“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I said, closing my locker door. All around us, students milled about. It was odd seeing them without their shimmery souls. I smoothed my hands down my black tights. “I don’t mean to be whatever about it, it’s just...”
“Hard? Too soon? Got it.” She cocked her head to the side and took a deep breath. “So Sam...?”
On safer ground, I smiled. “Yes?”
“Okay.” She leaned toward me. A wave of hope crashed into me, coming out of nowhere. It was so strong that I stepped back. The anticipation faded as Stacey’s dark eyes lit up. “Okay. Is it just me or was Sam trying to hit on me?”
I shook my head, dispelling the weird feeling. “I think so.”
“Smooth call with the movie idea.” She fell in step beside me. “Proud of you on that one.”
“I don’t know why you don’t just ask him out.” I slowed down as I neared history. “You’ve never had a problem doing that before.”
“I know.” She kicked her head back and scowled. “But he’s different. He’s Sam. He’s interested in things like computers and books and nerdy stuff.”
I laughed. Sam was pretty nerdy—cute nerdy. “And you?”
She sighed and then smiled broadly. “I’m interested in him.”
“Then that’s all that matters, right?”
“I think so.” Glancing at herself, she tugged down the red tank top she wore under her long cardigan, exposing the swells of her br**sts. “And in art class, he will discover that he’s interested in boobs. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.” I eyed her cle**age. “Not that you need it.”
She winked. “I know.”
As Stacey bounced away, I turned on my heel to head into the class and stopped. My brows climbed up my forehead. By the bathrooms, a boy and girl were going at it. As in I couldn’t tell who they were or where one began and the other stopped. They were pressed against the wall. The girl had her leg curled around the boy’s waist and his h*ps were...whoa.
I think they were about to make a baby.
They were so going to get in trouble. PDA was totally off-limits. Even holding hands earned an evil eye from the staff.
But...but Coach Dinkerton, esteemed leader of our winless football team, strolled right past them. Didn’t bat an eye. Not even when the couple slipped into the girls’ bathroom.
What in the world was going on?
* * *
After class, I hunched deeper into my thin turtleneck as I hoofed it down the crowded sidewalks near Dupont Circle. A jacket would’ve been a smart idea. The denim skirt and tights really didn’t block the chill and damp wind, but I hadn’t planned on being out.
All around me, people meandered to and fro. None of them had visible souls. Two hours into my impromptu experiment and I’d declared it a giant fail. I thought I’d spotted a few Fiends hanging around a telephone pole—Fiends loved to mess with things; electronics, construction sites, fire—but it was tough to tell for sure. They hadn’t caused any active trouble and there was nothing setting them apart from the crowd. They could’ve just been humans waiting to cross the street.
Night was already creeping into the city, causing the streetlamps to flicker on, casting unfriendly shadows across the mixture of new and old buildings lining the roads.
Clutching my bag close to my hip, I hurried toward the park, keeping close to the storefronts. I hated to admit it, but paranoia was a friend walking beside me. Before, I could always rely on my soul-spotting ability to root out demons and I’d never honed the natural instinct other Wardens had when it came to sniffing them out. Every so often a weird shiver would dance across the nape of my neck, but I didn’t know if that signified the presence of a demon or not. It was more the sensation one got when being watched.
Everyone I passed could have been a potential Poser or Upper Level for all I knew. Maybe I simply couldn’t sense demons like other Wardens. God, it would suck if that was the case. I needed to figure out if that was an issue, stat, but where could I find a bunch of demons that hopefully wouldn’t try to kill me?
I tripped as another winner of an idea occurred to me.
Roth’s apartment building along the Palisades. The whole place was bursting at the seams with demonkind, but could I go back there? Could I face all the emotions being so close to where he’d lived would bring forth? I wasn’t sure, but I’d have to try. Maybe tomorrow after school I could get Zayne to go with me. He wouldn’t be thrilled, but he’d do it...for me.
Or maybe tomorrow I’d wake up seeing souls again.
God, how many times had I wished I were normal by Warden standards? And now that I was closer to being so, I was giving myself an ulcer and—
The form came out of nowhere, nothing more than a thick shadow snaking out from the alley, moving too fast for me even to get a scream out. One second I was walking down the street and the next, I was hauled sideways into a dark, narrow alley. A burst of aggression lit me up from the inside and then faded into stark, icy terror as the strong grip let go. I flew backward several feet. My backpack smacked into a garbage bin as I hit the cold ground on my butt.
Stunned, I looked up through a sheet of pale blond hair to see two vibrant blue eyes with vertical pupils staring down at me.
“Demon,” he hissed, raising a jagged knife in one hand. “Prepare to go back to Hell.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Holy mother of God.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. It was a Warden in human form—barely in human form—one I’d never seen before. I knew where he planned to put that knife. A stab to the heart was how Wardens sent demons back to Hell.
Knocking off the heads of demons worked, too.
The moment of paralyzing fear gave way to instinct. All the hours of evasive training kicked into gear. I sprung to my feet, ignoring the ache in my backside. The wicked sharp blade arced through the air as I darted to the side.
“Wait!” I said, jumping back as he swung at me. “I’m not a demon.”
The Warden sneered. He seemed young and his face was unfamiliar to me, which meant he wasn’t a part of the D.C. clan. “Do you think I’m stupid? You stink of their kind.”
I smelled? Resisting the urge to sniff myself, I edged around the green Dumpster, hoping I could reason with him. “I’m part demon. My name’s Layla Shaw. I live with—”
He shot forward, and I spun around. The knife swooped down, carving through the sweater and slicing open the skin of my upper arm. I cried out as fiery pain burst along my nerve endings.
It happened so fast there was no stopping it.
The inherent urge to shift took hold and my skin stretched tight as Bambi unfurled herself from her resting spot on my skin. She spilled into the air, a mass of tiny black dots that hung between the Warden and me.
Déjà vu smacked me in the face.
The dots dropped to the alley floor and spun together, forming a thick mass that rose into the air, taking the shape of a snake.
I’d never seen Bambi so big before.
Taller than me and as wide as the Warden, Bambi hissed like a steam engine as she drew back, preparing to strike.
The Warden cursed as he stepped to the side, dropping into a crouch. His body began to shift, splitting the shirt straight up his broad chest. “Part demon? You have a familiar.”
“Yes, but it’s not what you think.” Blood dripped down my arm as I stumbled toward Bambi. My heart pounded as she opened her mouth, revealing fangs the size of my hands. I glanced at the mouth of the alley. Any second someone could come back here and while the Warden wouldn’t be too hard to explain, the snake the size of a Humvee was another story. “Please. Let me explain. I’m not a bad guy.”
“This is hardly the first time a demon has said that.” The Warden circled Bambi as his skin darkened to a deep gray.
Bambi struck, and the Warden narrowly avoided a direct hit. “Bambi! Don’t!” I ordered.
The snake drew back once more, her powerful body curling and tensing. “Don’t eat the Warden!” I said, breathing heavily through the pain. “We all need—”
The Warden launched forward and spun out from under Bambi as she shot at him. He popped up, half in his human form and half gargoyle. I saw the knife swinging through the air. I pushed off the ground, lurching toward him. I ducked under his arm as he swung the knife down. I spun around, planting my foot in his back. The Warden went down on one knee.
“Please stop,” I gasped, still trying to put an end to this hot mess of a train wreck. “We’re on the same—”
The Warden wheeled around and went for me again.
He didn’t make it.
The snake shot at him like a bullet heading straight for the head. “Bambi!”
Too late.
Like a wimp, I squeezed my eyes shut at the first high-pitched yelp. My stomach turned as a sickening succession of crunching noises filled the alley. I pivoted around, facing the mouth of the alley. People strolled in both directions, having no idea what was going on in here.
There was a loud swallowing sound and there was a good chance I was going to hurl. Looking down, I wrapped my hand around my left arm and winced as pain shot through me. My sweater was dark, masking the blood, but it was dripping onto my hand. Biting my lip, I closed my eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over me.
Criminy, I had bad luck when it came to alleys.
Bambi nudged my hip with her nose. Taking a deep breath, I faced her. Her red, forked tongue wiggled in the air and she nudged me again. My gaze lifted to the shadows of the alley. Besides the rats, we were the only two things there.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, patting Bambi’s head awkwardly. “You seriously just ate a Warden.”
And my life seriously had just gotten a lot more complicated.
* * *
I managed to find an old silk scarf in the bottom of my bag. Using it to wipe the blood off my hand, I then balled it up and kept it handy just in case I started dripping all over Nicolai’s leather seats.
I didn’t say anything to him, because what could I say? A Warden tried to kill me. I might be bleeding to death over here. Oh, and by the way, Bambi ate said Warden for dinner. Yeah, that was going to go over like a ton of bricks laced with dy***ite.
So I focused on not passing out from the moment Nicolai showed up. As soon as I got home, I’d find Zayne and...God knows what after that.
I needed KWWRP—Killing Wardens Witness Relocation Program.
Clenching my jaw hard to keep from moaning every time we hit a pothole, I felt a bit out of it by the time we reached the compound. The cut couldn’t have been that deep. At least I hoped it wasn’t, but damn if my entire left arm didn’t feel like a cold piece of meat.
I hurried inside and skidded to a stop in the foyer. Deep male voices rang out from every corner of the home it seemed. I looked into the living room, disoriented.
Jasmine stood there, her arms around a tall male Warden with thick, wavy auburn hair. He was holding their daughter, Izzy. The two-year-old was in her human form, but two dark-colored horns parted her red curls and her wings were poking out the back of her pink shirt. Drake, Izzy’s twin brother, was clambering at the male’s legs, grunting each time he jumped.
Dez was back.
Which meant Jasmine and Danika would be heading home soon since the members of their clan were back and it was no longer necessary for them to be kept here for safety reasons. Yay.
A strange look pinched his handsome features as his gaze scoured his surroundings. When his eyes landed on me, his shoulders relaxed a bit, but the odd tension on his face remained.
“Layla,” he said, smiling as he handed Izzy off to Jasmine and bent, picking up Drake, holding him close to a massive chest. “It’s good to see you.”
I blinked slowly as I dropped my bag beside the small table in the foyer. Still holding the scarf, I forced a smile. “Hey. How...how are you?”
“Good. You look...”
Voices neared and the doors to Abbot’s library swung open. As if moving through a fog, I turned. Another unfamiliar Warden stepped out, drawing to a halt when he saw me. Like the one in the alley and like Dez himself, he was young. Probably in his mid-twenties.
“What the...?” he said, reaching behind him.
Oh, for the love of God, if he pulled out a knife, I was going to give up on life in general.
“Maddox.” Dez stepped forward, clutching Drake as the toddler grabbed a handful of hair with chubby fingers. “This is Layla.”
There was a heavy layer of warning in Dez’s voice that caused Maddox to straighten as though steel had been poured down his spine. He nodded curtly and then stepped around me, giving me a wide enough berth that one would think I was carrying some kind of vicious disease.
“Have you seen Tomas?” Maddox asked, watching me from the corners of his eyes. “He went into the city. Has he come back?”
“No,” Dez said, hoisting Drake up. Behind him, Jasmine frowned as she eyed me. I was sure her “there’s a wounded bird nearby” senses were firing. She was a Hell of a healer. Something I was in desperate need of, but I needed to get out of here. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” he finished.
With a sinking feeling, I had a real bad idea about who Tomas was...or used to be. Oh dear. I started to shuffle toward the stairs, but Zayne’s deep, husky laugh drew my attention.
He was in the library with Geoff, our resident techie and gadget gargoyle, and his father. Some of our other clansmen were there. Abbot sat behind the desk, rolling a cigar between his fingers. It was unlit. He never smoked them, just seemed to like handling them.