Flesh and Blood

His tone said he wasn’t just talking about making less noise. Had he kissed her for a reason beyond thinking he owed it to her? Had he been marking his territory? The anger she couldn’t find before was slowly making its way to the top of her head. ‘If you think—’

Loud, repetitive honking broke the night’s silence. Someone was at the gate.

‘Stay here,’ Mal said.

Without bothering to answer, she left him behind and raced into the house to see what was going on, grabbing her sacre as she hit the foyer. The security camera showed Mal’s ancient sedan outside her gate, Doc at the wheel. He leaned on the horn again as Mal came speeding into view on the monitor. She hit the button to open the gate and went outside, where Velimai and Mortalis stood by Dominic’s car.

What’s happening? Who’s here? Velimai signed.

‘Doc,’ Chrysabelle answered.

With Mal jogging behind, the old gasoline-powered vehicle screeched to a stop in the circular drive and Doc jumped out. He twisted to face Mal. ‘What were you doing in the Pits?’

‘Taking care of business.’

Doc shook his head, clearly incredulous. ‘Ronan could have killed you.’

Mal snorted. ‘And you care because … ?’

Doc’s hands were clenched, his body a fuse waiting to be lit. ‘Because without you, Fi’s gone.’

Mal shot Chrysabelle a look. ‘Fi is gone, Doc. You know that.’

Doc’s fist slammed the car’s side panel, denting it slightly. ‘No, she’s not. I’ve seen her. She’s stuck in some kind of nightmare loop. She shows up every night in the cargo hold and then … ’ He glanced down, shaking his head in obvious anger.

‘And then what?’ Chrysabelle asked as she walked forward.

Doc turned his leopard-yellow eyes to her. ‘And then Mal kills her. She’s stuck repeating the night she died over and over.’ His voice cracked. ‘Every night, she stumbles through those ruins and every night’ – he leveled his gaze at Mal – ‘he rips her throat out.’

‘Is she … aware of what’s happening to her?’

‘Yes,’ he hissed.

‘Holy mother,’ Chrysabelle whispered. Mortalis cursed softly in faeish. How awful for Fi. And for Doc, who so clearly loved her.

Mal’s jaw went slack and he seemed somehow to pale. She knew those memories weren’t easy ones for him. Being reminded of them couldn’t be pleasant. How much worse would it be to have them played out for everyone to see? And poor Fi. To die every night, suffering through the pain and fear …

‘Well,’ she announced loudly, as if volume superseded emotion, ‘there’s got to be something we can do.’

‘There is. But I need to see Dominic first and I can’t find him.’

‘You’re in luck.’ Her voice sounded a lot more chipper than she felt. ‘We’re just about to go see him.’

‘We are?’ Mortalis asked.

‘Velimai will stay here, but yes, the rest of us are,’ Chrysabelle answered.

Mortalis crossed his arms. ‘No. I’ll get Dominic, bring him to the club. We can meet there.’

Chrysabelle pointed her blade at the fae. ‘I realize you’re protecting him, but if you don’t get in that car and drive us to his penthouse immediately, so help me, holy mother, I will slice those horns off your head and insert them into a body cavity.’

Mal snorted. Mortalis frowned. ‘You’ve lost your mind.’

She lifted the sacre a little higher, the sword buzzing with her emotion. ‘Get in the car.’

He did, muttering more incomprehensible things in faeish.

‘Nicely done, comarré.’ Doc started for Dominic’s car. ‘Dominic won’t be happy about this, but he should probably know someone is killing off his customer base, too.’

‘What?’ She stopped, hand in mid-reach for the car door.

Doc paused on his side of the vehicle. ‘Yeah, I stumbled onto a fringe graveyard. Must have been eight, nine piles of ash.’

‘I can’t imagine who would do that.’ Other than Creek. Maybe. He’d had no problems knocking off the fringe attacking her. Chrysabelle swallowed down the suspicion. He’d come to her rescue. That made him one of the good guys, which meant they were technically on the same side.

Weren’t they?

Chapter Twelve

Creek kept to the shadows while on the streets. Not that he needed the protection, but it helped him blend in with every other mortal brave enough to show their face after dark. Those who went out after sundown in this part of town were either looking for trouble in the form of a score, a woman willing to do the most for the money, or a chance to mingle with the other-natural crowd, or they were plain stupid. Regardless, that made for dangerous company.

His kind of night.

An old nylon windbreaker, pulled over his hair and tugged low so it almost covered his eyes, and baggy jeans, which supplied ample room for extra bolts, painted him as just one more punk out for an evening of mayhem and mischief. The jacket also covered the chest holster carrying his crossbow and halm, the lengths of titanium comfortably reassuring against his ribs. He cruised the section of town surrounding Seven, looking for a chance to run into Chrysabelle again. Meanwhile, he might find an opportunity for a little more practice.

Three working girls of the fringe variety hung on the busiest corner, waving at the cars that slowed as they drove past. Creek shook his head and slipped into a doorway across the street to hunker down and wait. The idiot who picked up one of those hookers probably wouldn’t be coming back. Creek’s fingers dug into his empty back pocket for a smoke before he realized what he was doing. Old habits died hard.