Dangerous Creatures

CHAPTER 31 Flash of the Blade

It didn’t take long for Nox to strip the Charm from Necro’s blade. Once he did, all they could do was wait and see if the wound would heal. Even Sampson stopped making his grim predictions about Necro’s fate.

Still, nobody knew what would happen now.

The waiting part was the hardest.

Ridley stared at a poster of Sid Vicious. She moved down the wall to Johnny Rotten, then Social Distortion. X. Black Flag. Dead Kennedys. She didn’t know much about punk rock, but she was guessing she was looking at the hall of fame.

“The Necros? It’s a band?” She lingered over another ancient punk poster. “Is that where she got her name?”

Floyd nodded. “Nec’s from Toledo, Ohio. So was the band. I think she felt like it was meant to be.” She smiled. “Kind of like Link Floyd.”

“You start that again, Supertramp. I dare you.” Rid glared.

Link cut them off. “Speakin’ a Necro, how much longer you think we gotta wait?” He sounded worried. He’d been like that ever since Nox had undone the Cast.

“The real question is, how many places can a person stick a safety pin?” Rid shook her head, touching the Social D poster. Then next to it, Dead Kennedys. Every single face she could see looked like they should be in Necro’s family, or at least her band. Half of them were even more pierced than she was.

Floyd looked at Rid. “Nec loves Dead Kennedys. She says they’re her tribe.”

Ridley raised an eyebrow. “Necro has a tribe?”

“Sure she does. She has us,” Floyd said.

“You guys must be pretty close. I mean, to let her take over the walls like that.” Ridley fingered the edge of the X poster.

“Didn’t you ever have a best friend?” It was clear from Floyd’s tone that she wasn’t betting on it. “Or did you always live alone in that cave you call a heart?”

Ridley fixed her eyes on the giant X.

Don’t answer.

Don’t let her see.

Don’t give any of them that satisfaction.

“Cut it out, Floyd,” said Link, looking up. “Rid has a lot of friends and a big family, and she has me. She has all of us.”

Rid’s eyes met Link’s from across the room.

“We’re her tribe,” he said.

And it was true.

She felt like she was going to burst into tears, except she would’ve rather stabbed her own eyes out than break down in front of Floyd.

Only a groan coming from the low, rickety bed saved her.

“Holy Toledo,” Necro muttered.

Link grinned. “Hey, we were just talkin’ about that.”

Necro’s eyes fluttered open. “I feel like crap.”

“You look like crap, too.” Ridley smiled at her. She had never been more relieved to see a few more piercings and a blue faux-hawk.

“Hey, buddy.” Floyd took Necro’s hand. Floyd’s other hand bloomed instantly into a bouquet of flowers.

Necro nodded. “Can you make those chocolates?”

“And let you eat my finger?” Floyd’s hand fell back into its natural form while Necro turned her head to the rest of the room, smiling weakly.

Link was hovering. “No worries, man. We got this whole thing all figured out. You’re gonna be up and jammin’ in no time at all.” He patted her bed awkwardly.

“Rock on.” Necro flashed him the horns, the universal heavy metal hell-yeah. “What’s the boss man doing here?”

Nox sat on the floor, leaning against the wall of her room. He was so quiet that they’d almost forgotten he was still there.

Floyd reached up to brush a stray blue wisp away from Necro’s face. “He’s just worried about you, like the rest of us.” Floyd didn’t say anything more than that, though Ridley knew she’d have plenty to say on the subject of Nox Gates and his secret relationship with his favorite Necromancer.

They would fight it out later, Ridley suspected. That was what bands did.

Just like tribes.

“I’ve never done one of these before. I hope it works.” Ridley lit the last candle in the Circle of Protection around apartment 2D. A wide ring of flickering light now wound its way from the stage to the beach to Necro’s room and back again. Rid wasn’t sure Necro was in danger, but they were all too afraid to leave her unprotected in her present state.

Nox looked back after she blew out the last match. He kept his eyes on Ridley. “I’m sorry, Little Siren.”

Me, too, she thought. About this. About everything. He looked for a second like he didn’t quite know what to say, but Ridley didn’t, either.

She shrugged it off. “Don’t. It was an accident. And anyway, you came back here to help Necro. That’s the important thing.” It doesn’t matter now, she thought.

Lines had been crossed. Everything had been said. There was no point in talking about it beyond that.

Nox reached out to touch a pink strand of hair. “I guess this is good-bye.” He dropped his hand. “Take care of Necro. And yourself.”

“I always do.” Her eyes lingered on him.

“I know,” Nox said.

He took a tentative step toward her.

“Do you mind?” He gestured awkwardly. “A real good-bye? Seeing as I may never see you again?”

“What?”

Nox extended his arms. One last embrace. A hug between friends. Rid couldn’t refuse. But she also couldn’t avoid looking over her shoulder before she moved any closer to him. Just to make sure the door was shut.

Ridley and Link might not have been together anymore, but he and Floyd would never let her hear the end of it if they walked in and saw her so much as touching Lennox Gates.

The candles flickered and smoked.

Ridley and Nox stood in the center of the circle—on the shore of the beach that was apartment 2D.

He drew her in for a hug. She could feel his powerful arms beneath his jacket. It seemed like so long ago that they had stood together on the dance floor at Sirene and shared that one exquisite, terrifying kiss.

She hadn’t realized it wouldn’t be the only one.

He leaned toward her.

His lips touched hers gently. A very different kind of kiss.

It was sweet.

Sweet enough for both of them.

Nox had hurt Ridley, and he knew it. He could feel it, the moment he kissed her.

If only he had told her everything he knew, right from the start.

If only.

He had thought that if he could have one last kiss, maybe it would be like a Cast. Maybe she would forgive him, and everything would revert to the way it had been before he screwed it all up.

But that wasn’t possible, because he had been screwing up from the beginning.

When I promised to deliver her to a Ravenwood Blood Incubus. Or when I watched her die in a fire in my own club and I didn’t warn her.

If I let it happen that way.

There was a special place in Hell for guys like Lennox.

It was called life.

The only thing he had left was a kiss.

This kiss.

Nox caught a glimpse of candlelight in his peripheral vision, and suddenly he was spinning out of control.

The fire.

The vision hit during the kiss, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The vision smoke cleared even as Nox tried to look past it. He was standing somewhere gray and filthy that reeked of garbage and sewage. A thin spray of mold was growing on the stone floor and ceiling.

No light. Underground. A prison cell, probably. It looks more like a dungeon.

Nox found himself standing in the corridor, looking down on the individual lockups. Every steel door was identical—heavy, barred, and bolted.

He walked away from the doors, toward the end of the hallway. At the very end stood two men who looked vaguely familiar. They looked with interest through a square window cut into the cell door immediately in front of them.

The first was a hulking figure, wearing a black suit and cheap leather shoes.

The other man was thinner but imposing, his face hidden behind a black fedora. The sleeves of his expensive dress shirt were pushed up above his elbows carelessly. He was the dangerous one. He stepped back from the door, smoking a cigar.

Nox recognized the gold crown stamped on the side.

Barbadian. He’s a Ravenwood.

Nox didn’t need to see the family crest stamped into the heavy silver signet ring on the man’s finger. There was only one person who fit the description, though Nox himself had never seen him in person.

Silas Ravenwood, the infamous and deadly great-great-grandson of Abraham.

“Keep her chained up until I tell you otherwise,” Silas said in a thick accent that Nox couldn’t quite place. “To say the Power of Persuasion is valuable to a man in my line of work is an understatement. And my last Siren was useless.”

The man in the cheap shoes peered into the shadows of the cell. “Do the chains leave marks?”

“Of course. But I’ll make her Charm them away herself. Or maybe I’ll let her keep them as a reminder.”

“You think this Siren will be better?”

“She comes from a powerful line. And she’s made some powerful enemies. How else would she have ended up here?” His voice didn’t betray a hint of emotion. “You know Lennox Gates?”

The big guy nodded. “I think I met him once, in one of his clubs.”

“His mother was my grandfather’s personal Siren, and she was a powerful bitch. The kid sold me this one.” Silas Ravenwood laughed.

“Expensive?”

“His life,” Silas said.

“You made him pay to keep his own life?” Silas’ underling looked shocked.

“Of course not. I made him pay with it.” He shrugged. “Never bargain with a Blood Incubus.”

The pit in Nox’s stomach hardened into a lump. It was the closest he’d ever come to seeing his own future, and he suspected it was because it wasn’t really about him.

This was Ridley’s vision.

She was the Siren they were talking about.

The one chained like an animal.

Then the smoke descended and the terrible faces of the two men vanished…

… and Ridley broke off the kiss.

“Nox? Are you okay?” Ridley stared into his eyes, though they didn’t seem to see her. She shook his shoulders, hard. “Nox. You’re creeping me out.”

He focused his eyes and pulled her into a hug. Now he was holding her so tight that it hurt. “I need to tell you something, Little Siren.”

Ridley pulled free from his arms. “What is it?”

“Something I should have told you a long time ago.” His eyes held hers. “I don’t want to do this. And I’ve never done it before.”

“Done what?” The way Nox was talking, though, Ridley wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“My father warned me not to. Nobody wants to hear it.”

“Nox.” Ridley was frightened.

“Not even a Caster. We all want to pretend we will live forever.”

Ridley’s face was pale. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s a reason your kiss tastes like fire,” Nox began.