Jenn Bennett - Grim Shadows

“Hadley, please. Count if you need to,” Lowe said.

She was beyond counting. Or caring.

“I’m not screwing around.” Monk’s arm lifted. Metal clicked.

Hadley swiveled in time to see a gun pointed in Lowe’s direction. And that’s when she snapped.

The Mori swarmed to a shelf near Monk and pushed a vase over the edge. It tumbled through the air and shattered on his shoulder, sending out a shower of ceramic shards.

“Arghhhh!” Monk stumbled as the gun flew from his hand.

Lowe lunged after it, while Levin leapt up from his chair with a confused shout.

And in the scuffle, Hadley gave the Mori their freedom. They’re yours, she thought.

Their collective dark shiver reverberated through her bones.

Books shot off the shelves, pages flapping—leather-bound bullets sailing from every direction, pummeling the three men. Monk’s knees buckled. He fell to the floor under a pile of books. Glass shattered. Light bulbs popped, shrouding the room in shadow, but for the orange glow flickering in the fireplace.

“Hadley!”

The office door flung open. White light poured in from the hallway as the two policemen rushed into the room. “What the—”

Chaos. Shouting. Banging. File cabinet doors crashed open, one by one—their contents gusting into the air, fluttering around Levin. A horrible scraping whine rocketed through the room as the specters shoved the enormous desk backward. Levin jumped in time. Barely. He was inches away from being crushed against the wall along with his chair.

A silhouette dove toward her. She was knocked sideways and fell. Her back hit the floor. Air whooshed out of her lungs.

Pain. Sharp pain. A terrible brightness swelled and faded. She forced her muscles to cooperate and finally sucked in air. Opened her eyes. She was crushed beneath something. Not a specter—warm, not cold. “Hadley!” Her name, repeated several times. Then numbers.

She blinked away confusion, struggling against an impossible weight.

“Ten, eleven, twelve . . .”

Above her, Lowe’s face materialized in the shadows. She saw his lips moving. Heard the counting. And when those two things merged, a horrible sob wracked her chest.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

Anger leaked away with her tears. She felt the Mori weakening. Felt their anguished protest as the chaotic frenzy in the room began quieting. And one by one, the specters faded away.

She distantly heard angry shouting. Confusion. Acrid smoke—someone was swatting out a fire. But all of that muffled sound snapped to the foreground when Lowe cried out near her ear. His weight and warmth suddenly disappeared.

She raised her head to see the policemen hauling Lowe to his feet.

“Arrest him,” Levin was shouting angrily as he wiped his hands on the front of his disheveled tuxedo. Nearby, smoke curled from a pile of books beside the fireplace.

“What charge?” one of the cops asked, his skittish gaze jumping around the room, sweeping the shadows, taking in the mounds of book carcasses and scattered broken pottery. Lines creased his tight brow. He was clearly worried the invisible tornado might start whirling again.

“What the hell do I care?” Levin said. “Destruction of property? Theft?”

The second cop kicked away a book and picked up Monk’s gun from where it had landed on the floor. “How about brandishing an unregistered gun?”

Levin bent to help Monk. “Just take him in and make sure his bail is sky high.”

“What about her?”

“Touch her and I’ll strangle you,” Lowe said through gritted teeth, struggling against the policemen’s hold.

“He threatened me,” Levin said. “You all heard it.”

As Hadley rose up on one knee, Levin jerked back, eyeing her with fear and disbelief. She’d seen the same crazed uncertainty in other faces, a dozen times over. He knew she was responsible for all this, and yet, it made no rational sense. But he was too much of a coward to ask questions. Better to blame it on something ordinary, no matter how improbable.

“Let her go,” Levin said. “I’ll contact her father later.”

Anger pricked her cheeks, but before she could respond, footsteps thundered in the hallway outside the office. More people on their way. More questions. The press was already here for the gala; the last thing she needed was to be publicly identified in the middle of all this.

She stood on trembling legs and faced Lowe. In the shifting firelight, she could see cuts on his face. A splatter of blood, dark against the white of his shirt collar. A fresh wave of hurt threatened to take her under again. The pain of betrayal and loss crisscrossed over her heart like wild brambles.

She couldn’t be in the same room with him. Not now. If she lost control again, her Mori might burn the whole damn theater down.

WITHOUT ANOTHER WORD, SHE strode for the door and slipped past a small group of concerned employees clamoring to get inside the office. Down the staircase, she shouldered her way through chattering onlookers. Speculation volleyed past her ears as she descended: What’s going on? A fight? The police are arresting someone. When she stumbled her way out of the crowd, she ran into more theater employees. Police. And the front door was still being manned by the ass who’d reported them to Levin.

Where to go? She pulled her fur coat closed and ducked her head as she made her way to the opposite side of the lobby. Panic sharpened her senses. And though her mind urged her to flee, a queer feeling gave her pause, one that lifted the hairs on the arms. She took a few experimental steps down one of the side corridors and the feeling strengthened. Where?

She spotted a sign—LADIES’ OASIS—and quickly darted through the swinging door into an elegant lounge. Potted palms, sofas, and stuffed chairs. Beyond the small room, bright lights lit up the washroom. All was quiet and calm. Deceptively normal.

But across the powder room, a long gilded mirror hung on the wall, embossed with papyrus. And below, sitting innocently on a narrow marble makeup table, was the falcon-headed canopic jar.

She quelled her frazzled nerves as a toilet flushed in the next room, and then she waited, listening as heels clicked and water ran. A middle-aged woman finally walked through the powder room, smiling stiffly at Hadley as she passed. As soon as the door swung shut, Hadley rushed for the urn, hoisted it in the air over her head, and brought it down violently over the marble table.

Gold glinted. The crossbar bounced across the table. Hadley grabbed it, ignoring the foul energy it radiated, and slipped it into her coat pocket.

“My goodness!” a woman said behind her. “Are you all right, dear?”

Hadley pushed through the swinging door without an answer. Her head was clearer than it had been in weeks. If love was a thick fog, then heartbreak was the cold winter rain that washed it all away. For all the deceptions she’d stumbled upon over the last few weeks—her father’s secrets about her mother’s affair, Oliver Ginn’s hidden agenda—this was the last thing she expected to face. But she would, no matter how much it hurt.

And she knew there was one person who could give her the whole truth.

A blond head bobbed above the crowd on the balcony’s landing. Gala attendees swarmed around the staircase, watching the police forcibly haul Lowe down the stairs. He could rot in a jail cell for all she cared. Hadley moved quickly, slipping past the roped-off area housing Levin’s ramshackle collection, and snagged the last thing she needed.

 • • •

She didn’t sleep that night, having spent half of it crying and the other half pushing back the Mori so that Number Four wasn’t caught in the cross fire. At one point, the emotional pain had been so intense that she’d tried to rationalize a path to forgiving him.

But would this be the last time?

She couldn’t help but picture a bumpy future with Lowe, filled with lies and deceit that never ended. Imagined herself sitting at home pining for him while he was halfway across the globe, betraying her in other ways . . . maybe even with other women.

Perhaps her original assessment of him had been right. He was too handsome, too quick with false words and easy deceptions. He had a way of making all of that seem charming, but it was a false front. Nothing charming about building your life around lies. And when did it stop? She wouldn’t be surprised to discover other deceptions—ones she just hadn’t caught yet.

How big a fool was she, anyway?

Focusing on her self-appointed task gave her the motivation she needed to seek an answer to that question. And the following morning, she brushed aside tears and set out alone.

It wasn’t hard to find Adam Goldberg. Lowe might’ve claimed his friend was merely a dragon guarding his treasure, but she was quite certain he was something much more. A friendly chat with an eager young telephone operator got her a list of Fillmore District businesses with Goldberg in the name, and when the word “watchmaker” crackled over the line, she knew it had to be him.

Heading out into gray drizzle, she wore a hat with a broad brim that was several years out of fashion to hide her face and took two taxis—to shake anyone who might be trailing her. Convinced she hadn’t been followed, she paid the driver to wait at the curb and stepped inside a small shop.

A bell rang above the door to announce her entrance. She tugged at her gloves and glanced around at the small, warm room as the scents of solder flux and coppery metal filled her nostrils. A wooden counter stood between a narrow area and the back workspace, where saws and ball-peen hammers lined the wall near a forge and buffing machines. Across the room, a bright swing-arm lamp shone over a desk lined with neat trays of wire, cogs, and screws. And tucked in the corner near the desk was a smaller table, where Stella bent over a colorful drawing. Lowe’s windup black cat sat near her elbow.