Seduced by Shadows (2 page)

Sera reached for the cane she’d propped against the bricks. “Good to see you too, Bets.”

“Chill, girl.” Betsy laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Sorry. I was just surprised to see you.”

“Supposed to be my first night back.” Sera gripped the head of the cane, the ergonomic rubber cold under her fingers. She kept telling herself she’d be rid of it soon. “But Marion’s sending me home again, until I’m ‘stronger.’ Said I looked like death warmed over and I was scaring the patients.”

Betsy snickered. “Death warmed over. You’re a thanatologist.”

“Apparently last vigils should be presided over by someone a little perkier and better coiffed.” Sera ran one hand over her simple blond braid. “I told her my
lipstick was in the glove compartment, and that ended up somewhere in the trunk.”

“It’s been six months. You couldn’t stop by the Cli nique counter while you learned to walk again?” Betsy shook her head. “For being in charge of end-of-life care, Marion has all the compassion of your average vulture.”

She reached into the side pocket of Sera’s bag and snagged the cigarettes. Without looking behind her, she pitched them into the trash bin.

Sera raised her eyebrows. “Luckily I have friends like you.”

“Lucky is right. Give me any more of that washed-out lip and I’ll send you to Nutrition for a full workup.” Betsy eyed her. “You get any thinner, and when old Grim Reaper Man comes for your customers, he’ll think you’re the ghost.”

“Not a fear of yours then, huh?”

“Funny. We’re so busy tonight, if Death comes looking for me, I’ll triage him with the kids puking up stale Halloween candy. I swear, that club drug making the rounds is a nightmare like you would not believe, and on top of that, we’ve got the full moon bringing out the crazies.”

Sera glanced up, although the tall buildings shut out all but a narrow slice of night. With low-hanging clouds reflecting the city lights, the sky glowed a nacreous silver. “I don’t think the moon’s full tonight.”

Betsy huffed. “Might as well be. Everyone’s got that weird sparkle in their eyes, even the ones not whacked-out on solvo, or whatever they’re calling it.”

“Must be the holidays coming,” Sera murmured, still watching the night.

“Great. Just add salmonella, suicide, and shoveling- induced heart attacks to the mix.” Betsy nudged Sera’s arm. “Hey, let’s get a cup of coffee.”

Distracted from the sky, Sera shook her head. “I
thought you were busy. And I guess I’m spending the evening dusting off my résumé.”

“Marion’s a fool,” Betsy said. “Somebody has to explain the big mysteries before checkout time, and you’ve a real gift for facing the other side.”

Not the kind of gift with a return receipt, unfortunately. Sera fumbled the cane as Betsy hugged her, and they exchanged promises to lunch. She stepped out of the bright lights and relative shelter of the ambulance bay and headed for the darker street.

Yeah, the big mysteries of life and death and why some asshole with three DUIs on his record had plowed his monster SUV into her practical little sedan, putting a severe crimp in the rest of her life, along with her spine.

She was tired of asking questions when she couldn’t help wondering whether there were any answers.

Which was probably why Marion had sent her home.

But home felt like a prison these days. She had spent too much time there since rehab, in a place grown too quiet.

With a twinge of pain, she aimed her steps in the other direction. Good thing Betsy had missed the prescription bottle in the bag next to the cigarettes. The ER nurse would’ve known in a heartbeat what those meant.

Forget the celebratory walk through the cosmetics counters. Just pop the childproof cap on the little orange bottle. She’d have to check on that drug trial the intern had mentioned. He’d said the manufacturer swore Solacin was the painkiller to end all painkillers. With that easy chemical buffer, even the sight of the short stack of job applications on Marion’s desk wouldn’t hurt much.

With the traffic of Upper Wacker behind her, Sera started over the bridge, ducking her head against the wind hissing across the black water.

A quarter of the way across, she noticed the man alone in the middle of the bridge.

If she hadn’t been so wrapped up in her own thoughts,
she would have seen him earlier. The matte black trench coat silhouetted his height against the slash of silvery night sky. He stood braced against the wind tugging at the hem of his coat.

Born and raised in the city, she had a healthy respect for and no unreasonable fear of downtown dangers. She worked—until recently, of course—in a job with late hours in sometimes sketchy neighborhoods and had had her car broken into only twice. Even with a cane that marked her as easy pickings, she knew her trigger finger on the can of mace was limber enough.

Still, something about the man slowed her steps and ramped up her pulse.

She couldn’t cross the street. She had less faith in traffic’s ability to avoid her than in her own ability to avoid trouble. And running only invited chasing.

She unzipped the side pocket of her bag, where she kept the mace. Hell, if he had a mugging in mind, she could toss out the prescription bottle, and any self-respecting junkie would follow it into the river.

Despite her inner bravado, her limping steps ground to a halt.

He stood with his face half turned to the sky, heedless of the wind that couldn’t ruffle his close-cropped hair. Sera expected dark shades and a lot of bling, but when he finally glanced down at her, the only spark came from the violet reflections glancing off his eyes.

Not that there were any purple lights around them—just maybe some chance fusion of red brake lights and the blue-tinged streetlamps. . . .

If she was mugged, she didn’t want her description to the police to gush about the hypnotic violet lights in his dark eyes. She’d have to remember the hard edge of his jaw and the width of shoulders below the mandarin collar of his coat, which tapered to lean hips.

She jerked her gaze back to his.

He frowned in a thoughtful, not-menacing way, at
least no more menacing than was necessitated by the austere cast to his features. “This, I did not expect.”

She’d be able to ID him by his voice, if nothing else—dark and rough, with a hint of mostly forgotten Southern sweetness, like pralines carelessly heated past caramelizing to burned ruination.

He drew himself up, and she thought darting into traffic might not be completely unreasonable.

“If I told you something bad was right here, right now,” he asked, “would you listen to me?”

Sera thrust her hand into her bag. “I’d tell it to back off.” The mace canister felt sleek and cold and ridiculously tiny when she held it out in front of her.

The man tilted his head. “It won’t be stopped that way. Only you can deny it.”

“Consider yourself denied.”

Violet flashed again in his deep-set eyes. “I am not the threat.”

“See, that’s what all the homicidal schizophrenics say.”

Amusement curved his full lips in a way that made her finger tighten on the trigger.

“Temptation is all around you,” he said. “Embrace it at your peril.”

And she’d been deliberately not thinking of embracing. Peril, yes. Embracing, not any time in recent memory.

She shook her head to clear the wayward thoughts. “Right. There’s a men’s shelter on Grand. Tell them Sera from Mercy General hospice sent you, and they’ll find a slot in their outpatient program.”

He sighed. She could barely hear over the wind, but she saw his shoulders lift and fall—under a coat far too expensive for him to be a drug-addled street dweller.

“Sera.” He pronounced it as she had said it,
Sear-ah
. “I am not patient at all. But nothing I say will convince
you. Nothing I say will even make sense. Not yet. Just remember. For when it comes.”

The wind worked its way under her coat, sending a chill up her spine. “I think it’s time you moved along.” She gestured with the mace canister.

He hesitated, then, with a nod, stepped past her. He stayed near the street, giving her space.

The wild wind spun by her, carrying the scent of spice and musk, a primitive blend at odds with his sleek urban look. With fickle abruptness, the wind pushed at her back, urging her toward him. And damn her weak leg, she actually stumbled a step forward.

He turned instantly, one hand reaching out.

“No.” Her voice sounded too high, panicky. She swallowed. “Go on now. Git.” As if he were a mongrel stray.

She waited until the darkness on the bridge swallowed him. He never looked back. Only then did she continue. On the far side, she crossed the intersection against the light, told herself she was an idiot, no one was following her, and paused anyway to make sure.

No man in a black trench coat. No mysterious threat coming her way.

Suddenly her empty apartment seemed better than roaming the city streets in the descending November night. She hailed a cab and ducked inside with only one more glance back.

“Cold out there.” The cabbie’s lilting English distracted her.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re shaking. Shall I turn up the heat?”

She let out a pent-up breath. “Sorry. No. I’m fine.”

Obviously she didn’t have as much of her toughness back as she had told herself, if one crazy set her so on edge. Maybe if—no,
when
she healed, she’d take that self-defense course Betsy was always pushing on her nurses. It wouldn’t protect her from drunk drivers, but who knew what else was out there?

Under the cover of deep shadow, Archer watched the woman—Sera—hurry away, her slight figure outlined in whorls of ominous light. The spectral radiance visible from the penthouse balcony had condensed and centered around her. The silver green glow reminded him of a tornado sky, when doom spiraled out of nothing. The unbound demon had chosen.

Zane joined him. “A woman? No way. All demon-ridden are male.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways. But not half so mysterious as the other guys.” Archer steeled the savagery lurking inside him against her thousand weaknesses: the hesitation in her steps from the painful twist of her spine; her not-unwarranted impulse toward violence; the fear that dulled her eyes. Fear of him.

The demon didn’t need a thousand weaknesses. Only one.

“Are we sure she’s the target? Could the demon have gotten confused?” Zane stared across the river, where Sera had gone. The etheric lights trailed behind her like frayed gossamer wings. “She seemed nice.”

The mace hadn’t been pointed at him. Archer was glad he’d told the younger talya to stay out of the way. “The demon wasn’t confused. It only resonates with a matching soul.”

“Then why aren’t we bringing her back with us? Did you tell her why we’re here?”

“You can’t tell them anything until the demon ascends. They won’t believe you before then. Maybe not even then.”

Zane peered at him. “We can’t just let her go. I know we aren’t sure which strain of demon wants her, but no one should go through it alone.” He started forward, as if to flag down the cab.

Archer snagged Zane’s arm, whipping him around. “If she’s wise, she won’t go through it at all.”

Zane faltered. “You warned her? Is that an option?”

Archer shrugged irritably. “You can’t warn any more than you can guide.”

“You’d better hope Niall doesn’t hear about this. Ecco and Raine were watching from the other side of the bridge.”

Archer scowled, even more exasperated. “You think, if it comes to that, they want a woman joining the league? As if we didn’t face madness enough.”

“She’d be no worse than some,” Zane muttered. Then his gaze slid away as if he’d said too much—and to the wrong person.

Archer kept a leash on his flaring temper, but since someone had stuck the tuning fork in his dreams that had him vibrating to this emergent demon, his discipline felt unreliable.

Her accusation he was a psycho killer should have struck too close to the truth. But the zest with which she delivered the line and the glint in her hazel eyes as she aimed the spray can had roused sensations he thought long dead. Dead, buried, and rotted past all unholy resurrection.

Except in the dreams that left him unwilling to sleep. Strangely attuned to the unbound demon, he’d been prepared for violence. As always. But not for this. Not for her.

He wrestled down the rage. “There’s a malice in the alley back there. It followed the pyrotechnics this far. Scare it off before it gets bored and does something annoying.”

Zane glanced back, distracted. “Shouldn’t we drain it?”

“We won’t have time for every petty malice roaming the streets tonight.” Archer strode off.

“Where are you going?” Zane called.

“After more dangerous game.”