Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Demand retribution or be eternally wronged.
CELINE
Luca catalogs my injuries, frantically running his hands over me. His knuckles are swollen and bloodied—it’s the first thing I notice when he careens into the locker room. The second thing: yellow eyes, wilder than I’ve ever seen them.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end, and I stare at my feet.
Chill out. This is the real Luca. Even with the reminder, it’s hard to shake the gross violation of being tricked.
Second Coming, or whoever he is, toyed with me, wore Luca’s face, and helped me limp from the tunnel . . . just because he could.
“I’m okay,” I say firmly, pressing a kiss to his trembling palm. “I swear it.”
“That was a veydra in the ring with you.” Luca’s voice is more hiss than speech.
Sickening déjà vu rolls over me. I don’t want to have this conversation again. “I know.”
“How?”
I flinch. The answer isn’t going to make Luca calmer.
It’s best to get it over with, though—get all the bad out on the table so we can sort it all at once.
Slowly and without inflection, I tell him what happened, including what Second Coming said to me while wearing Luca’s face . . . and my father’s.
“Motherfucking shuck. He was taunting you,” Luca snarls.
I roll my shoulders, working through the kinks with a wince. Hearing him confirm my suspicions makes them easier to process.
“I’ll kill him,” he promises.
I risk lifting my gaze to his chest. “We will kill him.”
Slipping my eyes closed, I raise my chin for a kiss. Luca’s mouth crashes into mine, his tongue slipping urgently inside. I can taste his fear on my behalf. Pulling back, I frown. “How many times do you knock?”
“Two, why?”
His answer is a knife to a balloon—and I slump in his arms as the lingering panic and adrenaline evacuate my body all at once. “He didn’t know the answer,” I say. “That’s how I knew he wasn’t you.”
“That was smart, baby,” Luca says. “Veydran can’t read minds—they’re chameleons without consciences. We’ll have to start verifying each other’s identities, at least until he’s taken care of.”
“You called him a shuck. What does that mean?”
Luca grinds his teeth. “It’s what he is—a soulless, faceless husk, stealing from others with no true identity of his own.”
“Really?” I ask. That sounds strange . . . beyond creepy. I’ve never heard of creatures like that before, not in the celestial realm or the Fringes. I shift my weight and grimace. The pain in my heel is getting harder to ignore.
“That’s the rumor at least,” Luca mutters. “Veydran run the monster realm. They’re basically wardens, keeping anyone from escaping. They’re evil—”
“I believe you,” I say, squeezing his bruised hand gently. Luca talks about the veydra the way I used to vent about my father to—I gasp. “Where’s Malach?”
Luca scowls. “He got called away by his right-hand guy, some sort of disturbance.”
The itch spreads along my spine. Malach can take care of himself, but he’s not a god.
“We need to find him,” I say, yanking the wraps off my hands and tossing them in the direction of my locker. “Second Coming or whoever he is knew his name. If he sneaks up on him while wearing one of our faces . . .”
Luca curses. “You’re right. He said he would meet us at the apartment.”
“Then we’ll go there first.” I take one experimental step on my injured foot, and the blood drains from my face. “We need to get him a phone,” I moan, doing my best to hide the pain.
“And you need a healing potion.” Luca steadies me with one hand while fishing in his pocket for a glass vial of murky, sewage-colored liquid. “Alistair sent me with one. Just in case.”
“Is it awful that I’m relieved and disgusted?” I plug my nose and down the chunky goo, denying my gag reflex through pure force of will. This one tastes even worse than the others. “My tab is going to be expensive to close.”
Luca rolls his eyes, and I’m relieved to see they’ve returned to their familiar whiskey-soaked hazel. “There’s no world in which he lets you pay him back. You know that, right?”
“I’m good for the money,” I argue, groaning as the witch goop does its job and painfully mends my heel.
I test my weight and only cringe a little. It won’t be fun, but I can walk on it without limping if I keep up a steady internal monologue made up entirely of curses. Steeling myself, I make for the door, gripping Luca’s hand firmly in mine.
“We have one stop to make before we go home.”
I shove through the door to Resker’s office without knocking. It smacks against the wall and sends a puff of aging drywall dust into the air.
“Hello, Verity,” Resker says calmly, reclining in her chair and steepling her fingers together. If she’s surprised by my violent entrance, she doesn’t show it. “You seem upset.”
“Did my father pay you to have me killed?” I demand, refusing to waste time on bullshit. The blades of my wings are stained a deep red from the blood of the veydra.
Resker’s eyebrows arch gracefully, drawing attention to the scar on her face. “If he did, I would owe him a refund, wouldn’t I?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” I snarl. “You let a veydra into the ring with me—no warning, nothing—a veydra hired to kill me.”
Resker pushes back from her desk and stands, stretching to her full height. “And I’ll tell you, exactly as I told the face-shifting menace, I don’t allow intentional deaths at the Mouth of Hell; only accidents.”
“But you love a good show,” I hiss. “Anything to entertain the crowd, right?”
She laughs. “This is the Vegas Fringes, Celine; we’re all playing to win here.”
“My life isn’t a game, Resker.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, angel. For people like us, survival is the only game that matters.” She opens the drawer by her hip and pulls out a fat wad of cash held together by a thick, waxy rubber band. “Congrats on your win.”
I take the money. It’s crisp, smooth, and utterly benign against my palm, so why do I feel like each bill is dripping with blood?
Tonight proved I can’t trust Resker, but I already knew that. Her bottom line will always come out on top. I’m not dead, and I got paid—so in her mind, we’re square. But I won’t forget this. And from the cool way she’s staring at me across the desk, she won’t either.
“By allowing him to fight here, you let him get his claws into the Fringes. Our Fringes.” I point through the door. “Every person out there is less safe now that he’s seen them.”
“Wake up, Celine,” Resker snaps, finally losing her calm. “They’re never fucking safe, and neither are we.”
I leave without a backward glance.
Malach isn’t home.
And I’m not handling it well.
“Where is he?” I snap at a helpless Luca. “Surely he shouldn’t still be gone.”
“I don’t know, baby.” Luca sets me carefully on the couch. He refused to let me walk up the stairs, insisting the potion needed time to work. Since I wanted his arms around me, I barely argued. My calm is in the past, though—I’m about to lose my shit.
“Something is wrong,” I tell him. “I can feel it.”
“I’ll check in with Alistair,” Luca says. “We need to warn him about the veydra, anyway.”
New worry blooms in my belly. Alistair and Ciprian have enough on their hands tonight without adding this to the mix. Unfortunately, it can’t wait. We need to tell them.
Fingers shaking, I pull up Ciprian’s contact.
Celine
I know you’re busy. I wanted to tell you to be extra careful.
Gods, that sounds stupid.
Just watch your back, Casanell.
And don’t trust any familiar faces without proof of who they are first. There’s a face shifter in the Fringes.
I groan, dropping my head against the couch.
Sending someone a string of crazy, popcorn texts is a textbook red flag. He’s going to get the wrong idea and think I’m obsessed with him or something.
So what if I let Ciprian Casanell eat me out? He’s nothing to me. Liar. He’s something—if only a bad decision—but the thought of him being hurt sends my protective instincts into overdrive. Shit, I’m spread too thin to guard them all.
We’re in too many locations, and until—
I groan as a bone snaps into place in my heel. Bracing myself, I rotate my ankle. When I manage that without pain, I press my heel against the ground gently. The agony is gone, as if it was never there to begin with. Springing to my feet, I rock on the balls of my feet.
“Feel better?” Luca asks.
I nod. “Luca . . .”
“You want to go look for Malach. I know, baby, I’m worried too.” And he sounds it. I’m surprised at how quickly Malach became a normal part of my life on the Fringes. He shouldn’t make sense here.
I open my mouth to respond, and something heavy smacks against my front door. It’s followed immediately by a deep moan. Malach. I’m wrenching the deadbolts open one after the other before I can even think about why it might be a bad idea.
The door swings open.
Malach collapses at my feet, his face drenched in blood and sweat.
“Schmi,” he whispers, so softly I barely hear his cry for help. His thick lashes flutter and droop, cutting off my view of his green eyes—beautiful, even while glassy with pain.
My heart clenches.
Hinging at the hips, I drag him over the threshold and into the apartment.
Luca presses his fingers to Malach’s neck. “His pulse is steady.” Relief hits me so hard that I see spots. “Breathe, Celine. You can’t help him if you pass out.”
He’s right. Freaking out during a crisis makes me worse than useless, and I refuse to be a liability. “Are you hiding any more of those healing potions?” I ask.
Luca’s lips press into a flat line. “I gave you the only one.”
My wings flutter. I want to lop my foot off for betraying me.
With trembling fingers, I unbutton the top of Malach’s shirt. The skin beneath is covered in angry bruising. Gods, he looks like someone ran him over with a truck! I take a closer look and gasp as I recognize the familiar patterns.
“These are radiant magic blasts,” I say, focusing on the facts to keep myself calm. It’s hard to tell unless you know what to watch for, but the bruising is in a loose spiral pattern. “Only another nish thatsha could have done this damage.”
“Will it kill him?” Luca runs his finger over a purple mark around Malach’s bruised collarbone.
My heart stutters, and I shake my head. “He’s too strong to die from this. It was meant to make him vulnerable . . .”
Luca’s pupils stretch to horizontal slits. He jumps to his feet and slams the door, locking all three deadbolts. “He’s out cold. If they were trying to soften him up, they might come here next.”
Hot, angry resolve settles low in my gut.
Silently, I pick Malach up and carry him to the couch. Brushing the hair back from his forehead, I press a kiss to his cheek, aiming for the only spot not splattered with blood. Next, I grab my sword and sit on the arm of the couch, facing the door.
This is my fault, but I’m going to fix it.
“Let them fucking come.”