the Darkest Edge Of Dawn (2010) (21 page)

I couldn't help it. It had been so long since I'd felt like this. My hand curled around the back of his neck as we moved in closer. My chest and stomach became like an explosion of feathers, so light and airy and breathless. Almost there ...

And he wanted it, too. I could feel it against me, see it in the way his gaze had locked back on to my lips. The pressure of his hold increased. One of his hands slid up my back and cupped the back of my head. Our noses brushed. His fingers curled into my hair, tugging at the roots as my head angled.

The first bang on the door sent me jerking back with a gasp.

It took several seconds of banging and Zara's voice calling from the other side before I regained my senses and realized exactly where I was and what I'd been about to do. Hank's arms released me the same moment I pushed back. I slid under the surface of the water, turned, and swam to the edge of the pool as Zara entered with three attendants at her back. I hadn't felt this humiliated since high school.

With a weary sigh, I pulled my heavy, wet, shaken self from the water. Zara stopped in front of me, her wide eyes assessing the soaked walls and upended furniture. "Sorry about the mess," I mumbled, grabbing a wet towel and wrapping it around me. "Just bill me if I broke anything."

A splash sounded behind me, but I didn't turn to see Hank hiking himself out of the pool. Instead, I grabbed my clothes and fled.

"Damn it, Charlie," Hank said. "Wait!"

I didn't stop. I couldn't.

Yeah, it was cowardly of me, but I had to get away. Away from him. Away from Zara. Just ... out of there. I found my way to the large women's locker room, near the main bath, tore off the wet gown, and pulled on my damp clothes, wondering who the hell was controlling my body because it sure as hell wasn't the normal Charlie.

I strapped on my weapons and cell phone and then hurried out of The Bath House, making a beeline down Helios Alley. I didn't need to look at the time on my cell to know that the dinner rush hadn't started. Otherwise Helios Alley would be teeming with lines to the best restaurants and people would already be milling about, shopping, drinking, eating, and enjoying the nightlife in Underground.

My irritation with myself turned to anger with each step I took. Off-worlders just weren't my cup of tea, and I had never thought about Hank in
that
serious of a way before. What was I doing?

For most of our partnership, I'd been happily married to Will. But now that I was divorced and single, free from any chance of ever getting back together with my ex--since, technically, he didn't exist in this realm anymore--I had the freedom to explore other attractions. And apparently, my body had decided to start the explorations whether my mind was ready or not.

God, I felt like an idiot. I never should've
almost
kissed him. And worse, that kind of thing probably happened to him all the time, and now I was just one among many.

Once I reached Topside, I stopped on the sidewalk to catch my breath and refocus my thoughts.

The darkness hung above the skyscrapers, the lights from the buildings illuminating the heavy, swirling mass. Far off in the distance, a green flash snaked through the gray.

Incredibly, I'd been inside of that mass.

How the hell was he doing it? How the hell was Llyran taking control of the darkness? I shuddered softly as my gaze went to Helios Tower; the massive glass dome at its top glowed like a beacon in the dark sky. I needed to figure out the Adonai's interest in me, and how he thought I played into his cause.

I was so lost in thought that I didn't hear the footsteps behind me.

"Charlie Madigan?"

I spun and looked down to see an imp male standing behind me. Three and a half feet tall, wild orange hair, and cocoa skin in a cheap suit and dull dress shoes.

"Who wants to know?"

"I'm with L.D. Collections." He held out a large yellow envelope. Cautiously, I took it. "This is for your ex-husband. He has thirty days." He gave a sharp nod, turned on his heel, and strolled off into the dark shadows.

"Thirty days for what?" I muttered, wondering how long the guy had been following me around as I tore open the envelope and scanned the cover letter. "Twenty-one thousand dollars?!" I yelled toward the direction the imp had taken, but he was already gone.

Will
had been served collection papers.

Apparently, as I read beneath the streetlamp, he was responsible for back mortgage payments on his condo and penalties for defaulting on contracts for the houses he'd been in the process of building. This couldn't be right. And damned if I'd be paying my ex's bills. We were legally divorced.

How the hell had this happ--

Rex.

Following my stay in the hospital after bringing darkness to the city, and during my week at home to recuperate, Rex and I had gone over Will's finances. It was clear from the beginning that Rex lacked the know-how to run Will's fledgling architecture and construction business, so we'd canceled his contracts, found new builders for the projects he'd been working on, and made sure there was insurance to cover crap like this. Rex was
supposed
to have filed the claims. And the condo was
supposed
to have been rented.
Trust me, Charlie,
he'd said.
I've been around for thousands of years. I know how to take care of business.

My gaze focused on nothing and then down at the envelope, eyes widening on the return address label. "Lion's Den Collections!"

L.D. Collections.
Sonofabitch!
A frustrated groan burst from my throat. "I can't believe this." Just great. My ex's debt had been picked up by the biggest organized crime boss in Underground. Grigori Tennin.

My fist curled around the letter. I was going to kill them both.

13

I pulled into the driveway and parked. Will's truck was gone. Emma was still at practice. I called and left a message for Bryn to see how the support meeting went, and then I shoved the collections letter into my bag, slung the strap over my shoulder, and got out, but as soon as my feet hit the concrete, I had that feeling again of being watched.

I closed the door, slipped the keys into my front pocket, and then slowly put my hand on the hilt of my sidearm. I turned to scan the park area across the street, regulating my breathing, trying to focus and open myself to my instincts. I took a few slow steps, hand moving to my Hefty and finger sliding the frequency setting to low as I felt an aura prick my senses.

My footsteps brushed the driveway, sounding loud. The aura became clearer. Blues. Greens. The woods. The water. The tangy scent of grass. Then, like looking down a rifle scope, my sense zoned in on it. Nymph. Oak Tree. Across the street. I turned and fired. The Hefty was silent, except for the small hiss the tag made as it ejected from the barrel.

A black shadow the size of a large predatory cat fell from the tree and hit the grass with a faint thud. I jogged across the street, finding what I had guessed, a nymph. A naked male, Orin to be exact, clutching the tag in his shoulder. "Goddammit," he hissed, and jerked the tag out. "Did you have to shoot me?" The nymph whispered the words that would clothe his naked form.

"It was only low stun." I reached down to help him up, but remained on guard, my Hefty still clutched in my hand.

"Did that address I gave you help?"

"You first. You've been following me, haven't you? You were there this morning on Solomon Street. Is this you acting alone or is it on behalf of Dragon Boy?"

"It's part of my service for lying. Believe me, I would much rather be fulfilling the funeral rites than following your ass around Underground."

"So that
was
you in the back alley."

"No, that was Killian. I'm rotating with him. Pen's getting restless. He wants answers. Wants justice for Daya. We all do."

"Tell him to let us do our job. We want the same thing, too, but if you guys start interfering or distracting us from our work then it could jeopardize everything. You need to back off."

He snorted softly. "You try telling the Druid to back off. He wants a report."

It was my turn to snort. "You can tell him that I don't--"

"Charlie," Orin said with a gentle smile, "if I may ... If one of your family had been murdered, what would you do?"

I opened my mouth and then shut it. I did that twice, my ire completely deflating. "Look, I understand," I admitted. "Believe me, I do. Tell him I have a strong lead on who did this and to give us a chance to do our job. This is what we do. We catch bad guys. He needs to trust me on this."

"Kinfolk trust only Kinfolk."

"Might want to start expanding your circle of friends. You can tell Pen this: it wasn't a jinn. So he can stand his ass down and forget about starting a war." I hiked the strap farther up my sore shoulder, feeling echoes of the horrible pain I'd felt earlier. "I'm beat. Stay out here all night if you want, but I'm going inside."

I didn't look back to see if Orin stayed or disappeared. I meant what I said. I was beat. Falling off a high rise and making water tornadoes sort of does that to a girl.

With Rex gone, Em in school, and the hellhound in the kennel, the house was a blessed space. No noise, no distractions. Just me, my bed, and hopefully a long nap. Before I went upstairs, I rooted through the junk drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a red marker and wrote
FIX THIS
on the collections envelope. Then I went into the guest room downstairs and left it on Rex's bed.

With every step upstairs, it seemed an old ache reappeared. By the time I reached my bedroom, all I could think about was lying down and shutting my eyes. As I sat and toed off my shoes, I saw that Rex had been at work, sweeping up the debris on the bathroom floor and boarding up the stained glass window that had shattered, and my busted bathroom door was gone.

After removing my damp clothes and putting on dry lounge pants and a T-shirt, I dropped onto my mattress and pulled the down comforter over my cold body.

What I got instead of sleep was a good, long look at my ceiling fan.

Aaron's words kept echoing in my head. Divine being. Divine.

What the hell did that mean?

I let out a loud groan, threw my arms wide, relaxed my muscles until it felt like I was sinking into the mattress, and then I began my breathing techniques. My gaze stayed on the fan, turning slowly. Around and around.

Eventually my mind began to clear. My eyelids fell, all my focus on my breathing.

Did you see what Jen wore to school? I'd never let my ten-year-old wear that.

This is Doctor Harmon's office calling to remind you of your appointment next Monday at eleven.

Carrie! Who the hell is running the water? I'm in the fucking shower!

Words became clatter. The clatter of a thousand conversations. Louder and louder. Building and building, until I shot up, gasping, my ears ringing and my head throbbing with leftover vibrations.

Jesus!
I rubbed both hands down my face, catching a glimpse of my forearms. "No. Oh, no ..."

They weren't blood vessels. How could they be? They were faint and blue, though, running beneath the surface of my skin in patterns, patterns eerily similar to the ancient, unknown script on the warehouse walls.

I sat there in a stupor, my arms out in front of me, resting on my legs, as the panic rose higher and higher. My throat closed, so dry and thick it felt like sand had been poured into my mouth.

"No, no, no, no ..." I started to rub my arms, noticing that the patterns were everywhere, and, becoming frantic, I tried to rub everywhere, erase them, get them off me. And slowly, very slowly, the higher my panic rose, the dimmer the images became until finally my skin returned to normal. I let out a laugh, like some demented old witch. Normal. What the hell was normal anymore?

I lay down, curled onto my side, and pulled the covers to my chin, hoping I'd eventually fall asleep and determined to stay like that until I did.

When I woke, it was to Emma's kiss, telling me she was heading to bed. Must be after dinner, I realized, lifting my head slightly off the pillow to eye the clock. "Did you eat and do your homework?" I asked, half in sleep.

"Yes, Momma," she said, using her best impression of her grandmother. The gentle caretaker, the southern voice. "You keep right on resting now, ya hear?"

"Hah," I slurred and let my head sink back down into the pillow.

"I am
not
moving to the League. And that's final."

I stood at the kitchen counter with my morning coffee. We'd been at it now for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of trying to tell my kid that, despite the ward room, I thought she'd be safer at the League while I dealt with the Llyran situation. You'd think being kidnapped by a deranged noble would've instilled a sense of self-preservation in her.

But then, I had to remind myself, I was dealing with an irate preteen who could go from fine and reasonable one minute to hellbent and irrational in the next. Though I was the
only
one who seemed to have the ability to affect her moods like this.