Darkening Dawn (The Lockman Chronicles Book 5) (3 page)

After a blurry second, Jessie blinked away the last threads of sleep and her mind caught up.

The guy with the boyish face shook her again by the shoulders. “Yo, girl, are you straight?”

Jessie let out a long sigh as she remembered the night before. Most of it anyway. Sneaking out of the safe house. Taking a cab to a club she’d heard rumors about. Showing the bouncer her ID at midnight, and his cool smile as he wished her a happy birthday and stepped aside to let her in.

Discovering the rumors were true.

Music heavy with bass pulsed out of a sound system that seemed as supernatural as many of the beings on the crowded dance floor. Despite all her time with the Agency, Jessie could name three quarters of the creatures writhing and popping to the music. Not to mention that some of those who looked human might have been a shifter of some kind—werewolf, doppelganger…unicorn.

From Jessie’s vantage point up on the promenade, she saw two long bars bracketing the dance floor. Each bar had three bartenders pouring drinks and scooping up tips. Only one of them was human, maybe. Another was an ogre, which gave Jessie a momentary pang in her chest as he reminded her of Marty, the first ogre she ever met, gone now for over five years.

The smell of sweat permeated the club, turning her stomach a little. Doubt crept in about whether or not she really wanted to be here. If Wertz found out, he’d wrap her in chains and lock her in a small cement cell underground somewhere.

But what difference would that make? The way he treated her, she might as well have the chains on already. And staying cooped up in a safe house where she could look out the window and see the normal, free world pass her by was worse than any dark cell. At least in the cell she wouldn’t know what she was missing.

Fuck it. I’m tired of being a prisoner.

So she found the stairs and made her way down to the dance floor.

That’s where she met him.

Though she’d be damned if she could remember his name. After about ten minutes of dancing together and trying to talk over the music, he started sneaking her drinks from the bar. Colorful, girly drinks, but with plenty of kick. Whenever she asked what was in them, he just smiled and shrugged one shoulder.

She didn’t care. They made her feel great. Tingly from head to toe. And extra tingly around her…

Not even her times of heavy petting with Ryan had she had a sensation like that
down there.

The last thing she could pull out of the cloud in her memory was him taking her hand in the cool air outside the club and walking her to his car in the lot across the street. He wanted her to come home with him, but no matter how drunk, she knew that was a bad idea. For all she knew, Wertz had discovered her gone and had set the dogs loose looking for her. Plus, she didn’t want to mark her eighteenth birthday with a one-night stand. Her rebellious streak hadn’t killed her common sense.

He had seemed okay with her saying no, but before he let her go, he said, “Let me show you something.”

He began unbuttoning his shirt.

Jessie staggered backward with a drunken laugh. “Dude, I already told you. Ain’t gonna happen.”

He finished unbuttoning his shirt, revealing a strip of his pale, hairless chest and his abs. He didn’t have much definition, but she couldn’t call him scrawny either. “I know. Just trust me.”

“I don’t even know you.”

Without another word, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it to Jessie. She caught it in her hands and smelled his scent rise up from the silken fabric.

Smiling, he pulled his shoulders back as if stretching after a long time at a desk. Large, gossamer wings unfolded from his back and spread out to either side of him. Golden lines curled through the translucent skin like cursive. Pulses of light ran through the lines as if in time to his heartbeat.

Jessie gasped. She dropped his shirt to the blacktop. “What are you?”

His cheeks flushed even brighter, visible even out of the cast of the nearest streetlight. Jessie hadn’t notice before, but it looked like every part of him had a simmering glow beneath the skin. “I’m a fairy,” he said.

“You’re beautiful,” Jessie said.

That’s the last thing she remembered.

Chapter Five

“
W
HERE THE FUCK AM
I?”

Mr. Fairy jerked back as if Jessie had tried to bite him. His wings fluttered, creating a strong breeze in this small space. Tiny little papers as thin as onion skin blew off the nightstand along with what looked like green tobacco. Ashes swirled out from a glass tray next to the papers.

Jesus Christ, had she smoked weed last night?

She tried to sit up, but a hammer smacked her square in the head. At least that’s what it felt like. She dropped back onto the bed, but got a glimpse of her surroundings. Studio apartment. The door with two bolt locks and a chain. Dirty laundry scattered across the floor. The bed, a dresser, and a hotplate the only décor, except for a pair of Duran Duran posters taped to one wall, edges tattered, curled, and yellowing.

And the kicker—on her back on the bed, with the fairy out of her way, Jessie saw her full reflection in the mirror on the ceiling.

Oh, God, what have I done?

“Chill out, okay?” The fairy hovered beside the bed, his wings a blur behind him. He was naked except for a pair of tighty whities.

Jessie cringed at the sight. Her heart pounded. She pushed her heels into the mattress to scoot herself backward, ignoring the supernova in her skull. “What did you do to me?”

The fairy raised his hands. “Nothing happened, I swear.”

For the first time, Jessie thought to check herself. She patted her legs and chest, found all of her clothes still on. She paid attention to her body, searching for any soreness that might suggest more than
nothing
had happened in the night. Outside of the headache, she felt normal.

She stared at the floating fairy and worked to steady her breathing. “How did I get here?”

“I drove you.” He pushed his palms out toward her to keep her from blurting her next question. “I didn’t know where else to take you. What’s the last thing you remember?”

Jessie gazed at his buzzing wings, almost invisible except for the faint streaks of golden light that flickered on them. “You showed me your wings.”

The fairy nodded. “Makes sense. That’s when you passed out. I guess I gave you a few too many.”

“You think?” First night as a legal adult and she gets so wasted she passes out. Awesome sauce. Jessie rubbed her temples, trying to massage the headache away without any luck. “So you took me home and did what with me?”

His eyes grew wide. He jiggled his head almost as fast as his wings fluttered. “No way, yo. I already told you, nothing happened. I put you in here and I slept on the couch. This morning I came in to get my weed and you were making funny noises so I woke you up.” He crossed his heart with a finger. “Scout’s honest honor.”

Jessie looked him up and down. His bloodshot eyes. His—now in the light—scrawny body. He didn’t look worthy of his beautiful wings. “You’re a druggie fairy?”

“Hey, yo, don’t judge me. You didn’t seem to mind my company last night.”

True enough. It wasn’t fair taking out her own bad decision making on him. Actually, she was really lucky it
was
him she ended up with. Some other guy might not have been so…decent. “Sorry. That was low. Listen, can I use your phone to call a cab? I’m probably in deep shit.”

“I can drive you home.”

Wouldn’t that make Wertz’s day?
Not only did I sneak out, get blasted, and spend the night at a stranger’s place, I led him right to our secret safe house.
Forget a prison cell. The gnome might say to hell with the Return and put Jessie in front of a firing squad.

“Thanks, but it’s better if you don’t.” She scooted herself to the edge of the bed, eased her legs off the mattress, and slowly rose to a sitting position. Her brain sloshed in her head. Spiky pain ran up her neck, across her scalp, and dropped into her eyeballs. Her stomach hitched. She pinched her mouth shut and concentrated on not puking.

“You sure? Because I don’t—”

The twin dead bolts on the door exploded in a rain of sparks. Something hit the door on the outside and sent it bursting open, the chain snapping as easy as breaking a spiderweb. Three figures dressed in black fatigues and balaclavas covering their faces charged in. Their boots stomped through the dirty laundry, but the mess didn’t trip any of them up.

These guys were pros.

Chapter Six

T
HE FAIRY ZIPPED BACKWARD IN
surprise and slammed against the wall. His wings stopped flapping and he dropped to the floor. One of his wings had bent, and the light that normally ran through it faded. His jaw clenched, his expression a cross of pain and fear.

Jessie didn’t so much as start. Though her heartbeat did quicken. She rolled her eyes and played it cool. “Seriously, guys? You couldn’t just have knocked?”

The trio ignored her. Two of them had their sidearms drawn and pointed at the fairy. The third held what looked like a TV remote from Jessie’s vantage point. Then his gloved hand thumbed a trigger on the device and a pair of wires with those electrode thingies shot out and plugged into the fairy’s bony chest.

The fairy jittered. His wings stretched straight back, except for the bent end of the one. Spittle sprayed from his mouth. He collapsed to the floor, his head knocking hard against the wood planks—possibly the only spot not cushioned with scattered clothes. After that, he didn’t move.

A beat of silence followed. The hint of ozone from the Taser didn’t last long against the sweaty stink permeating the apartment. This was definitely not the kind of place she imagined a fairy would live, but she had gotten used to surprises like this. The creatures who had found their way to the mortal plane didn’t always match the myths behind their names. Like this fairy, who, according to the old stories, should have stood less than a foot tall and lived among the trees.

Jessie shot to her feet. The rush of blood and pain to her head almost knocked her over. She stumbled, braced herself on the nightstand, and kept her feet. “You didn’t have to do that.”

The two thugs holding pistols pivoted their aim at her.

For an instant, she doubted herself. Maybe these guys weren’t from the Agency.

Her chest pinched as her last breath leaked away and she could draw another. Her skin turned cold. The faint tinnitus left over from the raid at the unicorn mansion three years ago rang in her right ear. Stress tended to make it worse.

When Wertz walked through the door, Jessie gasped and dropped back to sitting on the edge of the bed. She covered her face with her hands and rubbed at her eyes. Tremors rolled through her body. She steadied herself and let her hands fall to her lap so she could glare at Wertz. “Christ, dude, tell the goons to lower their guns.”

Wertz quietly swung the door shut behind him. The damage from getting kicked in wouldn’t let the door latch. The gnome leaned his three-foot-tall body against it to hold it closed. He didn’t say anything. He stared at Jessie as he straightened his silk, flower-print tie. It matched his custom-tailored little suit nicely—a miniature Mr. GQ.

“I don’t like that look,” Jessie said. “Lighten up, okay?”

One of Wertz’s cheeks twitched under his eye. Otherwise, he remained still.

“Are you gonna stand there gaping at me all day, or are we going back to the house?”

The agent with the Taser dropped the device to the floor and drew his own sidearm, joining his buddies in what looked too much like a firing squad for Jessie’s taste. She felt her hands shaking and wrung them together to make them stop. No dice.

“You’re not going to have them shoot me.”

Wertz’s lips pressed together, squeezing the color out of them. His hard gaze continued to pelt Jessie with silent accusations. Silent now, but she had heard them all before.

You’re reckless, Jessie.

You don’t take your role as the Return seriously.

You think of no one but yourself.

And the real juicy one, which he’d only used once, but she knew he thought all the time—
Your father would be ashamed.

She looked away. She couldn’t stand the look anymore. Mostly because she knew he was right, at least part of the time. Though she would never accept the one about her dad. Wertz was talking out of his ass on that one.

“I get it,” she said while she stared at her boots—the fairy hadn’t even taken those off. What a gent indeed. “You’re pissed. What else is new these days?”

She heard a long breath slid out Wertz’s nostrils. “We’re not having this conversation here. Return the fairy and let’s go.”

Jessie’s gut clenched. Wow, did this feel familiar. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t care. He’s a liability now. That’s on you. Besides, from the looks of this place, you’ll be doing him a favor.”

Jessie looked up at Wertz. Amazing how smug a man the same size as a ventriloquist dummy could act. “I’m not your puppet,” she said, and nearly added that he could pass as one, though. “I’m the Return. I decide who stays and who goes.”

Wertz quirked up one eyebrow. “Really? Because according to prophecy, we’re all supposed to go eventually. The Agency is simply helping prioritize.”

“Make me barf.” She rolled her eyes. “Can we go now so you can tell all about how much of a disappointment I am to you?” She held up a hand before Wertz could respond. “Oh, wait. I’m a legal adult now. I don’t have to obey you anymore.”

The lines at the corners of Wertz’s eyes deepened, as did the ones around his mouth. He looked tired and old. Shaking his head, he said, “Your age is just a number, Jess. You’ve been forced to grow up fast. You’ve been an adult for a while now.”

“Except you continue to treat me like a kid.”

“No. I try to keep you focused. You are the Chosen One. You can’t shirk that, no matter how much you want to.”

Jessie waved a hand as if trying to clear the air of a wicked stink—one worse than the apartment’s original rank smell. “We’ve talked this in circles. You obviously have no idea where I’m coming from. If you won’t listen, I’m not wasting my breath.”