Page 40 of Nightshade

My dark angel.

I opened my eyes to the shadowed room, every nerve in my body primed for one touch. The dream was familiar to me, one I’ve had since about the age of fourteen. Mild, compared to some I’d had as a teenager. Explicit, sexual dreams of a grown man, whose face remained obscure, touching me in ways no boy my age could possibly know how to touch me. Likely the reason I’d never dated much. It’d always felt like I was grasping for something that was never there. A desire that would never be sated.

His image was that of the man I remembered from my childhood, the one who’d watched me and followed me everywhere I went.

The imaginary man, I’d thought, but after the conversation with Xhiphias, I’d begun to wonder if perhaps he was something else entirely.

The face from my father’s sketch came to life inside my head, and my thoughts took me back to the last few seconds of my dream, with the angel’s lips against my throat. It’d been years since I’d felt such need inside of me, having always been so consumed with my studies and work, but nothing quite as intense as what tugged right then. Burying my moans into the pillow out of habit, I slid my panties down mid-thigh and pushed two fingers up inside of me, imagining myself still trapped within his wings. It took only a few, short pumps before the heat flushed my face and a cold burst of tingles exploded through me. The soft cotton captured my cries, until the orgasm subsided and my muscles turned weak with exhaustion. The lack of air had me turning my head to the side, licking my lips that had gone dry, as I wiped my arousal on my T-shirt and yanked my panties back up. Having lived with Aunt Nelle, I’d had to learn quiet climaxes, yet somehow my brain couldn’t quite grasp that I now lived alone.

From the nightstand, I grabbed the glass of water I’d poured earlier and sucked it down. The clock on the wall showed sometime after midnight. Not unusual for me to wake up in the middle of the night, but I didn’t typically wake up hot and bothered. In fact, I hadn’t had the urge to touch myself in months, and when I did, it was usually far less satisfying than tonight. Perhaps it was the restlessness plaguing me.

In the quiet that followed, I thought about my earlier meeting, with Xhiphias. When he’d told me to go home. To what?

A mostly empty house filled with books I’d never truly come to understand?

My illustrious career?

I needed something else. Something to draw me out of the madness of constantly being alone in my thoughts.

An unimaginable void sat heavy inside my chest, hungry for something. Anything.

Nothing in my world would make sense. Not until I saw what my father had seen before his death. The big black question mark would forever hang over my head, likely driving me to madness someday, just like him. I wanted to know why he’d pined after my mother. What had convinced him so thoroughly that he’d one day see her again?

Running my hand through my hair, I pulled my knees up and turned toward the window, where something caught my attention. Frowning, I crawled across the bed, never taking my eyes off the odd shape, when I crossed the room toward it. In the frost gathered on the pane, a symbol had been drawn.

The aberrant cross. The Pentacrux symbol.

Tendrils of fear crawled over the back of my neck. Swiping a finger over it smudged its form, and I jumped back on a gasp, finding it’d been drawn from inside. Heart caught in my throat, I spun around to the empty room. In a mad dash, I pulled the pocketknife from where it lay tucked in my nightstand, and held my breath as I threw back the covers and searched under the bed. With no sign of an intruder there, I combed through the closet, the bathroom, and the other rooms on the upper level. Not finding any other sign of a break-in, I scanned the lower level, noting the door remained locked and everything seemed to be in place.

Still, the disturbing realization that someone had been in my house at some point sent a snaking vulnerability creeping beneath my skin. I no longer felt safe. I couldn’t call Hines. Talk about creepy.

Seek out Van Croix in Nightshade, a voice inside my head urged.

It was crazy. Reckless. Probably the dumbest thing I’d ever considered.

But so was staying in the house where a potential serial killer had been.

* * *

Once again, I found myself standing at the mouth of the alley. I’d left Camael with the elderly neighbor lady, who’d always treated her like the child she’d apparently never had. As if the cat needed more attention than she already demanded, but at least I knew she was in caring hands. Resigned in my decision, I made my way through the fog toward the cast iron door. Also just like last time, over a dozen cats prowled the alleyway, brushing past my ankles.

My light knock on the metal surface pushed the door open a crack. I peeked inside, praying nothing would jump out at me. The expansive space stood empty and dark, lit only by the few candles set about the floor.

“Xhiphias?” I stepped inside, closed the door behind me, and tiptoed toward the center of the room. The lack of movement, or sound, save for the quiet crackle of burning wicks, had every muscle on edge, primed to jump.

“Xhiphias?”

An ajar door at the far end of the room caught my attention, and after one more glance around, I crossed the space toward it. A stairwell wound upward, disappearing into shadows, and I began my ascent. Up, up, up what must have been five floors, until I finally reached a door, which I pushed through to the rooftop of the building. Thick fog danced around me as I padded over the gravely stones.

I found Xhiphias standing at the edge, his foot hiked up on the parapet.

“I have to admit, I didn’t think you’d be back this soon,” he said, before puffing on a cigar he held between his lips.

“I need to see for myself. I need you to show me.”

“Once you go, you will never come back the same. You can’t unsee.”

“Something is after me. I don’t feel safe anymore.”