CHAPTER NINE
The darkness that had
been her permanent companion drifted away, parting like sticky
cobwebs, revealing a face and impossibly broad shoulders. The man
was hidden in the shadows, but the red and blue lights of the
nearby police cars flashed across his features. She couldn’t see
the cars, but her eyes picked up every last detail of the man’s
terrifying expression and his clothes, which were splattered with
what looked like blood.
His sweater and jeans
were black, but somehow Sam could still see the splashes of red.
They glowed with an otherworldly radiance, burning like fire in the
swirling police lights.
“What’s wrong?” Jace
asked, but with patience in his tone that hadn’t been there the
half dozen other times he’d asked her that question tonight. It
seemed he was getting used to her weirdness. Too bad she couldn’t
say the same.
Her tongue swept out
across her dry lips as she darted a quick look up into Jace’s face.
Still shadows, nothing but blackness where she knew he was
standing. The darkness ruled, except in that one spot a dozen feet
away. “Do you see that man? The one across the
street?”
“The man …” Jace
trailed off as he turned to look. When he spoke again there was a
coiled quality in his voice, as if his words were getting ready to
pounce on a demon he’d been tracking through the ruins. “Yeah, I
see him. Not well, but I see him.” He paused, sucking in a breath
as the full import of what she’d said hit home. “Do you see him?”
“I do.” God, it was
crazy, but she did. She saw him. “Big
guy, scary face, lots of scars, and dark clothes,” she said, her
voice trembling more than she would have liked.
But then, it wasn’t
every day that you saw something for the first time in almost
twenty years. Twenty long, shadow-filled years.
“But I thought you
were completely blind, since you were a kid.”
“I am. I was.” Sam
swallowed. Hard. “I can’t see anything else. Just him … his
face.”
This was even more
mind-blowing than seeing through Ellen’s eyes. This was
…
“I think I’m going to
…” Her knees buckled, but Jace was right there to catch her,
pulling her close, giving her strength she just didn’t have at the
moment. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Her eyes were
useless. No matter that nothing was technically wrong with them,
she’d known in her heart that she’d never be able to
see.
So how could she be
seeing this man? Watching him as he turned his head and caught her
eyes across the abandoned street?
Her breath hitched.
“He sees me. He just—”
Before she could
finish her sentence or pull herself together, the man in the
shadows turned and ran. As soon as he disappeared, so did the
flashing lights of the police cars, plunging Sam back into complete
darkness. “He’s running. We have to follow him,” she said, lurching
forward, her cane scraping across the concrete before Jace pulled
her back into his arms.
“We’re not going
anywhere.”
“Please, he’s the one
who killed the Choes. I’m sure of it.” She wasn’t completely sure,
but this man could have been the large shadow she saw. In any
event, she had to know why she could see him and the blood glowing
on his clothes.
Besides, it seemed
damned likely he had something to do with the Choes’ murder. Why
else would he be lurking around the crime scene? And why would she
be able to see him? If her paranormal abilities had allowed her to
see the Choes as they were murdered, it made a weird kind of sense
that they might enable her to see the person who had killed them as
well.
“Please. I have to
know who that man is and why I can see him.”
“You really could see
him,” Jace said, sounding as shocked as she felt. “Your eyes
changed. I swear, they aren’t even the same color
anymore.”
“Please, Jace. Can we
have this chat later? The guy’s getting away. We have
to—”
“We’re
not—”
“Fine, then I’ll
follow him myself!”
“No, I’ll go after
him. You’re going to a hotel.”
“I’m not going to a
hotel. I have to—”
“If you don’t let me
put you in a cab, I’m not going to follow that man, and I won’t let
you follow him either.” He pulled one arm away from her
still-shaking hands and whistled. There must have been a taxi
nearby.
Sure enough, seconds
later, a car pulled up beside them. Jace reached out to open the
door and told the driver the name of a posh-sounding hotel on the
other side of the barricade before turning back to her. “Having you
with me will only slow me down and make me worry about you. It
would be a great way for us both to get killed if that guy is half
as dangerous as he looks.”
He was the bossiest
man in the entire world, but he was right.
“You’ll call me as
soon as you find out anything,” she said, letting him urge her into
the car. She couldn’t waste any more time or Jace would have no
chance of catching up with the potential killer.
“I will.” He closed
the door behind her, but she could still feel the chill of the
night air puffing against her face. The window was
open.
“And be careful,” she
called after him, a crazy part of her wishing he’d kissed her again
before turning to run after their suspect.
“You be careful. I
don’t want to see you in a hospital again. Ever.”
Well, it wasn’t a
kiss … but it was still enough to make her heart twist as she
listened to his heavy footfalls fade away into the distance. It
seemed like he cared. Really cared. And it seemed like he’d
believed she’d seen someone, even though she had a hard time
believing that herself.
How could she have
seen that man? How? In a crazy way, slipping into Ellen Choe’s body
and seeing through her eyes made more sense than her own previously
nonfunctioning tissue suddenly honing in on a man’s
face.
“The barricade is
still closed for twenty minutes,” the cabdriver said, his exhausted
voice making her suspect she was his last fare for the night. He
must be at the end of his shift. “You want to wait here or drive up
to Fourteenth and get in line?”
“We won’t need to
cross the barricade,” Sam said, then gave the driver directions to
Ezra’s apartment near what was left of the old NYU campus. She’d
call Jace later and tell him there had been a change of plans. She
didn’t want to risk calling him now, while he was chasing after a
could-be killer and—
Damn it! She didn’t
even have his phone number. And wasn’t sure he had hers. A few
hours ago, she could have called Stephen and had the information in
minutes, but the last thing her brother would want to talk to her
about would be Jace Lu. She’d have to find some other way of
getting in touch with Jace. After she talked to Ezra.
Suddenly, seeing her
ex seemed more important than talking to the police investigating
the Choe murder. She had to figure out what was going on with her
new abilities, and Ezra was the only one who might be able to help
her. Besides, she couldn’t think of a reasonable cover story to
tell the police, and she was sure they wouldn’t be nearly as
tolerant of the real story as Jace had been.
Hopefully he’d be
just as tolerant when he learned she’d disobeyed his orders and
gone in the opposite direction of the hotel.
Right, and maybe Stephen will call you and apologize for
the way he acted at the hospital and then the three of you will go
out for hot chocolate.
Samantha let her eyes
slide closed as the wind whipped in from the open window, getting
stronger as the cabdriver picked up speed on the mostly deserted
streets. Jace would be furious, and she’d be lucky if her brother
didn’t try to have her committed, but there wasn’t anything she
could do about that right now. She had to have answers—before
anyone else died because of her ignorance. She’d been on her way to
see the Choes before they were killed, and that was too big a
coincidence to ignore. There was a damned good chance her
connection to the aura demons was the reason her friends and
clients had died.
“Could you hurry,
please?”
“Believe me, I’m
ready to go home,” the cabbie said. “I’ll go as fast as I
can.”
Sam sighed, worrying
that wouldn’t be fast enough.
Jace pulled his stun
gun free as he raced through the narrow streets near the Choes’
apartment, choosing his path on instinct. There weren’t that many
places the man he hunted could have turned, and years of tracking
demons had given him a sixth sense when it came to knowing which
way his prey had run.
So you’ll trust your own sixth sense, but you won’t trust
hers? And what about those “shadow fingers”? You’re a liar if you
say you’ve never thought you’ve seen something like that, reaching
out of the darkness … slipping over someone, seething under their
skin….
Jace ignored the
voice in his head and pushed himself to run even faster. The man
had a good head start and longer legs. There wasn’t time to give in
to crazy imaginings or to figure out a reasonable explanation for
how Sam could have seen the man in the first place.
There’s a reasonable way to explain the way her eyes
turned blue? If you can explain that, man, I’d love to hear
it.
The inner voice
reminded him of his cousin Andre, the family smart-ass and the only
person who might be awake at this ungodly hour. Andre worked nine
to nine, like most of the Conti family lawyers, but he often hit
the gym before work. The man took his womanizing seriously and
liked to keep his temple in top worship-inducing
condition.
“Andre,” Jace said,
giving his earbud the signal to call Andre’s cell without slowing
his pace. His cousin didn’t pick up, but Jace left a quick message
anyway. If Andre checked his messages in the next half hour, he
could still make it to the Waldon to meet Sam. He lived north of
the barricade, and her cab would be stuck on the Southie side for a
good twenty minutes before the roads opened at five
o’clock.
She’d be safe in the
cab. He had to believe that or he’d go crazy.
There was no such
thing as invisible demons, but there was an abundance of human bad
guys roaming the city south of the barricade. Men like the one he
was chasing, who wore their gang scars proudly, flaunting the
number of men and women they’d killed with deep slashes around
their hairlines and across their cheeks. If one or more of them had
Samantha Quinn on their hit list, they wouldn’t let something like
a cabbie witness get in their way. They’d shoot him and then take
out the blind woman in the backseat.
The thought made him
run faster. He couldn’t let anything happen to Sam, not when he
suspected he might be the only one who could save her from her
brother.
Stephen must have
been slipping demonic hallucinogens into her drinks for years. That
was the only thing that would explain these prophetic dreams she
insisted she had. The dreams induced by some of the more powerful
powders and creams could make you certain you’d seen God, let alone
some shadow fingers that hurt people. There was always something
bad happening in Southie and the world at large; there were always
people being hurt. It wouldn’t be hard for Sam to come to believe
the dreams she was having were coming true.
And it wouldn’t be
hard for Stephen to get a doctor to sign off on Sam being crazy if
she kept telling people about her dreams and visions and going on
about invisible demons.
But then, she’d
really seemed to know that the Choes were going to be murdered
before it happened. How could he explain that? He knew the two
youngest Choe boys were clients of Stephen’s, but they’d never
seemed the type to get involved with the gangs. Still, that would
explain how two teenagers who worked as delivery boys for their
dad’s pharmacy managed to afford Hamma demon claws.
Maybe Sam had
overheard Stephen talking to some of his gang connections about the
Choes and her drug-addled mind had somehow twisted the information
until it created a “vision” of how Ellen and Chang-su’s murder
would go down. The Death Ministry had been known to punish people
in debt to them by taking out their loved ones. Maybe the Choe boys
had gotten in too deep and earned themselves the worst possible
warning that it was time to pay up.
It was a stretch, but
it made a hell of a lot more sense than psychic visions and
invisible demons. And Jace had suspected Stephen was up to
something. He’d never dreamed that he was drugging his own sister,
but it made a horrible kind of sense. There was no way he could
have kept Sam ignorant about his drug deals with her living in the
same building where he met with his clients for all those years. He
must have been using drugs to keep her sound asleep and out of her
mind during the hours he conducted his illegal
transactions.
Learning the drugs he
was giving Sam were making her a little crazy wouldn’t have stopped
Stephen. It seemed like he wanted Sam to be crazy. It made it
easier for him to control her, to force her to do what her big
brother thought was best. Even if Stephen’s need to rule over Sam’s
life came from a place of brotherly love, it was still twisted at
best and psychotic at worst. The shit he and Sam had gone through
when they were kids must have fucked Stephen up more than Jace had
suspected. Now Sam needed someone to rescue her from the brother
she’d always seemed to consider her savior.
But what if you’re wrong? What if she’s telling the
truth?
Jace had no doubt Sam
was telling the truth as she knew it, but what she’d told him just
wasn’t possible. Demons were animals that humans hadn’t known
existed until the emergence brought them streaming out of caves
deep in the earth. They weren’t supernatural or even evil. They
weren’t invisible godlike beings to be worshiped the way Sam and
Stephen’s parents had worshiped them. It was human evil that had
killed Sam and Stephen’s little sister, damaged Sam’s eyes, and
messed with Stephen’s head, not some mythical aura
demon.
As if to prove Jace’s
theory of human cruelty correct, a giant fist suddenly swept toward
him from the shadows.
Jace twisted and the
blow intended for the center of his face grazed off his cheek, but
the impact was still enough to knock him to the ground and the stun
gun from his hand. He was on his feet seconds later, but there
wasn’t time to go for his gun. The scarred man was already on him,
fists flying with the precision of a person who killed for a
living.
“Who’s your target?”
Jace grunted as he dodged to the left and blocked another punch
intended for his gut. The question slowed the man down just long
enough for Jace to get in a quick uppercut to the jaw that snapped
the man’s head backward, sending blood flying from his
mouth.
It was a simple trick
of the trade that worked far too often. Men like this weren’t used
to using their minds at the same time as they used their fists and
were easily distracted. Throw a question at them, or even make a
casual observation or two …
“Nice shirt. Smells
like your favorite.” Another blow connected to the man’s middle,
and then Jace’s knee caught his chin a second time as he bent over.
“Don’t you guys do laundry? Living with the demons doesn’t mean you
have to smell like one.”
“Fuck you,” the man
growled, rallying with a speed not usually possessed by such an
immense person. Jace just barely managed to jump back before one
meaty fist connected with his groin.
This guy was fighting
dirty and was clearly one of his gang’s MVPs. It made Jace pray
Samantha wasn’t the one he’d been told to kill. Hopefully he’d
already completed his hit and had simply been lingering around the
Choes’ house because he got off on watching the police clean up his
dirty work.
“Tell me, who’s
your—”
Jace’s words ended in
a groan as something cold and rank smelling surged into his head.
It was like getting a brain freeze from chewing on frozen fish. The
sensation left him blind for a few seconds, long enough for someone
behind him to punch him in the kidneys—both of them, with a speed
and power that made a wave of sickness crash over him with the
force of a tsunami. Pain, blunt and raw, pulsed from his waist to
his neck and back again, and the putrid yellow taste of bile surged
into his mouth.
The coldness inside
his mind vanished as his attacker struck again, leaving Jace no
time to dwell on the odd sensation before a second series of
punches had him on his knees.
Fuck. Someone had
sneaked up on him. It had never happened, not in his entire life,
even when he was a teenager learning the bounty trade. Jace Lu was
legendary for his sixth sense in a fight. He always knew where the
next punch was coming from and could smell an ambush from fifty
feet away.
But he hadn’t been
focused. Even knowing the Death Ministry members in the car that
had driven by might have seen him and Sam, he hadn’t thought to
watch his back as thoroughly as his front. He’d been too worried
about keeping his woman safe.
His woman. The
thought was crazy. He was getting in way too deep way too fast with
a girl who made his aunt Mary—a woman who talked to her houseplants
and was convinced they talked back—seem sane. And now he was going
to pay the price for letting his focus be divided.
It just went to prove
that getting too attached could be deadly. In some cases,
literally.
Jace braced himself
for another blow from the man in front of him. They would take
turns now, the one in front and the one behind, smashing their
fists into him until he lost consciousness. Or maybe they’d pluck
his automatic from its holster and do him with his own weapon. Nice
and tidy, no evidence for the police to use to figure out who might
have done the job. Not that they’d worry too much about the death
of a bounty hunter. Hunters weren’t much better than gangsters in
the minds of most cops.
Jace tucked his head,
hoping to at least protect his face and neck … but the blow he
anticipated never came.
“No way. No fucking
way. I gave you what you wanted,” the man in front of him
whispered, fear obvious in his voice as he backed away, then turned
and ran. Great. Even Mr. Big, Bad, and
Ugly was afraid of whoever had joined their fight.
Jace watched the
giant feet disappear from his line of sight, but couldn’t lift his
head high enough to see where the man had run. It was all he could
do to stay on his hands and knees with his head hanging toward the
ground, the pain throbbing up and down his spine was so
intense.
It took at least a
full minute or two for him to stagger to his feet, but the man
behind him waited for it. He must have wanted to finish this
face-to-face, now that he’d made sure Jace was injured and the
fight wouldn’t be fair.
“Shit,” Jace cursed.
The shadowed sidewalk was deserted. He knew he should be glad the
other man had vanished, but he was still pissed that he hadn’t
gotten a clear look at him.
He needed to know who
had followed him. If it was someone dangerous enough to frighten a
gangster with nearly a dozen kill scars, this situation might be
beyond Jace’s ability to handle on his own. He was going to need
the family. He’d never gone to his uncle or any of the Contis for
help with something so personal, but he didn’t see that he had a
choice.
He had to make sure
Sam was protected, even if it meant taking heat from his
relatives.
Jace cursed again.
Facing down death in an abandoned alley hadn’t made his stomach
drop the way it did as he spoke his uncle’s name, signaling his
earpiece to call Francis. But then, he’d seen his share of fights.
He’d never cared enough about a woman to introduce her to his nosy,
intrusive, and largely criminal family.