Page 79 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“Okaaay,” drawled Asher. “And what do I tell him when he asks for a translation?”
“He’ll know what it means. Just tell him that.”
Christian shouted her name through the door again, so loudly and for so long the cords in his neck stood out and lights blinked on in apartments all over the building.
Asher muttered, “Yeah, I have this funny feeling he’s not going to give up so easily, Em.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not like he’s going to accidentally stumble across my new address. Nobody ever comes to this end of El Raval but junkies.”
Asher’s answer was full of disapproval. “Don’t forget the rats; they love the docks almost as much as the junkies. But he could just go to your work…”
Christian turned and flew down the stairs, not bothering to listen to the rest of the conversation.
He had all he needed to go on. Now he just had to trust his nose.
“Well, smack my ass and call me a cab. He did give up that easily. He’s gone, honey.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Ember had been pacing the floor of her apartment as she spoke with Asher, chewing her thumbnail and hyperventilating, but now she froze in place.
“I’m telling you, I just went to the door to tell him to piss off and he wasn’t there. I guess he wasn’t really as determined as he seemed.”
But she knew with sudden, chilling certainty that wasn’t what had happened. She replayed the last few moments of her conversation with Asher in her head, then slumped against the kitchen counter and muttered, “Shit.”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
And so was she. But not for the reason Asher thought she should be. “I have to go.”
“Okay, but I’ll see you Wednesday, right? Three o’clock?”
He was picking her up for her next appointment with Dr. Flores; there was no way he was letting her get out of missing a single session, so he’d insisted on driving her to and from the therapist’s office like a den mother on carpool duty. Ember murmured her assent and disconnected the call.
Then she went to the window and yanked down the shade.
She turned off all the lights in the apartment, made sure the deadbolts Asher had installed were securely locked on the front door, then slowly retreated to the darkest corner of the living room.
To wait.
Twenty-three minutes later, as she was both dreading and hoping it would, the knock came. Two short raps, then Christian’s voice through the wood, infinitely dark, supple as silk.
“September. I know you’re in there, little firecracker. I can smell you. Open the door.”
Knowing he could hear her as easily as if she shouted, she whispered, “Go away.”
“We can do this the hard way or the easy way. It’s up to you. Open. The door.”
Beyond the howling chaos inside her head, she wondered briefly what the “hard way” would look like. Trying to ignore the shaking in her hands and knees she said, “There’s nothing to talk about, Christian. Please go away.”
She actually felt the intensity of his focus on her voice. There was a short pause in which the booming of her heart was a near deafening racket in her ears, then an ominous sound came through the door: a slow, light scratching, like fingernails dragged down the wood.
“Do you think I can’t get through it? Do you think you can hide from me?”
“Christian. Please. Listen to me. Go. Away.”
His answer to that was a low, menacing chuckle.
A three-quarters moon shone brightly overhead, spilling ghostly pale light through the gaps in the window shade, so it wasn’t particularly difficult to see the first, sinuous curl of mist billow beneath the door.
The gap between the floor and bottom of the door was hair-thin, but it was enough.
