Chapter Seventeen
The End. No matter the case, somehow she always ended up in Devil’s End. The End was the part of town where things went to be forgotten whether they wanted to be or not. She supposed it made sense that the man who could disappear so well would end up there.
Thomas stewed in the driver’s seat beside her. He had been less than pleased when she’d emerged from the bedroom. Even less so when she went to his office to get fully kitted and ready to go. When she’d made it clear she was heading to the scene with or without him, he’d quit arguing, but displeasure still radiated off him in waves. The corner of her mouth curled up in a smile and she turned to look out the window.
“We’re there,” he said after several more long moments of silence.
She stepped out of the car and looked over the top of it to the alley down the street and across the way. Crime-scene tape blocked off the entrance and a small crowd gathered in front of it. The alley beyond looked normal. She watched as Taft suddenly appeared on this side of the tape. “Clayton must be here.” His trick of keeping the crime scene from prying eyes was certainly in use anyway. She did her best to tamp down the annoyance that the Warden was here but they hadn’t intended to call her. It seemed that she owed Taft.
As such, she smiled at him and shut the car door as he made his way across the road to them. “Thanks for the call,” she told him before Thomas could say anything.
Taft shot a glance at Thomas but nodded at her. “Not a problem. I knew you’d want to know. How are you feeling?”
“Better, thank you.” It was a lie, but they weren’t here to discuss her health. And if Thomas even suspected it wasn’t the truth, he’d take her back to the hotel with or without her cooperation.
He turned and fell into step beside her as she made her way to the alley. She left Thomas to trail behind. “Who all’s here?”
“Two of the Wardens, a few uniforms, Jeremiah, Leo and that other Walker. I don’t remember his name.”
She glanced at him. “Nathaniel?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
They pushed their way through the crowd, ducked under the tape and instantly found themselves in a different place. “By all the gods,” she breathed. Missing posters plastered the length of one long wall of the wide alley. Dozens of them, tattered and torn, showing a sea of smiling children. She eased her way through the trash littering the ground and ran her eyes over the faces, cataloging them. Some she knew; others she didn’t. There were dozens here. He couldn’t possibly have taken this many children.
“I will purify them,” Thomas said, reading aloud the words scrawled across the posters in dark red paint. She glanced over to find him looking at her. “Looks like you were right. And I guess we know what he was up to while we were at the fairgrounds.”
She rubbed a hand over her mouth. Just this once, she’d have given about anything to be wrong. She ran her eyes over the tableau before them again. Red X’s had been slashed through several of the faces. Joshua and Lily Hunter. Samuel Kelson. Timothy Pruett. And four more they hadn’t found yet. Her stomach dropped and a chill moved through her that had her looking up to make sure mages weren’t playing with the weather.
Everyone was much quieter than usual. Jeremiah came over, his face drawn, dark circles marring the skin beneath his eyes. “We’re making a list of the new faces so we can pull information on them from the database.” He scrubbed a hand across his mouth as if he could wipe the words away and the truth with them. “We’re also making note of the ones who are crossed out. Quite frankly, I don’t know what we can do about it. The others were displayed. We won’t find them unless he wants us to.”
And until they did, there was always the possibility that the children were still alive and the killer was just screwing with them. Gods, she hoped that was the case. “What about George and Oliver? Have we heard anything from them?”
“We did get a sighting of the ghoul called in. Someone saw him watching a bunch of kids playing at the park. Responding units found nothing. There was no sign he was ever there. And as for Gregory George, I think you’re going to have to give up on him. As much as I’d like to nail him for this, his alibi’s proving impossible to break.”
Exhaustion suddenly weighed on her and she rubbed her eyes in an effort to wipe it away. Thomas was beside her in an instant. “You need to go home. You’ve pushed yourself too far today.”
She scowled at him. He may be right, but she didn’t have to like it or acknowledge it.
“If you want to go, Warden, you can go. I can take her home later,” Taft said.
Jeremiah’s eyes widened in surprise and he looked between the two men. Juliana just sighed. Taft looked at her. “Did you make sure there were no spells on anything?”
She shook her head. “I burned myself out earlier. I won’t be able to use my gift for a couple of days.”
“Well, don’t you think you should at least try? Maybe it would work long enough for you to see something.” A hint of desperation colored his words.
She arched a brow.
“She told you, she can’t.” Thomas’s voice was low, quiet, but there was no mistaking the lethality in the tone.
“Just because it didn’t work earlier doesn’t mean it wouldn’t now. We need to catch this asshole. Maybe if you quit telling her she can’t do things, she’d try to accomplish more.” She hadn’t thought Taft was a stupid man. Until now.
Juliana took one giant step backward and let Thomas fill the space where she’d been. Normally she’d try to rein him in, but Taft had pushed too far. Had been pushing for days. And she was just too damned tired. She looked down the length of the alley to see who would be present for the show and saw Clayton at the far end. He started to move in their direction and she gave a half shake of her head to let him know to stay where he was. Thomas had been itching for this fight for a couple of days. It would be better to just let him get it out of his system. Plus, Taft had pissed her off. He deserved whatever he got.
Thomas didn’t do anything discernible that she could see but suddenly he was just more. There was no other word for it. His presence was larger, more immediate, more intense. Taft took a step back. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as she thought.
“You claim what she does is not enough? Who are you to even speak of her? You are an infant, a child compared to me. You are no one. You aren’t worthy to be in the same room as her, yet she allows it. So I have allowed it.” Thomas took a step forward, closing the space between himself and his prey. “Who exactly do you think I am, Detective?”
“A Warden who appears to want to be in control of everything she does,” Taft answered with no hesitation. “And it doesn’t seem like it’s doing her much good.”
Thomas smiled. “I am a Warden. And a member of the vampire Council. I am also over all the territory from here to the Midwest. Most importantly, Detective, I am her mate and I will do whatever is necessary to keep her safe, even from herself.”
Juliana froze as surely as if the cold breath of an ice dragon had encased her. He hadn’t, he couldn’t have destroyed her carefully built world and her career with one word. But as all eyes in the alley turned to her, she knew he’d done exactly that. Mate. How she hated that word in this moment and everything it brought with it. Hated it as much as she’d once loved it.
The man in question went completely still as he realized what he’d said, what he’d done. She closed her eyes, took a breath in the silence. When she opened them, she found Jeremiah standing less than a foot away. “Is it true?”
“Yes, we’re United.” Hurt flashed through his eyes but it was quickly replaced with irritation and cold efficiency.
“You haven’t reported it. Ben will have your hide.” He started to turn away.
“It’s worse than that,” she said to stop him, her voice low.
He looked at her, no doubt wondering how it could possibly be worse.
“Seven years, Jeremiah. We’ve been United for seven years.”
He studied her for a moment. “I’d like an explanation someday.”
She nodded once and looked past him to Thomas. He’d turned around some time ago, but she’d been doing her best to ignore him. She let a little of her iron control slip and lowered the wall between them just a fraction. Just enough for him to feel the mishmash of emotions swirling around inside of her like an angry sea. Frustration, irritation, ire and worry all roiled with the love she still felt for him and the overwhelming relief. It was no longer up to her to decide when the secret would be revealed. She no longer had to watch every word, every step.
But he’d still likely cost her the position of Realm Walker and, as much as she might bitch about it, she liked her job most of the time. At least it gave her purpose. Even as she had the thought, she knew it wasn’t entirely fair. If she hadn’t lied on her paperwork when she joined the Agency, it wouldn’t be an issue. But not admitting her connection to Thomas amounted to a CIA agent not admitting their husband worked for the KGB. Just because she knew all this, didn’t mean she wasn’t still incredibly pissed at her mate. Thomas started to lower his shielding as well and she slammed her walls back into place. He flinched as if she’d struck him a physical blow. Good.
“I didn’t know,” Taft said.
“No one did,” she snapped. “That was kind of the point.”
His eyebrows rose up to his hairline and his lips flattened into a tight line. He wisely refrained from further comment. The Wardens and the Walkers joined their unhappy little group. “Congratulations on your Union, my friend,” Leo said.
She arched a brow at him and Nathaniel snickered.
“I don’t see what you’re laughing at,” she told him. “I may very well be out of a job come tomorrow.”
“I meant my offer,” Clayton told her and she glanced at him in surprise. She’d thought the invitation and subsequent references to it had been made in jest. The Wardens were notoriously selective in who they added to their ranks. For a moment, just a moment, she felt real pride until she realized her mate was probably behind the offer. One glance at the look on his face dispelled that notion. He was furious with Clayton for extending it.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” she said, with a genuine smile. The fact Thomas wouldn’t like it only made the option more appealing.
Jeremiah came back over. “A message has been left on Ben’s voice mail. Expect a call in the morning.”
Hurt slashed through her that he had immediately called and reported the breach. She clenched her teeth, worked the muscles in her jaw. “Sure thing. Are we done here?”
“Yeah, we’re done.” He turned and walked away.
“Come, I’ll take you home,” Thomas said, extending a hand.
She took a step back. “Like hell you will.”
He set his jaw. “Don’t do this. We’ll discuss this at home. It’s too dangerous for you to be by yourself.”
“I believe she already said she didn’t want to go with you,” Taft interjected.
Thomas fisted his hands at his sides and craned his head to one side to stretch the muscles in the neck. Before he could do anything else, Juliana spoke up. “I don’t recall asking you for your help, either. You’re as much to blame as he is for this shit. Forget both of you.” She turned and strode down the alley.
“I’ll take her home,” Nathaniel said behind her. Then she heard the soft tread of his sneakers as he rushed to catch up with her.
* * *
“It looks abandoned,” Nathaniel said. As she stood beside him in her yard looking at her dimly lit house, she had to agree. There was just something about it that looked unlived in. She sighed. “Come on, pup. I’ll make sure there’s no beasties waiting to eat you, then I’ll be on my way.”
She snorted a laugh and headed to the front door. Locked, as it should be. She ran her fingers over the mechanism and heard the
click
as it released. She opened the door and stepped inside, flipping on the light. Everything looked just as it had when she left. Nathaniel tried to follow her inside and bounced off the air in the doorway. She turned in surprise. “That’s not supposed to happen. It’s only supposed to keep out those who mean me harm.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to hurt you. Let me try again.” Nathaniel backed up and ran for the doorway.
It was a horrible idea, she knew it was, but he had put the plan into motion almost before she had time to process what exactly it was he was going to do. Nathaniel crashed into the air of the open doorway and bounced off as if it were a giant bubble. He landed smack on his ass in the grass. Juliana burst into laughter. She tried not to, but seeing him sitting in the grass with the look of pure indignation on his face was her undoing.
“Ha. Ha.” He got up and brushed the remnants of the yard off his jeans. He walked up and stood on the porch looking in at her. “I don’t get it.”
“I think I do,” she said, reluctantly. “The wards were set after the demons shredded them last time. The wardsmiths must have set them specifically against the beings that destroyed them the first time.”
“And since one of the demons was riding me...”
“Exactly. I’ll call in a wardsmith to fix it, but I’m not doing it tonight. I’m home, you’ve done your duty.” She gestured for him to go with a wave of her hand.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Promise,” she told him and shut the door, sliding the locks into place.
She did a walk-through of the house, checking shadows for anything untoward. When she reached the living room where the large couch she normally slept on was kept, she hesitated. She didn’t remember that picture window being quite so big, so revealing. Sure there were curtains on it, but she still felt exposed. She closed her eyes and sighed. The bolt hole it was.
Chapter Eighteen
Her phone rang as she descended the steps into the basement. She checked the screen. Thomas. “What do you want?”
“Where are you?” he asked, irritation and a thread of worry evident in his tone.
“I’m at home.”
“No you’re not. I’m here and you are not.”
She sighed. “I’m not at your home, Thomas. I’m at mine.”
There was a long pause. “I see.”
Another long silence she was certain he was waiting for her to fill. He’d be waiting a while.
“Good night, Juliana.” His sounded tired, defeated. Welcome to her world.
“Good night.”
She said the words to open the bolt hole and stepped inside, turning on the light as she went. Another phrase shut the wall behind her. Still uneasy, still alone. She stripped out of everything but her shirt and undies and headed to the table on the far side. A dark tome rested there, waiting for her. Her spell book. The one Thomas said she had in her possession when he took her in, the one she couldn’t remember along with everything else from the first dozen years of her life.
She’d been studying the book, looking for anything in it that might be familiar, trigger a memory. So far nothing. But she had found a rather powerful protective spell that she’d bookmarked for later use. And lucky her, all she needed to cast it was the blood from one of the gods of the dark fae. Or one of their direct descendants. Since she carried around ten pints or so with her at all times, she was all set. She flipped open the book and began to read through the spell.
* * *
Thomas entered his former home in a foul temper. Just as he’d thought things were starting to settle down for him and his bride, in their private life anyway, they were right back where they started. Separate lives, separate homes. All because of him and his damn mouth. He’d known the importance of keeping their Union private, concealed from the Agency, but he’d allowed the human to goad him. It was only further proof of what Juliana did to him. He never used to be so careless, but he couldn’t think when she was around. Couldn’t function beyond the need to care for her, the need to keep her safe.
He spat out a curse and shoved his hand through his hair. The gods only knew how long it would take her to come back to him this time. At least he didn’t have to worry about working up the nerve to propose. She didn’t even want to be in the same room with him. There was no way she was going to wear his ring. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his shoulders dropping in defeat. As old as he was, he was certain he would never get the hang of handling his hotheaded mate.
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
Thomas opened his eyes to find Michael in the doorway to the room on the right, which used to be his library. While Thomas still owned the home, he’d left the house to the coven and moved to the Roma. Michael had his own home as well, but was staying in the house for the moment due to the portal mage’s presence there. Everyone else had been banned from the premises for the time being. Finding a way to trap Raoul was too important, and Thomas didn’t know who he could trust.
“Where’s Juliana?” Michael asked.
Thomas walked past him into the library and dropped into a chair in the corner. “She’s at home.”
“Where did you tell her you were going? I know you haven’t told her about what’s going on yet, because she hasn’t been by.”
He clenched his teeth. “She’s at her home, not mine.”
Michael’s brows shot up. “I thought she was staying with you at the Roma.”
“She was. Until I managed to tell an alley full of agents and police that we were United.”
Michael sat on the edge of the desk. “You’re lucky she didn’t kill you. If you get her fired, she still might.”
“I am well aware of Juliana’s short temper. I do not need you to remind me of my mate’s character.” Usually he could keep a damper on the jealousy and anger he still felt at the thought that his mate had slept with his best friend. But tonight, when he was uncertain as to their immediate future, he didn’t want any reminders of their closeness.
Michael tapped a pen on the desk. “There’s something you should know.”
“Well?” Thomas prompted when his second didn’t continue.
“Juliana and I never slept together.”
Thomas froze. What was his friend playing at? “Explain,” he finally managed to bite out.
“I paid Eric to tell you that we were lovers.”
“What would possess you to do that? You know how I feel about her. You had to know what the image of you two together would do to me.” It had been a long time since Thomas had felt such betrayal. Not since he’d been told they were sleeping together, in fact.
“Yes, and I also knew that you were doing nothing about it. You just walked around moping.”
Thomas arched a brow. “I do not mope.”
“You absolutely did. At least when Eric fed you the lie you got some of your fire back. Even if it was directed at me.” Michael stood and paced the length of the room. “I was trying to get you to move. To do something to get her back.”
“And when it didn’t work, why did you not tell me the truth?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t think you deserved the truth. And she deserved better. She’s my friend, Thomas. I was never okay with what you did to her. You knew what you were doing, but to everyone else, myself included, it looked like you finally got her in bed and then left so you didn’t have to deal with the fallout.”
Thomas let the words soak in, the truth in them. “So you never slept with her? Not once?” he finally asked.
Michael smiled. “Well, there was that one time in Alabama.” He held up his hands and laughed when Thomas growled. “Easy, friend. There was only one room in the hotel. She made me sleep on top of the covers.”
“We ran into Raoul last night,” Thomas said, changing the subject. He’d have to process how he felt about Michael’s revelation later.
Michael frowned. “Where? I thought you were doing surveillance at the fairgrounds.”
“We were. He showed up there.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I do not know. Juliana said he kept asking her what she’d done with it, but he never said what it was.”
“Are you thinking about what Carmela said? How Juliana took something of his that let him do magic?”
Thomas nodded absently. “I don’t know what else it could be. He risked his life showing up there and he did it anyway just for a chance to get at her.”
“How did you lose him?”
Thomas clenched his teeth. “A portal again. I think it’s time I had a conversation with our mage. She’s had enough time to think about all the horrible things I could do her, maybe I won’t have to actually do them.” He moved over to the long line of shelves on one wall and pulled on the book that would allow him access to the door to the basement. Michael stayed right behind Thomas as he descended into the basement. The main room at the foot of the stairs housed a variety of instruments of torture. Surgical tables and tools, an iron maiden, a rack and various other things at his disposal. It was a collection he had spent centuries building. And he knew how to use it all. Off the dungeon ran a long hall lined with cells. And at the end of that hall was the woman who helped the bastard who had beat, tortured, raped and left his mate for dead escape from them time and time again. “Bring her to me.”
Juliana didn’t know what time it was or precisely what had pulled her from her slumber. She lay awake, blinking in the pitch black. The night light plugged into the opposite wall was out. Perhaps the sudden darkness had awakened her. A tingle ran up the length of her body. Once. Twice. Three times. Someone was testing the ward she’d set with her blood. Son of a bitch. She grabbed her gun and sat up on the edge of the bed. She reached for the light switch and clicked it on. Nothing. So someone was playing with her wards and they’d cut the power to her house. Fantastic.
Juliana laid her gun at the foot of the bed and felt around on the floor for her jeans. When she finally brushed across the rough denim, she snatched up the pants and slid them on. She shoved her hand in her pocket and wrapped her fingers around her phone just as a tremor rolled through her house. She rocked back on her heels. Flipping the phone open, she punched a button so the screen would light up. A quick examination of her surroundings revealed everything just as she’d left it. She pulled on her boots and laced them up.
As she finished, another tremor shook the house. She dialed the emergency line for the Agency. As she waited for the call to connect, an earsplitting shriek filled the air. She pressed her hands against her ears. The phone kept her from being successful on one side. The walls quaked around her. “I don’t know if you can hear me or not,” she screamed into the phone. “This is Walker Norris. My house is under attack. I repeat my house—” A chunk of the ceiling fell at her feet. “Ah, hell. Just trace the damn call.” She tossed the phone onto the bed without disconnecting the call.
The mage answered every question they asked and some they didn’t. Michael had brought her out and sat her in a chair in the middle of the room. Thomas had allowed the woman to look around and take in all her surroundings. They’d barely had to threaten bodily injury and she started chattering like a monkey. By the time she was finished they knew how many portal charms had been made for Raoul, where they all led to and that this particular portal mage was afraid of the dark.
Michael took her back down the hall and secured her in a cell. Thomas bent forward as the full force of Juliana’s fear hit him. It snatched the breath from his lungs and left a sense of panic in its wake. He reached out to her with his mind but found only fear and uncertainty. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew his bride was in danger and he was entirely too far from her.
“Are you okay?” Michael asked as he emerged from the hallway.
Thomas shook his head and his second rushed to his side.
“What is it? What can I do?”
“I need to get to her. We have to go right now. Call the Order’s mages.”
* * *
Juliana grabbed her gun and said the words to open the bolt hole. She’d felt Thomas reach out to her, felt him trying to ascertain what was wrong. But as she had no clue what was going on, it was a little hard to convey it to him. A wicked discordance of light streamed through the windows in her basement. Magic at war. She didn’t know if whoever attacked her house was flinging spells at her wards or if it was just the different magics in her wards sparking off each other now that they’d been activated. Things just kept getting better and better. The stairs began to sway beneath her the moment she started up them. She paused, waited for them to stop, and then continued, slower this time. Halfway up, the stairs gave out completely. She grunted with the impact and cursed the bruises that would inevitably form overnight.
The house continued to shudder around her and she heard a groan as the old wood protested the treatment. She had to get out of there. Now. She snapped her head around, searching the basement for anything she could use to reach the bottom of the doorway or even a window. Although she wasn’t certain going out through the warring magic was a better idea. Finally, she raced back into the bolt hole and grabbed the bed to drag it out.
She didn’t make it farther than the doorway. With the sound of a hundred stampeding trolls, the house imploded. Nothing shot away from her or burst out. It all collapsed, as if someone had removed a key piece in a house of cards. And she stood at the bottom of it all. She dropped to the floor and rolled under the bed, for all the good it would do.
Concrete, wood, plaster and furnishings fell into the basement in a torrent. Dust and debris filled the air. She shut her eyes and prayed for it to end. Pieces of her home filled the space under the bed —battering her body and burying her. The bed collapsed under the weight. It crushed her and pushed the precious air from her lungs. She wheezed, every breath bringing minute pieces of rock and plaster into her airways. She coughed, a weak and pathetic sound. Excruciating pain flooded her senses until it was all she could think about. Her chest grew tight and it hurt to breathe. She whimpered as she panted helpless, little breaths. Her head grew light, foggy. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was, only that she didn’t want to be there. Why was it so tight? Where was Thomas? A final, soft strangled gasp and she knew no more.