Blood Before Sunrise (7 page)

Was I still?

I stepped from the cowl of darkness into my solid form. I had no desire to travel unseen, though my near brush with death—or something worse—suggested that traveling under the cover of shadow might have been the wiser choice. Ignoring my better judgment, I walked with a swagger that would have set a gangbanger back on his heels. Throwing myself out there like a fresh piece of meat was a fuck-you to whoever had slung a magic arrow at my head. A
big
fuck-you. I was pissed and didn’t care who knew it.

It wasn’t quite midnight, and Seattle was barely gearing up. I cut across First Avenue, hit Stewart Street, and headed toward the Market. Along with the Space Needle, Pike Place Market is one of Seattle’s most notable icons. Probably why I always felt compelled to go there, no matter the time of day. Humans had always drawn my curiosity, as well as the places they frequented. I was intrigued by the normalcy of their actions, the sense of safety that prompted them to operate with their guards down. False comfort. I knew from experience that ignorance was bliss. I envied them that ignorance, and I wished like hell I could get mine back.

The tails of my duster bounced against my heels as I walked. Heavily scented air caressed my face—a musty smell of brine, fish, and green things—the waterfront making its way to me. My steps against the cobbled sidewalk ticked in precise rhythm to my internal clock. I counted the seconds:
one, two, three, four
…until my anger had finally begun to subside. I stared up at the Public Market sign glowing bloodred against the backdrop of darkness.
Blood
…A shiver ran up my spine like tiny insects. My blood happened to be special. It had brought Tyler back from the brink of death. I was so unique, in fact, I’d become the prey of an unknown hunter. Tonight’s near miss had been proof enough of that.

Tall buildings loomed to my left, their mirrored windows winking in the glowing light of streetlamps, the tops swallowed by dark night. As I paused midstep, the feeling of insects traveling the highways of my skin intensified. Someone, or some
thing
, was watching me. Instinctively I reached with my right hand for my left shoulder blade, where my katana usually hung. I’d left it at home—
lovely
—so I fingered the hilt of my dagger instead. I never used guns. Too impersonal.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…,” I whispered, standing still as a statue as I tried to gauge the location of my hidden admirer. A breeze rustled my hair, bringing with it a tang that burned my nostrils. The scent was unfamiliar, but that didn’t mean anything. Friend or foe, I’d learned months ago that creatures scarier than I roamed at the edge of the shadows.

What happened next is still hazy in my memory. Surreal is the best way to describe it, but time meant something different to me. And though I’m sure everything passed in real time, to my perception it passed in the blink of an eye.

A falcon appeared out of the shadowed night, its white belly nearly scraping the top of my head in passing. Something glowed in the grip of its talons, a bright green gem dangling from a silver chain. The keening sound, like a war cry, screeched from the bird’s beak, and it dropped its cargo, tinkling at my feet before coming to rest. I looked to the sky, determined to track the bird’s passage. Climbing high above the streetlamp’s luminescence, it landed atop a nearby building as if waiting to see what I’d do.

The remnant left by the falcon cast a dull green glow at my feet; heat slithered up from the cobbles, warming my ankles through the heavy boots. And as if I needed a distraction—the protesting whine of tires sliding across pavement—a horn blared in warning, followed by the crunch of metal and plastic.
Goddamn it
.

Once the chain reaction started, it could only end in one place—right at my feet. I dipped and scooped the
glowing green gem up in my hands and pushed, hard, with both feet, catapulting myself a good ten yards in the air. Shadow joined with flesh, consuming my physical body and concealing me in the safety of my Shaede form.

Both cars ground to a mangled halt where I’d stood, one stunned driver gripping her steering wheel. The other flew from his seat with adrenaline-infused speed, his eyes wide and disbelieving as he searched the space around and beneath his car. “Shit!” he hollered above the mounting commotion. “Did anybody see that? There was a girl standing right here! Right fucking here! What the hell happened to her?”

Feathery wisps, shades of my corporeal form, drifted to the street a good fifty yards from the crash scene. Red and white flashing lights bounced off the surrounding structures as the first fire trucks arrived on the scene. Emergency personnel swarmed their patients, and the man’s voice drifted down the street, echoing toward me. “…Right in front of my goddamned car. No, I haven’t been drinking! Jesus!”

The contents of my hand warmed my preternatural skin. Fist facing the sky, I slowly opened my palm, fingers unfolding like flower petals under a summer sun. A green gem, humming with energy and buried in a nest of pale silver rope, it shone like moonlight bouncing off a green sea. I took the delicate silver between my fingers, letting the gem dangle.
Fathomless
. The stone had an unmistakable depth to it that I could neither understand nor explain. As I looked deep into the softly glowing stone, infinity lay stretched out before me, with no beginning and no end, only endless green.

I’d never been hypnotized, but warmth seemed to blanket me. Calm blossomed from my chest, and the sound of time passing in my soul quieted for the barest moment. My mind went blank, and I felt as though I stood at the end of a long, dark tunnel, staring out at a tiny point of light. It was a universe away, yet just within my grasp.

The sense of peace passed like a breaker rolling in toward shore, and fear welled thick and hot in my throat to replace it. Fingers relaxed, the silver ropelike chain slipped from my grasp, the chiming tinkle of gem and silver against cobbles awakening me from my trance. Strobes of red and white light had been joined by blue, pulsing in my vision like a heartbeat. Green warmth radiated from the ground at my feet. I looked down, retrieved the pendulum in my fist, and stuffed it into my pocket. It didn’t want to be ignored, this bauble; its warmth soaked through my pocket and spread to my thigh.

Time to go home
. This had been one hell of a night.

Chapter 6

S
tepping out of the old freight elevator that served as an entrance to my apartment, I found the studio empty. Tyler had stayed away, and that was saying a lot, considering how he preferred to be stuck to me like Super Glue lately. I was basically over the whole episode, but having a knife held to the chest by a loved one sends a pretty strong message. Though I regretted doing it after my temper cooled, I wasn’t quite ready to eat crow. He’d been wrong, plain and simple. And when I’ve been offended, I’m not a run-away-and-cry-in-my-pillow type of girl. I’m a jab-someone-with-something-sharp kind of girl, and if he wanted to be with me, he’d just have to get used to that.

I discarded my duster, hanging it on a dining room chair, and absentmindedly shucked my boots. I let my feet sink into the deep pile of carpeting that marked my living room and slid down onto the overstuffed chair, propping my feet up on the coffee table. Warmth pulsed at my thigh, and I dug in my pocket, pulling out my strange new bauble by the chain. The gem had grown dark, its previous glow a tiny twinkle of light somewhere in the fathomless center of green. What was this thing? It looked like a pendulum. The gem was a pointed teardrop, and the fastener of the chain was a large silver loop and toggle. Unfastened, the gem dangled from the toggle, allowing the chain to be held by the loop. It hummed with energy, a powerful magic, indeed.

I couldn’t just leave it sitting out, and I couldn’t trust anyone with the knowledge of its existence quite yet, so
I shuffled to the kitchen, my socks skating across the polished oak floor. A quick jimmy loosened the bricks that made up the false wall, revealing my safe. After a turn to the left, right, and left again, I pulled the heavy door open wide, staring inside at all of the meager keepsakes of my long life, along with a few bundles of emergency cash. I placed my newfound trinket amongst all of my other secrets and on impulse reached deep into the safe, pulling out a stack of postcards rubber-banded together.

The heavy stock was yellowed with age, and the individual cards stuck to one another even after I’d removed the band. I flipped through the images, pictures of landmarks frozen in time, that started coming sometime around 1932. Las Vegas, Atlantic City, the Grand Canyon, San Francisco, New York…Lorik had bounced around a lot while running from his father’s murderers. I flipped the cards over. My address had been the only thing written on the cards, along with a single message:
Wish you were here!
It pissed Azriel off to no end that Lorik sent the damned things, and he never knew I’d kept them. But it connected me to someone else in the world besides just Azriel. Grounded me when I had no footing. And now, decades later, all Lorik had to show for his life was stacks of old postcards. I rewrapped the cards with the rubber band and shoved them to the back corner of the safe. As I shut the door, the pendant glowed bright green, as if in protest. I turned the lock, secured the loose bricks back into the wall, and tried to forget about not only the past, but the way that glowing stone had calmed the rush of time, if only for a moment.

I had no doubt the mysterious gift had been meant for me. But why? And the identity of my benefactor had me stewing. Could it have been the same person who’d killed the Lyhtan and tried to kill me? Hardly. Why would someone attempt to kill me and then give me a gift?
Hey, great job
not
getting killed. Here’s a token of my admiration!
No, whoever had sent the falcon to me had not been my alleged assassin, but the two were more than likely related. And my gift giver obviously had no
intention of revealing himself. Otherwise he would have given me the pendulum in person. I leaned against my kitchen counter, massaging the worry line from the middle of my forehead with my fingertips as I racked my brain for some clue.

The studio felt barren—so empty, in fact, the feeling seeped right into the marrow of my bones. I shouldn’t have been so testy with Ty. He’d been trying to protect me, foolish though it might have been. And what had I done to thank him? I shoved my knife at his chest.
Good job, Darian. Way to go
. If I felt abandoned, I had no one to blame but myself. I’d been an arrogant ass, and I probably deserved to feel like shit. But it didn’t mean I had to like it.

As I settled into my bed, the warmth of my down comforter urging me toward sleep, I tried to ignore the stabbing pain of loneliness that had stuck with me all night. I didn’t want to sleep alone; I’d grown used to Tyler’s body pressed against mine and needed to feel his reassuring presence. “I wish Tyler were here,” I murmured, half asleep, not sure if I’d said the actual words out loud or not.

I rolled to my side and recognized his weight beside me. My lips curved into a sleepy smile as he gathered me up in his arms. “Don’t stay away,” I whispered. “Even if I’m mad.”

“Promise,” he said, close to my ear. His breath stirred the hairs near my temple, and I snuggled in deeper to the curve of his body. Now, I could sleep.

My cell vibrated on my bedside table, crawling across the flat surface and making its way closer to my hand. I slid it the rest of the way across the tabletop and dragged the phone up to my ear, not bothering to check the caller ID.

“’Lo?” I said, my face still buried in my pillow.

“We’re moving the Oracle today.” Anya sounded almost
pleasant
.

I sat up in bed, awake, and looked to my left. Tyler was already gone. At least I could head to Xander’s without
opposition or worry. Anya didn’t wait for me to respond; she probably hadn’t expected me to. “She’s going to be transported to the PNT’s Oregon headquarters in Portland, and His Majesty would like you to accompany the security team escorting her to the rendezvous point.”

Easy-squeezy. “I can do that,” I said, clearing any trace of sleep from my voice. “But I don’t work for free.”

Anya snorted through the receiver, and I smiled. “He expects you within the hour.”

It didn’t bother me that Ty had left while I slept in. He had to make a living just like anyone else, and he’d complained lately that by working for Xander, I’d cost him a few jobs. Though I didn’t fully understand the larger scope of all of Ty’s business dealings, the area that concerned me was his job as a “death for hire” contractor. If you wanted a sleazy criminal offed, you contacted Tyler. He brokered the deals and contracted the hits, which usually passed down to me. Always understanding, Ty hadn’t made it into a big deal that I hadn’t been as available lately. I needed a break from killing, even if it meant not taking out the bad guy to make the world a safer place for some other person. Azriel’s death had meant more to me than I’d let on, even to Raif. We’d been together; he’d saved me from a life of abuse, and for a while I’d thought I loved him. And in return, I’d taken his life.

I wondered a lot lately if Azriel’s spirit lingered somewhere near. Xander had once told me that Shaedes pass forever into shadow when they die, but he didn’t really elaborate on what happens afterward. He probably didn’t know. Did they go to Shaede heaven, where it was always lovely and dark? Did they stick around, prowling the shadowed corners of the world? Did they remain earthbound to haunt their murderers? A chill raced up my spine, spreading like icy water over my scalp. The last thing I needed right now was an avenging spirit. “Are you here, Az?” I whispered. “Watching me?”

Security detail meant I’d be decked out in black for the day. I needed to look serious, not to mention deadly, and
I wasn’t going to pull it off dressed in a lovely white blouse. I pulled out my usual ensemble, nice stretchy pants, a long-sleeved nylon shirt, and, of course, my duster and black boots. I gathered my hair at the nape and braided the long strawberry blond curls before strapping the katana to my back, adding to the severe appearance I’d been looking for. I paused at a pair of black sunglasses and slipped them on, surveying myself in the mirror. “I’ll be back,” I said in my best Schwarzenegger voice before deciding I looked a bit too cliché—better to leave the glasses behind.