Chapter Forty-One
Days passed, things smoothed out, and my life returned to business as usual.
Everyone rearranged to fill in the hole that Gray left behind.
My friend was gone, and the world kept turning.
My headaches were the usual kind—betrayals, lies, and stubborn buyers.
I found someone else to dole out punishment and gather information in my basement, or I did it myself when they couldn’t.
Avalon went on gathering crowds and raking in money.
I filled my spare hours with the Prague collection, examining it all piece by piece and feeling like all hope might not be lost.
It was all very usual.
Rook was the only one who kept my life interesting.
I spent several more nights learning to appreciate his fights and his company.
The laughter he coaxed felt less foreign.
We made each other come more times than I could count and spent the aftermath lounging in his bed or mine.
I even developed a sleep pattern, something consistent and restful.
I was alone tonight, scouring The Looking Glass for mentions of Death, until Rook got off work and could meet me in the penthouse so I could sleep. It was Friday, and there were always extra fights or multiple opponents facing each other in the cage. He’d be late tonight, but I could wait.
My phone vibrated on the pillow beside me—Rook’s pillow—and I picked it up.
Rook: double espresso, something with no sugar, latte with extra foam.
What?
Rook: The ink on the file clerk’s arm. I’ve been trying to figure it out. It’s a coffee order.
Rook: I know who the killer is.
Who?
Five minutes passed with no answer and my temper sizzling at his sudden pronouncement, then disappearance.
Rook! Bloody text me back!
Fucking hell. When I see you I’m going to
I didn’t even finish the threat before I hit send and threw the phone back on the pillow. I stroked my fingers across my forehead. I picked up the phone again and called him.
“Austin,” he answered. “I know…at his house…he’s coming tonight…” His voice crackled through bad reception.
“What are you going on about?” I asked, alarm ringing in my chest.
“Needles everywhere…are you listening to me? …already gone. Stay in the penthouse…I get there! …wrote it down when he was working.” He blathered on, half-coherent, as his voice cut in and out.
“Fucking hell, Rook!” My voice climbed half an octave, panic bubbling into my words. “Will you move somewhere I can hear you?”
The call ended.
I redialed.
No answer.
A coffee order? Kathy was a file clerk, but even as an underpaid Council lackey, she had more important things to do than flit about gathering caffeine for the rest of the office. Unlike…
Fuck.
I called Rook six more times. The bastard never answered. I was in the middle of my seventh attempt when a whirring started outside my living room window. What in the ever loving fuck? I threw the phone again. This time it bounced off the mattress and landed on the floor.
I moved toward the window. The damn window cleaners. I was going to kill whoever authorized them to work in the middle of the night.
I was about to make it clear that they should fuck off when the glass shattered inward, spraying all over the room. Tiny shards scratched my face, drawing blood in places. The bowling ball used to smash it rolled across the floor.
My back hit the ground when he pounced on me. The owl mask came inches from my face, but I wasn’t looking at that. I focused on the syringe in his hand and not letting it pierce me.
His strength caught me off guard as he pushed against my grip, inching the needle toward my neck. But the problem with being human was that he didn’t have magic…
I blasted him back and he landed in the pile of glass on the floor. His fingers tightened around the syringe, clinging to his only weapon.
“You can take the mask off, Charles. I know it’s you.”
He swayed in place slightly—a moment of indecision—and then lifted his free hand to his chin and pulled the mask back over his head. It fell to the floor next to him with a hollow sound.
“How did you know it was me?” he asked.
“You left behind a little note—a coffee order for your coworkers. You’re stupid and sloppy. How did everyone’s little office bitch end up a serial killer?”
That syringe was still clasped tight in his gloved fist. He snarled as he said, “I’m not wasting time explaining it all to you. I’m here to kill you.”
“Oh, I don’t much care about your plan,” I said, taking a seat on the edge of the couch.
“I don’t need to buy time with words. Do you really think you have a chance against a magician without sneaking up on them and drugging them?
” He did that little fidget in place again, and I sighed.
“I’m curious though. Why me? It has something to do with the spell I sold Clayton Pope, right? ”
His frame tensed just slightly, enough that I thought he might lunge at me again, and I lifted my hand slightly, preparing to cast if I needed to.
“He killed the wrong person.”
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“Oh, come on Charles. Entertain me. It’s been so boring waiting for you to make your move.”
“S-she was my girlfriend!” His stammer returned, and a little of the toughness he wore like another mask dribbled away.
An ill-timed little snort escaped me. “You had a girlfriend? Like a woman. The kind with tits and a—” I shook my head and laughed, standing from the couch.
He raised the syringe and braced himself.
I took a step toward him. “Was she pretty? You know what? It doesn’t matter.
Good for you. When I kill you, I won’t have to feel bad you died a virgin. ”
“She wasn’t supposed to be there!” he cried. “She was at work, just doing her job. That Pope guy was running from someone, she got in the way, and he used the spell you sold him to murder her!”
“Fucking hell. That’s what this is about? A mishap? You could have grieved her and gotten on with your life, but now I’m going to have to kill you and leave your body for the Council to find.”
“I killed six people,” he said, inching forward. The distance between us was narrowing. If I could just get my hands on him, I could pulse death into him. Rook would be here soon if I got woozy. He could help me with the body.
“Bravo,” I told him. “How many do you think I’ve killed?”
He lurched forward, swinging the syringe upward toward my neck.
I dodged just in time. He was faster than I expected.
I cast a curse toward his chest, but he moved and it bashed into his ankle instead, snapping the joint.
His nasally roar assaulted my ears, like a pained war cry.
The next time he threw himself at me, he caught me around the waist and I went down hard, that needle missing me by inches.
The punch I landed in his face crumpled his nose again and blood spattered on my forehead and cheeks from it.
A wave of dizziness washed over me at the feel of those slick red drops on my skin.
He raised his hand and aimed the needle at my neck again.
“I know about you,” he gritted out. “You and Rook. I figured it out. You don’t deserve him.”
It’s water. It’s not blood, it’s just water.
I tried to convince myself as I swept my sleeve across my face and refused to look at the scarlet that had seeped into my shirt.
I rolled him so that I was on top of him and wrapped one hand around his throat, summoning the power of death inside me to unfurl into him.
He kneed me in the balls and I fell back, clutching myself and dragging distance between us. Charles had lost all sense to homicidal fury, and he launched at me again the moment I was on my feet.
Fuck this.
I grabbed the nearest weapon—the knife I’d spelled to kill Death—and swiped it across his throat in a great arc. Blood burst forth, soaking me, the floor, and the furniture. The syringe fell from his hand and he clutched loosely at his throat as the life burbled from it. Moments later, he fell.
Then he was gone.
A not-so-worthy adversary.
The next moments were slow and distorted, bending and warping around me in strange ways as I realized just how much blood coated the room. I counted breaths, over and over again until I had the good sense to pick up my phone.
Rook would know what to do. He’d come, and he’d help me. I didn’t have to clean this up alone.
I dialed his number, but he didn’t answer.
“Where are you?” I asked, my voice hoarser than it had been earlier. “You should be here by now. I took care of the issue with Charles. I need help with the mess.”
Austin: Care to hurry up? I have a problem.
No answer.
Austin…
A single spirit’s voice. A whisper in the dark. It had been so long since I’d heard them, I wasn’t sure it was real at first.
“What do you want?” I snapped. Between Rook’s tardiness and the literal puddle of blood I was standing in…
You need to go now. He’s running out of time.
“Who is running out of time?” The chill ached in my bones, dropping degrees and making goosebumps unroll across my own skin. If there were any heat in the room, I couldn’t feel it anymore.
He’s going to die, Austin.
No. This was over. I won. They weren’t talking about him.
You have to hurry. He almost made it here. He tried to warn you.
I jumped to my feet, clutching my phone. “Show me where.”
I felt the ticking of seconds at the base of my skull, and with each one, he slipped a little further away from me.
***
He had been so close, within sight of my building. He lay now on the pockmarked pavement of a side alley, where he was dying like someone unremarkable they’d find in the morning.
But they wouldn’t because I couldn’t let him die.
His face was pale, and the waves of blood that surrounded him had turned the tips of his blonde hair crimson. I dropped to my knees beside him and my pants became heavy with it. It was cold—outside his body a while now. My pocket watch was smashed on the ground next to him.
“Rook.” I shook him and his blue eyes opened a crack.
“You’re not dead,” he rasped. “Good.”