Page 25 of Heir of Ashes

“Tell me what you know first,” I countered.

His expression shuttered. “I don’t know … I’m not sure …” He shook his head. “There’s something—”

“Please. I need to know. Tell me.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Alright. But let me double-check. I don’t want to give you false information, which is apparently what I have.”

I wanted to insist—beg if necessary—he tell me what he knew, what he heard, what that flicker in his eyes had been, but I conceded, not wanting to hear any lies either. I let the topic drop for now, even if it went against all my instincts.

“Give me her address.”

I rattled off the address from memory. “She doesn’t live there anymore. Last I checked, that address was under someone else’s name.”

He typed, clicked, verified, and grunted. “We’ll try by name then.”

“She isn’t registered. Never has been. Still, I’ve checked that too, just in case.”

He grunted again, unconcerned. “Alright. Let me pull some strings, see what I can dig up.” He grabbed a small notebook and began browsing the internet, jotting down notesas he went. An hour later, I found myself nodding off, so I burrowed under the sheets.

“Hey, do you know what an aura is?” I asked.

“Ah, trivia? Do I get a free trip to Hawaii if I answer right?”

“Maybe,” I replied with a faint smile.

“Hmmm … I think my mentor described auras as the theme of one’s true nature, a reflection of what they are.” He frowned as if pondering what else to say, but left it at that.

I mulled over his words. It made more sense than the abstract soul theory, but it didn’t tell me anything about Remo.

“Can you see them?” I asked next.

Logan studied me for a beat. “Very few species can naturally see them, and even fewer can interpret them right.” He pressed a fist over his stomach. “Trust your instincts. Listen to what your gut tells you.”

That wasn’t a no, but it wasn’t a yes either. Could he tell what I was?

“Did I answer your question?” he asked.

He knew he hadn’t. But he gave me good advice. I held his gaze for a moment more before covering my head with the covers.

Chapter 10

I awoke in the middle of the night, teeth chattering as an icy chill gripped me. My eyes opened to find Logan asleep beside me. It was disturbing, sleeping beside a man I hardly knew, and I wondered if he meant for me to sleep on the floor and I was just too dim to realize it.

He was facing me, radiating a beckoning heat, and while I lay there shivering, I watched him breathe. His expression looked tough even asleep, but there was a boyish undertone, a relaxed quality to him while he slept that softened some of the hard edges. Dark stubble covered his cheeks, a shadow I could see even with the room cast into darkness, and I wondered if he had to shave every day to keep his face smooth. He breathed evenly, his lips closed, so he didn’t snore or drool. Had he watched me sleep?

Another shiver coursed through me, and I burrowed closer to his warmth, telling myself I’d pull back before he woke up. Movement outside the window caught my attention, and I glanced up. What I saw through the slightly parted blind slats caused the fine hairs on my body to stand at attention. The figure silhouetted by the moonlight was not the shadow of anything human. Alarms rang out in my head.

Even as I watched, and the unnerving comprehension I was facing something unnatural sunk in deep, it began to mist away. The air in the room cooled a couple of degrees more, and my breath formed tiny clouds in front of me. I reacted instinctively and just in time, too. I reached for Logan and rolled us out of bed as an eight-foot figure dressed in what looked like square patches of leather materialized by his side, right over his head. I caught sight of the figure’s skeletal hand as we rolled,punching down on the pillow—where Logan’s head had been a second ago—before we went tumbling to the floor.

I had enough time to process the soft, unnatural glow emanating from the skeletal fist before my breath was knocked out. Then things got worse. Even as I caught another movement from the second window, Logan was pushing to his feet, raising his gun to aim point-blank at my forehead. It didn’t escape me that he had slept with a gun on him, anticipating that I would double-cross him. But trust issues aside, there was another shape materializing behind him. Logan finally noticed the other figure standing with its skeletal hand embedded in his pillow. A low curse escaped his throat, along with an honest-to-God growl, before he shifted his aim and shot twice. The bullets went through, making two neat holes in the wall behind it. Hopefully, no one occupied the other room. Only seconds had passed since I had spotted the first figure outside.

The moment the figure finished materializing behind Logan, it went after him, its hand emitting that soft glow. From the way Logan’s attention didn’t waver to the threat behind him and the lack of congealing breath balloons, I figured Logan couldn’t sense their presence at the same level that I did. So, I wrestled Logan to the floor, the glowing skeletal hand glancing off my forearm. It was smooth, it was solid, and it was frigidly cold. What I’d thought were leather patches turned out to be thin, square plates interlocked all over the figure’s body, like the patchwork of a strange quilt. Nothing was left uncovered but its hands, feet, and face—the latter of which was partially obscured by the end of the plates covering the sides of the head.

Logan hit the edge of the wooden chest with a woof and a curse, and the flat screen jostled but didn’t fall on us.

My upper arm throbbed with a cold burning sensation, but besides registering the pain, I didn’t pause to examine thedamage. I tried kicking the figure’s leg from under it, but like the bullets, my bare feet just went through.

The figure changed course and advanced on us, no faster than an ordinary human despite being something else. The other figure, after disentangling its hand from the pillow, started around the bed after us.

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