27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I found the grimoire. It’s almost time. What sacrifice of love do I need?
I messaged veilknight in case she had additional information about the spell I needed to know before I performed it.
Shouldn't my mother have been sacrifice enough? From my translation, the rest seemed straightforward. A few words spoken in Italian, an enchanted circle, and about ten minutes it would hold, during which I needed to stab her with the knife. The knife I didn’t have yet, but would soon.
I just needed to try to feel the memory of my mother dying deeply enough to cry about it, which I hadn’t done in more than a decade.
I leaned over my kitchen table the next afternoon with a decorative dagger in my hand, its blade recently sharpened, and recalled the slick slide of her blood between my fingers.
My stomach turned over once, nausea sloshing around inside it at the thought, but no tears came.
I slapped the dagger on the table and growled. This shouldn’t be so hard!
I can’t fucking cry.
Rook: I could punch you in the face if that would help.
They have to be tears of grief.
Rook: So grieve that pretty face of yours.
This is serious.
Rook: I know. I’m sorry.
I realized what he was doing—trying to lighten my mood. He’d gotten good at that, but this time it didn’t work.
A knock on the door broke my frustration. Since Gray and Rook were the only people with the code and spell to get in, I automatically answered, “Come in!”
Gray strode across the room and placed a Styrofoam container in front of me. I opened it to find a fancy chicken dish dripping with herbs and what smelled like a garlic glaze, accompanied by a heap of roasted vegetables.
“You called off work and you aren’t answering your phone,” he said. “Rook’s car wasn’t here, so I assumed you were alone and hadn’t eaten lunch yet.”
“Thank you,” I sighed. “I just—” I groaned at the knife and Gray gaped at my rare display of frustration.
“What are you working on?”
I unwrapped the fork and napkin that came with my meal and took a bite. I hadn’t realized I was starving.
“A personal project,” I said after I swallowed.
“I assume you aren’t going to tell me what it is,” he drawled, planting himself in the chair across from me.
I glanced up from my food and stared long and hard at the man across from me, the one closest to the only friend I had. I took a deep breath and held it, counting seconds in heartbeats as I decided what to say, then exhaled in a whoosh.
“Death took my mother when I was a child,” I said. “I have been searching for a way to avenge her, and I found it.”
“Shit. That explains all that stuff from Prague. You can’t really…what? Kill Death?” He leaned over the table to examine all the materials in front of me.
“I can, and I will.”
“Do you think this is the best thing to focus on with the killer still out there?” he asked gently.
“Gray, I…I’ve been searching for this my entire adult life. I can’t botch my one chance. I’m not afraid of the killer.” I didn’t know how to explain that my entire life had led to this, that I’d sacrificed it more than once to find this. Nothing was more important than ending her.
He must have seen it, though—that glint of obsession in my eyes as they traveled the book for the hundredth time and I read the spell again in my head, committing every word to memory.
“Just be careful. It sounds dangerous,” he said, and I paused at the concern etched in lines between his eyebrows.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said. “I can handle this.”
“Listen, boss, I know independence and the air of mystery is kind of your whole…” He gestured to me in a circle. “Your whole personality. But you don’t have to do shit like this alone. If you need help, you can ask.”
“I know that,” I said, and I almost believed it. “I’ll ask if I need it. Thank you for lunch.”
He stood and looked over the mess of research spread in front of me and the useless dagger next to my hand just a moment longer.
“See you later. I’ll be at the warehouse finishing up the last of the Russian stuff tonight if you need me.”
I watched the black leather coat stretched across his shoulders as he left, and the cold in my bones ached.
***
I woke with a start, my heartbeat suffocating me as it slammed in my throat. I spread one hand across my chest and tried to get my bearings. The sheets were damp with sweat. I tried to remember the nightmare. That must have been what woke me in such a frantic state.
I shoved the sheets aside and fetched myself a glass of water, which did nothing to cool the heat of my panic or warm the ice underneath. I was a contrast of nauseating temperatures, and my heartbeat did not slow.
Are you awake?
Rook: It’s only 1:00, so yeah. I thought you went to bed.
I think I had a nightmare. I feel off.
Rook: Probably because you don’t take care of yourself. Fights wrap up in an hour or so if you want to come by.
I’ll think about it. You’re okay, right?
Apprehension climbed my vertebrae and struck me in the back of the neck.
Rook: I’m fine.
But something was not right, and I was not fine.
I made myself a cup of tea that didn’t loosen the tightness in my chest. A tautness hung in the air, a breath held before a disaster.
I was certain, as I watched the minutes tick by on my antique clock, that something terrible was about to happen.
I tried heating up leftovers from lunch, but food warred with nerves for my stomach.
The tension pulled so tight that I nearly jumped out of my chair when my phone made a noise again.
Owen, the member of my security team just below Gray.
Owen: Fire at the warehouse.
I knew which warehouse he meant—the one with the Russian items and the rest of my inventory. My only regular employee who knew about the other warehouse was Gray.
Too late.
Too late.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
A dozen or more spirits chimed in at once.
We tried to get here in time, but it’s too late.
“What do you mean, ‘too late’?”
Silence.
I dialed Owen’s number. Gray should have known about this first. He should have called me.
“Hey, Austin. A fire broke out at the warehouse about twenty minutes ago. I’ve got guys putting it out now, but it’s bad.”
“Where is Gray?” I asked.
“He isn’t answering his phone. Maybe with one of his friends.”
I thought my throat might close up. Gray enjoyed his unserious trysts, but never enough to slack on his duties. He always put work first. If he wasn’t the first person to know about the fire, something was wrong.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I croaked through the strain in my throat. I hung up and tossed on the first clothes I found in my laundry hamper, then ran to the parking garage.
It was a twenty-minute drive to the warehouse during the day, but the clear nighttime streets and fifteen miles over the speed limit got me there in ten.
The fire was half doused by three of my men who were trying to use magic before the human fire company realized what was happening, but the damage had already been done.
The roof had collapsed in places and smoke billowed from the gaping hole it left.
All the windows on the front of the building had blown out and glass scattered across the sidewalk, reflecting the blaze that fought back against their magic.
And Gray wasn’t among them. My warehouse was destroyed and he wasn’t there. No, Gray always dealt with my problems. He was the person I trusted most to fix a disaster.
The cold inside me burned.
The main door to the warehouse hung limply from its hinges and I dashed toward it.
“Austin!” someone yelled, but I couldn’t stop. Even the heat as I entered the building couldn’t melt that dreadful chill.
Inside, the flames they fought had been contained to one corner of the building, but the front was already destroyed. Half my inventory gone, and probably another quarter so smoke-damaged that I wouldn’t be able to sell it.
And in the middle of the charred room, a body, still and sooty.
Gray was free of burns, but he reeked of smoke and there was a fine dusting of debris over his clothes and face. I fell to my knees at his side and shook him.
“Gray! Gray, wake up!”
His chest did not rise. He should have coughed, grimaced, and struggled to sit. He should have been injured and in need of a healer.
But he was dead.
I pushed at his body again anyway, begging him to wake the fuck up. The remaining flames at my back hissed and went out, and more of the roof fell in after them.
Gray did not move.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
“I know he’s fucking gone!” I roared at the dead. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?!”
A quiet so absolute it rang in my ears followed. For once, the spirits who haunted me scattered like startled birds, abandoning me to the emotion that slowly entwined itself with the cold.
Grief.
This was not Gray’s time, and Death came for him anyway. Just like my mother. I realized, as I knelt before his empty body, that I had faced curses, bullets, bold foes, and dying.
But caring about anything was the most dangerous thing in the world.