Grim Rites (2 page)

“
S
hall
we go over that once more, Amber?” Jon asked, leaning back in the chair that sat on the opposite side of the table to me.

I’d never been on the wrong side of the interview table before, and if I was honest, the view wasn’t really that much different. But the feeling in the pit of my stomach sure as hell was, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“How many more times, Jon? They attacked me and I acted in self-defence.”

“There are eight dead bodies out there, Amber, you’re telling me you did all that yourself and you expect me to just believe it.”

“No, as I said, Nic helped me.”

It was hard to keep my expression neutral, when all I really wanted to do was race to the nearest bathroom and wash the blood from under my finger nails. The street had been a mess, and the warm feeling of their blood sliding across my skin wasn’t something I could just wipe from my memory.

“And when did he get there?” Jon needled as he sat forward in his seat and laid his hands across the table. My temper began to flare and it took every ounce of what little self-control I had left to keep myself in check. This was just what he wanted, the perfect excuse to get rid of me. If he could spin it in the press that I’d gone off the rails and murdered eight innocent people….

“Jon, listen, I’ve told you over and over. They were shifters; it was revenge for what happened to their friend the other night. They jumped me on the street and I fought back with the help of Nic.”

He flopped back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess we’ll just have to wait for the blood tests to come back. Then, at least, we’ll be able to corroborate some of your story.”

“So, am I free to go?” I asked, pressing my palms against the table in a kind of push-up motion.

“I’m going to need your gun and your badge….”

“What for?” I said, the hostility in my tone unmistakable.

“Until we look into all of this, I’m going to have to suspend you. Come on, you know the drill.”

I slipped my badge from my pocket and slammed it down on the table, which was bolted to the floor.

“And your gun?”

“It was taken as evidence by forensics … you know, in the last case I solved.” I said, bitterness coating every word.

“Don’t go too far, we need you available to answer questions….”

I didn’t wait for him to finish; instead, I shoved up from the table, sending my chair clattering to the floor before I spun for the door.

“Amber, you know I never wanted it to be like this, but I’ve got to follow protocol.”

“Were you following protocol when you sent Graham half a file that wound up nearly killing him?”

“We’re going there again? I thought we were past that….”

“Go to Hell, Jon.” I said, and pushed open the door, stepping out into the main hallway that led past the Elite office.

My pulse thundered in my throat as I hurried down the floor toward the main exit. I was mad, seriously pissed off, and Jon hadn’t done anything to help ease my temper. But, if I was honest about everything, I was angrier at myself.

Maybe
scared
would be a better word.

I didn’t know what happened; I couldn’t remember killing those shifters, and yet, I knew I hadn’t woken up bathed in their blood because they’d all gone
kamikaze
on themselves.

The demon mark burned and I cringed. Luckily, the black veins extending out of it had receded back into my body. I’d have had a hell of a time trying to explain that to the forensic guys who had come to take swabs from my hands and face.

Was it taking me over? Is that what the blackout had been about? That and the overwhelming urge to rip my attackers limb from limb; that had to be a demon thing. But I couldn’t be sure. Demons didn’t hang around to chat psychology or the inner workings of their minds. Not usually anyway.

Reaching the foyer, I paused as my gaze came to rest on Nic. He sat on one of the hard plastic seats in the waiting area, the front of his white T-shirt covered in blood, his head thrown back and resting on the wall behind him. From where I stood, I could just make out the smudge of his eyelashes as they sat against his cheeks.

“When did they let you out?” I asked, coming to a halt next to him.

“About half an hour ago,” he answered, slowly straightening up, stretching his arms up over his head as he yawned. The movement caused the bloodstained shirt to stick to his chest. “What did they ask you?”

“The usual stuff, basically just the same questions over and over. I guess Jon really hoped he would find a way to trip me up.”

Nic grimaced and pushed onto his feet. The act of going from sitting to standing put me at a disadvantage and he suddenly towered over me.

“You want to get coffee or something?” he asked hopefully.

“Covered in blood? Not particularly,” I said, gesturing to the front of my shirt.

But it wasn’t as though I could go home; the forensics were still combing the area and the last thing I wanted to see was all the blood still staining the sidewalk. No, what I really wanted to do was run and hide from everything that happened. It wasn’t going to be possible but it didn’t mean I didn’t feel like it.

“You could come back to mine, I’ll take the couch if you want to crash for a while…” he said, and the sudden intensity in his gaze made me want to squirm under his scrutiny.

Was it good idea, going back to his place? What if I blacked out again and woke up covered in Nic’s blood?

“You won’t hurt me, Amber, I trust you…” he said, as though he could read the insecurities swirling in my head.

“But you don’t know that for certain,” I answered. Sighing, I pushed my hand back through my hair and grimaced as my fingers became tangled. My hair was beginning to harden with the dried blood.

“Fine, but if anything happens….”

Nic grinned, “I’ll be certain to handcuff you to the bed.” There was a wicked glint in his eyes that suggested he wasn’t entirely teasing me. My head was suddenly filled with images of him handcuffing me to his bed. Heat spread up my chest and into my face before I could stop it.

“You’re actually thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“No!” I said, a little too forcefully, and I was instantly reminded of the famous line from Hamlet about ladies and their protests. “So what if I was? Last time I checked, the Thought Police weren’t a real thing.”

Stalking toward the front door, I tried to keep my back straight and my head high. The muffled sound of Nic’s laughter behind me only made the heat in my face flame more.

I was a dork, a giant dork, one that needed a giant sign over her head that read, “dork available to make complete and utter fool of herself for shits and giggles”. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Nic caught up to me and caught my arm; the feel of his hand against my skin sent little bubbles of excitement racing in my veins.

“I’m sorry for laughing,” he said, the grin still firmly fixed in place on his face.

“You do realise that continuing to grin at me like a smug idiot isn’t doing much for your apology?”

“I know, but I’ve got a pretty good reason to….” I waited for him to continue but he remained silent.

“Fine, what is it?”

“Well, it’s just, I remember rather distinctly the first time I ever kissed you. You pretty much threatened to tear me a new one if I ever did it again.”

“Because you kissed me to help you hide from someone else.”

He sighed and released his grip on me. “You going to hold it against me forever?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

He moved in closer, close enough that I could see a swirl of blue right in the centre of his grey eyes. “Well, just so you know, I wouldn’t mind handcuffing you to my bed for reasons other than you trying to kill me….” There was a huskiness to his voice that I hadn’t noticed before and it tightened things low in my belly. I wanted to crush my body against his, to feel his lips on mine.

“I thought you said all that stuff was too
Fifty Shades of Grey
for you?” I said. The second the words left my mouth, I cringed inwardly.

Shit, shit, shit, what the hell was wrong with me?

“What?” Nic said, a smile curling his lips, and the hungry look he’d been giving me melted away.

I was definitely a dork.

“Never mind, but if the offer of your place is still open, I’m definitely going to take you up on it. I need to get cleaned up before I can go and see Graham. Please tell me you’ve got a shower and hot water?”

Nic threw his arm across my shoulder, “I got you covered on the shower and hot water … I’m just not sure about the towel situation. A hand towel will cover all the important bits anyway, right?”

I stared at him in horror and he laughed, the sound rumbling from the middle of his chest; it lifted my mood for the first time that evening.

“Honestly, Amber, anyone would think you’d never heard of jokes before,” he said.

I smiled, and perhaps if the situation had been different, I would have laughed along with him. But there was only so much lightening that could be done to my mood. The thought of laughing after what I’d done—well, it just didn’t sit right with me. I’d killed all those men, and no matter what they’d tried to do to me, they hadn’t deserved to die so horribly; nobody deserved that except maybe the demon who’d given me the mark in the first place. The sooner I could get rid of it and send that creature back to Hell where it belonged, the better it would be for everyone….

S
tanding
beneath the water’s spray, I watched the crimson colour as it swirled away down the drain. Why did it always come back to this? Every time I finally thought I was getting somewhere with the Elite, I found myself back at square one. And for what?

Was this what I wanted from my life now? I’d started working for the Elite in order to find out who’d killed my father. Well, I had that answer now, so why continue? Was there a point to any of it anymore?

If I was being honest with myself, I didn’t have the same drive I’d had before. There was far more death and destruction than I’d been expecting; some of it had been caused by me, and how I was supposed to reconcile that within myself—well, I just didn’t have the answer to that.

But what else could I do? From the moment my father died, I’d been so determined to find a way to bring his killer to justice. And now that I knew that was me, how was I going to pay for my sins?

Was helping people my chance at redemption? I certainly wasn’t a hero; nobody would write songs or make movies about my life and my eternal struggle with the war that raged within me, a war I was pretty sure I was rapidly losing. I dropped my gaze to the swirling circle branded into my skin. The black edges of it raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

To the rest of the world, it looked like a normal tribal tattoo, but this didn’t belong to any tribe on Earth. It wasn’t until you really stared at it, allowing the edges of the swirling lines to blend into the rest of the surrounding skin, that you could truly see it as it moved and shifted against my body. A living, pulsing entity all of its own.

It shifted again, the words “
Animae Damnotorum
” appearing through the black lines and my body shuddered. “
Soul of the Damned
”; it wasn’t exactly something you wanted to see written across your own body, particularly when it wasn’t by choice. How anyone willingly sold their soul and could live with the brand was beyond me. Wearing mine made my skin crawl.

Flipping off the spray of water, I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in the fluffy black towel Nic had given to me. At least he really had been joking when he’d threatened only having hand towels. I was comfortable in my own skin—well, as comfortable as any woman was going to be—but that didn’t mean I fancied strolling around someone else’s apartment with something that
just
covered the important bits….

Pausing in front of the mirror, I could just make out my outline through the steam coating the glass and I flipped open the cabinet. It was nosy as all get out, but I didn’t care; poking through other people’s medicine cabinets was a little like getting a glimpse into their souls. You could tell a lot about a person’s intentions by what they kept inside it.

For example, if the cabinet was ridiculously tidy, everything coordinated, their labels uniformly facing forward, with focus-enhancing drugs alongside caffeine pills, you were probably dealing with a control freak. Of course, the opposite also applied. If the cabinet was in complete disarray, dangerous prescription medications placed alongside benign over-the-counter drugs, packets split wide open, spilling their contents across the shelves and a general appearance of uncleanliness … well, it probably wasn’t kept by someone you wanted to entrust your life to if it came down to fighting your way out of a tight corner.

Nic fell somewhere in the middle, with the usual pain pills and bandages I’d expect to see for someone who hunted monsters for a living. His razor sat on the middle shelf, the bottle of shaving foam spilling over and down the side, which made me smile, until something along the back wall caught my eye. Reaching through the mishmash of items, I ran my fingers along the circle and a frisson of power darted beneath my skin.

A flash of imagery crashed through my skull the way a bull might charge through a china shop. Blood, screaming, the smell of incinerated flesh invaded my nostrils, and I was gagging as my lungs burned, filling with water.

I jerked my hand away and the world returned: the stark bathroom, white tile running with moisture after the shower I’d had. Sweat beaded along my brow and my finger still tingled.

He was a hunter, but what in all Hell was he doing with a witch hunter symbol etched into the back of his medicine cabinet? My stomach dropped and I pressed my hand against my chest as my breaths came in small, shallow pants.

Get a grip, Amber, it’s probably nothing!

I fought against the feeling of betrayal that opened up in the centre of my chest. Along with the Shadow Sorcerers, it was long believed the witch hunters had died out. After the purge, they weren’t needed anymore and went underground, but the originals, the ones who hunted witches because it ran in their blood—they’d completely died off.

Or at least that was what I’d always been lead to believe. But then, everything I’d thought I knew had been a lie. Why would this be any different?

But if Nic was a witch hunter, then it was literally in his blood, a calling that couldn’t be denied. So, despite knowing what I was, why hadn’t he tried to take my head yet?

“You nearly done in there?” Nic called out. His voice sounded as though he was standing directly outside the door and my heart started to gallop in my chest.

“Yeah, I just need a few more….”

Who was I kidding? I needed more than a few minutes to digest this—there wasn’t enough time on Earth to get to grips with it. And anyway, none of it made sense. If he was what the symbol said he was, then I wasn’t going to hang around here playing roommate.

Tightening the towel around my chest, I jerked the door open and came face-to-face with him.

His gaze met mine, before it dropped lower, the intensity in his eyes increasing as he realised I was wearing nothing but the black towel he’d given me.

“I didn’t mean … but hey, I can’t say I’m not pleased with this development….” There was a huskiness to his voice that tightened things low in my gut, and the demon mark tingled. It would be so easy to give into my carnal desires. To sate myself with his body.

“No!” I said, more to myself than to Nic and he jerked his gaze up to meet mine once more.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” he asked, staring past me into the bathroom. After the way he’d found me earlier in the night, he was probably expecting to see a collection of dead bodies piled around the toilet.

“What the hell is that thing?” I asked, jerking my arm back in the direction of the bathroom and the still-open medicine cabinet.

“What’s what?” he asked, confusion filling his face.

Anger bubbled in my veins and power crowded my head. The light bulb hanging overhead exploded in a burst of sparks and cascading glass that rained down over our heads.

Nic jumped, covering his head with his hands as he stared at me, a little wide eyed.

“What was that for, Amber—Christ, what are you thinking?” The huskiness I’d heard in his voice had disappeared, replaced with an anger that threatened to rival my own.

“You’re a witch hunter,” I said.

“Yeah, I’m a hunter. I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“Not just a hunter. Don’t play me for a fool, you’re a witch hunter, Nic—don’t lie to me, not now, not now I’ve seen the mark.” Anger continued to bubble in my veins as he shook his head, tiny shards of glass falling from his hair.

He stormed past me into the bathroom and slammed the cabinet door back against the wall, causing the mirror to crack straight down the centre. A stupid part of my brain wanted to chastise him for bringing seven years’ bad luck on his head, but I bit the words back behind the hurt that welled within me.

“This thing?” he asked, pointing to the mark on the wall. I could still feel the tingling burn of it against my fingers.

“Yeah, Nic, that
thing,
” I said, forcing myself to sound stronger than I truly felt.

“It’s not mine, Amber, it belonged to my brother!”

The world swam in colour and I gripped the door frame hard enough to chip my nails. It wasn’t his. He wasn’t the one after me, and his brother was dead….

“Shit…” I said, a mixture of relief and embarrassment flooding down my limbs, turning them to jelly.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Nic answered. The look of anger and irritation in his face made me shrink back on myself and I took a trembling step back.

I wasn’t afraid of him, but I’d never realised before just how much his opinion mattered to me. When had that happened? Because whenever it had occurred, well, it was going to be a pain in the ass to deal with. And after the stunt I’d just pulled, things were going to be awkward with a capital A.

“You can take my room down the hall; I need to shower.” There was a disappointment in his eyes that I hadn’t been expecting and it cut me straight to the core.

He slammed the door, leaving me to stand in the hall surrounded by shards of broken glass, and my heart sank in my chest once more. He hated me, and if I was honest, I couldn’t really blame him.