Authors: SM Reine
She rolled away from the next kick, gasping for breath, and got to her knees. A hand snatched her ponytail and jerked it back, nearly ripping the hair from her scalp.
David Nicholas drove the bony spike of his knee into her chin. Her teeth snapped shut on her tongue. The iron taste of blood flooded her mouth.
Elise lunged for him, but her hair was held tight. The junkie threw his arms around her. He could barely restrain one arm with his whole body. When he felt her shove against him, his face paled at her strength, but he held firm.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Elise groaned as the basandere pulled her to her knees using her hair as a handle.
“You’re a bully, bitch,” David Nicholas said. “I’m taking out the trash.”
He punched her. The ridges of his knuckles made fire blossom across her face as her head snapped from side to side. He didn’t hit hard—she had been beaten by worse. But it had been years. She almost forgot the sweet pain of it.
Her lip split. He hit her eye, and her vision blurred.
“She’s not even fighting back!” the basandere said, shrieking with laughter.
David Nicholas stepped back, rubbing his knuckles. He looked disappointed at Elise’s lack of reaction. She sucked on the blood in her mouth and spit it out.
“You done?” she asked. “I have shit to do tonight.”
His face twitched. “I’m nowhere near done yet.”
He brandished a knife with a blade like a straight razor. A cold calm settled over Elise, numbing her pain. She hated to lose a customer—but she hated to lose her life even more.
The junkie shifted to grab her other arm. She head butted him hard enough to snap his nose and send blood spraying down his lip. He sprawled out in a parking space.
Metal flashed. She ducked, tearing her ponytail out of the stripper’s hand and leaving a fistful of hair behind.
David Nicholas’s knife blew past her ear.
She twisted and yanked the chain out of the basandere’s belt loops, popping two of them.
Everything slowed.
David Nicholas flashed through the shadows to Elise’s other side, and she could almost track his progress through the darkness. Wisps of smoke followed him as he vanished and rematerialized.
She whirled, shoving the basandere out of the way, and whipped the chain toward David Nicholas as he reappeared.
It wrapped around his neck, catching him before he was completely corporeal.
She jerked.
His head disconnected from his body.
He flashed into black smoke again, knife clattering to the ground.
Elise snapped her arm to wrap the chain around her fist. The basandere screamed and ran at her, flashing blood-red fingernails. Elise backhanded her with the chain. Something cracked—something important—and the stripper went limp.
The junkie reached for the knife. His hand shook.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Elise spat. Blood spattered on her chin.
He was gone before she could unwind the chain.
As soon as her levels of adrenaline dropped, the pain came roaring back. Elise didn’t realize how much her body hurt until she fell to her knees beside the basandere. She thought the stripper was probably dead. She didn’t care too much.
Elise evaluated her physical condition. Between the blood loss from Ann anointing her house and these new wounds, she might not return to full strength for days.
James didn’t have days.
She got back to her feet with a groan. Pain radiated from the top of her head down to her ribs, like every bone was fractured.
“Hell of a time to collect on a debt,” she muttered.
Elise threw the basandere in the trunk of James’s car. She swallowed a handful of the ibuprofen he kept in the glove box and checked her face in the rearview mirror. Her face looked like hamburger.
Great. Just great.
She slammed the car door shut, turning.
David Nicholas stood in front of her.
He moved an instant before she did. His hands closed on her shoulders, shoving her back against the car. Elise’s head thudded against the metal.
“You killed one of my girls,” he said.
“It was self-defense. What are you going to do about it? Call the cops?”
Loathing twisted David Nicholas’s features. “I should sell you into slavery, that’s what I should do. You and that succubus bartender
bitch
.”
Elise grabbed his wrists. Her fingernails dug into his wrists like they were sponges. Decapitation didn’t do the nightmare any favors.
“Look,” she said, carefully enunciating each consonant, “you and I can fight all night if we want, but it’s a waste of time. You paid your debts with a bad check. You pounded on me, and I won this round. Let’s call it even.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because I’ll kill Death’s Hand if you leave me alone for the night.”
His expression dissolved into a grin so wide that the corners of his lips nearly touched his ears. “I just kicked the shit out of your skinny ass. You think you can take
vedae som matis
?” She nodded without returning his smile. He released her shoulders. “I like the idea of letting something else kill you.”
“Only because you can’t do it yourself.”
David Nicholas swung, but she was faster. Before he could get a hand on her throat, she knocked his arms aside and pressed his own knife against his throat.
The nightmare froze.
“Try me,” she whispered.
“Hey! What’s going on?”
Anthony rushed out of the studio. David Nicholas’s black eyes flicked to him, then back to Elise. He stepped away from her, lifting his hands.
“If Death’s Hand doesn’t kill you, we’ll finish this conversation—and we’ll do it under the eye of the Night Hag, you understand?”
Elise tossed his knife to him. “Won’t that be fun?” she said flatly.
He vanished before Anthony could reach them.
So much for
that
customer.
“Jesus Christ! What happened to you?” he asked, grabbing Elise’s shoulders to steady her.
“Don’t touch me. I’m fine.”
Anthony scanned her injuries, from the rapidly swelling black eye to her bruised cheeks and swollen lip. He ran his fingers through the hair that had come loose from her braid.
“Why didn’t you call for help?” he asked.
She swatted his hand off. “I told you not to touch me. Is the Jeep done yet?”
“No, but—”
“Then you and Betty need to finish it. I’m going upstairs to get my sword. I’ll be back down in ten minutes, and we’re going to leave.”
Her legs buckled under her when she hit the stairs. Anthony wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Whoa,” he said. “Let me help you up.”
Elise turned a cold gaze on him, letting all her pain and frustration show in her eyes. He jerked his hand back. “I told you not to touch me.”
He followed a step behind her as she ascended to James’s apartment. She managed to keep her hands steady when she unlocked the door.
She leaned against James’s wall as she lifted the hem of her shirt to examine her stomach. Red welts had risen on her skin, and she probed the edges gently. Even a light touch made her wince.
“What can I get you?” Anthony asked.
“Bandages. They should be in the bathroom cabinet.”
He disappeared, and Elise took a ritual mirror off the kitchen table to take another look at her face. In the minutes since she had last looked, her eye had nearly swollen shut. Her lip was bleeding.
She moistened a rag in the sink and washed off the blood. By the time Anthony returned with the bandages, her skin was clean, but there was no help for her shirt.
“Thanks,” she said, pressing a fistful of ice to her swollen forehead. “I don’t think I’ll need it after all.”
Anthony folded his arms as he studied her, and Elise studied him back out of her good eye. She didn’t appreciate being scrutinized.
For the first time that day, she noticed he was wearing a nice button-up shirt and clean jeans, although working on the Jeep had gotten his hands dirty. His hair was even combed back. It showed off his full lips and dimpled chin. And he was muscular, too.
Elise wondered how long he had been so handsome. They had been neighbors for over two years, and she had known him as an acquaintance for four, and she had never seen him as anything but Betty’s kid cousin before.
“Elise?”
She realized he had been speaking, and she shook her head to clear it. It made the bruises on her face throb. “Sorry. What?”
“You got pretty beaten. Are you sure you don’t need bandages?”
“Yes.”
She twisted to check her back in the mirror, and the movement sent pain lancing up her spine. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Careful,” he said.
“On second thought, I need you to look at my back and tell me how bad the injury is. Okay?”
He nodded. Elise turned her back on him and lifted her shirt over her head. She could feel him looking at her. Her cheeks got hot, and she was glad he couldn’t see it.
Her heart was beating fast, but it was probably from the adrenaline of the fight. Probably.
She heard him step closer. “Hmm,” Anthony said.
“Well? Do I need bandages?” she asked, keeping her tone level.
“You’re scraped up, but it looks mostly like bruising.”
“How about on this side? It hurts more.” She turned and lifted her arm so he could check her ribs.
His fingers traced over the bruises on her side. Elise closed her eyes as chills prickled down her shoulders. “Same here. That looks painful.” Warm breath blew over the back of her neck, tickling the hair behind her ear.
Elise hadn’t been touched like that in years. Her body’s reaction was almost violent—the way her stomach muscles jerked, the heat that flushed her face, the warmth between her legs. “That’s not helping,” she said, and her voice shook. It actually shook.
She turned to face him, and Anthony’s cheeks had a warm flush. There was a certain intent darkness in his eyes as he focused on her. His gaze couldn’t seem to make it above her lips, which was good, because her handful of ice had melted down her wrist and left her swollen eye exposed. “Huh?”
“You’re not helping,” Elise repeated. One of his fingers hooked under her bra strap.
“Oh,” he said. His hand ran down her bicep as he lowered the bra strap. He dipped his head to trail his lips along the exposed skin. “I thought you said you didn’t want help.”
“Anthony…”
“Yes?” he murmured, pushing against her until her back bumped against the wall. She relaxed against him, letting the pressure of his body hold her suspended.
She half wanted to forget the danger pressing on them—and the danger James was in. But when her eyes opened, she saw the Ansel Adams photo over Anthony’s shoulder, and the memory of the time her aspis bought it shattered the illusion of peace.
Anthony’s hand slid over a bruised rib, and she flinched as pain stabbed through her side.
“Sorry,” he said against her neck.
Elise took a deep breath and planted her hands on Anthony’s shoulders. She could have thrown him across the room, but she made herself shove gently. “This isn’t the time.”
He caught her wrists. “We’ve got a few minutes.”
“Anthony. Not now. I’m serious.”
“But later?”
“The odds are pretty good.” She smiled a little. “At least fifty-fifty.”
He kissed her again, but this time, it was only a brief touch of his lips on hers. “I like my chances.” He took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Can I ask one question?”
“You can ask.”
“What’s with the gloves you’re always wearing? Is this some kind of weird demon hunter thing?”
Elise’s mouth snapped shut. “Go see Betty. I still have to grab something, but I’ll be right down.”
“But you said I could—”
“You can’t ask that,” she said. “Go.”
His tongue darted out to wet his lower lip. Elise was a lot more interested in the look of that than she liked to admit, but the heat building inside of her dissipated at the thought of James.
“See you in a minute,” he said, voice husky. He straightened his shirt and moved to go back downstairs.
“Anthony?”
He paused in the door. “Yeah?”
“You look really good.” As an afterthought, she added, “I’m sorry I missed our date last night.”
A brilliant smile illuminated his face. “Thanks, Elise.”
Once Anthony had gone downstairs, Elise had trouble remembering where she dropped her shirt. She didn’t have any other, cleaner clothing left at James’s apartment, so she pulled it back on to cover her injuries.
The painkillers were starting to kick in. Lifting her arms over her head ached, but it was hardly debilitating.
She rolled out her shoulders, touched her toes, and reached for the ceiling. Full mobility. Painful, but workable. David Nicholas picked a bad time to take out his frustration on her.
If only Anthony had come a couple minutes sooner. She could have skipped a beating and saved her time. Elise pushed the thought aside. There was no point in regretting what she couldn’t change.
Taking a set of keys out of James’s desk, she went into the spare bedroom that used to be hers before she moved in with Betty. Now it was an extension of the library in his room, with a cozy chair for reading books…and a gun safe bolted to the wall.
James didn’t own any guns.
She twisted a combination into the lock, whispering the numbers to herself. Two. Twenty-five. Nineteen. Nine. And eight.
Nothing happened when she twisted the key in the lock until she passed her hand over a charm James had welded to the side. The tumblers fell into place with a heavy, muffled
thud
.
Twisting the lever, Elise opened the safe.
Once upon a time, James and Elise hadn’t had thousands of books. They hadn’t had an apartment or a duplex or furniture. In fact, they hadn’t even had a spare pair of pants between them. They’d had a handful of cash in various currencies, two tattered backpacks…and swords.
Elise’s old chain of charms—which had since been replaced with newer, shimmering chains and tokens—was pooled at the bottom of the safe, and her sword was mounted against the back wall. Three feet long and gently curved like a waning sliver of moon, the falchion had a leather-wrapped hilt worn perfectly to the contours of Elise’s hand. She had rewrapped it a hundred times after a hundred battles in the twenty years since her father gave it and its twin to her.