Demon Leap: an Urban Fantasy (The Specials Book 1) Page 6

  I glanced around at the people near us, envying their lighthearted smiles and relaxed postures. What would it feel like to have a legitimate job lined up and all of my bills and obligations about to be satisfied easily and on schedule? What would it feel like to not be wanted by the police?

  Shame burned behind my breastbone. I’d always told myself that I was the enlightened one, that I hadn’t been fooled by the government’s lies and because I was awake I was therefore smarter. I didn’t feel very smart right now. I was nothing but a criminal scrounging money from other criminals.

  “I’ll do one job for them,” I declared, hating myself but acknowledging that I had few choices. “Whatever money I earn I’ll send to Dandelion in trust for my grandmother. Then I’ll skip town and lay low.”

  “Aw, that’s no fun,” Jasper teased. “I won’t be able to see you.”

  “What do you care?” I shot back, and then mentally kicked myself for fishing for a compliment.

  He took a sip of his coffee, avoiding my eyes. “I’d care.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table as an awkward silence stretched. Hope was a terrible thing, especially when it wasn’t based on reality. That didn’t stop it from growing in me like a tumor.

  “So that’s your fiancée, then?” I blurted stupidly. My cheeks burned. I wanted to stand up and rush out.

  He hid behind his mug. “That’s my fiancée.”

  A simple statement, yet as damning as an accusation.

  The café, if possible, grew busier. I was grateful for the buzz of conversation around us and the never-ending movement of other customers. The hustle and bustle prevented a sense of intimacy from forming between Jasper and me. It helped me pretend that I hadn’t said the things I’d just said.

  “You know, I understand that you’re taking care of your grandmother,” he began, mercifully changing the subject, “but I feel like there’s something else going on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some things you’ve said…does she have dementia? Is that what’s making this extra complicated for you?”

  “Something like that,” I demurred, because I didn’t want to tell him about what had been done to her. I didn’t want to talk about my family or the war at all with him. Those things were bigger than life. They were bigger than me. Worse, they illustrated that I was my family’s bad seed.

  When it came to Jasper I was selfish. I wanted his attention on me—even if it was the illusion of me. Even if it would lead to nothing.

  “Arrow, will you let me lend—”

  “I don’t want your money,” I cut him off. I smiled to soften my abruptness. “But I appreciate the offer, Jasper. A lot.”

  “You’re complicated,” he said, with a long look that made me squirm. “There’s a lot you’re not telling me. You do enigmatic well.”

  “More like I do frustrated and confused very well.”

  It made him laugh.

  We moved on to safer topics, and I relaxed as we made small talk until we’d finished our coffees. Outside of the café, on the sidewalk, I resisted the urge to hug him.

  “Thank you for helping me,” I told him, meaning it. I’d been a wreck when I’d sought him out, but I felt more in control now. Less hopeless. I held his blue gaze. “It’s good to have a friend.”

  “I’ll always be here,” he told me fondly. “So don’t hesitate to find me.”

  That should have been that, my afternoon redeemed. But he moved, leaning forward, and as I stood frozen he kissed me softly on the lips. “Be careful, Arrow,” he whispered.

  As far as warnings went, it was the most pleasant and confusing I’d ever received.

  ~~~~

  Jasper watched Arrow head down the sidewalk in the direction of her scooter. He wasn’t surprised when midway down the block she turned her head to look back at him. As she tucked a strand of her long, golden brown hair behind one ear, she gave him an uncertain smile. He gave her a small wave in return. He liked that she didn’t blush, that she held his gaze a touch longer than was natural for friends.

  Were they friends? He probably should have decided that before he’d impulsively kissed her.

  Arrow was beautiful in an understated way, yet oddly fierce in personality as though she continually battled an opposition that the rest of the world did not. It could have been worrying, but Jasper found her intensity refreshing. Intriguing. Despite what most people probably thought of a bartender, he preferred women who were more substance than looks, just as Arrow seemed to be.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about his banked interest in her. He had a fiancée. At least in name.

  The word he would choose, though, was ‘jailor.’

  She was waiting for him in the doorway when he returned home, smiling for the sake of whoever might be watching.

  “I sent her off,” he told her, keeping his tone deliberately light. “She’s going to stick with the hotel. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  If Arrow was a subtle beauty, his fiancée was an in-your-face one. Jasper often heard from friends and strangers that he and Rogette made a beautiful couple. He supposed they did, on the surface. That was all anyone seemed to care about—how gorgeous her smile was, how striking her figure. So far no one had dug deeper. No one had asked to know more, to see the truth of them. To offer him help.

  “How does she know where you live?” Rogette asked, her tone cool enough to stop him at the steps leading up to the porch.

  He kept his smile intact, knowing better than to show fear. He’d revealed his fear in the beginning. It hadn’t done him any favors.

  “She gave me a ride home once, when my car wouldn’t start. This was before I met you.”

  Before everything changed for the worst, he thought. Less than six months ago Rogette had appeared in Ozium and flipped Jasper’s world on its head. It was disappointing to him how few of his friends had questioned his and Rogette’s whirlwind romance. Why hadn’t anyone tried to talk him out of it? Why hadn’t anyone bothered to look into his eyes? Or into hers?

  She backed into the apartment, which Jasper took as permission to enter. She removed her clothing and immediately the shadows in the hallway swept forward to enrobe her. Her long hair resembled flames against their darkness.

  “Come here,” she said, curling her finger at him like he was a dog at her beck and call.

  He locked the door; gritted his teeth. His smile never wavered.

  “Everything’s fine, Rogette,” he assured her.

  “I said come here.”

  She held out her hand. After a brief hesitation, he reached for it and the darkness grabbed him, yanking him forward. He stumbled against her. She bared her teeth in a smile and pressed him up against the wall. Shadows swarmed around his face and throat. He tried to ignore their chill touch and focus on the green eyes watching him for reaction.

  “You must do everything in your power to keep her in that hotel,” Rogette murmured, her voice husky, as though she were attempting to seduce him. He knew she was not. Her voice held a rasp because she was old. Practically ancient.

  “She needs the money. She’ll stay regardless of what I tell her.” Shadows clamped around Jasper’s throat, slowly tightening. “But I’ll keep encouraging her,” he wheezed through the constriction. “She trusts me.”

  “She’d better.”

  Resentment soured his tongue.

  “Why do you care so much about her?” he dared to ask. It was a question he’d asked only once before and never again. That first time had nearly killed him. Maybe he was braver now.

  The shadows cut off his air.

  Or maybe he was willing to admit he cared about Arrow.

  Spots began to dance across his vision. He barely felt it when Rogette kissed his gasping lips. The shadows loosened their hold and he sucked in air, but her mouth sealed over his, trying to steal it back. No. He caught her around her slender hips and spun them around, slamming her to the wall with the only power he had l
eft to him. Her gasp of delight stirred his desire and he felt filthy for it. It was all he could do not to strangle her.

  “Don’t fight me,” she whispered against his lips. Her leg curled around his hip, pulling him in tight and manacling him. “You’ll be rewarded, dear Jasper. Just you wait.”

  I don’t want your reward, he wanted to tell her. All of this is wrong. He thought of Arrow in that hotel, all alone, unaware, and guilt made him shudder and close his eyes.

  The shadows tugged impatiently at his clothing. Rogette growled against his lips. She palmed the ache between his legs and smiled as he bucked against her.

  One day I’ll stop this, he thought. One day…

  Chapter 5

  I didn’t need more complications in my life. I was pretty well stocked up. But ignoring what Jasper had done simply wasn’t going to happen. He was my crush. Everything he did to me mattered.

  I rode my scooter aggressively, weaving in and out of traffic, trying to avoid the suped-up transfigured cars that were all the rage these days. The wild idea of meddling my scooter brought a fierce grin to my face but I let the fantasy go. I didn’t need to be drawing attention to myself just because my world had been turned upside down yet again thanks to one quick kiss.

  But it had been on the lips. That was the kicker. Why had he done that? Why be so cruel?

  Or had the kiss been a question, a hope?

  “Ugh, I hate you, Jasper!” I yelled, not really meaning it. Nearby drivers edged their cars away from me, thinking I was drunk.

  The cure for my rambling emotions and thoughts turned out to be the police. They were waiting for me when I arrived home.

  Since my place was at the end of a short cul-de-sac, I didn’t see the patrol car until I’d already pulled onto the street. I quickly yanked my scooter behind a parked car, but I wasn’t certain I’d done so quickly enough.

  A dark, unmarked car was parked at the curb in addition to the police car. The police could be there for one of the other tenants, but I doubted it. The options for me being the guilty party were too numerous: Mr. Morrison could have lied about telling the campus police to stand down; the caretaker I was bribing to hide my grandmother could have squealed or been caught lying; my landlady Ginger could have found my meddled junk in the closet and reported me. I was guilty in a lot of ways, so odds-wise, this visit was long overdue.

  I didn’t know Ginger well enough to predict how she’d respond to this. She was a cohab. Lots of humans weren’t comfortable with cohabs. I was fine with a shapeshifter, but there were other reasons she and I weren’t really friends. Ginger might be anti-police or she might be pro-landlady, naturally believing the worst of her tenants. It was safest to assume the worst.

  Nothing good would come of turning myself in. There was no such thing as plea bargaining magic acts that were performed without a certificate. It was a crime that needed to stick to keep people in line. I understood the law but I was currently on the wrong side of it, and unfortunately that left me with only one course of action: avoid the police for as long as possible. Run, if I could, forever.

  It made sense to drive off and put as many miles between here and me as possible. Unfortunately, the last of my cash as well as some important personal documents were in my room. I needed them. So although my heart pounded with nervousness, I set the kickstand on my scooter and I toed off my pumps. Then I raced across the yards in my bare feet, keeping as low as I could.

  When I reached the house next to mine, I pressed up against its shingled wall and checked out my place again. Now that I was closer I could see through the blinds into the living room. Large windows wrapped around the front and southern side of the house. The design provided great light inside, but at the moment all those windows were a detriment. I couldn’t approach the house without being seen by the three men in the living room.

  Two were uniformed officers. One was a plainclothes officer who I assumed must be a detective. He sat facing the windows. That was a huge problem because my bedroom was on the second floor directly above the living room. My window, with its planter box full of flowers, faced the street.

  The steel downspout of a rain gutter ran down the corner of the house beside my bedroom window. It would have been handy to climb up it, but in its current form I doubted the straps keeping it attached to the siding would hold my weight. My second choice would have been to meddle the downspout into a ladder. But it would be impossible to climb up without being seen by anyone in the living room.

  I briefly considered entering through one of the other windows on the second floor. The problem with that was that two of those windows opened into Ginger’s bedroom and the third was a small bathroom window I wouldn’t fit through.

  Conclusion: I’d have to do this the hard way.

  Keeping beneath the level of the windows, I dashed across the yard, toes digging into the grass. I slid to my bare knees in front of the house. The edge of the window was just a few inches above my head.

  Now to get upstairs.

  I placed my hand on the metallic downspout and concentrated on the molecules within it, hastily rearranging them. Water and leaves rained down on my head as the top of the downspout separated from the gutter that ran around the perimeter of the roof. The straps holding the downspout to the side of the house were next, each one snapping loose of the wooden siding with popping noises.

  The downspout shrank down the side of the house toward me. Beneath my hand all twenty feet of it changed shape, condensing into a rope-like coil that was two inches in diameter. It wound around and around beneath my hand, becoming a thick metal spring. I pressed down, meddling the pressure, making it explosive.

  Within seconds I had a thick metal spring compressed into violent tension beneath my hand. It was as wide as my palm, so not much surface area. With my fingertips maintaining contact with the metal, keeping the molecules tight, I carefully maneuvered so that the heel of my left foot balanced squarely on the center of the spring. I looked up at my window, judging the angle and the distance. Then I shifted my balance so my entire weight rested on my left foot.

  I peeked through the living room window. The detective said something to Ginger who was seated on the sofa beside the uniformed officers. She replied and the detective looked down to write her response in a notepad he held. It was my chance. I jerked my fingers away from the spring.

  It launched me into the sky.

  The force was violent and quick. I felt like I’d left my stomach behind. I hurtled past my bedroom window and straight at the eaves of the house. Seeing I was going to hit it, I ducked my head and rounded my shoulders. I struck the soffit hard with my shoulders and the middle of my spine. The air rushed out of my lungs from the impact but I didn’t have time to catch my breath.

  I fell straight down.

  Flailing, I managed to slap my arms over the planter box hanging outside my window. The metal screws holding the box attached to the siding screeched as they pulled from the wood. I shoved my thumbs over the screw heads, meddling the metal to form flat hooks within the wood, anchoring them and stopping their slide.

  Grunting and gasping, I hung there, listening to ominous squeaking and groaning. The planter box was going to break away in a matter of seconds. I slung one leg over the corner of the box. As my knee dug into the soil and crushed the geraniums there, splinters began to explode from around the screws that I’d meddled into the siding. Frantic, I reached up and shoved my fingers against the window lock to meddle it open. Then I shoved the window pane aside and punched in the insect screen.

  Contorting myself in painful ways, I scrambled up and into the window. I tumbled clumsily into my room.

  The thump of my body hitting the floor caused me to freeze and curse my lack of grace. If they’d heard me downstairs I had only seconds to act. Breaking out of my stasis, I rushed around my room, grabbing a backpack and shoving my essentials into it.

  I’d just jammed my family’s paperwork into the pack when the door of my bedroom sw
ung open.

  “I thought it was you.”

  Ginger blocked the doorway. I craned to see around her but the hallway appeared to be empty. She was dressed the way she had been every single day that I’d run into her: in a black sheath dress that was slit all the way up to her hips on either side. Her feet were bare, her dark blonde hair pinned into a chignon. She could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty years old. The life of a cat shifter was apparently a difficult one.

  “They’re downstairs,” she said with narrowed eyes. Her suspicious nature, which I’d always resented and found off-putting about her, was in full force. “The police. That’s who you’re trying to avoid, isn’t it?”

  I was sheened with sweat and my hair was wild. I’d scraped both knees while crawling through the window and dirt smeared both arms from the elbows down. It was pretty obvious I was in fugitive mode.

  “Please, don’t turn me in,” I panted. “I haven’t done anything bad. I swear, Ginger. It’s a big misunderstanding.”

  “They’re threatening to revoke my visa!” she hissed. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for cohabs to move between states without one?”

  “Just tell them you haven’t seen me,” I begged. “They’ll never know.”

  Her wrinkled features didn’t shift, but they assumed a judgmental distance. “Did you do it? Did you kill him?”

  I could only stare at her.

  “Because if you did,” she went on, “there’s no point in running.”

  “Kill who?” I choked out once my wits recovered. “What are you talking about?”

  “A counselor from your school. The police said he was your counselor.”

  “Mr. Morrison?” I gasped. A thousand thoughts flew through my head. I would sort them all later, but one stood out brighter than the others. “Someone’s setting me up! I’ve never killed anyone. Are you kidding me?”

  My shock and incredulousness seemed to reach Ginger. Doubt clouded her vertically-pupiled eyes. “You’re as anti-establishment as I am.”

  “That doesn’t make me a killer! I’ve got my entire life ahead of me, Ginger. I’m about to graduate.”