Night Series Collection: Books 1 and 2 (13 page)

The second the words left my mouth I knew I’d pushed him too far. I felt the cold shiver of displaced air against my cheek a second before he stabbed me. I screamed as the blade sank deep between my collarbone, snapping it with a muffled pop. My stomach churned.

He shoved his face close, his nose pressed to mine. The mint of his breath tickled my lips as he said, “It would be a grave mistake for you to ever underestimate me again.”

Then he pulled the knife out and blood poured from the wound. He shoved away from me and I hissed as pain lanced through the left side of my chest. He stood there, bloody knife gripped in his hand, looking like some avenging angel of death. I had two choices, stand here and die, or do something about it.

He advanced.

I knelt and frantically yanked on the sack in my boot, my left arm was useless, my fingers numb and cold. I couldn’t get it. Panic nearly consumed me.

A shiver of parasite pulsed across my skin like magnetic flame. But this wasn’t a low buzz of frequency, this was off the charts haywire crazy. Billy blocked my view of whatever it was that had suddenly materialized behind us, all I could make out was a twirl of gray. My heart thumped. I shot to my feet, saw Billy turn, a look flashed across his face so fast I barely had time to register it. Then in a blink, he was gone. Vanished into the night.

What could make a priest run that way, was all I had time to think before I saw it too.

I
can’t describe the thing and hope to do it justice, but here’s my best attempt at it. It was gray. From head to foot. It was shadow, but wasn’t. It almost seemed to suck all light out of the night, and yet it didn’t glow. A dense mass of matter that’s separate but somehow connected to everything around it.

It moved with the careless grace of wind and thought. And even as I could feel the shivering pulse of para, I could also feel the immense power that dwarfed me by comparison. It was an oxymoron that totally and completely scared me.

It didn’t walk exactly, but glided with a strange, yet seductive allure. I blinked, fighting the thrall. What was this thing?

I didn’t want to find out. I ported. Or at least I tried to. But it was like the air had grown so dense it was an iron cage I couldn’t dematerialize through. I was stuck and contemplated attacking the thing to try and throw if off balance.

Adrenaline is such an amazing high. It can make people strong enough to lift cars, bend steel, and run like the wind. In my case however, it helped me focus and see what was really happening outside of my fear.

The gray blob—for lack of better word—was definitely a tangible presence, it was also somehow muted. I could feel the enormous power roll off it like hot mist, but it felt...wrong. Half substance and half...something else.

Though this mass hemmed me in like a cornered rat in a science experiment, I didn’t actually sense threat of violence from it. I bit my bottom lip, stood my ground and hoped against hope I was right.

The closer it drew to me, the more it began to take shape. The mass tightened, pushed in some places, out in others, until I saw what resembled a head, arms, a long body and then it stood before me. A gray robed figure with two red dots staring out of a black void where a face should be.

“Peace, I bring you,” he said, ephemeral voice like a haunting melody echoing on the breeze.

My heart thudded violently. Call me dumb, but I wasn’t feeling exactly peaceful at the moment.

He—and I use that word loosely, since I really have no clue what it is—stood there, and I kind of got the sense that it really was trying to put me at ease. I put on a brave face, notched my chin and stepped away from the wall.

The scent of sandalwood still very strong around me. Billy hadn’t left, he was close. I could almost feel the sights of a gun trained on my skull. The thought covered me in goose bumps. I glanced up at the metal railings on the sides of the buildings trying to spot his shadow, while still keeping aware of the thing before me.

“Trust no one,” he said with that same lyrical quality.

“What?” I snapped, irritated and tired and rubbed my forehead. My wound had already begun sealing, but the bone still ached, not fully mended yet.

He shook his hooded head and this time I was able to glimpse something, a flash of orange colored haze. Like the glow that shines off flames, it flickered so fast I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it all. What freaked me out worse was that even through the glow, I could see no form. This was moving, breathing, thinking shadow.

“Who are you?” I asked. I’d never seen anything like this before. For that matter, what was it? It wasn’t human and though it pulsed like a parasite, I know for a fact it wasn’t one of those either. This...thing, was an entity unto itself.

“I am the Gray Man.”

When he said it, I swear the ground beneath my feet rumbled. “What are you?”

“I am
order
. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

I shook my head; it was all Greek to me. For an ancient, sometimes I feel really stupid. How come I’d never seen him before? For that matter, why hadn’t I ever heard of him before? I frowned.

“You tell me to trust no one, can I trust you?”

“Friends you think you know, you don’t. Enemies you think you have, you don’t. Trust no one.”

Dread, like a ball of grease, settled in the pit of my stomach. Who was this? Why was he telling me this? Who, or what, had sent him?

“Who do you work for?” I stalked forward. “Who sent you?”

“Tell no one about me. Speak to no one about me. When you think of me, think only of the Gray Man.” His tone was insistent, sharp and menacing. I blinked, trying to understand the reason for the warning. “If you do, I’ll know.”

The threat hung hot and heavy in the air and then violent magick rushed around me. It squeezed my throat, choked the air from my lungs. I gasped, clawing at my neck, trying to shove the dark spell away. I dropped to my knees, desperately trying to breathe in oxygen grown as dense as water.

Just when I was sure I would black out, it was over. I jerked; dragging in the sweet fresh air like it might soon run out. I coughed and wheezed and stared at the thing in dumbfounded horror.

It’d been choking me and it hadn’t even touched me.

He stepped back, blending into shadow, form beginning to grow distorted and fuzzy. “I will be in touch,” he said, voice echoing in the hollow silence of night and then he was gone.

I shivered, coughed weakly and rubbed my arms. I needed to leave. Now. I took one last look around and this time was able to port away.

“P
andora,” Luc nearly tore the door off my trailer as he rushed inside. His hair was wild, poking up around his head as if he’d been running his hands through it half the night. He looked an awful mess, face haggard, clothes wrinkled. “Where were you? I called Grace to see if you were still there, she said you’d left already.”

“So?” I shrugged, slid my jacket off and walked over to the floor length mirror hanging behind the door of my bedroom, pulled my hair to the side and studied the area where Billy had stabbed me. The skin was flawless, smooth, save for a small brown birthmark. The bone however, was another story. It was sticking up at an odd angle. Dammit. It had set wrong. I was going to have to rebreak it. I was tired and so didn’t want to deal with this right now.

I studied my neck, half expecting to see a visible purple bruise from where the Gray Man had choked me, but there was nothing.

“So!” He marched behind me. “That was four hours ago.”

I twirled on him and smacked his outstretched hand away. “I’m in no mood for one of your crazy fits of temper. I don’t know what’s going on with you, Luc, and honestly I don’t care. I just had the night from hell...”

He narrowed his ice blue eyes.

“I’m tired, I stink, and all I want is a hot shower and to go to bed.”

That wasn’t the truth, not really. I wanted to talk, have diarrhea of the mouth and tell everything, share everything. But looking at Luc now, I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

He was still the same Luc, still a pest and a nuisance, but...he had changed. I’d been noticing a difference these past few days. Was Grace right? Could I even trust him? Should I?

I took a deep breath; this was all too fresh, too new. I needed time to think, to decide what I could and couldn’t share.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You’re not...hurt?” he asked, voice stilted and full of suppressed fury.

I held my arms out at my sides, wincing only a little when I moved the left one. I really needed to reset it before too much more time passed. “Do I look hurt?”

He looked at me, eyes settling on my breasts, the room quickened with the rush of his response. He stepped closer to me and trailed his finger along the curve of my breast. I hissed as Lust stirred.

Luc’s gaze turned soft, molten.

“No,” I said forcefully, stepping out of reach. Lust may not have liked it, but I’d already fed her tonight. I didn’t want sex, not with Luc, not with anybody.

He closed his eyes, as if trying to compose his thoughts. I glanced down at his pants, his body was only at half-mast, he’d obviously sampled the night’s wares. He’d be fine.

“Did Grace say anything?” I finally asked, shifting topics.

He cleared his throat, rubbed his whiskered jaw. “Just that she was worried about you and she’d like you to call her when you got some time.”

“Did it sound important?”

He shrugged. “Not really.”

“Fine. Thanks. I’ll call her tomorrow.” I nodded, then jerked my chin in the direction of the door. “Listen, if you don’t mind, Luc, I’m tired.”

I turned back around and unzipped my leather pants. Luc was already forgotten in the clutter of my mind.

There were so many things that’d happened today. Who was this Gray Man? Why did he tell me to trust no one? Echoing almost the exact same sentiments that Grace had shared earlier. What was going on? I wanted answers, where to start looking was the question.

“Pandora...” I looked over my shoulder. Luc had his arms crossed over his chest, studying me as if he knew I was keeping secrets. Finally after several tense seconds he shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

I smiled weakly. “Tomorrow, promise. I’ll bring doughnuts and coffee and we can catch up on the latest gossip,” I said, hoping to lighten his mood.

“Sometimes you really disgust me,” he said, lip curling, then he turned on his heels and was gone.

“Join the club,” I muttered, reached into my closet and pulled out a leather paddle—yes, I do like to play the Dom sometimes—and sat on the edge of my bed, wondering what I’d done to piss off the men in my life.

So they hated me, big deal.

I sighed, wishing for a moment I was gay, it had to be easier with women. Fingers clammy, I shoved the paddle in my mouth, bit down hard, grabbed my left wrist and yanked until I heard the bone snap.

Sweat rolled down my face, my back. I screamed, the sound muted by the leather and squeezed my eyes shut until the terrible pain dulled down. I spit out the paddle, reached under the side of my bed and pulled out a brace I keep tucked away for moments like these and secured my arm to my side for the ten minutes it would take to heal.

Needing to think about something other than the vomit inducing throb in my shoulder, I started to piece together the events of the past few days.

A. I meet a death priest, who oddly enough still seemed reluctant to kill me. Many times now I’ve had opportunities to do him in. But every time I get around Billy all I ever seem to be focused on is getting that man’s clothes off and having my dirty, dirty way with him. It’s almost like I’m under some sort of a thrall now that I think about it. Is he spelling me? Is that why I can’t bring myself to give up his name to Grace? And yet, here I still stand. Sure he’d given me a concussion the size of Texas the first night we’d met, and tonight he’d stabbed me, but they weren’t killing blows. As a priest he knew that.

Therefore, the only logical explanation I have is that he has a plan of his own. No doubt in my mind he meant to kill me, eventually. He’s a death dealer, that’s what they do. But there’s more to this game than simply chasing me down, and even though I’d accused him of getting off on the fear, thinking about it now, that didn’t feel like his style.

I sighed, remembering I’d meant to ask Grace for access to the library. In all the Grace/Mary drama, I’d forgotten. When I called her tomorrow I’d have to ask. I needed clues, something had to be there.

I shook my head, flexing my shoulder a little to see where it stood. Few more minutes and then I could take a bath.

I sighed, wanting sleep but unable to calm the constant thoughts and worries nagging me. The night I’d killed all those vamps in the clearing, someone or something, had killed the fourth. I’d have sworn it was Billy, but now...I wasn’t sure about anything. I’d gone back many times, trying to get a fix on the place, maybe find a clue inadvertently left behind, but whoever it was, left nothing. Which made me wonder, had the knife been meant for me and not the vamp at all? It was a possibility I didn’t like.

I still felt like he might be the one stalking me, and yet...that question led me straight to another. B. Who the hell was the Gray Man?

I’ve lived a long life, you’d think somewhere between the stone age and the bronze age, iron age, modern age...whatever age, I’d have heard something, somewhere, at some point.

He said trust no one. So why should I trust him? I’d point blank asked him and he’d neither confirmed nor denied that I could or couldn’t.

I licked my lips, a headache burgeoning on the horizon. I glanced at the clock next to my bed, already past one in the morning.

I flexed my arm, it twinged, but it would heal nicely without the use of the brace now. I undid the Velcro, tossed the brace to the ground and stalked toward my bathroom. I turned on the faucet for a long, hot soak in my ivory clawed foot tub and undressed the rest of the way.

I know what you’re wondering. How in the heck do I have a claw footed bathtub in my trailer. To some extent we all have a little magick. Not much. Not the way witches do. But we can ward things, hide things with our glamour. And with a little extra practice, we can even distort the dimensions of reality.