Chapter 42
The midnight air carried a grave damp chill, breezing across my face like a zombie kiss.
Downtown Minneapolis had never been this quiet, not even on the dozen-odd warrants and crime scenes I’d worked.
But the fluttering caution tape and the lingering crackle of energy from the nearby Veil split had scared everyone away, leaving the streets silent as a tomb.
We stood shrouded in the shadows across from Bowman’s apartment, watching for any sign of movement.
Other than the distant, periodic sweep of a police patrol car, the place was a ghost town.
How many people had fled their homes, terrified the whole building would be pulled across the Veil?
Now, as I stared up at the facade, not a single trace of the tear remained.
A few dozen yards down the road, the old, permanent Veil split merged seamlessly with the mortal world.
The strands binding the two were now inseparable, as if woven from a single, chaotic tapestry from the very beginning.
Remi stood beside Angel and me, the three of us contemplating felony breaking and entering while the rest of the team listened from a nearby unmarked van.
“Bold of them not to leave a single cop on site,” Remi grumbled, his voice thick with annoyance.
Dressed in a black stocking cap and form-fitting layers of black, from his skinny jeans to his fitted top, he looked less like a supernatural agent and more like a cat burglar’s wet dream.
I tried to study his strands, but the colorful mess warped like a funhouse mirror, a dizzying kaleidoscope that churned my stomach the longer I looked.
“Smells like a trap,” Angel said, his presence a solid anchor, dragging me back each time the threads threatened to pull me under. “Stop analyzing them. You’re just giving yourself a headache.”
“Sorry,” I whispered, blinking hard to focus.
“I need to know more about these threads,” Remi said, already digging through a backpack he’d brought.
“Now is really not the time,” Ezra’s voice snapped through our earpieces. “You are in and out. Fast. This isn’t a field trip.”
“Always gotta burst my bubble,” Remi griped as he pulled out a stick of black chalk.
He quickly sketched a simple, geometric rune on the front of my shoulder, another on Angel’s leather jacket, and finally one on his own sleeve.
The moment he finished his own, the runes flared with a cool, shadowy light that sank into the material, leaving no visible mark.
A weightless sensation washed over me, like being dipped in twilight. I watched as the color bled from Angel’s form beside me, his edges blurring and blending seamlessly with the deep shadows. When I looked down at my hands, they were little more than a trick of the light.
“Okay, that’s neat,” I whispered. “Like we’re chameleons.” The words to the old song surfaced automatically. “I’m a man without conviction…”
“You’re too young to know that song,” Angel scolded from the shifting shadows beside me.
“Culture Club is timeless,” I whispered back.
Remi’s blurred form shrugged. “Who?”
“Can you focus?” Ezra’s voice cracked like a whip in our earpieces. “Or should I send Wade in with a spray bottle?”
“Rude,” I grumbled. “You’re invited to the gay dance party too, Ezra. I’m sure Remi would save you a dance.” In the gloom, I could have sworn Remi’s cheeks flushed. Good. Someone needed to help Ezra dislodge the stick from his ass.
Ezra began to sputter, but Wade’s calm voice overrode the channel. “We’re ready when you are, kids. Less chatting, more breaking and entering.”
“Right,” Remi murmured, all business again as he led the way. “Remember, it’s camouflage, not invisibility. Stay in the dark. Move like ghosts.”
“Ghosts are actually really loud,” I corrected him. “Just because everyone else can’t hear them doesn’t mean they don’t walk like elephants.”
A choked sound escaped Angel as he tried to smother his laugh.
“Then pretend you’re a cat, like your boyfriend,” Remi shot back, all traces of flirtation gone, replaced by mission sharp focus. “Quiet paws. Now move.”
Angel flowed up the stairs with a predator’s silent grace, while I had to tiptoe. Remi vanished from all my senses the second he left our side. If I hadn’t been working to keep up with Angel, I might have been left behind.
The building echoed a breathless stillness like a tomb, the only sound the frantic beat of my own heart in my ears. Each floor we passed, the air growing thick with a silence that felt intentional.
I squeezed Angel’s hand. Thankful he kept a grip on me as the shadow spell really messed with my vision. Did he sense something off, too?
We reached Bowman’s floor. The hallway stretched long and dark, with emergency lighting casting more shadows than illumination. Angel melted against the wall near the stairwell door, a sentinel whose gaze swept the corridor, his body tense. He gave a sharp, nearly imperceptible nod.
Remi stood poised before the apartment door, his fingers tracing swift, intricate patterns in the air. Ghostly runes flickered to life around the lock and frame, glowing a faint blue before dissolving into nothingness. A detection spell, hunting for magical traps or alarms.
While he worked, I turned my focus to the doorframe and the wall I’d mended, letting my sight shift. The world dissolved into a tapestry of gray and silver strands, all neatly slipped and looped into an undisturbed stillness. Not a single frayed end. Not even the faintest scar.
A cold knot tightened in my stomach. Had I done that? I’d always pictured the Veil as a rigid, brittle thing—once torn, forever broken. But this felt fluid. Alive. The implications were staggering.
“Anything?” Angel whispered from the shadows beside me.
“No,” I breathed, the word feeling inadequate. “It’s pristine. No remnants of the tear. Nothing.” At least, not out here. The perfect silence felt less like peace and more like a held breath.
“No lingering magic on my end either,” Remi confirmed, his voice tight with frustration. “Whoever broke the ritual seal was thorough.” He slipped into the apartment’s dark interior, Angel and me on his heels. “Let’s just hope they were messy enough to leave a few rune fragments behind.”
An oppressive weight filled the apartment with foreboding, and I shuddered.
“What are you sensing?” Angel whispered.
How did I explain that it was nothing, and yet something? I shook my head, needing a moment to find the words.
Remi moved to the center of the room, where a circle had been drawn and then hastily scuffed away in an attempt to break the spell.
He knelt, using his phone to illuminate the faint, lingering marks and document them.
The ghostly outline of bodies remained on the floor, and my mind conjured the memory of Bowman’s distorted face where he’d been slumped against the far wall.
The closer I drifted toward the circle, the thinner the air felt, pulling at my senses until a wave of dizziness threatened to drag me under. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You sure the spell isn’t still active?” I managed, my voice tight.
“It’s broken, but I’ll eradicate the sigils before we leave.”
“Could they be reactivated?” Ezra’s voice asked from our earpieces.
“It would take significant power, but yes,” Remi agreed.
A chorus of curses flooded the comms from the team stationed downstairs. Angel’s shoulder brushed against mine, a solid, silent presence. It was grounding, but did nothing to ease the tightness in my chest. I took a deliberate step back, putting space between myself and the runes.
“I’m going to clear the rest of the apartment,” I announced, needing to move.
Angel gave a faint nod, falling into step beside me as I began a slow circuit of the rooms. The memory of Cassidy’s apartment—the sinister setup I’d dreamt was hidden in his closet—made my hand hesitate over the first closed door.
But hesitation was a luxury we couldn’t afford. I reached for the knob anyway.
Angel slipped around me, gloved hand snagging the knob before I could. He tugged me a step back and to the side, his body angled as if expecting an explosion.
The door swung open to reveal a coat closet. I breathed a sigh of relief.
We moved through the rest of the apartment in a tense dance.
A small office off the kitchen yielded nothing but unpaid bills and toddler toys.
Angel hovered as we searched the baby’s room, then the bedroom.
The entire place felt ordinary. A typical small family trying to exist in the chaos of the current world.
Messy playpens, overstuffed closets, and even books beside the bed. It all felt inconsequential.
Angel tugged open their dresser drawers as I entered the open door of the bathroom. The space was small and dark, builder grade with no updates, and still my heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of caution. Something lingered on the edges of my senses. The shadows, maybe?
I eyed them warily, wondering if it was the changeling again.
My gaze swept over the sink, open toilet lid, and landed on the closed shower curtain. I reached for the curtain, fingers closing around the edge of the fabric, and yanked it back.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, I saw it all. The empty tub, the lonely baby bath seat, the half-empty shampoo bottles on the ledge. And there, drawn in the gooey, blue residue of spilled soap beside the drain, was a single, pulsing sigil.
Then the world dissolved.
The bathroom vanished. The light, the sound, the sense of Angel just feet away—it was all ripped away, replaced by a suffocating darkness. There was only the void of light and the echo of my racing heart.
A breath of air, cold and reeking of open soil and decay, stirred the hair by my ear.
“Jude,” a rough voice growled. The darkness congealed in front of me, and for a split second, Cassidy’s face materialized, illuminated in the dark—his skin sagging and eyes hollow as if he were long dead yet still moving. “I told you, you were mine.”