Darkness Calls by Marjorie M. Liu Read Free Book Online

still suffering from the fear you felt.” He peered into my eyes. “But I’ve never seen you afraid of a gun.”
    “It was close,” I admitted, unable to lie. “I think I’ve put you in danger.”
    Grant’s jaw tightened. “Did you see who did it?”
    “No. Long range. Just before dawn. I’ll put Zee and the others on the scent tonight.” I nudged him in the ribs. “Business as usual.”
    “No, it’s not.” He pulled me closer, squeezing me so tight I almost ended up in his lap—which was suddenly not close enough. I twisted, straddling him, taking care not to put too much weight on his bad leg. Heat spread between us, soft and rich. I fiddled with his collar, hardly able to look past his throat, the hard line of his stubbly jaw. He smelled like cinnamon and sunlight, warm as summer stone, and my gloved hands looked very small against his tanned skin.
    “I was fine before I met you,” I whispered. “I was fine.”
    “I know,” he said softly, and his lips brushed mine. “But you scare me sometimes.”
    I scared myself. I glanced over his shoulder at the bulging FedEx envelope and felt another pang of unease. “Are those the results?”
    Grant hesitated and reached backward. “Arrived first thing this morning. I haven’t . . . looked at it like I should.”
    “But you did look.”
    He gave me a wry glance. “I learned from you that prying into a mother’s secrets is dangerous business.”
    “Oh, please,” I said. “How bad can it be?”
    Grant sighed, dumping the contents of the envelope across his desk. A bound manila file thumped out, along with a heavy gold necklace that slid a short distance across the battered wood surface. I was no expert on jewelry—I wore none, except for the finger armor, and that was not my choice. But the necklace in front of me was eye-catching. The metal gleamed like velvet infused with sunlight, warm and rich. Pure soft gold, the kind a person could bite down on and bend.
    A pendant hung from the thick chain. A coil of lines, like a rose.
    “My mother was my world,” Grant said quietly, fingering the necklace. “You know she died while I was in high school, right? Cancer. Devastated my dad and me. But especially him. He didn’t want to talk about her. And you know . . . you know how you never think to ask certain questions, you take everything for granted, then . . . then once that person is gone, all those things you never knew about her just keep coming at you, over and over?”
    “Yes,” I said. “I know.”
    He pushed the necklace aside and slid his fingers lightly over the folder. “I didn’t do anything about it then. I don’t think I ever would have, except . . .”
    “What happened changed things,” I finished for him, and he gave me a long, steady look that was both calm and pained.
    “What happened,” he agreed heavily, “when that . . . thing . . . called me that name.”
    Lightbringer, I thought, and imagined a tremor in the delicate armor surrounding my finger; as though a small heart fluttered, briefly. I clenched my hand in a rough fist, and heat passed through my tattooed skin.
    I did not believe in the supernatural. The supernatural was fairy-tale. I dealt in reality; cold, hard facts. And one of those facts was this: More than demons walked the world. Other creatures existed, also capable of possessing human flesh.
    Avatars. Manifestations of sentient energy in bodily form. Ancient beings who had done battle with the demons and built the prison veil to jail the demons—made my kind, the Wardens—and then abandoned this world for others, where the memory of battle did not cling so thick.
    Not all of them had left, though. Some had stayed by choice. Others . . . not so much.
    But one thing had been made clear: Avatars recognized something in Grant, something they had a name for, and it had scared one of them shitless. Or just shocked her so much it was practically the same thing. Made me feel like a pussycat in comparison.