When Shadows Call (9 page)

“So,” I said, tucking a curling lock of hair back into my fedora, “Your new boss doesn’t meet in back alleys, but your old one doesn’t seem to mind?”

“Not exactly.” Azriel balanced the knife on the tip of his finger, before flipping it and catching it in the other hand by the handle. “He’s got a chippie on the side, a dancer. They meet here on Wednesdays and Fridays.” He pointed the knife to a high window across the street. “He takes her up to a room he rents on the fourth story.”

I cocked my head to the side. “How do you know this? Did he tell you?”

Azriel smirked. “No one knows.”

I looked up to the fourth story window, wondering what sort of room a gangster used for romantic trysts. Azriel traced his finger along my jaw. “One thing you must remember, Darian: Trust no one. If Joe suspected for a second that I wasn’t on the up and up, he’d try to have me killed.” He grinned. “Not that he’d be successful, but that doesn’t matter. Everyone has secrets, my love. There’s not a person on this earth who isn’t hiding something. And I make it my business to unearth those secrets. I never go into any situation without the upper hand.”

His confidence, the almost arrogant tone of this voice, intoxicated me. My blood coursed hot and fast through my veins and my skin tingled with excitement. This was the thrill Azriel craved and the only way to get it was by being one step ahead. All of the time. “What about the girlfriend?” I wanted to show Azriel that I could be one step ahead of him. “If you wait until they’re together, she becomes a liability.”

Azriel pressed me against the brick wall and slid his fingers inside my suit jacket. My eyes drifted shut as he took a deep breath and held it in his lungs. “Have I ever told you how sexy I find your intelligence?” he asked as he exhaled.

A pleasant shudder ran from my head to my toes. His warm breath tickled my ear, and the sensation of his fingers caressing me through the silk shirt made my heart skip in my chest. “The mistress?” I persisted, though my voice came as a lazy murmur.

“Like you said . . .” He pressed his lips to my temple. “A liability.”

“You can’t kill her.”

Azriel slumped against me and he sighed. I knew the sound too well. Exasperation. With me, with my conscience, with my constant questions.

“Azriel,” I whispered as I combed my fingers through his thick, dark hair. “She’s innocent.”

“You can’t save them all.” He put an arm’s length of space between us, and I suddenly felt cold without his body against mine. “You say you’re curious. You claim to only want to learn more about them. But I know why we go out and walk amongst the humans night after night. I see your shrewd gaze picking them over. Searching.”

I wrapped my arms around myself as if to keep some of his warmth with me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Azriel fixed me with a serious stare. “You look for him.”

“Him?”

“Henry.”

I pushed myself from the wall and brought my hand up to slap him good and hard. But Azriel grabbed my wrist in his unyielding grip, and I struggled against him. “I’m no fool, Darian, so do me the honor of not treating me like one. Since our first night in the city, when you let that foolish would-be thief live, you’ve been looking for more of his ilk. More of Henry’s ilk, in the hopes of catching one of them before they do their worst to some poor helpless girl. The girl you used to be.”

Damn him, he was right.

“You need to let go of that nagging humanity you’re holding on to so tight. I’ll spare Joe’s chippie—if I can. But an assassin must always cover his tracks. And that means no witnesses.”

He released my hand when he realized the fire had drained right out of me. I couldn’t admit to Azriel the real reason I’d begged to come with him and become a part of his new business endeavor: I wanted to learn how to turn my more tender emotions off. At least for a while. I wanted to experience that lovely gray area that Azriel lived in. I wanted to embrace the indifference.

“The mistress is a liability.” I repeated Azriel’s words as if to convince myself that her death would be necessary. But I knew deep down that if I could keep her safe, I would.

He playfully tapped the tip of my nose with his finger. “That’s my girl.”

I followed Azriel’s instructions and kept to the shadows. I watched. Listened. Waited. And when I thought I’d nod off right there, Joe Connolly stumbled into the alley.

He didn’t look much like a crime boss––or, at least, what I pictured a crime boss to look like. Short, dumpy, and balding, Joe didn’t even bother to dress the part. His suit looked cheap and rumpled, his tie ragged and askew. His eyes were glazed over as if he’d had too much to drink, or perhaps something else. Opium, maybe. He listed to one side like the street was slipping out from under him. The effort seemed futile, but he straightened his tie and dusted himself. Like that was going to help improve his appearance.

“We’re in luck.” Azriel’s voice came as a dark whisper in my mind. “He’s been having a little too much fun tonight. This will be an easy kill.”

The cavalier manner with which Azriel spoke of Joe’s impending death caused my breath to hitch in my chest. My pulse thundered in my ears, though my incorporeal form was shrouded by the cover of darkness. Azriel was going to kill this man, and I was at the very least going to witness the act. I had come to the point of no return. It was too late to go back now.

Chapter 8

I steeled myself against the weakness that threatened to send me rushing away in a blur of darkness. I sensed Azriel at my side, his shadows brushing against mine in a reassuring caress. Joe checked his watch and licked his palm before smoothing down what meager hair still clung for dear life to his balding head. I had no idea who his mistress was, but apparently she didn’t hold her lovers to very high standards.

The sound of revelry grew loud in the still night before it was muffled by a door slamming closed. Footsteps echoed on the street, the pace increasing from
tick, tick, tick
, to a quick staccato. Joe’s chippie squealed with delight when she came around the corner to see her beau waiting, and she threw herself into his arms. The girl was a flapper, no doubt there. She had the look: short dress decorated with bright red satin ribbon, feathered headband to accent her short-clipped bob, and long strings of knotted pearls that hung nearly to her narrow waist. Her pouty lips were painted into a cupid’s bow, but her pretty made-up face wasn’t going to stand up to Joe’s sloppy kisses for long.

I heard Azriel sigh, the sound more like a breath of wind. Apparently he had no interest in seeing their amorous display. Knowing Azriel, he wanted to get the show on the road.

“Come on, doll.” Joe’s speech slurred, and I wondered how this woman could possibly find him attractive. But when she hiked a mink stole up higher on her shoulders, I figured the most attractive thing about Joe was hidden somewhere in his wallet.

The two walked arm in arm, the woman nestled into his chest and giggling as they zigged and zagged across the street. Azriel’s mist of shadow trailed them, and I followed close behind, into the next building and up the stairs. It took a ridiculously long time for them to reach the fourth floor, mainly because Joe was almost too inebriated to carry himself up the stairs.

My assumption that Joe lavished his lady with the finer things took a bit of a turn as I looked around the room he’d brought her to. Rundown and sparse, the paper had begun to peel from the walls, and the only furniture decorating the space was a raggedy old bed, an armoire, and an armchair with stuffing spilling from a tear in the cushion.

As Joe struggled to undress, I slid away from Azriel toward the woman who attempted to tidy up her smeared lipstick in an old foggy mirror that hung on the armoire’s door. I leaned in close, so close that the edges of my shadow form brushed at her shoulders. “Go into the bathroom,” I whispered so quietly my voice would seem like nothing more than a ghostly thought to her. “Go into the bathroom and close the door. Slowly count to one hundred and don’t come out until you do.”

I sensed Azriel’s stare boring into me, though his body remained insubstantial. I knew he thought my attempt to save the woman foolish. And even though I’d repeated his words back to him—that the mistress was a liability—he had to have known I’d try to find a way to keep her alive. She might have been a silly girl, seduced by money and power. But she was not a part of our business here tonight.

Her body stiffened, and her gaze darted from side to side. I could sense her breath as it came quickly in her chest, and the smell of her fear rose sharp and tangy in my nostrils. “Joe,” she squeaked in a high-pitched voice, “give me a minute, daddy, I’ll be right back.”

Joe grunted and fell over on the bed as he struggled with the laces on his shoes. He probably hadn’t heard a word she’d said. As soon as the door to the bathroom closed, I began to count. I had to be sure Azriel followed through and killed his former employer before I reached one hundred. Otherwise, I’d have an innocent woman’s blood on my hands, and whether I longed for gray indifference or not, I didn’t think my conscience could stand the burden.

The bedsprings whined under Joe’s weight as he flopped down on his back. And though I had no idea how one committed an assassination, I had to assume that Joe’s current position would pose a bit of a problem. By the time I’d reached twenty-five, my nerves began to ratchet tight. What if Joe passed out on the bed? Would Azriel simply run his dagger through his heart? God, I hoped that whatever he planned to do, he’d hurry––because I was already almost to thirty and I had no idea if Joe’s mistress was a fast counter.

As if Joe could hear the urgings of my mind, he rolled to his side and slid to the floor. He knelt beside the bed as if praying, though I assumed he was more than likely trying to steady his careening world. His head lolled to one side, and then the other. He drew in a deep breath and leaned back to sit on his feet. When his head fell back to rest on his shoulders, exposing his throat, I drew a sharp breath and held it in my lungs. I knew that the moment of Joe’s death had come.

In a flash no slower than a lightning strike, Azriel passed from shadow to his solid form. I watched as the light of the room played on the dagger’s blade, a glint of momentary brightness that winked at me. I looked from the blade to Azriel’s face, and he paused for the briefest moment before dragging the dagger across Joe’s throat. Just as quickly as he’d adopted his physical form, Azriel passed back into shadow. Joe fell backward, thrashing, his eyes wide and disbelieving as he grasped at his throat that gushed blood down the front of his rumpled suit. Bile swirled in my stomach, and I suppressed the urge to turn away. I’d wanted this. And the only way I would learn to let go of my fear was to force myself to witness this man’s death. His breath gurgled in his chest, a sickening sound that echoed off the bare walls of the small room. My gaze darted to the bathroom door and I watched for any sign of movement from within. Please, God, let her stay in there until he’s dead and we’re gone.

Joe fought for his life, though it was a losing battle. He tried to stay the flow of blood, but it drained from his body with every pump of his heart. Finally, in one last long exhale of breath, Joe’s body stilled. His arm went limp and rolled, shoulder to hand, to the floor. His mouth sagged open and his eyes stared, unseeing, at the ceiling. Azriel’s shadow slithered beside him and coiled like a snake around the ring on Joe’s pinkie. It slid off his finger with no effort at all and disappeared, swallowed by a shroud of darkness.

The sharp, coppery tang of blood saturated the air. I tried not to breathe it in, and I gagged as it assaulted my senses, coming to rest at the back of my throat. I stared, transfixed, at Joe’s lifeless body, morbidly fascinated by the emptiness of his eyes. His soul had fled, and all that was left was a shell.

Something warm wrapped around my body, and I at once felt comforted. Azriel’s shadows enveloped my own, protecting me, breaking me from my trance and bringing me back into myself. He guided me toward the door, and I couldn’t help but steal one last glance at the bathroom door as I said a silent prayer of thanks that on this night, I’d managed to spare an innocent life.

* * *

I didn’t say a word as we traveled to our next stop. A woman’s scream pierced the night and I imagined Joe’s mistress kneeling at his side and sobbing inconsolably. I wondered what she made of these events. If she imagined herself mad—hearing voices that instructed her to hide and then emerging from the bathroom to find her slain lover. Whom would she turn to? The police? If she had any sense at all, she’d run far from the scene of the crime and let some other unfortunate soul discover Joe’s body. But I couldn’t worry about what would happen to her from this moment on. I’d done my part—what happened next in her life was up to her.

We traveled to Capitol Hill, a lavish neighborhood built by some of the area’s most wealthy businessmen and industrialists. Azriel had wanted to buy a home here once, but instead humored my desire to live away from the elitist community. It reminded me too much of unpleasant memories from my human life, and I wanted to sever all ties with those who found merit in others simply by the numbers in their bank registers.

Vasili Ergorov’s home stood out on the street, tall, wide, and imposing. It was just like a gangster to flaunt his wealth, I supposed, and Vasili obviously wanted his peers to take notice. We passed from shadow to our corporeal forms just before the driveway, and I trailed behind as Azriel strode up to the door like he owned the place. We entered the foyer, only to be met by four angry looking guys carrying Smith and Wesson revolvers. Azriel smiled pleasantly as he handed his dagger over into their care and allowed them to pat his body from head to toe. It was when they turned their attention to me that Ergorov’s men met a less-than-amicable Azriel.

“Lay a finger on my . . . associate, and I’ll rip your arms from your sockets.”

“We ain’t lettin’ you another foot closer to our boss till we know you’re both clean.” The guy who spoke must have been Ergorov’s head . . . what? Bodyguard? Strong arm? Minion?