, pulling the bunny into her lap. "You're the only one of us who hasn't and that's why he doesn't trust you yet."

"Can you hear what you're saying? That thing has to trust
me
? You're talking about a
hellhound,
Emma. Trust doesn't exist with them."

Her full lips went thin and her chin lifted, the stubborn expression reminding me of Bryn from earlier. She cocked her head as her eyes took on a challenging copper gleam. "Well how about trusting
me,
then? I'll be twelve next month. I'm not stupid. I wouldn't put myself in danger."

"Not on purpose, no."

Her mouth dipped. "He's calm around me. I've been reading about hellhounds and they're loyal to their packs, so loyal they'd die for them, and--"

"But we're
not
his pack, kiddo."

"We
are,
" she stressed, growing upset that she couldn't break through to me. "He's probably never even had a pack before. Daddy said they probably got him as a puppy and just kept him chained up all alone."

"That's even more reason to be wary of him. If he's never been around a pack before, he doesn't even know the rules, how to act, the boundaries ... He's a dangerous animal and should go back to Charbydon."

I tried to soften the reality of what I was saying with my tone, but she just shook her head, tears shining in her round eyes, her cheeks flushing. "He wouldn't know how to survive in the wild! Can't you just try? For once, just try something someone else's way? How about my way? I'm part of this family, too. I should have a say like everyone else."

"Emma."

"We'll vote on it."

"No, we won't vote on it. This is my house, and my money that's paying for Brim's food, which he isn't even eating by the way."

"He doesn't like dry dog food. Daddy even told you, but you don't even listen to him."

"Yeah, well,
Daddy
doesn't know everything. Maybe you should start listening to your mom once in a while. I know some things too."

She stood, clutching her stuffed animal and letting out a hurtful laugh. "No, you don't! You don't know when to trust your own daughter! Like, when were you going to tell me about Daddy, huh? I know something's wrong with him. He's not himself ... and you know it!"

With that she flung the bunny at me and ran out of the room, slamming the door and leaving me sitting on her bed in stunned silence.

I hugged the bunny and glanced around at the room, the room of a very small girl--lilac walls, white furniture, floral quilt--but she wasn't so little anymore. She wanted some independence, to make her own choices, and even to make this room her own by hiding what she called the "childish" wall color with posters.

My fingers curled around the bunny, digging into the soft fur.

Here I was spouting off good parenting, and I was still lying to my own kid.

All this time ... there just never seemed to be a right time to tell her the truth about her dad. And then Thanksgiving had come, Christmas was approaching ... There were so many reasons
not
to pull her world out from under her. And they were all excuses. In the end, there were no good reasons for delaying the truth.

And if her father had had an ounce of patience and a fucking spine and hadn't sold his soul to a Revenant in the first place, we wouldn't even be in this situation.

I wanted to choke him, to squeeze him into a little ball, to scream and cry and let it all out. But he'd taken that away from me, too. One final betrayal to mark the end of our relationship. My throat thickened and I blinked hard, blocking the tears from spilling over, and glanced down. What I saw made me throw the bunny into the air and leap off the bed with a shout.

My back hit Emma's desk, almost knocking over her chair. The
bunny
landed on the bed and bounced, falling onto the carpet. What was once a stuffed animal was now a solid, fur-covered ball. Just like I'd imagined.

A hard shudder ran through me as my brain floundered to make sense of what I'd done. Same as the Abaddon chick I'd turned to ice for kidnapping my child. Hadn't meant to, it just happened. My Charbydon powers went far beyond creating nightmares in the mind of my opponent, to being able to actually manifest those nightmares.

I hadn't meant to. I lifted my trembling hands and stared down at my palms. What if I'd been holding my kid? My stomach knotted, and a cold sweat broke out on my skin.
Dear God.

I raced from the room, down the steps, and headed outside, aiming for the track that ran around the soccer and baseball fields across the street.

Run. Just run. Don't think, just run.

7

Forty-five minutes later, I returned to the house sweaty and spent.

Muffled voices came from the living room. A quick glance as I passed showed Emma and Rex practicing her lines for the school play. There were four lines, but Rex was determined to make Emma the best Cobweb in
A Midsummer Night's Dream
that Hope Ridge School for Girls had ever seen. I left them alone, swiped a piece of garlic bread from the baking sheet atop the stove, shoved it in my mouth, jogged up the steps, and then went through the motions of stripping down while devouring the bread.

As I stepped into the shower, my stomach twisted irritably, wanting more food. From the looks of the kitchen, Rex and Emma had already eaten, but there were probably plenty of leftovers in the oven, since Rex had been making extra lately to accommodate my ravenous appetite.

I turned up the heat, letting the hot water work its magic on my muscles and stress level, and leaving myself wide open for the guilt to worm its way in. I gave Rex a lot of hell, more than he deserved. It was just hard to pull my emotions out of the equation when everything he did and said was being done by Will's body.

I scrubbed my face with the washcloth, deciding to hurry because the heat was starting to turn my hungry stomach into a nauseated one.

I washed and conditioned my hair, rinsing and then quickly shaving my legs, spurred on by the thought of dinner. When the voice spoke beyond the curtain, it scared the shit out of me and made me jump.

"I hear you found a few bodies today, Charlie. Any leads. Any ...
theories
?"

I stilled, the razor on my calf, the ball of my foot resting against the corner of the tub and hot water beating down on my back.
Jesus Christ.
I knew that voice.

A serial killer was in my bathroom.

Dear God. Emma! A jolt of adrenaline-fueled fear shot through my body. Pulse, blood pressure, muscles ... Everything readied as I prepared to run for my kid and get her into her bedroom, the only room in the house with additional wards, ones made in blood--that of myself, Magnus mage, Aaron, my earth mage sister, Bryn, and two of the powerhouse Elders at the League of Mages. The amount of blood it had taken made it the equivalent of a Fort Knox panic room. It was the first thing I'd done after getting home from the hospital two months ago.

"Relax, Detective. This is just between you and me. And for the record," Llyran said in a conversational tone steeped in haughtiness, "killing children holds little to no value. It's a question of payoff. The effort expended is more than the return. And killing that Revenant in your living room is a waste of my time. He'll just flit away and find someone else's life to ruin. Might want to work on your aura, though."

Relief flowed through my veins, so strong I nearly dropped to my knees, not caring that he had read my strong emotions; they'd been too swift for me to block anyway.

Calm down, Charlie. Focus on Em.

One of my most frequent lessons with Aaron had been learning how to forge a link with my child, a way to connect with her emotions, to feel her presence and state of mind. And after her kidnapping by Mynogan and his thugs, there was no way I ever wanted to feel that helpless again, to
not
know if she was okay. I wasn't as calm or as focused as I should be, but this was one thing I'd semi-perfected. I closed my eyes and summoned the link, that joyful, unbreakable bond with my child. It wasn't as strong as usual, but when the emotions poured in--humor, determination, nervousness--I knew she was still practicing her lines downstairs. Neither she nor Rex had any idea Llyran was here, in my bathroom.

Envisioning a slamming door, I severed the link, releasing a controlled breath and returning my attention back to Llyran. He was telling the truth about not harming my family. Was he also telling the truth about the rest of his statement, that he only killed for reason and motive? He knew about the warehouse murders. Was he the killer, an accomplice, or was he just taking credit?

"What do you want, Llyran?"

I was completely bare. No weapons. No way out. My grip on the razor tightened. His outline moved beyond the white shower curtain, pacing from one end of the floor to the other.

Llyran ignored the question as though I hadn't uttered a word. "I suppose you're wondering what I'm doing here in your bathroom."

"That, and how the hell you got into my house." My mind scrambled for a plan, any plan, but I didn't have much to work with, unless stabbing him with the blunt edge of a Wonder Smooth Vibrating Razor was a plan.

"Oh, that part was easy, Charlie. I can mask myself ... make myself into an undetectable wisp of air. You can't see me, smell me, sense me ... until it's too late." His outline stopped at the sink, his height, slumping somewhat, giving me the impression that he was leaning back on the countertop.

"So you broke into my house just to tell me that?" I reached for the bar of soap with my other hand. If he came for me, it was going right into his eye. Might give me a chance to make it to the bedroom and the night table drawer where I kept an extra set of weapons.

Small clinks and movement echoed above the shower spray. The faint scent of my perfume reached my nose, and I knew the creepy bastard was going through my things, examining my toiletries, picking them up, setting them back down. "Nice," he muttered. "You see, the thing is, Charlie, you and I are a lot alike. Unique. Determined. Powerful. We both kill for reasons we believe in."