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I turned to Willa. “Did you come to me before this morning about Hunter?”
She shook her head, looking confused by the question. “No. I spent the night running and hiding. I had no idea you knew he was around, either.”
“I didn’t.” I winced, realizing I’d kept from Willa the largest, most important thing in my life right now. But with Leif’s presence and that ward tattooed on his hand, now was the best and only time to tell Willa about Mrak without him being mad about me doing so. “We escaped Lazarus’s ring because I burned it down.”
Willa nodded but spared a look at Leif, who seemed unsurprised at the knowledge. “I know. You found your fire magic.”
“No, I was given it,” I replied. “I found an ancient book in Lazarus’s library and managed to summon an entity who gave me that power. That entity is still within me. We made a pact.”
Willa’s face paled. “You made apact? That’s dangerous.”
“And stupid,” Leif added.
I cut him a glare. “Says a cop. What the hell do you know about pacts?”
Leif held up the tattoo with the ward keeping Mrak away. “Plenty, which is why I’ve also intercepted these reports from last night. And the evidence. I know you didn’t do this, Aisling. I know what you have inside of you.”
“So what?” I spat. “Have you come here to blackmail me or something?”
Leif’s expression softened. “All I’ve wanted since the day I came into this shop is to find a way to remove that entity from this plane of existence. As a cop, that means I also want to help you.”
My chest seized at Leif’s words. Remove Mrak? He couldn’t do that. I needed Mrak.Heneeded to live long enough to get back home. Even when I was pissed at Mrak, I knew these things to be true. “He’ll be gone soon anyway. I don’t need your help, and you don’t need to go after him.”
Leif inhaled deeply, as though his patience was wearing thin. “I do, actually. That entity feeds off death and strife and connections—both lost and gained. With enough of those things, that shadow demon will open a portal home. Problem is, that portal works both ways, and whatever wants to spill in from the other world will. I can’t allow that. And I can’t allow you, an innocent, to become a victim to any part of that process.”
I blinked and then looked to Willa, as if she had any idea what was going on or how portals worked. Magic like that wasn’t, as far as I was aware, common knowledge. More pressingly, Mrak had said it was time that’d growourconnection to open a portal home. That all he’d needed was to get stronger.
I pressed my palms against my ears, as if the action would block out the world. All it did was increase the volume at which my pulse was rapidly thundering there. This couldn’t be happening. If Leif was right, Mrak had lied. And regardless of what I thought about it, I’d been made an unwilling party to so much. Mrak had control ofmybody. He was in my body, my mind. He was in my soul. And I did care about him.
“Get out,” I ordered.
Leif stepped closer, the exact opposite of what I wanted from him right now. “I can’t do that, Aisling. You can either let me help you or I have to arrest you. There’s a warrant.”
“I didn’t kill Hunter,” I spat as I glared at him. I dropped my hands from my ears. But I would have, if given the chance. If Mrak hadn’t gotten to him first. And I knew Willa would have killed him if she’d had the ability to, too.
Leif stepped toward me again, a hand reaching for his waist. Handcuffs or a gun, I wasn’t ready to meet either option. “If you don’t let me help you right now, I will take you in under arrest. You’re aiding and abetting a criminal even if that criminal isn’t physically here. The evidence points to you. And that’s before we consider all the people who died when youdidburn down Lazarus’s community.”
Disgust churned in my stomach. “So even in self-defense, I’m liable for the deaths of abusers, traffickers, and moral-less vampires? Seems legit.”
Willa had shrunk during this confrontation, slinking away toward a wall. I didn’t blame her. I tended to have the same reaction to witnessing loud arguments and conflicts after Lazarus and his years of torture.
“Let me help you,” Leif said, a weighted, genuine tone in his voice so sincere, so full of promised hope, that it made tears well up in my eyes. “I’m acquainted with entities like this, especially shadow demons. I can get you out of this situation and keep the NYPD’s attention off of you.”
I wiped the tears away as they fell and set my jaw hard. “If you really wanted to help me or people like me, you would have done more to break up the notorious vampire feeding communities in this city. Across the whole country. Then none of this would have happened.” I summoned fire magic to my palm and reeled back my hand as panic swept through me. Cop or not, I wanted Leif gone. “Get out. Of. My. Shop.”
Leif considered me for a moment. I could only imagine what I looked and sounded like. I fully realized how insane it was to still defend Mrak. To still want to be with him. But the truth was what I told Leif: If I was worth saving, then someone would have done it long before I had been forced to summon Mrak out of desperation. Mrak had been there. Whether he was using me or simply making moves for his plan through me and really didn’t want me to go with him back to his home, I didn’t know. I almost didn’t care. If he’d just asked me if he could take over, if he had led me to where Hunter was, I would have killed the bastard myself.
Mrak had been there for me. Hewasthere for me. And he was the only person in all of my adult life to never abandon or manipulate me. There was nothing else to it. And until I talked to Mrak, I wanted nothing more to do with Leif.
Leif’s jaw locked hard and he shook his head. A look of pity and conflict swept his features. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.” He turned to head back through the front door of my workshop. “I want to help you. I’ll pretend I didn’t even see you this morning. Just be careful you don’t wait so long that you’ll be arrested on sight entering the police station.”
Without another word, Leif was gone.
Willa turned to me. “What is going on?”
I sat and told her everything. From the day I’d first found the book with Mrak’s summoning spell in Lazarus’s library to last night when Mrak and I had spoken. I thought those had been truths. Now, I wasn’t sure where the lies started—with Mrak, or with myself.
Willa nodded the entire time, listening intently without passing judgement. Only when I finished did she offer opinions. “I think you should talk to Mrak and demand actual answers. Truths. And if they don’t ring true or he fights you on it, ask Leif for help.”
