The Revelation of Light and Dark (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 1)

Carrick stares at me before giving a slight nod. “Good evening, Miss Porter. Zaid will have my driver take you wherever you need to go.”

I rise from the couch, glaring at him. If he’s not going to give me the type of help I need, I don’t want a damn thing from him. “No thank you. My car is in a garage not far from here.”

“It’s late, and it’s too dangerous to be walking the streets alone,” he advises, his voice monotone without any true concern. “Declining my offer of a ride would not be a wise decision.”

He’s not wrong about the danger. The homeless situation in downtown Seattle has reached epic proportions, causing major friction between citizens, the city council, and the police. It’s a growing problem, and you can barely walk down a street without stumbling over a homeless person. While many are harmless, others are not, and some type of drug addiction fuels almost all. I have no intention of walking into it.

Lifting my chin, I give him a saccharine smile. “As you said a few moments ago, you have no use for me, so I think your concern is misplaced. Good evening, Mr. Byrne.”

And on that note, which I think is about as good as I can give to a man like that, I slide around the coffee table and stride right past Zaid out of Carrick’s office.

While he’s whisper silent behind me, I can feel Zaid following me through the living area to the elevator that will take me back down to the lobby.

“Are you sure I can’t call the driver around?” Zaid asks from behind me. It’s not with concern but sounds more like a duty—as if Carrick would expect him to try to push the issue.

“No, thank you,” I reply stiffly, stabbing at the button on the private elevator. I don’t expect him to argue with me, but his silence is disconcerting.

The door to the elevator opens. I step in, turning around to face Zaid. Except he’s gone without a sound or even a polite goodbye.

Weird man.

Daemon.

Whatever.

After I push the button that will take me down, I pull my phone out to order an Uber. As the elevator glides smoothly downward, I posit that perhaps this is all just a weird dream. More than likely, I’ll wake up tomorrow and realize as much.

But deep in my heart, I know that my world has just shifted in a way I never saw coming and I’m not sure how to handle it.

CHAPTER 8

Carrick

Even if he couldn’t actually hear or see them from his office, Carrick knew the moment the elevator doors shut.

That’s because he could viscerally feel Finley’s presence fading away, more so as the car began to descend.

Hopefully taking her out of his life forever.

Not one to sit and brood, Carrick left his office and settled himself at the grand piano overlooking the western edge of downtown Seattle. The glass wall to his left was covered in droplets of evening rain, and the traffic and lights below left rainbow prisms of color reflecting in them. Closing his eyes, he brought forth a piece of music in his mind and moved his fingers over the key. It was a slow version of “Für Elise,” not because he preferred it that way, but because he hadn’t played in a while.

Zaid appeared out of nowhere, leaning an elbow on the edge of the piano. “There’s no mistaking it. It’s her.”

“I know,” Carrick murmured, giving only a glance to the older man as his fingers moved with the rote confidence of one who’s played the piece many times over. “What do you suppose it says about me that my gut reaction was to kill her when I first saw her?”

Zaid shrugged. “I’d say that was reasonable. And how do you feel now?”

“Did you get someone to ensure she safely makes it to her car?” It was Carrick’s way of answering Zaid’s question.

“Of course,” Zaid replied with a haughty sniff. He’d known Carrick so well that he knew he’d never let a woman—even Finley Porter—wander the streets of downtown Seattle by herself after dark. “Turns out, she ordered an Uber. We confirmed she got into it, though, so she should be fine.”

Carrick remained silent because, truth be told, if Finley was mugged and killed tonight, it might be the best thing to happen to him. It’s the pang of regret he felt immediately upon having that thought that surprised him, and it was clear now, more than ever, that he would have to take some type of action. If he were feeling regretful for his murderous thoughts, it meant she held too much sway over him and nothing good could come of that.

“She’s strange, though, don’t you think?” Carrick pondered, slightly swaying now with the rhythm of the song. While he played many different instruments, the piano was his favorite, and the music it created was usually a balm to his dark soul. “What do you make of her being able to see daemons?”