Ilona Andrews: Dark and Stormy Knights

He hadn’t expected the Thing to have so much pep left. It was still bleeding heavily, the grass smoking as ichor splashed. It crouched, a glassy squeal rising from its foul, bleeding lips. The UV lashed across it, a whip of light. More thin black blood bubbled.

It hit him hard, a last desperate gambit, claws slicing in through cloth and flesh, tangling with his ribs. Agony roared through him, but he was prepared, months of fighting in dark corners and hunting around the edges boiling down to undeniable instinct that had jerked the hawthorn stake free and—

It thudded home . His aim was true.

Rookwood lay flat in the mud, the Thirst burning all through him like alcohol fumes. The stab wounds between his ribs ran with red agony. Chisholm’s body began to vaporize itself, shredding under the lash of water. Stinging needles of rain peppered both of them, living flesh and dead, rotting sludge. The silver had done its work, poisoning and breaking up the fabric of Chisholm’s ancient body. The hawthorn was doing the rest.

Rookwood coughed twice, rackingly. Spat to clear his mouth. The stake quivered in his numb hand.

It took two tries to heave himself up, shoving aside the rotting thing. The rain was a baptism as the Thirst retreated into its deep hole, snarling with each step. Hot blood trickled its fingers down his rib cage. Nothing vital hit. Or so he hoped.

Do it quick, just in case.

The stake was hissing, the wood twitching as what was left of the one who had bitten him jerked slightly. There might have been some life left in the disintegration, but the hawthorn immobilized it. Hate rose bright and sweet in Rookwood’s throat.

The kukri sang free of its sheath. The thing twitched.

“You bit the wrong cop, Chisholm.” His voice sounded strange even to himself. The soccer field was a long, flat dance floor, rain flinging itself down in needle streaks. He lined up the kukri. It flashed down in an arc of silver, and the head was hacked free. More twitching as nerve death took the body, and Rookwood tilted up his face to the rain.

It was over. Finally over.

Except it wasn’t. He wiped the water out of his eyes. Hot trickles had threaded his cheeks. They were different from the scorching trails of blood down his ribs, soaking into his jeans. They vanished under the intensifying rain, curtains of it suddenly pounding the field and his shoulders, slicking his hair down.

Amelia. I promised to go back.

He owed the widow an explanation, at least. And to tell her she was free.

But what if Fann’s bitten her, too?

He told himself not to worry about that just yet.

Rookwood cleaned off his kukri. The hawthorn stake slid free of the sludge of corruption, the slurry no longer even recognizably humanoid. The veil over the night retreated. And he felt like himself again for the first time in six goddamn years, since Chisholm had first handed him an envelope of cash and the whole dirty seduction had begun.

Yes, he owed her an explanation. And maybe something more.

The sob caught him by surprise. He bent over, his arms wrapped tight over his belly, the claw marks stinging as they slowly closed. Rookwood locked the sounds behind his tight-clenched teeth, hunched like an old man over the smear of rotting tissue killing the grass underneath it, open eyes staring sightlessly at the crystal gilding of rainwater on every surface.

It wasn’t crying, he told himself. It was relief. There was no weakness in relief.

But he did not believe it.

The widow’s house blazed with light in every window. As soon as he stepped through the ruin of the French doors again, he knew something was awry.

His boots crushed the carpeting in the master bedroom upstairs. Clothing was pulled out and scattered, a smudge of faintly tainted blood on a white coverlet. Her window faced south, blinds yanked up and scratch marks on the sash outside.

It must have been the very window her husband had bobbed outside, pleading to be let in. His wet skin chilled at the thought.

She wasn’t upstairs, or down, or even in the cellar, where the aroma of corruption lingered. The silver SUV was gone, and a mug lay shattered on the kitchen floor. It was a blue-glazed coffee cup, in pieces.

Shit. I told her to stay here! He checked the rooms again, but she was completely, utterly gone.

Any chance he had of breaking the office building downtown had vanished with her, too. God damn it. Her husband must have had a security pass and key codes, but his desk was open and she’d left paper scattered on the floor. There went his chance to get the last of the bloodsuckers. Six months of work and an almost botched operation.

Well, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have time.

Before he left, then, he turned off the lights. He stood for a few moments in her dark kitchen, looking at the imprint of her body on the broken wall. She was damn lucky to still be alive.

I was bait for you, too.

He hoped this wasn’t her last surprise.

He’d known Molstein was gone. There was nothing in the papers, but Rookwood still had a few contacts left on the force. His old partner had disappeared, last seen at midnight outside a deli on Thirty-fourth.

Two blocks away from Briggs, Fann, and Chisholm’s offices.

Rookwood went home and eyed the Scotch on his desk, put it away.

The Thirst retreated. It didn’t go away, but with Chisholm gone it didn’t taunt his every waking moment. He actually felt halfway decent and could hold down cooked steak and cheese again.

He needed a jolt of the red stuff once a week instead of every day. He prowled his office, and some of the widow’s money went for rent. He was in the clear.

Cases trickled in. A poltergeist on Seventh Street, a collection of dry cleaners being extorted by a gang of werewolves, a man looking for his vanished lover. The last case had nothing weird about it, straight-up breakup work. The lover didn’t want to be found, but Rookwood kept the money anyway.

He kept hearing her in the back of his head. I was bait for you. . . . You don’t understand, Mr. Rookwood. . . . Do they always scream like that? That glossy hair, and the way her lips pulled back from her teeth when she shot Briggs in the head.

It took another rainy night, cars shushing by outside his window and the bottle of Scotch singing from the drawer he’d hid it in, before he realized what her last surprise might be. The newspaper lay open on his desk, the local section barely glanced at before something caught his attention and he froze, staring at the black-and-white print:

“. . . since the closure of Briggs, Fann, and Chisholm early last month, after a fire that gutted their offices.”

The article was about a sudden dearth of criminal defense lawyers and a rash of arson involving their offices. It didn’t take a genius to figure out most of them weren’t on vacation or visiting Aunt Mabel. Of course, the real story wouldn’t be in the papers, but there was enough between the lines to sit him bolt upright in his chair, the taste of copper in his mouth and his pulse racing like a stock car.

Holy shit. His hands turned into fists. She learns quick.

Five minutes later he was out the door, sliding through the wet neon light. He hailed a cab at the corner, sat in a fug of cigarette smoke and fogged windows, and tipped the driver too much as he climbed out on Twenty-third.

The office building was a shell of itself, yellow crime scene tape fluttering. Rookwood stood across the street with his heart in his mouth, staring at the wreckage.

Yes, a quick learner. He wondered how she’d taken care of Fann—the old boy was tricky, and even without his legs he was a formidable opponent.