Shadows in the Silence

  Her eyes moved from Marcus to Will and back. “And you two. You don’t eat people. You fight the ones that do.”

  Marcus leaned forward, putting a hand on her knee. “Right. We’re soldiers, basically. Some of us fight in battle, others protect holy relics from those who would use them for evil. We live for hundreds, thousands of years.”

  She swallowed hard. “How old are you?”

  “Two hundred twelve…ish. I lost count.”

  “Wow,” she breathed. “That explains so much, though. You’ve had a lot of time to gain experience. I wondered how you were so damn good at—”

  Will cleared his throat and she gave him a curious look. Marcus beamed far too satisfyingly.

  “And you?” she asked Will.

  “Six hundred twenty.”

  She huffed. “Let’s hope the pattern sticks, for Ell’s sake.”

  My cheeks lit up in flames and I gaped at her. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever been more embarrassed than in that moment. “Wow, really, Kate?”

  “Yeah, really. I have to look out for my girl, right?”

  I grinned at her and sighed. “There are more important things to think about right now, you know.”

  She shrugged. “If you insist,” she grumbled.

  “Like your blue hair!”

  Kate sighed. “I can’t get the blue highlighter out. I must have taken six showers and it’s still blue. I’m sure I’ll have to get the color stripped and redone.”

  I tried to offer her a sympathetic smile. “It’s not so bad, really.”

  “Liar.”

  “Do you want to talk?” Marcus asked.

  She gave him a sad look disguised with a little smile. “Yeah. We should.”

  Kate and Marcus stepped out onto the porch, leaving Will and me alone. He watched the floor, hands clasped together, lost in thought.

  “I feel so conflicted,” I told him. “I’m so happy that Kate knows, but I can’t get what happened to Landon out of my head. I tried to protect them by keeping them away from this world, but Landon is still dead. My parents, Nathaniel, Sabina, Landon…I can’t lose anyone else. My heart can’t take it.”

  “Some things are out of our control,” he said. “We have to learn to accept and adapt.”

  “I never wanted Kate to have to adapt,” I confessed. “Not to this.”

  “Now it comes down to what she wants. She may be happier. Her relationship with Marcus could improve. You haven’t been the only one hiding a double life from her.”

  I knew what he meant, but I wasn’t sure if I could stand the danger Kate would be in and the vulnerability of being an ordinary human girl in a relationship with an immortal reaper who had many, many enemies. I thought of Emelia, the girl Cadan had loved a long time ago. I didn’t want Kate to end up like her, but it wasn’t my place to decide what was right for Kate. Her life was her own, and if she wanted Marcus in it, that was something I’d have to learn to accept.

  I rose from my seat and went into the kitchen. The windows were open and I could hear Kate and Marcus’s conversation out on the porch. Even if I had no say in what Kate would do, it didn’t hurt for me to try and find some consolation.

  “Were you ever going to tell me?” Kate asked him.

  “That’s a funny question,” he said, “because last night I decided that I would. I hadn’t been sure if I wanted anything to change between us, because I loved things the way they were. If you knew what I was, what Ellie was, what’s really out there…I didn’t want to scare you and I didn’t want to endanger you. But last night, when the reapers attacked, you were so brave and determined to get your friends out. I practically had to drag you out of that house. I watched you drive away and I couldn’t help thinking what a hell of a reaper you’d have made. Better yet, you’re a hell of a girl.”

  He smiled at her and she grinned back. “If I was as strong as you, I could definitely kick your ass.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “But you don’t need my kind of strength. A simple look from you alone cripples me. I am at your mercy.”

  She lifted her hand and drew a finger down the length of the scar on his face and neck. “Will you tell me how you really got this?”

  “Demonfire,” he said. “I didn’t lie when I said I got this in a fight. I just didn’t say with whom. The Fallen Belial, a demon. He almost killed me.”

  Her expression grew serious and grave, all humor lost in her eyes. “So what happens now?”

  “You have to decide,” he said, “if I’m worth it. You can walk away from me today, and to be honest, you probably should, but you have to hear me out first. For what it’s worth, I don’t want you to go. I love you, Kate, and I need you in my life.”

  She bit hard on her lower lip and wiped at a tear cresting in the corner of her eye. I wasn’t sure when was the last time I saw her cry. “Why? Why do you love me? You’re over two hundred years old and you’re a freaking monster hunter. Why do I even matter to you?”

  “Because I can’t remember the last time I had as much fun as I do when I’m with you,” he said, and a smile began to grow. “You’re my match. You’re hilarious and strong-minded and beautiful. You’re human and supposed to be so fragile, but you’re not. You’re made of stone and when I’m with you, you help me feel stronger. I can forget what I am, this instrument of destruction and warfare, existing only to kill and die, and I can be a person. God, I don’t want to let go of that. I can’t let go of you.”

  Her tears were free-falling now. “You don’t have to. I’m not afraid of you and I love you, too. I’m glad that I get to know this side of you. I want to know everything about you.”

  He cupped her face in his hands, his fingers twining through her blond hair. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything and I’ll show you everything. I want you to know me.”

  He kissed her fiercely, their bodies melding together, and I felt the relief that I’d longed for since last night. It was dangerous for her to be with him, but he could protect her from those who’d use her to get to him. He would keep her from them and keep her close to his heart. His being an angelic reaper wasn’t his secret. She was his secret.

  12

  IT WAS A LITTLE WHILE BEFORE KATE AND MARCUS returned to the living room and they sat beside each other on the couch. “I got a bit sidetracked, but I was going to tell you what I got from Lauren this morning,” he said.

  I looked questioningly at Kate. “Are you okay with hearing this?”

  She nodded, her lips tight. “Yeah. I’m in.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What do you have, Marcus?”

  “It’s not a huge lead, but it’s something,” he continued. “I called Lauren because Xastur said that this Ethan Stone may be a psychic. She said she knew the name and that Nathaniel had been in contact with him. She’s going through old phone records, emails, everything to find a possible location for this guy.”

  “That’s good news,” Will said with a sigh. “It’s a break we really need. Is she at her place?”

  “Yeah,” Marcus said. “You and Ellie should head over there and see where she’s at so far. I can hang here and go through Nathaniel’s office. If I find anything that her clairsentient abilities could help with, I’ll give you a ring.”

  “Great,” I agreed. “There’s got to be records of communication. Nathaniel kept everything when it came to dealing with psychics and Lauren’s abilities can really speed this up.”

  “Clair-what?” Kate asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It means she can read an object’s psychic signature just by touching it,” I explained. “She feels things and sees information in her head: what something is, where it’s been, who it belongs to. She’s probably going through Nathaniel’s stuff to feel out a connection to Ethan Stone. If he’s as powerful a psychic as we were told, then Lauren won’t miss him.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” she replied, but seemed very sad. “She was dating Nathaniel, right? Will’s friend who died?”

/>   Marcus took her hand and squeezed it. “Yeah.”

  Her gaze fell and she seemed to piece things together, getting a better understanding of what her relationship with Marcus could mean.

  “Let’s get going,” I said to Will. The tension in the room had just become too thick to breathe and it was time to get to work. He and I stepped outside and headed for my car, leaving Kate and Marcus to work out whatever they still needed to.

  On the third knock, a woman I didn’t know answered Lauren’s door. She had a pleasant expression until she appeared to recognize me. She looked from me to Will and then slammed the door in our faces. I jumped and stared at the closed door in shock. I knocked again. Two people argued in hushed voices on the other side before the door opened up a second time and Lauren appeared.

  “Ellie, Will.” Lauren greeted us with an apologetic smile. “Great to see—”

  The door opened wider and the woman returned with a disgusted look on her face. “You have to go. Both of you. Now.”

  “Mom, please,” Lauren begged her. “They’re okay. They’re my friends.”

  Lauren’s mother shook an angry finger at us. “You will leave my daughter alone. Do you understand? You are not welcome here.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, and began to back away. “We’ll go. Come on, Will.”

  We started toward the car, and Lauren’s mom disappeared behind the door.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lauren said as she caught up with us. “My mother doesn’t like reapers. Hates them, actually.”

  “I thought your grandmother was the other psychic in your family,” I said. “How did she know what Will is?”

  “She knows who you are,” Lauren explained. “And she knows, from growing up with my grandmother and from raising me, that you have a reaper Guardian. Two and two, I guess. Please forgive her rudeness. Knowing about reapers her whole life and knowing what they do and being unable to see them hidden in Grim has given her a great fear of them. She doesn’t want anything to do with even angelic reapers and she’s always resented how I help you. She’s afraid of what she doesn’t understand.”

  “It’s all right,” I said honestly. “We can come later if your mom is over. I don’t want her to be upset.”

  “No, no,” she replied. “This is way too important. I’ll grab my things and head to the house. Let me say good-bye to my mom really quick.”

  “Sure,” I said, and watched her disappear back inside.

  Will crossed his arms. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I didn’t know her mother would be here.”

  “It’s no big deal. She has her reasons for her feelings.”

  “I’m glad you’re not upset,” Will said.

  Lauren returned with an armful of books and files stuffed with papers, which Will promptly took from her and carried to my car. We drove back to Will’s house, where Marcus and Kate were going through boxes in the basement. Some were labeled DON’T THROW OUT and others CORRESPONDENCES. Papers were strewn across the floor as they leafed through each and cast all of them aside. They seemed too glad to see us trudge down the steps.

  “Please don’t tell me you do this kind of stuff every day,” Kate said, sighing. “I had a very different impression of your Supergirl adventures.”

  I laughed. “My adventures are usually a lot more dangerous than the threat of paper cuts. Have you guys found anything?”

  “Not yet,” Marcus said, appearing entirely exhausted. He gestured to the armloads we’d brought from Lauren’s house. “Is that more of Nathaniel’s junk?”

  “Yeah,” Lauren replied. “I haven’t gone through this stuff yet, so I brought it over.”

  “Let’s get started then,” Will said. He grabbed a box and slid it across the floor to me. “Look for anything that might say ‘Ethan Stone’ or reference to a location on the East Coast.”

  It took a few hours before there was any break at all in our search—and it was a pretty vague break. I came across a torn-open padded envelope addressed to Nathaniel from a P.O. box numbered 184 in Saugerties, New York.

  “Here’s something East Coast-y,” I said, and tossed the envelope to Lauren.

  It landed in her hands and she gave out a shriek before dropping it immediately. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at her and I jumped to my feet to cross the room to her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. I picked up the envelope and peeked inside. “Spider? Will is good at squishing them. Will!”

  Her wide eyes were fixed on the tan paper wrapping. She reached for it gingerly and when her fingers touched it, she swallowed hard and trembled. Her eyes rolled up into white orbs and her head snapped back, mouth wide open to release a skin-ripping scream. The envelope went flying out of her hands and the lightbulb above our heads shattered in a blinding flash and shower of glass. In the darkness, the basement was suddenly silent.

  From somewhere unseen, Kate’s disembodied voice said, “Guess we have a winner.”

  The envelope, address side up, sat on the coffee table with five pairs of eyes fixed on it. Lauren and I had sat at the kitchen table until she stopped shaking and then we joined everyone else in the living room. She’d assured me that she was ready to talk about what happened in the basement, but I kept a close eye on her.

  “This package came from and was directly handled by Ethan Stone,” Lauren said. “I’m positive. There’s no telling what Stone sent to Nathaniel, but his psychic signature is all over it. So is Ellie’s, for some reason, only hers is very faint. I can’t explain that, but there is something very, very powerful laced into this man’s energy, something terrifying. I believe there may be much more to him than you were told. He can’t possibly be just another psychic human.”

  “What did you see when you touched it?” Will asked.

  “A huge house surrounded by trees,” she described. “Inside, there are sculptures, paintings, pieces of bones that belonged to dead saints, jars of cursed coins, trinkets dripping blood magic…. These images came in flashes, but I repeatedly caught glimpses of a leather-bound book with no title or author name on the cover. This book may not be Nathaniel’s copy of the grimoire, but I believe if you go to the town this envelope came from, then you can find Ethan Stone.”

  “Let’s go for it,” Will said. “It’s our best lead.”

  I nodded. “Marcus, you in?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “I’ll give Ava a call.”

  “I’ll ask Cadan to join us,” I added. “I know that doesn’t make you happy, Will, but our little team is one less with Sabina gone. We need all the help we can get and he’s strong. We’re lucky to have him as our ally.”

  His mouth was a tight line for a few moments before he spoke. “No. You’re right. Call him and tell him we leave tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll get plane tickets for the two of us. Marcus, would you and Ava travel or fly using…other means…?”

  He laughed. “Do you mean fly by wing instead of machine? It wouldn’t take as long if we traveled by plane and would be much less exhausting. She and I can get our own tickets. We’ve got the identification we’ll need to travel. Not the first time we’ve taken a plane.”

  “Then we roll with what we have,” I said. I was nervous about undertaking this mission, but I’d have my friends I could count on at my back.

  “So you’ll be gone for a few days?” Kate asked.

  “Yeah,” I explained. “We’re going into this one a bit blind, so it may take longer. I’m counting on figuring out Stone’s location once we get to Saugerties.”

  “Will you let me know how you’re doing?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I promised with a smile.

  It was no trouble to purchase two plane tickets into the Albany International Airport and book a couple of rooms at a gorgeous bed-and-breakfast in Saugerties. The trouble was figuring out what to do once we got to Saugerties after two in the afternoon. While I took a shower to get rid of my jetlagged-ness, Wil
l looked up the location of the post office on my phone. Marcus and Ava wouldn’t arrive for another two hours, and Cadan was flying in after dark, of course, so it was just Will and me for now. I dressed in the bathroom and took my blow-dryer out into the room to finish getting ready.

  “Any news?” I asked Will. I plugged in the dryer and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  He plopped down beside me and eyed my blow-dryer. “You tell me. You’re the one with the satellite dish.”

  “What?” It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the diffuser attached to the end of the dryer. “It keeps my hair from getting frizzy.”

  “It doesn’t receive messages from space?” he asked, his voice ringing with sarcasm, and he took the blow-dryer from my hands to examine it.

  “Give me that,” I grumbled and grappled the dryer back from him. “You’re ridiculous. So, did you get an address for the post office, or what?”

  “Of course.”

  He winked at me. I turned on the blow-dryer and blasted him in the face. He pinched my side and I couldn’t stop the squeal that escaped me. The entire time I dried my hair, he was right next to me, watching me curiously, touching the warm, dry, wavy locks of my hair, playing with my sleeve…. Finally, I turned the dryer off, set it down on the bed, and stared at him.

  “Do you want something?” I asked him with an impatient huff.

  He gave me an innocent look. “Never.”

  “Then quit pestering me.”

  “Never,” he replied with a grin and inched a little closer.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to kick you out of the room and ignore you.”

  “Never.”

  He was so close now that I could taste his breath and when he kissed me, it sent a rush of electricity to my toes. It only took seconds for the heat between us to flame, his body scorching against mine, pushing me into the bed. I wiggled toward the pillows and away from the edge of the mattress, and he followed me, molding his body to my shape. Kissing him now, feeling his lips against mine and his tongue against mine, reminded me of how long it had been since we were alone together and truly happy. The kisses we’d shared in his dreams felt tangible at the time, but now I knew that nothing could substitute for the feel of Will’s body in the real world. I’d missed him so much, missed the smell of his skin and the warmth and roughness of it brushing my own. I wondered what he felt when he kissed me back, if there was anything better than this to him. The brief moments I was able to forget why we were in that hotel room together were relieving, but there wasn’t time for this yet.