Black Beast (25 page)

You have broken the rules.

The accusation made a bitter smile surface on his lips.

Only if I'm caught.

That was the difference between him and the girl. He was never caught.

You were once
, Graymalkin reminded him. And because her pain was his, the thought was devoid of the scorn he would have read into the words, had they been spoken by any other.

The smile disappeared and he felt the dark clouds rise up inside him, making his aura flare in violent arcs as lethal as any solar storm. Fire, water, and air, woven together in intricate strands of magic, pulsing with power in its rawest elemental form.

He had been weaker then, more boy than man.

They had branded the marks of the slave into him with iron, and for the rest of his life the memory of it would be tattooed into his skin. Cut into him with the intent of bleeding him dry. And in doing so, the fools had set a part of him free. Their torture had brought him to limits he hadn't even known he'd had. And he had surpassed it, overcome it. He was a phoenix of blood, rising from the ashes of those who had fallen and suffered before him.

Those who sought mercy from him would find that their pleas fell upon deaf ears.

And oh, yes, blood had spilled that night, and not all of it his.

Sometimes, in the darkness, he could still hear their screams. Their voices, split and reedy, flaking from throats that wept dried blood like old, cracking paint.

He could be as cruel as any shape-shifter. That was his secret, his one cross to bear. That he had gotten a taste for blood-lust and found its flavor suited his palate all too well. Perhaps that was why, in the darkest regions of his frozen heart, he so desired to fuck one of them.

Only a beast of blood could give him the soulless debauchery that he so craved.

The car sped off. The metal infrastructure of most vehicles blocked his magical abilities, but he had still been able to glimpse the dark auras of the creatures within. Not vampires, their aura was not right, but something similar. Something, perhaps, worse.

He had heard that vampires in transition could still walk in the daylight, though the poisons gnawing carnivorously through their system were weakened by the sun's rays.

It appeared that he was not the only one who had a bone to pick with the shifter girl.

Why did you save her?

Graymalkin? Or his own doubts? Was there any difference between the two? Lately, it seemed as though the boundaries between them were wearing thin. He walked away from the site before the shifter could spot him. The humans wouldn't see through his glamor, but for whatever reason, it seemed as if the shifter girl could. Another mystery, added to the growing list.

His familiar was still waiting for a response.

There were many answers. None of them right. Primarily, he had saved her because he needed her alive. But that was circular reasoning. A fallacy.

Finn paused a long moment.

Because now she owes me a debt.

•◌•◌•◌•◌•

The school propelled into motion.

Several people called the cops. Two girls ran up to her, asking if she was all right, and did she want to go to the hospital? The very thought made Catherine blanch.

“No.”

She jumped to her feet, backing away to their dismay. Too late, Catherine realized she should have feigned a limp or other such injury.
Though that might make them more persistent….

“Thanks, but no. Definitely not.”

“But you might have a concussion,” one of the girls protested, “or a hemorrhage—”

A boy nearby cut Nurse Ratched off mid-diagnosis. “Where did you learn the Matrix moves?”

“Um—”

The bus was pulling up in front of the school. Catherine ran for it, breaking through the throng of people, ignoring the girl who said, “You shouldn't move, you might have spinal cord injuries—”

There were other whispers, too, many of them unkind.

“Who tried to run her down? They should get a medal!”

“Don't say that! I think they were really trying to kill her!”

“Serves her right,” the first voice said, now sullen and slightly chagrined.

She collapsed on the first available bus seat, her face dewy with sweat.

Someone had just tried to kill her and she had smelled magic in the air. Was it the same witch as from before, or were there two disparate parties working in tandem? Catherine thought to the men with the red eyes in the car and in her mind, Prey yowled.

The fanged ones
, Predator thought, bristling its agreement.

But they couldn't go out in daylight.

The creatures of her nightmares also had red eyes.

Coincidence?

Catherine was starting to think there was no such thing.

Her suspicions were reinforced when the bus arrived at the library and she saw its adjacent bookstore crawling with cops. Her heart leaped right into her throat.
Someone must have blabbed. Told them where I work. They're going to interrogate me.

She could imagine how that conversation would go.

“Do you have any enemies, miss?”

Just a red-eyed vampire who attacked her through dreams, her ex-best friend's parents, a Triad witch, and about eighty-five percent of the student body. Apart from that—no.

“Just one second, miss. Stay calm. We'll get you the help you need.”

Yeah, no, that wasn't happening.

But if she played reticent, that would only arouse their suspicions further. And if the human cops focused on her, her whole family could be compromised.

Keep calm. You have the forest in your blood.

She left the bus, very slowly, bracing herself. Head held high, she walked towards her workplace and prayed—prayed to every god she knew, living or dead, that her cover would not be blown today. Perhaps the gods stirred, roused just enough to open one ear to her request, because the human cops paid her no attention at all. She couldn't believe her luck.

As Catherine walked to the automatic doors a young policeman was on his way out. He was too busy talking into a cell phone to pay her much notice. They collided. Now he noticed. His eyes flicked up, widening a little. Oh gods, she thought. Oh gods oh gods oh—

“I'm so sorry,” he said, straightening hastily. “Excuse me.”

And he walked away, leaving her awash in relief—

Which quickly morphed into dread of a different kind as she realized the policemen were all coming from the direction of the library bookstore. The puzzle pieces clicked together in her head with frustrating belatedness. Myrna had called earlier to tell her something awful had happened.

Was it…?

Could it be?

No. No way.

Running now, nearly stumbling over the glossy obsidian tiles, she skidded to a stop in front of the open doorway to the Friends of the Library store. Myrna, who was now standing in the midst of the ruin that had once been her workplace, turned around and gave a start when she saw Catherine standing there. Too shocked to announce herself, Catherine could only return her look with one of numbed dismay.

The bookstore looked as though a cyclone had passed through it. A cyclone of malicious sentience, allowing for as much destruction as possible. The trolley with the new releases had been overturned, spilling books and cassette tapes across the aisle. Books were scattered everywhere, pages ripped, entire shelves emptied out. All the cupboards were hanging open. One of their doors hung loosely from its hinges, swaying from the draft Catherine had brought in.

I've brought in more with me than just the wind.

Somebody had been looking for something.

Catherine thought she had a pretty good idea as to what that something might be.

“Catherine!” Myrna said, startling a plainclothes cop into taking a picture of the ceiling instead of the smashed-in shelf. “Oh, thank God you came. I can't get a hold of Sharon—that girl, I swear—but you see what I meant, it's…it's simply awful. I can't believe it.”

“What happened?” she asked, when she could finally speak. “Someone broke in?”

“Yes, through the side window.”

Someone had taped a piece of cardboard over the jagged hole to keep out the wind and rain. There was no glass on the floor, not anymore. Someone must have swept up the pieces.

“Was anything taken?”

“No. The cash register had some bills in it still, and our collection of rare books is still intact.”

They both turned towards the locked case. It had been smashed and sifted through like everything else in the room, but not a single book was missing.

Myrna shook her head. “Those books are worth a lot of money. The police said that this was a textbook case of petty vandalism, probably a local gang, but if it was a gang, why was nothing stolen? What did they want?” Her voice rose with her frustration. “Who would rob a library?”