Soul Kissed (22 page)

Humor glinted in the black of his irises. “Yeah. I think I could do it.” He looked back out to the dense greenery of the trees. “I would do it for you.”

She was so going to claim him. Mason was hers. Webb could have the ambivalent membrane. See how that worked for him.

Some things were just meant to be. It was a human thought, since only humankind was ruled by Fate. No mage had ever had a destiny—without a soul, their lives were completely their own. But Mason was human, so maybe
she
was caught up in his fate.

Which was fine by her.

Really, they’d hit it off the first time they met. She even thought her father would approve, regardless of Mason’s status. Joining with Mason Stray was by far the smartest thing she could do, on every level.

She wasn’t going to spill her plans just then. She needed to work out the details, particularly pertaining to his son. She adored the kid already—any son of Mason’s would be amazing. There was some negotiating to do with Brand, if the firemage survived her bout with the plague, which Dolan would have a hand in assuring. And she’d have to address the Houses that were Dolan’s current allies.

But one thing was for certain. She tightened her hold around Mason, breathed in his scent. “I’ll make it very worth your while.”

He chuckled. “I look forward to the negotiations.”

 

 

It hadn’t occurred to Mason until he set foot on his little island that he didn’t want bloodshed here. This was supposed to be a safe place. He’d poured all he had—magic, money, sweat—into making it safe. He half expected to hear Fletcher bounding down the stairs two at a time, shouting, “Dad!”

But it was quiet. “There are some realities to face, Cari.”

“There are a lot of things that I’m worried about, but Umbra isn’t one of them. It’s going to work out.”

Not just Umbra.

The air above was suddenly bludgeoned by the sound of helicopter rotors. Monsters coming. Right on time, and still too soon. And yet even as the Sikorsky helicopter pivoted in the air to land, the trees screaming as they bent, the grasses dancing, the dark future seemed to gleam with pinpricks of possibility.

If Cari, aka the
Dolan
, accepted him—a House opposed to the Council and not affiliated with the Order—then maybe Webb and the other Houses would also cope with his humanity. The “Maker” angle, which before this he’d ignored, might keep magekind’s interest. And Umbra would be the perfect project to demonstrate his worth beyond taking on random and questionable work. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

Five individual, remotely controlled cages, each filled with a shrieking wraith hungry for a soul, were unloaded and camouflaged around the property. The wraiths rattled and stank with their deterioration; if not fed, they devolved further into wights, utterly mindless and unsubstantial corporeal beings, shivering in disgusting flesh.

The soldiers at Segue’s disposal did their work with swift efficiency and within an hour seemed ready to depart again and leave Mason and Cari to their trap. When the rotors started to once again beat the air, a last soldier approached Mason. He had a small brown case in his hand. “Sir. I was told to deliver this to you.”

Mason took the case from him, and the soldier ran back, crouching before the gusts of wind. Mason squinted against flecks of dirt and unlocked the case as the helicopter rose. Nestled inside the foam was a dagger with a magic black blade.

“That’s a Martin House dagger,” Cari said.

Mason nodded. He recognized the craftsmanship of the blade—it was a perfect weapon, steel infused with Shadow. The wicked edge narrowed to a deadly lick. One strike of the knife backed with the intent to kill, and Shadow took its victim, even if the blade only managed a scratch. A weapon of darkness like this was made to kill angels. And Martin House was the machinery of war that led the battle.

“How’d Adam get hold of one of these?” Segue and Martin were at war.

“No idea,” Cari said. “Martin is one of Dolan’s allies.”

“Ever been in a knife fight?”

“No. You?” She looked at him warily.

“Several.” But he flipped the blade over in his hand and offered her the hilt. She should have it. “Basically, stick them before they stick you.”

The hilt wasn’t a natural fit for her small palm. Mason covered the back of her hand with his and sent Shadow coursing through the blade. The metal moved like moonlit water and the knife reformed, longer, thinner, into a malevolent dart. Her grasp became more certain.

“Better.” She breathed deep, as if to fill herself up with courage. “I like it. I want it.”

He smiled at her possessiveness. It wasn’t in her nature to acquire or want, except if something had real value. This knife was of the best quality. “You’ll have to take the matter up with Adam.” After. Mason would make sure there’d be an after.

She sighed. “Are we ready then?”

His smile faded. It was time for the beacon to draw the angel here. He parted the dark mist that covered his soul. Bastian had said any angel could find him.
Well, here I am.

Cari looked forlorn.

“I’d give it up if I could,” he said of his soul. Be like Fletcher. Like her.

Her eyes gleamed and she shook her head, pain twisting her mouth. “Please don’t. You make me want one of those, actually.”

He couldn’t help but love her. He’d always loved her. What she did to him. He cupped her head and drew her forward to kiss her. She rose on tiptoe to make the press fiercer. More desperate. His mage princess, Martin dagger in hand, rocking his soul.

“How much time do we have?” she murmured against his mouth.

He shifted his grasp to lift her without breaking the kiss. “Could be hours, could be days.”

Her legs came around his waist, and he supported her . . . forearms to her hips, hands to her ass. “Did I ever give you a tour of the house?”

She brushed her lips across his, a slide of her satin. “Nope.”

“My apologies. Let’s start upstairs.” His feet knew the count of every step. The choreography of dodging a mess in the upstairs hallway was ingrained in his muscle memory, past Fletcher’s room and the bathroom, to the third door, where in the seven-plus years he and Fletcher had lived here, Mason had never brought a woman. The bedroom was tiny compared to his suite at Dolan House. No more than a closet with a double bed.

“I love it,” she breathed, but she hadn’t even looked at the room. She’d been looking at him, her mouth full and soft—truth-telling.

He loved her back. “You’re welcome any time.”

“What are you doing?”

Fletcher whipped his attention around. His heart whammied. But it was still kinda fun.

Mr. Webb, his archnemesis. The skinny old man’s bushy eyebrows drew together. His cheeks went hollow.

The flash drive was still in the laptop. Getting the passwords had only been a matter of watching Mr. Webb at work through the walls. The screen restored after the files finished copying. Stealth didn’t know what bad stuff would be in them, but he was sure it’d be something his dad would want to know, especially since Webb thought he could boss the Strays around. Webb couldn’t tell his dad what to do.

Bran peeked into the office behind his father. Traitor.

“How did you get in here?”

Answer nothing. Stealth doesn’t speak. Stealth is a ghost.

Stealth gave Webb his best, hard glare.

Turned out Stealth could not only see through walls, he could move through walls, too. It’d been so easy—all he’d had to do was try. Now he was a master spy who could creep undetected in and out of anywhere. He reached up and pulled the drive out of the side of the computer. Maybe they’d make a movie about him.

“What is that?”

Stealth backed to the side wall.

Mr. Webb held out his hand. “Come on, boy. Give it up.”

Ha. The fate of magekind rested on the information on the drive. Probably. He didn’t know what some of the words meant.

“Stop this foolishness.”

This was not foolishness. This was life and death.

He gripped the drive in his hand and worked his magic. He didn’t know if the wall itself changed, or if he did. Fireworks burst in his sight. The fae whispered strange words—could Mr. Webb hear them, too?

“What are you doing!”

Stealth grinned.
Now you see me, now you don’t.

He dodged into the next room. A woman—Bran’s aunt—stood up abruptly. So he kept running. Through the kitchen—smelled like roasting meat and potatoes—where someone was shouting. Too many people.
Keep running.
Pantry. Butler’s office.

“Sir, he just went through the wall!”

Stealth crawled into a space underneath the stairs. It was dirty and webby, but no one could get him if there was no door. The hiding place smelled cold, felt cold, too.

He pumped his fist in a yes of victory.

His breath slowed. Heart cooled off.

Uh . . .

Now what was he supposed to do?

Shouts moved far away.

Time passed.

He got colder.

And it came into his brain that he was trapped.

Somehow Mr. Webb had got him anyway; he just didn’t know where Stealth was in his web.

Fletcher’s stomach hurt, but he could only keep hiding.

Mr. Webb would be so mad at him. What if there was really bad stuff on the flash drive?

“Fletcher!” an angry voice said, suddenly close.

Everyone was mad.

If they caught him, he didn’t know what they’d do. Torture? Death?

He had to find a way to call his dad. Wait until he came and got him.

Then they’d finish Webb together.

 

 

Xavier looked out upon the silver of the bay where a blue lantern had been lit, calling to him. He knew the blue light better than the face of the man himself, Mason Stray. More distinctive than a fingerprint, the light was the real person, and couldn’t be faked. The air smelled like rain mixed with the scent of spruce trees. The wind lifted his stale hair and the collar of his shirt, felt like a caress, a promise of relief that the end was close. He was so weary of this. So tired of blood.

But he had to be sure. Xavier moved into Mason’s mind, and intruded on one of the most common of human activities.

Caught a vantage of rising breasts, and the long, lovely column of a woman’s neck. A stray thought . . .
So beautiful . . . Cari . . .

Cari Dolan. Whoever was with Mason had no soul, which meant mage, so it was probable that it was the Dolan with him. Mason had, after all, been steadily falling in love with her. The rapture of Shadow. The beguilement of the witch. Mason, human and Maker, should have learned this one thing by now: All magic is black.

Was this a last chance? Had the lovers come here, now that Dolan House was nearly unapproachable?

The angels’ pursuit had broken off miles ago, leaving him to the boundary of the shore. A trap? A new tactic? Or did they at last believe in his glorious purpose?

All he’d been able to glean from the Order was that the High Seat of the Council was battling his blood. Was it actually possible that he would prevail after all? The Council broken. Cari Dolan within his grasp?

He didn’t trust this sudden good fortune, it was too fae.

Xavier peered down the shore on both sides of him. If there was a boat, it was pulled up into the grasses, but the distance was an easy swim.

This would be the end, one way or another.

 

 

Mason was leaning forward on his kitchen counter, a cold beer in his hand, when he felt Shadow moving behind him. Cari. “You should be sleeping.”

Her hands brushed the bare skin on his back, which made his blood move faster, and he couldn’t help but want her again. And the fact that it was her? Made him feel like anything was possible. He was old enough to know better—experience had been his teacher—but he was starting to think that maybe something unexpected would happen—like when Fletcher was born.

Her arms came around in a hug, her fingertips playing lightly on the ridges of his stomach. He’d only put on his jeans, couldn’t find his T-shirt in the dark and hadn’t wanted to wake her.

“I couldn’t stay asleep.”

He turned to hold her and was disappointed to find that she’d dressed completely, all the way down to shoes. Some kind of stylish sweat suit in gray, borrowed from Layla. He knew nothing about women’s clothes, but she seemed ready to kick angel ass and show all magekind how to conduct House business.

Just in case she was thinking of taking unnecessary risks, he reminded her, “The wraiths will handle him, or at the very least distract him while you or I do the rest.” His life as a stray had taught him to wait until the right moment, no matter how hungry, tired, or in pain he might be. It was how he’d kept himself and Fletcher alive.

Her eyes went hard. “You mean kill him.”

“Yep, that’s what I meant.” But it wasn’t as easy as she thought it was. The actual strike was quick, like the pull of a trigger. What was unexpected was the phantom pain that echoed from victim to killer. Mason could still feel the punch of bullet holes in his own torso, though he himself had never been shot.

He kissed her head and reached for a plaid button-down hanging on a peg by the kitchen door. He shrugged it on. Had grease on the sleeve from the boat’s motor.

A shriek of rage and hunger split the air, a primordial bird sound—one of the wraiths.

Cari’s eyes went big. The monsters had been quiet in the hours since their cages had been situated and the night matured to deepest black.

“Water’s still calm,” Mason said. But he took the Glock from the counter and put it in the back of his pants. Shoes would be good, too. “You need to rest while you can.” He stuffed his feet into his running shoes, no socks. Who knew how long it might take for Xavier to come here? He might not come ever.

Cari looked at Mason as if he was insane. “You try to rest.” The black of her eyes had turned inky. Her Shadow was stirring—she was reaching for power.

“Too soon, Cari.”

Another wraith shrieked and banged against its bars.

Cari drew out the Martin knife. “Maybe they sense something. Like, I don’t know, dinner?”

“They could just want me.” His soul was still exposed. They could be sensing him.

She shook her head. “It’s happening.”

“Cari.” The water wards—a mist of Shadow and atmosphere—hadn’t been disturbed.

“He’s here.” She said it definitively.

Cari was rock-solid. She always had been. If Cari Dolan said an angel was here, then damn it . . .

Okay.

Mason concealed his soul with Shadow, hiding himself from the wraiths’ hunger. He reached and hit the remote release on their cages. Xavier would be able to take one or two on his own, but five?

“Yes.” Cari nodded. The motion had an under-tremor that she tried to flatline with a clenched jaw.

He turned off the kitchen lights and motioned Cari away from the window. The quiet closed in as they stood in the dark together, he maneuvering to put her back to a wall. Her breath brushed his neck.

Of course, if this was a false alarm, wrestling inhumanly strong creatures gone insane with hunger back into their cages was going to be a lot of fun. But he trusted her instincts. This was not a panicky woman.

A shadow moved outside the window. Had a human profile—a hunter.

Coming.

Cari clutched the Martin knife in front of her. Every muscle in her body was strained.

“Blink,” Mason murmured. “And breathe.” He used his rushing blood to loosen his limbs, making them ready and fast.

At last: a vibration on the fine hairs of his nerves told him the water wards had been disturbed.

Another shriek, this time from the direction of the water near the back of the house. In the water?

He looked to Cari and gave a single nod to indicate that the angel was indeed here. He knew it now, too. Maybe the angel had been swimming around, looking for the best place to come to shore. The wraiths had sensed him, had cried out in hunger.

A scream this time, human, adult, but so high with fear that Mason couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.

“Got him,” Cari said, nodding as if all was as it should be.

Yet another shriek, all converging on the same place.

“That’s what it sounds like to me.” Mason straightened. It did something cold to his stomach to know a living, breathing person was being consumed not far from their location. He didn’t like death—it was an unmaking.

“I have to see it. I have to see him die.” Cari’s eyes had gone demon black to challenge the bright of the angel. Again, Mason had the eerie certainty that of all the terrible beings gathered here, Cari was by far the most dangerous.

“Can we go out?” she asked.

His stray instincts said no, but this was a different kind of job, one that required her doing part of this herself, not just making sure it got done. The Dolan had to strike a blow.

“Stay behind me.” He wanted this over.

They exited his House through the back door. The cries, human and wraith, had come from over there, by the rocks. He crossed the lawn, wishing for his shotgun, which slowed wraiths better than the single shots from a handgun. He hated the soul suckers—dirty, stinking bags of flesh. Their distended jaws.

“I hope they chew on his guts,” Cari said.

Mason
shhhhhed
the fae, because that’s who was talking now. Cari would want an efficient death. She wasn’t one for excess, even in revenge.

Through the trees, following the smell of decay, used-tobe-humans gathered around a fallen body. Their jaws were slung low, unlocked to consume. They were vultures at their prey, the angel gutted, ravaged, his lower face and jaw hanging loose. The infamous wraith kiss done a little too exuberantly.

Disgusting. “He’s gone.”

Mason felt Cari push him out of the way. He reached after her, but then remembered, she had no soul, and so had nothing to fear from the wraiths unless she purposely antagonized them. He figured she needed to see the death of the angel who’d killed her father and so many more.

Mason followed behind, the smell and sight ahead pissing him off. He didn’t like the ugliness, not here in his safe place. But the wraiths had been useful after all, in the most abhorrent way ever.

Knife in hand, Cari leaned over the wraiths, who didn’t even seem to notice her. Her silhouette was very much like a witch bent over some dark magick, these monsters her minions. She flipped the knife in her hand—a gesture too practiced for the Cari he knew—and stabbed downward where the heart of the angel would be.

Made Mason think that maybe he and Cari were the bad guys.

Or maybe there were no good guys anymore. Maybe that’s why the Dark Age was here.

A slight shift in his senses and he turned—

—but not in time to escape the narrow burn of a knife slicing across his neck.

Xavier.

Mason’s hand came up to his throat as he dropped to the ground. Warmth spurted through his fingers, the tips of which were already sizzling with magic. A press at the wound compelled Shadow to staunch the flow at his jugular. He willed his heart not to pump quite so hard and then worked his Shadow to knit the flesh back together.

This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to slit his throat. Not the first that he’d used Shadow to heal his body. The trick was to accomplish the feat before losing too much blood.

There were many ways he could die, but this wasn’t one of them. The few times before, the attacker had left him for dead, just as Xavier did now. A quick, quiet attack so he could move on to his other quarry.

But damn Mason was cold. The ground moved in a slow careen. And the iron smell of his blood nauseated him. He couldn’t stand yet, but he managed to turn his head in the grass to watch Xavier silently approach the site of the carnage.

The poor dead bastard being fed on by the wraiths had to have been a decoy. Smart of Xavier, but then he’d been around a long, long time.

Cari’s attention came up. Mason saw her gaze flick from the angel to him on the ground. Her eyes widened at the shock of seeing so much blood.