Wild Game (Codex Blair Book 4) Read online

  One of particular interest to me was a snow globe of London, though it appeared to have people walking around in it. I picked it up gently, peering into it. I was surprised to find that the people were not only walking, but I could hear the distant buzz of conversation as well, and the cars and buses were all moving around as well. It was a miniature London! How strange.

  I put it back down and reached for something else, something that looked like a bronze casting of the universe. Only it had many more objects on it than the planets I knew about. I twirled it around, drawing my face closer to it, narrowing my eyes as I thought I might recognize something...something that definitely didn't belong—and smacked myself in the eye.

  "Ow!" I cried, dropping it to the floor, and heard the horrible sound of it breaking apart as it crashed against the wood. "Oh, no, no, no!" I bent and scooped up the pieces, thinking about trying to put it all back together, but I knew I was never going to be able to do that. "Fuck me," I said under my breath. There was nothing left to do about it, I was going to have to own up to having been in his room, and he was going to get so mad...

  I had invaded his personal space.

  I let out a huge breath, pressing a hand to my forehead and shaking my head.

  Or I could hide it! It was a horrible idea, he would surely notice it was missing, but it might buy me some time to get out of the flat before he found out. And then he would have cooled off about it all before I saw him again. I looked around the room and decided to stash it under the bed. I knelt on the ground, scooted it under there, and then jumped back up to my feet.

  Good, good, the deed was done. I felt like a child, but I didn't know what else to do.

  Be an adult and own up to it.

  Adults don't sneak around in their friend's rooms.

  They do if they want them to—

  I stopped that train of thought before it could go much further. Absolutely ridiculous, I wouldn't have anything to do with it. I didn't want Mal to do anything, aside from not getting mad. I would be pretty happy if he didn't get mad at me for being in his room and breaking his stuff.

  Speaking of which, I really shouldn't be in here, especially in case he came home soon. What in the world had I been thinking? I skittered out of the room as quickly as I could, crashing into the back of the couch and flipping over the back of it to land rather harshly—my back sliding down the front of the couch and giving me an awful burn.

  "Ugh. Karma," I said, though I didn't believe in nonsense like that. If karma were real then...well, that was a rant for another day.

  I stood just to sit back down on the couch, trying to look as innocent as possible.

  It wasn't a good look for me.

  27

  Just as I was beginning to calm the racing in my heart, I heard sobbing coming from Lilith's room. It was the first sound that had come out of there all night, that I knew of—for all I knew, she could have been crying while I watched the telly, and didn't that make me the biggest arsehole of all? I winced at the very idea of it.

  Should I go in there and check on her? I didn't think she would want me to, but the sound of her crying tugged on my heart strings, and I found myself standing and gravitating on her door. I knocked on it once with my knuckles.

  "Lilith? You OK?"

  Silence. The sobbing came to an abrupt halt for a solid minute before it started up again. I sighed and pushed open the door. She didn't look near as bad as she had the last time I'd seen her. Her golden hair had a sheen to it that had been missing, and her skin wasn't as pallid as it had once been. She had fed recently, that much was obvious. I tried to shift my distaste for that to the side, and took a step into the room.

  She recoiled as soon as I did, drawing herself as close to the wall as was possible, her eyes reproachful as they landed on me.

  "What do you want with me?" she said, and I thought she was doing her best to sneer, but it came out a little...well, pathetic was a rude word, but it was the one that came to mind. That was how she looked, like someone that needed to be helped, not someone that could threaten another person.

  I took a few more steps inside the room, not answering her question, and saw down across from her.

  "Have you come to kill me at last, while he's gone? Good. I want you to do it. Kill me!" She leaned forward then, arching her chest towards me, presenting her heart to me as if she wanted me to rip it out of her chest.

  I shuddered at the idea of it—though more because that was something I had actually done, something I was capable of doing, then anything else. I didn't want to do that again, certainly not to her.

  "I'm not here to kill you, Lilith," I said, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. I didn't want to rile her up.

  What are you doing in here then? Your very presence upsets her.

  That was true enough, but I didn't want to leave her alone to cry. That seemed crueler than anything I could do by being in here, as I wasn't in here to try and be cruel. I knew that to her, I had always been in here to be cruel, I had never been kind to her as far as she knew. She didn't see things the same way I did, didn't think that what I was doing was helping her.

  "Why not?"

  "What?" I was taken aback.

  "Why are you not here to kill me?" Her tone was demanding, haughty even. I was starting to see remnants of the girl beneath the addiction.

  "Why would I be here to kill you?" I countered her question with one of my own.

  "Because all you do is torture me, and maybe you've finally taken pity on the poor creature you come and taunt day in and day out. Maybe you're here to put an end to me, just as you wanted to do when you had me pinned in your precious little compound. You would have ripped my heart out then, why do you not do it now?"

  "Because of Mal," I said simply. "He would not forgive me if I were to harm you, and he thinks you can be saved. And for the record, I want you to be saved. I don't want you to give in to this addiction of yours. I want to see you come out on the other side."

  "You have a funny way of showing it," she said, scowling at me, and curling back up against the wall. "Why don't you just get out? I know you don't want to be here."

  I smiled at that. "That's where you're wrong, you know. I always dreamed of being in the same room as you."

  She blinked, staring at me for a long moment before she tilted her head to the side, her hair falling down like a waterfall. "You did?"

  "Mhm, when I was a little girl. I read about you, and I thought you were this amazing woman. You stood up for yourself, you didn't let anyone push you around. Not even a God. That was seriously impressive."

  She grinned. "I suppose it was, wasn't it? At the time, I didn't see it like any of that. I just...I just wanted to be respected. What a crazy idea at the time." She had brightened up, remembering her history, remembering a time when she had been herself.

  I scooted closer to her. "What was it like?"

  "What was what like?"

  "Your golden days," I said. "I want to hear everything."

  "Oh, you would be here for eons," she said with a laugh that sounded like music to my ears. Almost like Kailan's laugh. "You can't really want to hear the boring details of my history."

  "Wrong again," I said. "You know how everyone has a list, of people they want to talk to when they die? You're on my list. Only I'm not dead, and here we are, and I don't want to pass up the opportunity."

  It was all true. I couldn't believe I was actually sitting in here with her, talking to her, and she wasn't trying to eat me alive. Maybe Mal had fed her right before I got here, to keep her as content as possible, and maybe that was why she wasn't as ravenous. Maybe that was why it was working.

  Or maybe it was because I wasn't dangling myself in front of her like a piece of meat. I winced at that thought, but it was a fair one.

  There was no harm in letting her have a pleasant evening, letting her remember who she used to be, who she could be again. If anything, it was terribly important. She needed something to cling t
o, something to get her through the rough nights when it seemed like there wasn't anything else left in the world.

  "Well," she said, looking shyly at the ground for a moment. "Pick a story, then, and I'll tell it to you."

  "Eden," I said, without missing a beat.

  She grinned. "You want to hear how I was cast out? Or perhaps you suspect there's a different side of that story, hm?"

  My eyes widened. "Oh Gods, you have to tell me. Don't leave anything out."

  She settled against the wall, her chains clanking, reminding me that she would never truly be comfortable in here. How long until we could take the chains off, trust her to simply be in the room and not try to escape? I wanted that day to come sooner rather than later.

  "I was created from the same dirt as Adam, in the same moment, as I'm sure you've heard. He was a beautiful man, long dark hair and dark skin, but his heart was not as kind as his face. He wanted to boss me around, was always telling me what to do, giving me orders...He never once asked me for a favor, never asked me if I would mind doing this or that. It was always, 'Lilith, go do this.' I hated it, I chafed against it day in and day out, until eventually, I told him 'enough is enough. You have to respect me, or I'm leaving.'

  "He didn't believe me. He said there was nowhere for me to go, that I wouldn't survive outside of the garden. But I didn't care. I would rather die than to submit to a man, so I left. Yes, I left. I walked out of the garden and never looked back. The world was cruel, and as you can imagine in those days, I was naked. There was much to fear, but I held my head high and did what I could to scavenge for myself. There were days where I was weak, where I wanted to fall apart, where I thought about going back. But I remembered the life that lay in wait for me—it would be doubly worse if I were to go back to him, meek, admitting defeat. So, I didn’t.

  "And then he came to me," she said, winking.

  I waited for her to go on, but she did not, and I had to stop myself from scooting closer. As safe as I felt just now, Lilith had jumped on me when given the opportunity, and I didn't want to ruin the good evening we were having by having to bat her down.

  "Well, go on! Who came?"

  "Oh, I'm sure you know this part."

  "No, I don't. I don't know what you're going on about."

  "Samuel. The archangel that condones the sins of man. He found me wandering and he brought me to a city where I could live in safety. We were together for quite some time, and I think in our own way we may have loved one another. This is what is considered to have sealed my fate, by the texts. I lay with the angel, and I could never return to man again. Well, I'm sure you can understand, once you have one, how can the other live up?" And she giggled, looking at me as a conspirator might, and I felt a flush creep up my cheeks.

  "Uh, no, actually, I don't."

  Her eyes widened. "You and Mal..."

  "We've never!"

  "Not even once?"

  "No," I said, and I knew my face was on fire now. "I don't know why you would think that."

  "Don't be ridiculous, you know why I think that. That man has brought death and destruction to more than one dynasty, and yet he curbs his temper for you. I have...I have never seen him behave that way."

  Something in her words sounded false, and I thought she might be lying to me.

  "Surely he's done as much for you. I know you two were...together, once upon a time."

  She smiled, a fond look on her face. "Yes, we were. But no, it was not the same as he and you. We were both destructive forces, there was no need for him to behave with me as he does with you. For you, he tries to temper what is inside him. I don't know that it's good for him."

  I flinched. It sounded like an insult.

  "Oh, I don't mean...Well, I suppose I do. Surely, you must see that your friendship with him is unnatural, that it will only end in pain for both of you. He cannot fight what he is at all times, and it is going to break through at some inopportune time. I'm sure he's done a very good job until now, but who knows for how much longer? You should go your separate ways. Give him peace to be the Fallen he was meant to be."

  Now, it was my turn to stare dejectedly down at the ground and wonder if she was right. Somehow, I knew in my heart that what she spoke was the truth, though a part of me wanted to think it was the jealous ramblings of a woman spurned by a past lover. How could that be, though, when he had risked so much just to keep her safe? She couldn't be jealous of me. I might be a pretty woman, but she was...well, she was Lilith. She had brought civilizations to kneel with her beauty alone. There was no competition.

  "I think I should let you get some rest," I said, aware that my voice sounded odd. "Thank you for the story."

  She regarded me with caged eyes. "Thank you for listening."

  I stood and walked out. My hands were shaking.

  28

  Cinnamon and whisky. Tea leaves.

  These scents mingled in the air around me, teased my nose, urged me to wake up and taste them.

  Wake up? I struggled to sit up, to bring myself to a state of alertness, aware now that I had fallen asleep on Mal's couch waiting for him to come home. Embarrassment washed over me.

  "Ah, sleeping beauty awakens." Mal's rich voice came from somewhere behind me, and I jerked around to see him standing with two cups of steaming tea. "I thought that might be happening soon, so I made you a cup."

  I blushed, cursing myself for falling asleep. What if Lilith had escaped while I slumbered? But Mal had to sleep at some point in time, so it's not like he hadn't slept while Lilith was in her room. I hoped he wasn't angry with me...

  Oh, gods, I hoped he hadn't gone into his room! What if he had already seen that the item was missing, found it, and was now going to scream at me? But he didn't look like he was going to scream. His eyes were gentle as he came around the couch and set one of the cups by me on the coffee table.

  "You look like you're about to run. Did you have a bad dream?" He actually sounded concerned.

  And then I realised what was truly weird about everything, what had me on edge, ironically.

  I hadn't had a nightmare. It was the first time I had slept without a nightmare for two years. How could that be? I fidgeted on the couch, not wanting to tell him the truth of the matter, but also not wanting to lie to him. I couldn't tell him that I'd had a bad dream, because I hadn't, but did he know that I was plagued with bad dreams?

  "Sleeping in a strange place," I said with a shrug. "Does weird things to a person."

  "Yes, I suppose so."

  "Why didn't you wake me?" I tilted my head to the side as I asked, leaning forward to pick up the cup he'd left out for me.

  "You looked...peaceful. I didn't want to disturb that."

  Was I blushing again? I felt like I was blushing again. "You should have, I have other things that I needed to be doing..." Like getting Geoff's alibi cleared and figuring out what was going on in London, like finding out information on the Utakar. These were important things that I needed to do, they couldn't be ignored to sleep soundly on a demon’s couch.

  Gods, how embarrassing.

  I stood abruptly, putting the cup on the table again and looking around for my bag. "Speaking of which, I really should be going. Thank you for the tea, but I don't have time. I'm sorry."

  His eyes looked sad when I said that, as if he had been hoping that we could have a moment just to be around each other. Didn't he know that wasn't how our relationship worked? Especially now that he had gone and ruined everything.

  "You don't have to go," he said.

  I froze, my heart suddenly kicking it up a notch. Not because of the words he said, but how he said them.

  An invitation.

  I bolted.

  29

  My wake up the next morning was nowhere near as peaceful as it had been in Mal's home—there was a pounding on my front door that could not be denied. I groaned and rolled out of bed, grabbing a pair of sweat pants, and yanking them on. Couldn't go out in nothing but a baggy T-shir
t, after all. I stumbled out of my room and to the front door, spying Kailan still sleeping on my couch and wondering how he managed to sleep through that gods awful noise.

  "I'm coming!" I all but snapped at the door, glaring at it, and thinking that maybe I should just let whoever was on the other side wait for a bit to punish them for waking me up so rudely.

  "Blair, if you don't open this door, I'm breaking it down!" Finn's voice came from the other side, and oh boy, he did not sound pleased at all.

  I hurried to the door, took down the wards, and opened it. "What in the world has got into you?"

  "There's been another attack."

  My heart sank. I knew it. I knew that going over to Mal's to babysit Lilith had been a bad idea, I should have been working. No one knew that Lilith was a responsibility of mine, which made it all the more awkward that she was getting in the way of an investigation I had been brought in on.

  "Shit, Finn, I'm sorry—"

  "Save your sorrys, we need to get going," he said, glaring at me like this was all my fault. Maybe in a way it was. I should have had this situation wrapped up sooner, instead of gallivanting around London and getting nothing done at all. Well, I wouldn't call landing a deadly blow on the werewolf nothing. In fact, I would say that was some danged good progress.

  "You should have let us finish him. Together! We could have won."

  I shoved the mark's thoughts down as far as they would go, hoping that Finn wouldn't notice that something was wrong with me. I hadn't finished off the werewolf, that was true, but I didn't...I didn't want to use the demon's power for a killing blow. Somehow, in my gut, I knew that was something that I wouldn't walk away from in one piece.

  "Let me get dressed," I said instead of giving hint to what was going on inside of me.

  He gave me a funny look, then took in what I was wearing. "Yeah, OK."

  I darted back to my room, yanked off the shirt and sweats and pulled out a long-sleeve white shirt and a pair of jeans. There was a rip in the knees, not a style choice believe me, but from the many times I had taken a bad tumble in the middle of a fight. There were also a few singes on the other knee, with holes cut out in those areas, but that was to be expected. I didn't have the money to replace every pair of jeans that fused to my skin and had to be cut away by Shawn.