The Rhyn Trilogy Read online

  "I was raped?"

  "And beaten near death," he said with a shake of his head. "I don’t know how you survived, but you did, probably because you were young enough to heal what an adult probably wouldn’t. To protect you, your mind backtracks whenever you feel overwhelmed, overly stressed, mentally threatened."

  Katie gazed at him skeptically. Her file--two inches thick--was yet more proof that the world that seemed foreign to her really wasn’t.

  "So my mind blanks stuff out?"

  "Precisely. It’s a survival technique. The human mind is so wonderful and so versatile." By his glowing eyes, the doctor loved his job. His enthusiasm and genuine warmth melted more of her resistance.

  "But how is it I remember being alone getting on the train, and Toby got on at the next stop?" she challenged.

  "It’s how your mind wakes up from whatever sleep it went into. You fantasized him appearing at the next stop; it’s how your psychosis snaps and brings you back to reality."

  "That makes no sense."

  "We’ve gone over this several times," he said. "You’ll have to take my word on this."

  "Do I usually do that?" she asked.

  "No, but I’d like to get home to my wife before midnight. And I called the judge on your behalf and volunteered you to go to counseling. The judge liked that option rather than jailing a young single mom."

  Jailing a single mom, like her. She managed a nod. He gave another warm smile.

  "Get dressed and take your file to the nurse. Please call me if you experience any other problems. I'll tell my receptionist to make you an appointment for next week. Your blood test results were unusual."

  He handed her a business card and left. The antiseptic pine-laced air from the hallway made her nose wrinkle. She looked at the door, the familiar scent disturbing her, then down at her file.

  Everything was documented, every visit, every doctor-scrawled record, every prescription she’d ever taken.

  It was too real not to be real, yet it didn’t feel real at all! She followed his instructions and traded the file for two prescriptions to drugs she’d never heard of. She considered debating with the nurse at the front desk, whose friendly grey eyes were familiar. Toby hopped up from his chair and waved to the nurse. Tired and confused, Katie left without asking what the drugs were for and stepped into the chilly fall evening. Toby trailed silently.

  The cold wind felt good against her face and roused her dark thoughts. She breathed out fog, watching it rise to the dark grey skies. Dr. Williams’ clinic had a blessedly late schedule; it was nearing eight, and the lights of his building still glowed. Having the world’s best neurologist on call was one of the perks of the rich and famous, a world unfamiliar to her except that her sister had been gunning for it since her sixteenth birthday.

  Hannah had succeeded in landing a big fish blueblood, a descendant of Italian royalty, whose old money placated the chilly welcome she received into a lifestyle far, far different from her own. The fight that led up to Katie running away had been because of Hannah’s insistence Katie attend some refinement school, so she wouldn’t embarrass Hannah’s new family.

  Katie shivered and looked around for a cab. Her eyes settled on a form across the street, so still and dark he would’ve been a shadow if not for his presence beneath a street lamp. She felt the cold, black glare and fought the urge to run back inside the clinic. He didn’t move. For a long moment, she convinced herself he was a statue, not a man too still to be human. He was in black, unaffected by the cold or the light settling over him, outlining him like glitter on black construction paper.

  Like one of Toby’s drawings on the fridge.

  Toby.

  She didn’t know why she suddenly felt near hysterics. She felt no motherly bond to the kid huddled beside her in a thick coat despite how adorable he was. With the living shadow staring at her, the winter wind sucking the air from her lungs, and the prescriptions clenched in her hand, she’d never felt less a part of her world.

  A car approached, and a window lowered.

  "You need a lift? Taxis quit coming this way after rush hour."

  The voice of the friendly nurse from the nurse’s station brought her back from her thoughts. Blinking back tears, Katie looked toward the shadow. He was gone.

  "Yeah," she forced herself to say. "Thanks."

  The nurse dropped her and Toby off, and they trudged to her apartment.

  The shadow man was on her fridge. Toby had drawn him on black construction paper with silver glitter outlining the shape of a man. There was no mistaking the image.

  Death dealer, Toby had called him.

  Katie stared at the picture for a long moment then emptied her pockets on the table. She attached the prescriptions to the fridge with another cartoon magnet and smoothed out the paperwork she’d been given from the police station. Toby dropped his coat in the middle of the floor and trudged to his room with a yawn. She slumped in a chair at the kitchen table, eyes blurring as she struggled to make out the forms. There were biographical forms and consent forms she hadn’t really read, all signed in a loopy, angry signature, and a copy of Toby's birth certificate.

  Wiping her eyes, she pored through the rest of the paperwork, growing cold despite her wool coat in the middle of her warm apartment. Biographical information on her and her immediate family, her own medical and employment histories, all forms she’d completed without question. Toby's birth certificate listed her as the mother, no father, and the naval hospital in Annapolis as his birthplace.

  The paperwork otherwise had nothing to do with Toby or their accusation that she abandoned her kid on the Metro.

  Aside from the birth certificate, there was no way the rest were official police papers!

  Dropping the papers on her computer desk, she then stripped off her coat and passed by the guest…Toby’s room. He was asleep.

  She returned to the desk and scoured the paperwork for some sort of identifying information on the place she'd been or the company that developed the forms.

  Nothing.

  Frustrated, she searched the Internet for Dr. Williams until she found the eminent neurologist, whose picture she recognized. Somewhat relieved, she read his biography, impressed by his clientele, who ranged from heads of countries around the world to the richest families on the planet. He’d graduated from a Switzerland medical school and practiced extensively in Europe before coming to the United States thirty years before…

  …and dying twenty years ago at the age of sixty-four.

  She reread the entry, brow furrowed. Yes, it was his picture and yes, his clinic had been located in the same place it was now.

  She’d spent several hours in his office talking to a dead man?

  "Mama."

  She jerked. She had forgotten Toby…again. He stood sleepy and frowning, dark hair tousled.

  "I want cocoa."

  Did she even have…of course she would. Right next to her tea. She went to the kitchen and made him a cup in silence, glancing at him a few times as he propped his head up with both his hands.

  "Do you go to school?" she asked awkwardly.

  "Yes," he said, and rolled his eyes. "I have a map. I know you forget."

  I can’t be this crazy, she thought. She sat across from him, cocoa with marshmallows before both of them.

  "Do I forget often?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Do you like…school?"

  "I guess," he said with a shrug. "The teachers are mean to me."

  "That sucks, I guess."

  "Yeah. I like marshmallows."

  She stretched for the counter and tugged the bag off, handing it to him.

  "I think the death dealer needs cocoa," he said cheerfully.

  "Why do you call him that?"

  "Because that’s what he is, silly!"

  "Oh," she said.

  "He’s outside my window. Can I take him some cocoa?"

  "He’s what?"

  "C’mere." Toby took her hand in one of
his, with his other fist wrapped around a large marshmallow. He led her to the window overlooking the street.

  The death dealer stood at the edge of the shadows as he had across from the doctor’s office, waiting.

  "What is he?" she whispered.

  "He’s a death dealer," Toby said with impatience. "He’s not here for us."

  The confidence with which he spoke floored her. She wiped her face again, the world around her spinning. Near hyperventilating, she sat heavily on the couch and clutched her head with her hands. Toby chattered, his tone lifting in a question that didn’t penetrate the in-between world in which she’d fallen.

  There were sounds that should’ve alarmed her, the feel of hot tears on her face. Something warm touched her back, and a jolt of hot electricity made her sit upright. Her mind cleared, and she wiped her eyes at the massive form in black before her. Panicked, she backpedaled until trapped into the corner of the couch.

  The death dealer stared at her, much larger in her small living room than he was in the middle of the street. He was close to seven feet tall, with chiseled features and eyes as black as eternity. His clothing was thick and heavy this night, as if he expected to be standing outside her window until dawn. His sweater, jeans, and trench coat were all of high quality with his heavy boots dwarfing her feet as hers did Toby’s. She didn’t see any weapons this night. He was muscular and buff beneath the trench.

  Of all things, his gloved hands scared her the most.

  "Gabriel!" Toby cried happily as he started into the living room, spilled the cocoa, and then retreated to the kitchen. The death dealer moved to follow, silent even over the hollow wooden floors.

  She heard Toby’s chipper voice as he invited the death dealer to share some cocoa with him.

  What the hell was a death dealer? The grim reaper, here in her home?

  In the course of a day, her whole life had gone to shit.

  She tiptoed to the kitchen and peeked in. The death dealer took up much of the small space, his trench still on despite sitting at the kitchen table. Toby was showing him the glitter drawing he’d done. The death dealer glanced at it, his face so emotionless she thought him a statue again. He sipped his cocoa from a sticky cup filled half with marshmallows.

  What kind of mother let her five-year-old son carry on with death like he was a favorite uncle?

  "…and this is your portal into the shadow world," Toby said proudly, indicating a blob of silver on one side of the drawing. "Do you see where it goes?"

  "Elisia."

  "Yes!" Toby squealed. "Where the fairies are!"

  She was shaking, cold with fear on the inside and fevered skin clammy on the outside.

  The death dealer touched a gloved finger to a blank spot on the construction paper, and an orchid sprung up, ethereal and hovering over the paper. Its colors rippled and changed before the flower bent and delicate wings spread apart, revealing a creature that was surely a fairy.

  Toby squealed again and bounced to his feet, beginning a whirling dance. She thought she heard ethereal laughter as the fairy danced with him. The death dealer touched the paper again, and another orchid appeared, stretched, and morphed into a second fairy. Toby laughed and whirled.

  Katie’s vision blurred and grew dark. She heard herself scrape against the wall as she fell and was out before she hit the floor.

  So far, he hadn't been forced to change shapes since Gabriel's visit. Rhyn tested the bonds of his cell again until a mage in a brown robe hurried down the hall to repair the damage. Sometimes he could see out into the hallway and the empty cell across from his; sometimes he couldn't.

  Today, the cell across from his wasn't empty. A human-like creature sat in the corner making snorting sounds he assumed was weeping. He looked closely at the creature. It was from the healer's guild, one of the oldest guild's in the universe. By the tattooed bands wrapped around his arms--each one depicting a millennium--the creature was nearly as old as Andre, the eldest of Rhyn's brothers.

  "Shapeshifter!" someone called from down the hall.

  He watched the mage in brown scuttle away. "Yeah," Rhyn grunted.

  "I'm bored. Entertain me," the male voice down the corridor said. "Can you shut that healer up by eating him?"

  "Yeah," he replied.

  The sobbing, slender creature tensed and covered his head, as if expecting an attack from above. Amused, Rhyn stopped pacing and sat, staring the small creature down. The healer quieted.

  "Good enough," the creature down the hall, Jared, said with a loud sigh. "What shape are you now, beast?"

  "The usual."

  "Not much for talking, are you?"

  The rest of the freaks collected by Sasha, Rhyn’s half-brother who aligned himself with the Dark One, were quiet on the cell block. They normally were, and if they weren't, their screaming was muted by the magic of their cells. Rhyn stretched out on the ground of his cell to stare at the ceiling.

  "I heard Sasha's getting promoted by You Know Who," Jared continued. "Wonder if he'll be too important for his personal zoo."

  "He'll make time for you, Jared," Rhyn assured him.

  "I suppose. Not sure why he has a half-breed like you hanging around when he's got a full-blooded demon like me here."

  Rhyn knew why well enough. In Sasha's zoo, he was at the bottom of the food chain of the otherworldly collection of creatures. He intended to keep his relationship to their zookeeper a secret. Sasha had an affinity for collecting the worst of the worst--creatures whose intentions toward humans and immortals alike were as far from the Immortal Code as could be.

  Despite Rhyn’s fury and occasional diversion from the Immortal Codes, he still believed in them, a weakness Sasha was trying to beat out of him since their eldest brother--the peacemaker and enforcer of the Council That Was Seven--sentenced them both to Hell.

  "Fuck you, Sasha," he whispered into the darkness, not caring if Sasha heard him or not.

  Fuck you, Kris, for making me do what I did, and fuck you, Andre, for pulling the trigger and sending me here with Sasha.

  When he was out of Hell, he'd already planned on kicking the ass of their eldest brother, Andre, and killing Kris. The Council That Was Seven would survive without the three of them: Sasha, who'd sold out long ago; Kris, who needed to die; and him, whom Andre'd kill as soon as he killed Kris.

  As much as they hate me for aligning with the Dark One, they hate you more for our father's death, Sasha had told him smugly more than once.

  It was true, and only Andre supported his petition to be recognized as one of the seven sons charged by their father with protecting humanity against the Dark One. By the time he came of age, his other six brothers had not only come of age but also had each adopted a continent of responsibility. His late birth in the immortal world landed him Antarctica, where he could do little harm with his wild powers.

  As much as he hated Hell, he hated Antarctica more.

  Restless, he rose and paced again, wondering why Sasha needed an ancient healer in his zoo, a place where creatures came to suffer.

  He sensed what Gabriel wouldn't say: things were about to change for him, and he suspected that meant he'd soon be free. Whoever it was he was to protect, even his promise to Gabriel wouldn't stand in his way of revenge.

  I'm coming for you, Kris.

  Katie awoke and readied herself for the world, convinced everything had been a nightmare caused by exhaustion. Her conviction wilted as she stepped from her room into the living room to find the black-clad death dealer seated in an armchair, facing the door as if on guard, with a lethal black sword across his lap. He’d laid his trench over the couch, though he still wore boots and gloves.

  "I was hoping you’d be gone."

  His gaze settled on her, and she’d wished she’d never spoken. She hid in the kitchen, cold inside once again. Her hands shook as she made tea. The glitter and construction paper picture was back on the fridge with no sign that any fairies had emerged from its depths. She breathed deeply, strugg
ling to remain in control when all she wanted to do was run for the nearest psych ward and check herself in.

  She turned and jumped.

  "God, I can’t take this! You, out!" she belted at the death dealer, who leaned his hip against the counter and managed to fill up the entrance to the kitchen.

  He obeyed, and she gave a growl of frustration. She followed, intent on having her tea by the window as she did every morning.

  "Your shit is everywhere!" she snapped. "And what in the name of everything holy are you doing with a sword? Is that even legal?"

  “As legal as underage drinking,” he replied, though he moved the sword off her favorite chair and placed it on the trench stretched across her couch. He sat with his hands on his thighs and his eyes straight ahead, like a statue chiseled in Hell itself. He was perfectly still, and she tried to concentrate on her tea.

  "This is impossible."

  She marched to her bathroom and yanked out the three prescription pill bottles she’d found in her cabinet, reading the labels. She’d done research on the drugs; they were antipsychotics and anti-anxiety pills. She grabbed a second bottle and went to the kitchen for water, dumping out two of each into one hand. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth, freezing when a black-gloved hand clamped around her wrist. She looked up at the silent shadow, whose chiseled features were unreadable. He swept up the pills and crushed them in his hand, then released the powder into the sink. He dumped the rest in the garbage disposal and turned it on, returning a few minutes later with the other bottles.

  Too afraid to challenge him, she watched him destroy everything. He gave no explanation and headed toward her bedroom. She bit back an order to leave her stuff alone but stopped herself, watching him go through her medicine cabinet for any additional drugs. Satisfied there was nothing left, he tore her prescriptions to bits before returning to the chair and stilling again into a statue.

  The living room started to spin and she sat, forcing herself to breathe deeply.

  "We can talk." His stoic offer made laughter bubble within her.