Chapter 21
The fire truck’s ladder rattled against the parking garage’s outer ledge.
The truck’s red lights painted the concrete in pulsing streaks.
Below us, cars flew like torpedoes out of the narrow gap of the garage’s second floor, many crushed as if squashed in the giant fist of a toddler before being skipped along the pavement like a stone across a clear lake.
If not for a wall of ruined cars wedged along the side below us, we might still be stuck above.
“Move!” An EMT hauled the little girl from her mother’s arms as the garage trembled, threatening collapse. Another roar, overwhelming the sound of sirens and emergency vehicles, echoed, rattling me to the bone.
I didn’t breathe until our feet hit the street and everyone was ushered to waiting ambulances. Then I whirled on Angel, grabbing his wrist. His glove was fused to the burned rune, the skin beneath blistered black. Why wasn’t his healing kicking in? Did he need to change for that?
“Medic?” I called, trying to get someone’s attention. The EMTs fussed over the family, which was fine, but Angel needed them too.
Angel tried to yank free. “Jude…”
“You need a medic.” My voice cracked. Sure, the shield worked, but I’d used him. Hurt him. What the fuck was wrong with me?
Hardy headed our way, an unfamiliar woman in an SED medic uniform at his side.
“Please,” I asked her, “can you help? I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
“Shifters usually heal pretty fast without help,” Hardy said.
“I can take a look,” the medic offered.
“This is Agent Theone Xiang,” Hardy introduced her. “Healing is her specialty.”
Angel glared but let her carefully peel off the glove. She frowned over the burn. “Necrotic burn. We’ll need to take you to the hospital, remove the dead skin, and treat it. Even a shifter can’t heal a burn this deep without treatment.”
“It will be fine,” Angel said through gritted teeth as she carefully poked around the burn.
“You may lose mobility if you don’t treat it.”
Guilt soured my tongue. “It was an accident.” I’d been saying that a lot lately. Though I wasn’t certain how true it was this time. I’d activated the shield with the idea of covering Angel and me, and somehow it hurt him but protected us both from the car.
“The shape looks like a rune. Is this a spell?” She met my gaze with a hint of accusation in her voice that made me take a step back.
“Just a shield,” Angel said, taking a step to the side to put himself firmly between us. “He’s my mate and learning to focus his power. It was the rune or two thousand pounds of metal to my spine.”
“You’ll need debridement.”
“I need to check on my team first,” Angel said, pulling his hand out of her touch. “We left them in danger across the Veil.” He cradled his injured hand, his shoulders tight with tension and pain. My gut roiled at the idea of the agony he had to be in. All because of me.
Hardy stared at him for a long minute. “And ended up back on this side from a new tear?”
I nodded. “There was a portal at the top of the building.” I pointed at the apartment, which was shrouded in the gloomy shadow of a Veil wall, as often happened when things got pulled through.
“Portal? Not a tear?” Xiang asked.
“It looked like a door to me,” I said.
Both of them stared at me as if I’d grown two heads. But I wondered if maybe Cassidy had created it to escape out of the parking garage when everyone had been looking for him. Maybe we could find a way to search for his car?
The parking garage groaned, a wailing cry of metal and stone scraping.
“Fuck,” Hardy cursed.
The firefighters herded everyone away from the building, shouts merging with the eardrum-shattering sound of the garage collapsing in on itself like dominoes.
The second floor collapsed first, concrete slabs shearing sideways as if yanked by invisible cables.
The third floor followed in a cascade of sparking rebar and shattered glass.
Each level snapped into focus on the Veil’s other side like a camera lens finding its subject.
We stumbled back as the ground trembled.
The air between us and the wreckage thickened into that telltale electric shimmer, not quite solid, not quite mist. I’d never seen it happen in real time before.
One minute the garage had been on this side, or at least half on this side, attached to a building that shimmered across the Veil.
Through the Veil’s gauzy barrier, the ruins of the garage now sat pristine and untouched, no dust, no bent metal, as if the collapse had never happened.
“What the hell?” Xiang whispered as we all stared, the last tendrils of smoke curling against the barrier, etching an invisible wall in the air.
“Did the entire thing just settle? That fast?” Hardy said, gaze focused on the lower level where a giant vertical-slitted eye peered out between the levels of restored concrete. “That’s not possible.”
Our headsets crackled, Bobby’s voice coming over the line. “Angel? Jude?”
“Bobby?” I called back. “We’re here on the other side of the Veil. Is everyone okay over there? Kerry and Victor were up there with us.” Had they fallen? Could a demon and a vampire survive a fall like that?
“Everyone’s fine,” Wade’s voice came over the line. “Shaken up, but the whole parking garage crossed the Veil over here. We’re pulling back all our people because it looks like a couple of trolls have taken up residence, which will keep people from crossing both sides. Are the two of you hurt?”
“We’re fine,” Angel answered back.
“Angel is hurt. I’m taking him to the hospital,” I told them as I glared at him, daring him to protest.
“It’s not serious,” Angel said.
“Serious enough to need medical treatment,” I interrupted him.
The radio crackled again. “Copy that,” Bobby said. “We’re pulling out now. Rook’s people will keep an eye on this side for the next few days.”
The eye beyond the Veil blinked once more before sliding out of view. The garage stood silent again, pristine and wrong. My heart hammered over the idea of Angel hurt because of me and our team scattered.
“I’ve got to get Angel to a hospital,” I told Hardy and Xiang. The place was lousy with SED and didn’t need us right that minute.
Angel opened his mouth to protest, but I glared at him, his hand cradled against him, dark amber eyes flashing with pain and something darker. Anger? He had a right to be mad at me. I was mad at me. Fuck.
“We’ll have to send someone to look at this portal,” Hardy said.
“Won’t do any good if only Jude can see it,” Angel told him. “Even if it’s still there now that the garage is across too, you’d have people accidentally tripping into the path of a couple of trolls.”
Hardy sighed. “I’ll notify everyone that the area is off limits for the moment. Go get treatment.”
I dragged Angel to a nearby ambulance, not willing to take no for an answer.
Just looking at his hand made me sick. Not that I hadn’t seen worse, but with the knowledge that I’d done that.
We’d barely started a relationship and already I was becoming his worst nightmare—some sort of crazy necromancer with the ability to use him like a puppet.
The ambulance doors slammed shut, sealing us in sterile white light that made Angel’s burned hand look even worse.
The EMT worked quickly, wrapping the wound in cooling gauze, but every hiss of pain from Angel felt like a knife to my ribs.
I reached for him, to help and to apologize, but he shifted away, cradling his injured hand against his chest.
The EMTs worked on cleaning the wound to prep it for arrival at the hospital while my stomach churned, threatening to upchuck. Angel sat in stoic silence, half hugging himself, gaze focused over all our heads. It took every ounce of my strength not to let the tears stinging my eyes fall.
Outside, the Veil barrier pulsed like a slow heartbeat, its eerie glow casting long shadows across the ambulance floor. I stared at my own hands that had traced that rune and burned him. The outline of the rune glared at me in silent accusation.
Xavier had been right. Necromancers were bad for shifters. Angel didn’t deserve this pain or being bound to a piece of useless shit like me. I sank back into the corner, out of the way of the EMT as the vehicle launched into motion, choking back tears and doing my best to become invisible.