Marked for grace, p.18
Marked for Grace, page 18
“That’s what you get for having cops as friends,” Ivan retorted.
Laughter filled the room, and they fell into easy banter as they finished their meal and broke out the poker chips. She had absolutely no clue how to play, so she sat out the game and watched, picking up not one single thing.
“Has Corporal Harris been transferred to the Detachment yet?” Kyle asked, tone sharp as he tapped his finger on the table, awaiting his cards.
Charlotte’s jaw clenched. “She starts Monday.”
Grace’s attention jumped between the two, then around the table to the others, finding their sentiments mirrored. Ooh, intriguing. Their turn to explore an uncomfortable topic. “Who’s Corporal Harris?”
“She’s our new C.O.,” Jake said. When Grace scratched her temple, he elaborated, “Commanding Officer.”
“They call her the Bulldog,” Ivan interjected.
Noah set his hand on the back of Kyle’s chair. “Why?”
“Because once she’s decided on a suspect, she doesn’t let go.”
Grace’s nose scrunched. “That can’t be a compliment.”
Jake shook his head. “It’s not. She’s relentless. She’s got a high conviction rate but has a reputation for bulling over her suspects and subordinates. There are plenty of rumors behind closed doors.”
“She sounds lovely,” Grace added, sorry she’d asked. “On that note, I should get going.” She rose and glanced at Noah. “You coming?”
“I think I’ll stay here tonight. Text me when you get home?”
Leaning over, she kissed him on the cheek. “Of course. See you tomorrow, house husband.” She carried her dishes to the kitchen, wished the others goodnight, and aimed for the door.
“Grace,” Jake called, following her.
A small wave of panic crested as he closed the distance between them. His posture was stiff, had been since he’d learned about Ben. And she prayed to all things holy he was not about to bring it up.
He cleared his throat. “If things down at the hospital get bad, let me know.”
Oh. If the new Mark was behind what was happening, things would definitely get bad. But he couldn’t know that, so she tilted her head in question. Her heart sank at his reply.
“When the public realizes the scope of what’s happening,” he lowered his voice, “these things have the potential to turn ugly fast. If you think you need help, if you’re in danger, you call me.”
Grace’s body was one giant knot. The tension coiled in her muscles was painful, and her forearms ached from her grip on the steering wheel. The temperature outside hovered at freezing, and the misty drizzle that coated the air meant her drive home from Kyle’s was treacherous. It was the kind of moisture that froze the instant it touched the windshield—or more concerning, the road.
The wipers snapped back and forth, doing their best to clear her view. The lesser traffic outside the city limits meant the pavement didn’t heat from the constant friction of tires, so black-ice coated the black-top. Easing her foot off the gas, she slowed.
The clouds lay low, the night well and dark. Her headlights struggled to penetrate the dim night while her eyes strained against the fog as she tracked the lines on the road.
Like her own, Kyle’s house was further out of town at the opposite end of Arillia, which meant crossing the city to get home. Some of her anxiety ebbed when she reentered it and the streetlights brightened the way—kind of.
Her mind spun. Between Jake’s parting words and the weather, she couldn’t quiet her torrential thoughts. The traffic light ahead turned red, and she slowed to a stop. She swivelled around, peering into the dark corners for trouble. When her gaze settled on the alley to her left, her spine snapped straight.
Her attention darted to her rear-view mirror. There was no one behind her, so she shoved the car in reverse and—when her tires stopped slipping from her aggressive shot of gas—she backed alongside the curb and parked.
Grabbing her purse, she threw her door open and climbed out. The skunky scent of cheap weed lingered in the frost-dampened air, but there was no one attached to it. She moved with slow progress and kept her feet. She crept like a cat that stalked its prey as she approached the head of the alley. A man lay dead in its depths, his body sprawled prone on the ground. As bad as it was, he hadn’t been the reason she’d stopped—at least, not the flesh version of him.
She scanned the street for strangers, shoulders sagging in tentative relief when she found herself alone. Controlling the tremor in her hand, she pulled out a pen and paper from her purse and then sketched the new Mark on the dead man’s soul.
The fact that the others couldn’t see it was so far past unnerving it headed into creepy territory. But a weird hope blossomed in her chest because this was a way to show them.
Voices bounced off the brick walls nearby, and her heart rate jumped from frantic to explosive in a single beat. Careful not to touch the soul, she scurried around it and tucked behind a dumpster, hoping whoever it was kept on trucking. Her safety aside, if anyone saw her hanging out with a dead guy it was sure to look mildly suspicious.
She peeked through a small gap between the garbage and the wall at her back. Her lungs seized. The silhouettes of two men backlit by the streetlights came into view where they paused at the head of the alley.
“Gimme your lighter,” the shorter of the two said.
There was a quick rustling. “Here.”
The distinctive clank of a Zippo top being opened echoed through the night, followed by the grind of the flint, and the faint light of its small fire as it flashed to life. Short guy’s cigarette accepted the flame, and it sizzled when he took a deep draw. The end glowed bright, highlighting the plains of his face.
For all she knew, they were well adjusted, decent citizens, but the hysteria that threatened to take her over said otherwise, because alone in the shadows, everyone and everything was trouble. Move on. Please, just move on.
The scent of the smoke hit her, and she held her breath, fighting the cough that tried to break free of her chest. Short guy took another draw before he and his friend turned away and disappeared into the night. She released a violent exhale.
Climbing from her hiding spot, she finished the sketch, and offered the dead man a silent apology, because there was no way she was calling it in to be questioned by the cops. Not that anyone could save him anyway.
Scurrying from the alley, she beelined back to her car, then jammed it in gear and fled into the night.
Chapter 19
Grace
Grace’s living room looked like a tornado had torn through it. The Arillia Times newspapers she’d fished from their recycling were spread across every available surface. Each opened to the obituaries, starting with the day she’d seen Elise and Corey die in Trenton. Correction. Killed. She’d seen them killed.
She looked for faces, patterns, then highlighted anyone who’d died from the “outbreak” in pink, jotting down the basics of who they were to consolidate the information. She would’ve searched for the guy from the alley, but he wouldn’t have made the news, not yet anyway. A rolling wave of guilt torqued her stomach. Had he even been found?
She didn’t have the cyclist's name, so the woman’s appearance was the only thing she could go by. The papers rustled when she opened them. Flipping the pages, she circled all the death announcements for women first, then backtracked to take a better look.
Opening her laptop, she selected a few news articles and rolled her eyes when she skimmed passed the society pages and business articles that gushed over Gideon. She cycled through the internet tabs, cross-referencing her respective results until she narrowed the selections down to one. That was her! It had to be—the woman’s facial structure, skin tone, hair color, and eyes were all familiar. She was thirty-five and survived by her parents, husband, two children, and three siblings.
“Alright, Sarah Stern.” She brought up a search engine and punched in the name. Multiple options surfaced and she scrolled through until she found an image of the woman associated with a social media profile. She held her breath when she clicked it, then released it in a burst. Thank you, Sarah, for absolutely no privacy settings!
They had that much in common.
She scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, heart sinking at the posted condolences. When she passed them, she found a picture of Sarah seated on her bike surrounded by several other smiling cyclists captioned “Arillia Triathlon, here we come!.” That was followed by a status from a few days before that tagged her location as Arillia Hospital. “In for a minor procedure. So stupid. Can’t wait until this is done.” The comments were all of the “hope you feel better soon” variety and too vague to figure out what that procedure might’ve been.
Grace’s bottom lip pushed out and she shoved the papers away. There weren’t any glaring religious references of note. She’d figured out who Sarah was but had no idea what good that did her.
She jumped when her phone rang and scowled at Noah’s face as it flashed across her screen. Snapping it up, she answered. “Hello.”
“Have you made it home yet? I got worried when you didn’t message.”
“I’m home.” Her shoulders sagged. “Sorry, I got sidetracked trying to research anyone that died and could’ve had the Mark.”
“Oh.” Silence, long and drawn, then, “The Nephilim really couldn’t see it?”
“They really couldn’t.”
“What about demon-boy?”
She chucked her highlighter onto the coffee table and thumped her head against the couch’s back. God, she was just so bone weary and tired. “I don’t know.”
His voice brightened. “You haven’t asked him yet?”
“I have not.”
“What if he can see it?” He gasped. “Oh! You should invite him over to discuss it in the name of research.” There was a proud, mischievous grin in his voice, and it made her want to reach through the phone and smack him.
“How many times do I have to remind you, I’m dating Ben.”
“First of all, you might be, but I’m not.”
She threw an arm up. “You’re dating Kyle!”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Second, you’re not Marked yet, which means you’re still allowed to ask him questions.”
“You just want me to see him again,” she scoffed.
“That’s beside the point.”
She stared up at the ceiling for patience. “That is the point.”
“I forget my point.”
“The point is finding out whatever I can about all of this.”
“By inviting demon-boy over?” He snickered and that urge to smack him again had her hand twitching. “Speaking of learning things, are you and this Jenna woman still planning on researching your mom?”
A rolling wave of anxiety hovered like a storm on the horizon of her heart. Because the potential truths that research might reveal was suffocating. She swallowed hard. “Yeah, tomorrow.”
An hour later, Grace lay on her back in bed, holding the picture of the Mark. She stared up at it like answers might magically appear. And stared. And stared.
The paper rattled as she rotated it in every conceivable direction and tried to unlock its mystery, to no avail. Her gaze flicked to her phone, back to the drawing, then back to her phone. Releasing a loud huff, she picked up the device, snapped a picture of the Mark, and texted it to Gideon accompanied by a message.
Grace: Does this mean anything to you?
She eyed the screen, awaiting a response. It rang and she flinched then fumbled until she dropped it on her face. Ow! Taking it firmly in hand, she answered, “Hello?”
“Good evening, Crys,” Gideon crooned.
“Good evening, Gideon.”
He rasped, smooth and low when next he spoke. “Before we begin, I’ll need you to do something for me.”
Heat flared across her body. “What’s that?”
“Get rid of that photo.”
Not what she’d expected.
“You don’t want Elijah finding out you sent it, so before this conversation goes any further, commit the drawing to memory, then destroy it and any evidence of the picture you texted.”
The level, deathly somber tone he used had every muscle in her chest snap taught, making it hard to breathe. She pulled the phone from her ear, deleted that portion of their text conversation along with the picture from her images and tore up the drawing.
“Done. Would he really be that upset?”
“Yes. Having it leaves it at risk for being discovered.”
“Would anyone even know what they were looking at?”
“It doesn’t matter. The chance exists. Elijah may seem flat, but he takes the rules seriously. Don’t ever let him catch you breaking them.”
She pulled her hair from the messy bun she’d styled it into. “And what happens if he does?”
“The punishments with our kind are severe. So, don’t let him.”
“You’ve had experience with this?”
“It’s something you only have to learn once.”
With the tips of her fingers, she massaged her forehead and temples. Her eyes pinched as she pushed back the headache that threatened to creep in. “Why do I get the feeling you required it more?”
He huffed a laugh. “Once, I promise you.”
She fell still, voice softening, “That bad?”
“Strange as it may be, Heaven and Hell make an effort to keep their people in line. Seeing as our blood determines our end, harsh discipline is their only recourse on this plane.”
A sheen of sweat rose across her skin. She put him on speaker and then scrolled through her previous text conversations with him, Ben, and Noah, ensuring there wasn’t anything problematic.
“What does that discipline entail?” she asked.
“There are three strata of punishment. The first for you as a Nephilim would be the soul-sword.”
The strata term was familiar. She was pretty sure Davis had used it when Gideon threw Absinthe and Hennessey through Hell’s Gate. But before she could dwell on that the weight of his words sank in… “Wait,” her head tilted, “soul-sword?”
“Indeed, because the sword does not strike the body, it strikes the soul.”
She really should’ve run when she’d had the chance. Words escaped her, but Gideon saved her the trouble of a response when he pushed on.
“Both the Nephilim and Elijah carry the Mark for it, them as their weapon in the end, he as a form of punishment for them.”
No wonder the others were so afraid of the Agent. She swallowed hard and forced her next words out from a throat that didn’t want to work. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“It’s above the elbow, away from the other Marks to prevent it from accidentally being triggered.”
His words hit her like a bolt of lightning and jolted her to her core. “Noah knows, Gideon. Is he in danger?”
“Who else have you told that he knows?”
“No one.”
“Keep it that way, make sure he does, too, and it’ll be fine.”
She released the tight grip of her muscles and let the bed take her weight. “He’d never betray that confidence. He’s my no-matter-what.”
There was a brief silence. “Your no-matter-what?”
“We’re there for each other, no-matter-what,” she replied as if the answer was obvious, because, frankly, it was.
His voice lowered and its deep rumble rolled across the phone. “Then you don’t have a problem.”
She flailed her hand in the air. “I do have a problem, Gideon. I have you.”
“I’m not a problem for you, Crys. And you don’t have me yet but say the word and I’m yours anytime you want,” he said, a smirk in his voice.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She hated having to trust anyone with such a thing, but she was already beholden to him on that account, which meant whether she liked it or not, she had to. “So what are the other two strata of punishment?”
“Are you sure you want that answer, beauty?”
Not at all. While a morbid part of her was curious, the rest understood anything that followed the soul-sword had to be horrible. She shook her head. “No.” Steering the conversation back to the issue at hand, she said, “Did you recognize the Mark?”
“No.”
Dammit! She tapped her palm against her thigh. All that for nothing. “What about the Latin script?”
“It reads ‘Claimed.’”
“Does that mean anything to you?”
“It doesn’t, but if you’d like, I can come over and we can discuss it more thoroughly.”
“Ha! No.” Had he and Noah shared notes? They must’ve, otherwise they’d read out of the same playbook.
He laughed, rich and heavy. “Where did you find it?”
Twisting her hair around a finger, she considered her options on how best to answer that, then opted for the truth. “I saw it on four different people.”
“Their souls?”
“What magical powers of deduction you have, Mr. Ryczek.”
He coughed, then coughed again. When he regained himself, he said, “That tongue of yours is quite sharp.”
Damn her sass. Why couldn’t she control it around him? Mocking him while asking for his help likely wasn’t her best tactic. She shook her head. “Sorry, I—”
“Don’t apologize, Crys. I quite like to taste its sting.”
Her lip slowly tipped up. “How do you make everything inappropriate?”
“It’s a skill.” The sound of leather creaking passed through the phone. “Where did you find these souls?”
Fluffing the pillow under her head, she tried to get comfortable. It didn’t work, so she beat it into submission. “The first two were in Trenton the night we met. The next was a woman at an accident scene I passed.”
“And the fourth?”
She rolled onto her side. “I spotted him down an alley I went into tonight.”
“As one does,” he quipped about said alley expedition.
“It was dark and there was no one around. I wasn’t seen.”
