The Heart of a Monster: The Complete Series

Chapter 25

Lance

It was a strange kind of tricksy, pretending to be sneaky while actually trying to catch other beings’ attention. I slunk through the shadows as if I intended to avoid getting noticed, weaving to the side here and there, glancing at the houses and sprawling lawns all around me regularly. But I’d purposefully never gotten too far ahead of the being that’d been tracking me since shortly after I’d left Los Angeles. I could sense it at the very edge of my awareness, just distant enough that it was believable I might have missed it.

It needed to think I was on a special secret mission. That my woman, my friends, and I didn’t want it knowing what I was up to. Because if it realized our whole plan was for it to overhear the message I was going to deliver, it would know this was part of a trap.

Rollick had shown me the sorcerers’ house on a map, although my memory of the paper landscape didn’t seem to have much in common with the paved terrain I was crossing over. I knew what direction I had to go in, though. And with each mile I crossed, the apprehension prickling over my skin dug deeper.

I didn’t want to be anywhere near the mortals who warped shadowkind minds. I didn’t want to tell them anything, even if it wasn’t really for their benefit.

But I wanted the brutes who’d been threatening Quinn and so much else in this world gone even more. So I kept going, keeping up my ruse of caution.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to get too close to the actual sorcerers. Like most, they had their own minions lurking around in a wide radius around their home, watching for threats. This family was less isolated than others we’d dealt with, living in a quiet stretch of widely-spaced homes that Quinn had called a “suburb.” Rollick said they were hiding in plain sight, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. How was it hiding if people could see you?

In any case, they had creatures staked out in the shadows well before I could catch so much as a glimpse of their actual house. I could tell the one under a mailbox was a fierce but lesser being, unable to convey my message for me. I veered away from her until I came across the next sentry, this one a young-feeling nymph in the shade of a vast tree.

I paused several feet away from it and postured a bit both to get its attention and to give my follower time to catch up. The nymph shivered when it noticed me, but it slunk a little closer to the edge of the tree’s shadow.

“Go away,” it told me. “No shadowkind should come this way.”

“You’re here,” I couldn’t help pointing out. “I have a message to give to some people who live nearby.”

“I’m not supposed to let anyone pass,” the nymph insisted, but I could taste the tension in the air with its movements. It was struggling against the hold of their magic, the power propelling the words from its mouth, and failing to free itself. If I pushed the issue, its orders might compel it to try to fight me—a battle it wouldn’t win. Or maybe it’d just run to warn its masters.

My skin itched even more at the thought. This being should be roaming around as freely as I could now, but instead the sorcerers had forced it into their service. Did it get any enjoyment at all out of its life? A memory flickered up of how it’d felt when that kind of power had locked around my mind, caging me from the inside out, and I held back a shudder.

And here I was using its state for my own benefit.

For good reasons, I reminded myself, and forced out the words. “I think the people I need to give the message to might be the ones you work with. You protect some sorcerers, don’t you?”

The nymph gave me a narrow look. “I won’t speak of that.”

“Fine. You can speak to them about what I’m going to tell you. There’s a new sorcerer in Los Angeles, one who’s gathering enough power to challenge two very powerful shadowkind beings who’ve been killing other sorcerers and bending our kind to their will. She’s building up her strength to enslave them herself, but that’ll take a lot of her power, so she’s hoping to get help from other sorcerers to deal with their minions.”

“Why should anyone help your sorcerer?” the nymph muttered.

“Because otherwise these beings will probably kill all the sorcerers out there. Quinn is going to stop them. It’ll just be faster with your masters’ help. Tell them, and let them decide. They can find her in the building where she’s preparing for the battle and stockpiling her resources.”

I rattled off the address I’d memorized, slow and clear the way Torrent had reminded me to. It was very important that not just the being in front of me but the lackey who’d trailed me this far heard exactly where Quinn would be—exactly where we wanted those massive beasts to come looking for her.

Not yet. It wasn’t quite ready yet. But Rollick’s people were already hard at work following the design Quinn had worked out. He thought it would only take a few more days. It wouldn’t be until it was ready that she’d walk in there, and by then we hoped that our enemies would be watching, waiting for the chance to strike.

But we’d be the ones who’d strike out at them.

My claws flexed at the thought, bolstering my determination despite my discomfort seeing this enslaved being. I dipped my head to him, hoping he understood that I wished for his freedom too. “Please let them know. Whether they come or not is up to them.”

Then I hurried back the way I’d come, still acting like I wanted to dart away before anyone else realized what I was up to.

The images of the nymph’s shiver and the tension wound through its presence dogged me as I rushed through the streets and across the countryside beyond as fast as I could. On the highway, I leapt into the shadows on a passing bus and sped off before my follower would have any hope of tracing me back to the apartment where Quinn was currently staying. I didn’t need him watching me any longer.

When I made it back to the apartment, still slinking through the patches of darkness throughout the building, I passed Crag in the stairwell. He nodded to me without emerging from his own shadowy state. He was standing guard while Rollick oversaw the construction of the trap and Torrent reached out to a couple of other sorcerer families.

I found Quinn in the living room, curled up on the sofa, frowning at the blueprints on her computer. I dropped onto the cushion next to her and lifted her feet onto my lap where I could stroke my claws over them. “Is there something wrong?”

“No.” She sighed and set the device aside. “I’m just triple-checking that I’ve thought of everything. The engineer Rollick talked to made some tweaks. I think it’s really going to work. As long as we can get the big bads in there to begin with.”

She pushed herself a little more upright with just a hint of a wince. My claws curled toward my palms, away from her skin, even though I knew I hadn’t provoked that response.

I wanted to find the being that’d dug his own claws into her and eviscerate him all over again. Shred him into itty bitty pieces. The sight of the blood gushing from her side in the dimness of the night flashed through my mind, and my fangs sprang from my gums of their own accord.

She was much better now, able to walk around the apartment on her own and only showing a little pain now and then, partly with the help of the pills Rollick had gotten for her. But I knew how close she’d come to dying. I knew she would have died if the others hadn’t leapt into the fray as soon as they did. I hadn’t been able to protect her from that onslaught all on my own.

It wasn’t my fault. No being could have fended off a whole army alone. But thinking about it still chilled all the fire that normally coursed through my body.

How long would it take before she could move around as swiftly and gracefully as before her injury? Would the scar on her side ever completely heal? Last night I’d given it another several swipes with my tongue, bathing it in dragon saliva, but the skin had remained a bumpy peach shade against the rest of her pale abdomen.

There was one other thing I could offer her that might at least improve her spirits. “I delivered the message I was supposed to—and one of the sorcerer-killers’ minions was definitely spying on me. They’ll get the message too.”

“Oh, good,” Quinn said, and then studied me more carefully. I smiled at her, but my insides still felt wobbly after the mission I’d just carried out.

Our woman didn’t miss very much. She knew us so well.

Her brow knit. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you going that close to where you know sorcerers are living—or talking with a being they’ve captured.”

I shrugged. “It needed to be done, so I did it. Now it’s over.” But her sympathy struck a chord in me, bringing out a peal of longing. I leaned closer and eased all of her onto my lap. Tucking her close against my chest, I buried my face in her soft hair and drank in her fresh, tangy-sweet scent.

Quinn slipped her arm around me and hugged me in return. “I’m sorry that I put you through that kind of magic again too. I know I said it before, but I want you to know how much I mean it. I was just so worried about you—but it was a mistake. A horrible mistake.”

“I know you were trying to stop me from being hurt, not to hurt me,” I told her, but a tremor ran through my body even as I spoke. Having her strange energy rippling through me, stealing my will and compelling my limbs, had been its own kind of horror. I wished I didn’t have to connect that experience to her, but there was no getting away from the fact that she was the one who’d caused it.

“It’ll never happen again,” she said, so firmly her voice reverberated into me from where her face was tipped against my shoulder. “I promise you I’ll never use my power on you for any reason. And when this is over, when that monstrous duo is dealt with, I won’t use it again on anyone at all.”

I wouldn’t have asked her to go that far, to completely shun the power she’d found in herself, but the words sent a rush of relief through me. I hugged her tighter. “I know you wouldn’t do bad things with it.”

“It’s a bad power,” she said. “It comes out of hurting beings that don’t deserve it. I’m going to try to force whatever other sorcerers have survived the battle to stop too. No one deserves to go through what you did.”

And this was why I could still hold her now despite what she’d done, still take comfort in the feel of her against me, still want more than anything to absorb every smile and laugh she could offer. Her love for me rang through her voice and into me, right down to my bones. I meant that much to her, when I’d never meant much of anything to anyone before.

So I needed to do whatever I could to preserve the most special being who’d ever entered my life.

I glanced toward the kitchen and scooped Quinn up. I couldn’t carry her quite as deftly as the gargoyle managed to with his vast arms, but it wasn’t much strain bringing her over to the stools by the kitchen island. As I set her down on one, she raised her eyebrows at me. “What are you up to?”

I grinned at her, more freely this time. “You need to keep your strength up, baby girl, and I’m going to make sure you do. It’s just about lunch time, isn’t it? Let me know what you’d like me to slice and dice or charbroil, and I’ll make it happen.”

And I wouldn’t let myself think about what might happen if this plan went wrong and none of us could save her after all.