Post by Chelliet on Aug 26, 2008 13:41:53 GMT -5
Chapter Five
It was really too much of a coincidence to ignore.
After Prague, much of his family’s resources had been destroyed and there were precious few places where he could even hope to find the information he needed. London, either fortunately or unfortunately, was one of them. Shadowspawn, after all, were supposed to be myths. Only the Hunters – and the Shadowspawn themselves – knew different. As such, manuscripts concerning the fiends were few and far between.
Gabriel stood outside in the dark, looking up at a rather pathetic door with a small, equally pathetic sign painted with what he assumed was someone’s idea of a book. He was later than he’d like to be, but something told him that wasn’t going to matter much.
Maybe it was the light coming from inside the storefront door, or the sounds of rustling from inside, or the muted voices he could hear.
Then again, the fact that the door was open a good three inches was a pretty big clue too.
The door was surprisingly quiet as he pulled it open far enough to let himself inside and he narrowed his eyes a little at the dust in the air. The place definitely needed a good scrubbing – or three – and it looked as if the proprietor didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘organization.’ Gabriel had just enough time to note that the place smelled ripely of age with a hint of death before the scream from the other room snapped his head up.
It took three steps to reach the doorway into what he assumed was the main shop area and what he saw had his lips flattening and his hand reaching for his hip beneath the long coat he wore. And the series of throwing knives he kept on his belt, among other things. He’d planned to beard the beast in his own den, but he hadn’t expected to interrupt a feeding in the process. The Hunter in him smiled with satisfaction because it gave him the element of surprise, something that was rather hard to come by these days.
Midnight satin and a flash of creamy skin was all he could see from around the Shadowspawn’s body, but the scream had been distinctly female and the monster had her pinned against a bookcase.
She screamed again and Gabriel palmed the blade of a knife, balancing it in his hand for a split second before letting it fly.
It slammed deep into the thing’s back with a heavy thunk. Dead on. The Shadowspawn raised its head, shrieking in pain and anger before dropping its victim with a harsh ripping of cloth, turning to set furious, black eyes on Gabriel. Gabriel simply threw another knife, just as deadly accurate as the first, and watched with sharp calculation as the thing stumbled backward. The hilt of the knife protruded directly where the Shadowspawn’s heart should have been and the thing hissed, baring its teeth as it backed away.
Gabriel half smiled, a look that drew another hiss from the Shadowspawn as the Hunter advanced, a third knife already in his hand and ready for flight.
The instant she was free, Rachelle dropped like a stone, her gown puffing out around her as she tried to breathe properly and get to her feet. Her knees weren’t cooperating however and she nearly cursed at herself for being so terrified. Grasping onto the thickest book she could find, a huge tome that boasted the title of Avery’s Aviary of Every Avion, she used the bookshelf to help her regain her feet.
The room was a complete blur of color and motion without her spectacles and she couldn’t tell what was going on, but thanked God all the same that the demonic Mr. Ramsey had let go. When the shadow of a body moved in front of her, she reacted without thought, swinging the book in her arms up and slamming the heavy thing toward the thing’s head.
“Bloody hell!” Gabriel cursed as the book hit him square on the side of his face, throwing off his balance. The knife his hand skittered across the floor and he cursed again. Who would have thought the woman, who should have been either unconscious or dissolved into a fit of weeping at this point, would attack her rescuer?
“Oh!” was all Rachelle could say, confused but more than a little contrite because the person in front of her was decidedly not Mr. Ramsey. Before she could apologize however, the Shadowspawn leapt forward, using that moment of distraction to charge forward and crash into her rescuer.
Gabriel’s breath left him in a hard punch as his back hit the floor with enough force to shake a few more books from their shelves, his hands clenched around the demon’s arms to keep some distance between them. The very last thing he needed tonight was a Shadowspawn ripping his throat out.
Black blood ran like a thick, tarry river down the front and back of the Shadowspawn and Gabriel knew the thing didn’t have long to live. They were a far lot harder to kill than any normal human, but they could indeed be killed and Gabriel had spent the last ten years learning each and every way to do it. Letting it bleed to death was one of them.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have that much time and he would rather not take the risk of having the thing hurt the woman any more than it already had, though based off the way Gabriel’s jaw was throbbing, she couldn’t be injured too much.
Pulling one leg in, he set his boot against the thing’s hip and kicked out, forcing the demon back and off of him. In an instant Gabriel was on his feet, a fourth knife in his hand, and with an almost graceful swipe through the air, cut straight across the thing’s throat as it came forward in a second attack.
More blood poured out, but the thing’s hiss was gargled and weak this time as it fell heavily to its knees, clawed hands pressing at its neck as if it would hold the blood inside it.
Hard green eyes watched it die, watched as the life in that demonic face bled away. Gabriel watched too as the body slid to its side in true death and a thin, smoke-like trail of shadow flowed out its nose and disappeared into the flickering darkness left by the wavering flames of the few remaining candles in the room.
“Is he dead?” Gabriel looked up at the question, the quick ‘yes’ freezing on his tongue as he got his first good look at her. It couldn’t be. Not her. Not Rachelle.
She was older, certainly, and looked quite frightened, for good reason. Her gown was ripped at the shoulder and hem leaving her looking rather bedraggled, but that hair was the same as it had always been; fiery and bold and so very unique. Right now it hung down from what should have been an elegant coif in a cascade of ruined curls that framed a very pale face. Her freckles were showing clearly enough that he knew she hadn’t powdered her face. For some reason that made him want to smile.
Suddenly the Shadowspawn’s attack took on a whole new light and he stood there like a mute statue while he watched her inch a bit closer and peer down at the body on the floor, holding the book at the ready like a weapon.
“I am sorry I hit you, but I can’t see a thing without my spectacles. I thought you were Mr. Ramsey,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“Quite alright,” he said. Rachelle thought his voice sounded a little strangled if not slightly familiar, but after a moment of hard thinking, she was sure she didn’t recognize his voice. Keeping the book close, she squatted down and squinted hard, trying to make out her spectacles or even her handbag from the mass of books scattered over the floor.
Gabriel hadn’t moved an inch, still taking in the fact that he’d just saved Rachelle Raine, a girl – no, woman – he hadn’t thought to ever see again. Yet here she was, grown and quite beautiful actually despite her rumpled appearance, currently squinting fiercely at the floor.
A glint of silver caught his eye and he stepped around the body to pick up a pair of spectacles a little worse for wear from underneath a bookcase.
“I believe you are looking for these?” he said, holding them out to her. She looked up and blinked, then smiled widely as she took them delicately from him. That smile cut right through him.
“Oh yes, thank you. I know they are terribly unfashionable, but I prefer being able to see more than I prefer looking fashionable.” Holding the spectacles up, she frowned at one of the bent ear pieces.
“I cannot thank you enough,” she said as she straightened the bit of metal, slipping the eyewear on and looking up at him. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come alo—” Her gratitude was stopped abruptly on a little gasp as she saw him clearly for the first time, her eyes widening behind the spectacles.
He may have been older, and much taller, than he had been ten years ago, but those green eyes were exactly the same.
“Gabriel?” He smirked at her, just a little, and she recognized that too.
Before she could think better of it, she heaved upward with the book and hit him square on the side of the head a second time. It gave her a small sense of satisfaction when he stumbled back and held a hand to his jaw, looking at her with a mix of confusion and wariness.
“What the bloody hell was that for?” he asked, glaring at her while he rubbed his jaw. Rachelle tilted her chin up in a haughty manner even her mother would have been proud of.
“For being alive,” she explained, as if that made perfect sense, before turning sharply away and moving toward the desk at the back of the main shop area. Gabriel reached forward and grasped her arm to halt her progress, and was immediately awarded with a supremely withering look.
It almost made him let go. Almost.
“Explain,” he said shortly. Of all the scenarios he’d imagined in his head if he ever saw her again, getting hit in the face with a book that had to weigh at least 3 stone had certainly never been one of them.
“I was quite content to believe you had met your unfortunate demise somewhere, but now you show up out of the blue and you have the audacity to smirk at me like that Mr. Dashiell, so in all I think you should have been expecting this,” she said before shoving the huge book into his chest. He caught it if only to keep the thing from falling and breaking any of his toes, which left her the room to walk away. Again.
“Hold on, I just saved your life,” he said, feeling ridiculous that he had to explain himself like the boy he’d once been. Glaring at the book in his arms in disgust, he dropped the thing heavily onto the nearest shelf and followed her to the desk where she was currently closing an ornate chest and trying to pick it up. ‘Try’ being the operative word.
“Yes you did and I do believe I already thanked you for it,” she said before heaving upward and leaning backward to counterbalance the weight in her arms. Gabriel waited only a second before taking the chest himself and setting it back on the desk.
“You did at that, but I thought—”
“You thought what, Mr. Dashiell? That I would fall into your arms with happiness at seeing you? That the last ten years would mean nothing? That I would forget how you left without a word and how it felt to spend those ten years not knowing, not hearing from you at all? Though it shames me to say it, you were my only friend. A letter, even just one, would have sufficed,” she said, dangerously close to tears as she all but yelled at him, her voice getting shriller and shriller. Gabriel could only stand there and listen, his jaw hard as he kept his silence. He had to give her some leniency – she had just been attacked by a Shadowspawn after all – and he wished heartily that he could explain to her what had happened ten years ago, or even ten minutes ago.
Unfortunately, that secret was his to keep and he refused to let his world get any closer to her than it already had. He also didn’t care to admit that that was indeed once of the scenarios he’d envisioned when he let himself think of seeing her again.
“I am sorry for that,” he said quietly as she turned to the chest again. His hand on her arm this time was gentle and it stopped her just as effectively as it had earlier, but she stood stiffly, her back straight as a ruler and her eyes focused determinedly forward, away from him. “If you believe nothing else, believe that, Rachelle.”
“Miss Raine, if you do not mind,” she said, her voice sharp around the emotions clogging her throat. No, she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. After all she’d gone through, after the Incident and those first few years, he did not deserve her tears. Not anymore.
Her chest hurt from all the tangled and confusing emotions running through her. She’d just been attacked by a crazed bookshop owner, the one person she’d truly cared for had shown up unannounced and she couldn’t quite decide if she was happy, furious, or indifferent. Lord but she wanted to be indifferent. Unfortunately her mind wasn’t going to let her, so to cover her vulnerability, she went with furious.
“Miss Raine,” Gabriel conceded, taking a step closer and turning so that he was mostly between her and the desk, his other hand rising to settle against her free arm. She stared pointedly at his chest, hating that she desperately wanted to accept the silent comfort he was offering, however inappropriate it may be.
“Please unhand me, Mr. Dashiell,” she said quietly, not looking at him. Gabriel’s jaw tensed for a moment, but he dropped his hands to his sides.
“Gabriel, if you do not mind,” he said, feeling more hurt than he cared to be at her coldness.
“I do mind,” she said and tried to step around him. When he grabbed her arm yet again, she nearly screamed, glaring at him and prepared to set him down roundly but gasped instead when he pulled her sleeve down at the shoulder seam, ripping it the rest of the way off.
“He hurt you,” Gabriel said, the subtle fury in his voice leaving her quiet for a moment as she watched his eyes narrow intently on her arm. In all honesty she’d been completely ignoring the dull throb from her arms until now.
Bruises ringed high on her bicep already, her skin mottled with red and purple in four distinct finger lines just beneath her shoulder where Mr. Ramsey had held her so cruelly.
“Since he attacked me, I would consider it safe to assume that he meant me harm to begin with,” she said, pulling at his grasp but failing to get free, trying desperately not to care that he handled her as one would fine china. When was the last time she’d been treated as anything but a burden? Even her brother Clayton had taken to manhandling her. “I’m sure the other one doesn’t look any better.”
Almost instantly she regretted saying that because Gabriel proceeded to rip off her second sleeve as well, baring a second set of bruises.
“Are you going to divest me of my entire gown searching for injuries?” she asked testily, jerking her arm out of his grasp and putting both hands on her hips. Gabriel narrowed his eyes at her and looked her up and down as if he were indeed considering it.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked, his tone demanding an answer. Rachelle eyed him warily, not fully trusting him to act the gentleman if she told him her back would probably hold the same bruises. She certainly didn’t need the man taking off her entire gown under some misguided sense of responsibility.
Rachelle was certainly not the soul of propriety, but she drew the line at disrobing in public.
“No. Now I really must be on my way. Brian will be worried sick if I leave him waiting much longer.” Again she tried to step past him to the desk. Gabriel side-stepped to stay in her way.
“Brian?” Rachelle might have laughed if she weren’t still frightened and angry. Gabriel almost sounded jealous. For an instant she thought of telling him that Brian was her husband, but seeing as she’d already insisted he call her Miss Raine, he would see through that ruse instantly.
“My driver,” she explained, her hands back on her hips and her toe tapping in impatience. It reminded Gabriel forcibly of an earlier time when it wasn’t improper to spend hours together and the teasing was innocent.
Because he didn’t want her fleeing off when he’d only just found her, and because he knew it would infuriate her more, he sat on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest casually, quite effectively blocking her access to the chest behind him.
“Is he outside then or are you alone?” Rachelle glared at him pointedly.
“No, but I hired a hack and he is waiting outside.” Gabriel blinked.
“You have a driver, yet you hired a hack?”
“Honestly, it is not that ludicrous. I did not want Brian worrying and I needed a bit of a walk. I hired the hack out of convenience.” Gabriel raised one eyebrow in a disbelieving expression and Rachelle barely contained the most unladylike snort of disapproval.
“Why would your driver worry about you?”
“Because I came here last night to purchase that chest behind you and he did not enjoy having to wait for me. It was an especially dark night and he is most superstitious,” she explained, her own arms crossing over her chest in an exact mirror of his stance. “Before you scold me as well for visiting shops at night, I know exactly what I am doing. I have done this countless times before and never once has anything terrible happened.”
“Until tonight,” he reminded her, gripping his own arms so as not to strangle the woman for being so foolish. “Rachelle, what do you think would have happened if I had not shown up tonight?” he asked in a deadly quiet voice, his eyes narrowed and the green of them flashing dangerously as he leveled a look at her that spelled nothing but trouble.
“What do you think would have happened?” he asked again when she didn’t answer quickly enough, still in that quiet voice but firmer. More demanding.
Rachelle swallowed once as a little shiver went down her spine and raised her chin again, meeting his eyes without blinking though she felt like curling up in a corner and having a good cry.
“I am sure things would have worked out fine,” she said, not really believing it. Gabriel’s expression said well enough that he knew she was lying through her teeth. There was even a moment when she thought he would call her out on it and she fully expected a harsh scolding when he opened his mouth to speak.
“What is in the chest?” The question seemed so oddly placed that Rachelle had to blink several times before she answered.
“A series of books. I’ve been looking for them for nearly a year and I had received word two days past that Mr. Ramsey had them.” Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Books? You came here for books?” He was getting angry again and Rachelle was thoroughly not amused.
“Yes, I did.”
“Of all the stupid, dimwitted—” Clenching his jaw to keep from cursing out loud at her, he muscled his emotions under control and instead glared hotly at her.
“It is most certainly not stupid or dimwitted, Gabriel,” Rachelle said heatedly, forgetting to call him Mr. Dashiell. “This is, after all, a book shop and the Encyclopedius Demonicus is well worth the effort I assure you. This is the original manuscript. I checked the scribe’s signature myself. Why are you here tonight? Surely not for books,” she ended sarcastically, glancing around the room completely lined with bookshelves.
Gabriel went very still, his face losing all expression but for a sudden hardness in his eyes. It was not possible that she was after such a thing. Not even he had been after that particular set of manuscripts though to be perfectly honest he left the search for those tomes up to far more academic people than he. No one was supposed to even know of its existence let alone actively seek it unless they were a Hunter.
Or a Shadowspawn.
It was the look on his face more than his anger that cooled her own temper and left her watching him carefully.
“What is wrong?” she asked quietly, torn between backing up and getting closer. She shouldn’t care about him. In fact, she should hate him, but it seemed she didn’t have it in her. She was sure it was because she was utterly exhausted and her back and arms were really beginning to hurt now. Perhaps later she would drum up the energy to truly loathe him.
“Nothing. You should get home,” he said abruptly, standing straight and plucking up the chest of books as if it weighed nothing at all. Rachelle backed up a few steps, mostly because if she hadn’t he would have walked straight into her, and she sighed in exasperation.
“I do not appreciate being manhandled or ordered about, especially by you,” she said, following him, but only because he was currently carrying her books.
“This is not a game, Miss Raine,” he said, putting far more emphasis on her title than he needed to as he paused and turned around, his body now blocking the store’s front door. “These books have far more worth than you think and they are dangerous.”
“How can a book be dangerous?” she countered. Gabriel said nothing because anything he told her would be too much and he much preferred that she hate him than get dragged any further into his world. Instead he just turned around and left the store.
“Wait! You cannot just take them, I—” Rachelle stopped as if she’d run into a brick wall, her eyes wide and lips parted on words that never came out. She felt like she’d just been doused in freezing water and her lungs seized at the sensation, her very breath stolen from her chest. The edges of her vision began to dim, darkening until she could barely see the street in front of her. Her feet seemed rooted to the floor and she distantly felt the hem of her gown seething around her legs in a wind that wasn’t there.
She saw Gabriel turn, his expression full of that frightening cold anger and a single word hissed out of her lips in a voice that sounded like broken glass and snapping teeth and claws on stone all at once.
“HUNTER.” It was both a curse and an acknowledgment.
Gabriel’s frustration with her evaporated in an instant, replaced with sick fear as he dropped the books on the ground and faced her fully. The shadow of the doorway all but enveloped her. Her gown seemed completely lost in darkness, her skin muted and dim. Even her hair was dull, as if she’d been dipped in a fine mist of charcoal dust.
Oh God, not this. Anything but this.
Her eyes were utterly black and her lips curled in a smile so grotesque it hurt him to see it on her face.
“Rachelle!” He shouted her name and a flash of pain crossed her face, hands that had curled like claws reaching up to press against her head.
“NO, NO, NO!” she shrieked in that harsh voice. “IT CANNOT BE!”
Gabriel watched, stunned, as she threw her head back and screamed, long and high and thin. Her spine arched back far enough that he was afraid it might snap in half before a huge wind gusted outward, the edges of his coat snapping loudly in it. The scream continued, but not from her. It bled away as if shut inside a box, muffled and dim, and the shadows around her simply disappeared completely.
“Gabriel?” was all she said, tentative and terrified before her eyes rolled back in her head. Gabriel raced forward and caught her only just in time as she dropped like a stone. God, her skin was like ice and she weighed hardly more than the chest of books did.
“Rachelle?” Her eyes were closed and her lips were so pale they were nearly white.
And she wasn’t breathing.
“Rachelle!”
It was really too much of a coincidence to ignore.
After Prague, much of his family’s resources had been destroyed and there were precious few places where he could even hope to find the information he needed. London, either fortunately or unfortunately, was one of them. Shadowspawn, after all, were supposed to be myths. Only the Hunters – and the Shadowspawn themselves – knew different. As such, manuscripts concerning the fiends were few and far between.
Gabriel stood outside in the dark, looking up at a rather pathetic door with a small, equally pathetic sign painted with what he assumed was someone’s idea of a book. He was later than he’d like to be, but something told him that wasn’t going to matter much.
Maybe it was the light coming from inside the storefront door, or the sounds of rustling from inside, or the muted voices he could hear.
Then again, the fact that the door was open a good three inches was a pretty big clue too.
The door was surprisingly quiet as he pulled it open far enough to let himself inside and he narrowed his eyes a little at the dust in the air. The place definitely needed a good scrubbing – or three – and it looked as if the proprietor didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘organization.’ Gabriel had just enough time to note that the place smelled ripely of age with a hint of death before the scream from the other room snapped his head up.
It took three steps to reach the doorway into what he assumed was the main shop area and what he saw had his lips flattening and his hand reaching for his hip beneath the long coat he wore. And the series of throwing knives he kept on his belt, among other things. He’d planned to beard the beast in his own den, but he hadn’t expected to interrupt a feeding in the process. The Hunter in him smiled with satisfaction because it gave him the element of surprise, something that was rather hard to come by these days.
Midnight satin and a flash of creamy skin was all he could see from around the Shadowspawn’s body, but the scream had been distinctly female and the monster had her pinned against a bookcase.
She screamed again and Gabriel palmed the blade of a knife, balancing it in his hand for a split second before letting it fly.
It slammed deep into the thing’s back with a heavy thunk. Dead on. The Shadowspawn raised its head, shrieking in pain and anger before dropping its victim with a harsh ripping of cloth, turning to set furious, black eyes on Gabriel. Gabriel simply threw another knife, just as deadly accurate as the first, and watched with sharp calculation as the thing stumbled backward. The hilt of the knife protruded directly where the Shadowspawn’s heart should have been and the thing hissed, baring its teeth as it backed away.
Gabriel half smiled, a look that drew another hiss from the Shadowspawn as the Hunter advanced, a third knife already in his hand and ready for flight.
The instant she was free, Rachelle dropped like a stone, her gown puffing out around her as she tried to breathe properly and get to her feet. Her knees weren’t cooperating however and she nearly cursed at herself for being so terrified. Grasping onto the thickest book she could find, a huge tome that boasted the title of Avery’s Aviary of Every Avion, she used the bookshelf to help her regain her feet.
The room was a complete blur of color and motion without her spectacles and she couldn’t tell what was going on, but thanked God all the same that the demonic Mr. Ramsey had let go. When the shadow of a body moved in front of her, she reacted without thought, swinging the book in her arms up and slamming the heavy thing toward the thing’s head.
“Bloody hell!” Gabriel cursed as the book hit him square on the side of his face, throwing off his balance. The knife his hand skittered across the floor and he cursed again. Who would have thought the woman, who should have been either unconscious or dissolved into a fit of weeping at this point, would attack her rescuer?
“Oh!” was all Rachelle could say, confused but more than a little contrite because the person in front of her was decidedly not Mr. Ramsey. Before she could apologize however, the Shadowspawn leapt forward, using that moment of distraction to charge forward and crash into her rescuer.
Gabriel’s breath left him in a hard punch as his back hit the floor with enough force to shake a few more books from their shelves, his hands clenched around the demon’s arms to keep some distance between them. The very last thing he needed tonight was a Shadowspawn ripping his throat out.
Black blood ran like a thick, tarry river down the front and back of the Shadowspawn and Gabriel knew the thing didn’t have long to live. They were a far lot harder to kill than any normal human, but they could indeed be killed and Gabriel had spent the last ten years learning each and every way to do it. Letting it bleed to death was one of them.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have that much time and he would rather not take the risk of having the thing hurt the woman any more than it already had, though based off the way Gabriel’s jaw was throbbing, she couldn’t be injured too much.
Pulling one leg in, he set his boot against the thing’s hip and kicked out, forcing the demon back and off of him. In an instant Gabriel was on his feet, a fourth knife in his hand, and with an almost graceful swipe through the air, cut straight across the thing’s throat as it came forward in a second attack.
More blood poured out, but the thing’s hiss was gargled and weak this time as it fell heavily to its knees, clawed hands pressing at its neck as if it would hold the blood inside it.
Hard green eyes watched it die, watched as the life in that demonic face bled away. Gabriel watched too as the body slid to its side in true death and a thin, smoke-like trail of shadow flowed out its nose and disappeared into the flickering darkness left by the wavering flames of the few remaining candles in the room.
“Is he dead?” Gabriel looked up at the question, the quick ‘yes’ freezing on his tongue as he got his first good look at her. It couldn’t be. Not her. Not Rachelle.
She was older, certainly, and looked quite frightened, for good reason. Her gown was ripped at the shoulder and hem leaving her looking rather bedraggled, but that hair was the same as it had always been; fiery and bold and so very unique. Right now it hung down from what should have been an elegant coif in a cascade of ruined curls that framed a very pale face. Her freckles were showing clearly enough that he knew she hadn’t powdered her face. For some reason that made him want to smile.
Suddenly the Shadowspawn’s attack took on a whole new light and he stood there like a mute statue while he watched her inch a bit closer and peer down at the body on the floor, holding the book at the ready like a weapon.
“I am sorry I hit you, but I can’t see a thing without my spectacles. I thought you were Mr. Ramsey,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“Quite alright,” he said. Rachelle thought his voice sounded a little strangled if not slightly familiar, but after a moment of hard thinking, she was sure she didn’t recognize his voice. Keeping the book close, she squatted down and squinted hard, trying to make out her spectacles or even her handbag from the mass of books scattered over the floor.
Gabriel hadn’t moved an inch, still taking in the fact that he’d just saved Rachelle Raine, a girl – no, woman – he hadn’t thought to ever see again. Yet here she was, grown and quite beautiful actually despite her rumpled appearance, currently squinting fiercely at the floor.
A glint of silver caught his eye and he stepped around the body to pick up a pair of spectacles a little worse for wear from underneath a bookcase.
“I believe you are looking for these?” he said, holding them out to her. She looked up and blinked, then smiled widely as she took them delicately from him. That smile cut right through him.
“Oh yes, thank you. I know they are terribly unfashionable, but I prefer being able to see more than I prefer looking fashionable.” Holding the spectacles up, she frowned at one of the bent ear pieces.
“I cannot thank you enough,” she said as she straightened the bit of metal, slipping the eyewear on and looking up at him. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come alo—” Her gratitude was stopped abruptly on a little gasp as she saw him clearly for the first time, her eyes widening behind the spectacles.
He may have been older, and much taller, than he had been ten years ago, but those green eyes were exactly the same.
“Gabriel?” He smirked at her, just a little, and she recognized that too.
Before she could think better of it, she heaved upward with the book and hit him square on the side of the head a second time. It gave her a small sense of satisfaction when he stumbled back and held a hand to his jaw, looking at her with a mix of confusion and wariness.
“What the bloody hell was that for?” he asked, glaring at her while he rubbed his jaw. Rachelle tilted her chin up in a haughty manner even her mother would have been proud of.
“For being alive,” she explained, as if that made perfect sense, before turning sharply away and moving toward the desk at the back of the main shop area. Gabriel reached forward and grasped her arm to halt her progress, and was immediately awarded with a supremely withering look.
It almost made him let go. Almost.
“Explain,” he said shortly. Of all the scenarios he’d imagined in his head if he ever saw her again, getting hit in the face with a book that had to weigh at least 3 stone had certainly never been one of them.
“I was quite content to believe you had met your unfortunate demise somewhere, but now you show up out of the blue and you have the audacity to smirk at me like that Mr. Dashiell, so in all I think you should have been expecting this,” she said before shoving the huge book into his chest. He caught it if only to keep the thing from falling and breaking any of his toes, which left her the room to walk away. Again.
“Hold on, I just saved your life,” he said, feeling ridiculous that he had to explain himself like the boy he’d once been. Glaring at the book in his arms in disgust, he dropped the thing heavily onto the nearest shelf and followed her to the desk where she was currently closing an ornate chest and trying to pick it up. ‘Try’ being the operative word.
“Yes you did and I do believe I already thanked you for it,” she said before heaving upward and leaning backward to counterbalance the weight in her arms. Gabriel waited only a second before taking the chest himself and setting it back on the desk.
“You did at that, but I thought—”
“You thought what, Mr. Dashiell? That I would fall into your arms with happiness at seeing you? That the last ten years would mean nothing? That I would forget how you left without a word and how it felt to spend those ten years not knowing, not hearing from you at all? Though it shames me to say it, you were my only friend. A letter, even just one, would have sufficed,” she said, dangerously close to tears as she all but yelled at him, her voice getting shriller and shriller. Gabriel could only stand there and listen, his jaw hard as he kept his silence. He had to give her some leniency – she had just been attacked by a Shadowspawn after all – and he wished heartily that he could explain to her what had happened ten years ago, or even ten minutes ago.
Unfortunately, that secret was his to keep and he refused to let his world get any closer to her than it already had. He also didn’t care to admit that that was indeed once of the scenarios he’d envisioned when he let himself think of seeing her again.
“I am sorry for that,” he said quietly as she turned to the chest again. His hand on her arm this time was gentle and it stopped her just as effectively as it had earlier, but she stood stiffly, her back straight as a ruler and her eyes focused determinedly forward, away from him. “If you believe nothing else, believe that, Rachelle.”
“Miss Raine, if you do not mind,” she said, her voice sharp around the emotions clogging her throat. No, she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. After all she’d gone through, after the Incident and those first few years, he did not deserve her tears. Not anymore.
Her chest hurt from all the tangled and confusing emotions running through her. She’d just been attacked by a crazed bookshop owner, the one person she’d truly cared for had shown up unannounced and she couldn’t quite decide if she was happy, furious, or indifferent. Lord but she wanted to be indifferent. Unfortunately her mind wasn’t going to let her, so to cover her vulnerability, she went with furious.
“Miss Raine,” Gabriel conceded, taking a step closer and turning so that he was mostly between her and the desk, his other hand rising to settle against her free arm. She stared pointedly at his chest, hating that she desperately wanted to accept the silent comfort he was offering, however inappropriate it may be.
“Please unhand me, Mr. Dashiell,” she said quietly, not looking at him. Gabriel’s jaw tensed for a moment, but he dropped his hands to his sides.
“Gabriel, if you do not mind,” he said, feeling more hurt than he cared to be at her coldness.
“I do mind,” she said and tried to step around him. When he grabbed her arm yet again, she nearly screamed, glaring at him and prepared to set him down roundly but gasped instead when he pulled her sleeve down at the shoulder seam, ripping it the rest of the way off.
“He hurt you,” Gabriel said, the subtle fury in his voice leaving her quiet for a moment as she watched his eyes narrow intently on her arm. In all honesty she’d been completely ignoring the dull throb from her arms until now.
Bruises ringed high on her bicep already, her skin mottled with red and purple in four distinct finger lines just beneath her shoulder where Mr. Ramsey had held her so cruelly.
“Since he attacked me, I would consider it safe to assume that he meant me harm to begin with,” she said, pulling at his grasp but failing to get free, trying desperately not to care that he handled her as one would fine china. When was the last time she’d been treated as anything but a burden? Even her brother Clayton had taken to manhandling her. “I’m sure the other one doesn’t look any better.”
Almost instantly she regretted saying that because Gabriel proceeded to rip off her second sleeve as well, baring a second set of bruises.
“Are you going to divest me of my entire gown searching for injuries?” she asked testily, jerking her arm out of his grasp and putting both hands on her hips. Gabriel narrowed his eyes at her and looked her up and down as if he were indeed considering it.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked, his tone demanding an answer. Rachelle eyed him warily, not fully trusting him to act the gentleman if she told him her back would probably hold the same bruises. She certainly didn’t need the man taking off her entire gown under some misguided sense of responsibility.
Rachelle was certainly not the soul of propriety, but she drew the line at disrobing in public.
“No. Now I really must be on my way. Brian will be worried sick if I leave him waiting much longer.” Again she tried to step past him to the desk. Gabriel side-stepped to stay in her way.
“Brian?” Rachelle might have laughed if she weren’t still frightened and angry. Gabriel almost sounded jealous. For an instant she thought of telling him that Brian was her husband, but seeing as she’d already insisted he call her Miss Raine, he would see through that ruse instantly.
“My driver,” she explained, her hands back on her hips and her toe tapping in impatience. It reminded Gabriel forcibly of an earlier time when it wasn’t improper to spend hours together and the teasing was innocent.
Because he didn’t want her fleeing off when he’d only just found her, and because he knew it would infuriate her more, he sat on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest casually, quite effectively blocking her access to the chest behind him.
“Is he outside then or are you alone?” Rachelle glared at him pointedly.
“No, but I hired a hack and he is waiting outside.” Gabriel blinked.
“You have a driver, yet you hired a hack?”
“Honestly, it is not that ludicrous. I did not want Brian worrying and I needed a bit of a walk. I hired the hack out of convenience.” Gabriel raised one eyebrow in a disbelieving expression and Rachelle barely contained the most unladylike snort of disapproval.
“Why would your driver worry about you?”
“Because I came here last night to purchase that chest behind you and he did not enjoy having to wait for me. It was an especially dark night and he is most superstitious,” she explained, her own arms crossing over her chest in an exact mirror of his stance. “Before you scold me as well for visiting shops at night, I know exactly what I am doing. I have done this countless times before and never once has anything terrible happened.”
“Until tonight,” he reminded her, gripping his own arms so as not to strangle the woman for being so foolish. “Rachelle, what do you think would have happened if I had not shown up tonight?” he asked in a deadly quiet voice, his eyes narrowed and the green of them flashing dangerously as he leveled a look at her that spelled nothing but trouble.
“What do you think would have happened?” he asked again when she didn’t answer quickly enough, still in that quiet voice but firmer. More demanding.
Rachelle swallowed once as a little shiver went down her spine and raised her chin again, meeting his eyes without blinking though she felt like curling up in a corner and having a good cry.
“I am sure things would have worked out fine,” she said, not really believing it. Gabriel’s expression said well enough that he knew she was lying through her teeth. There was even a moment when she thought he would call her out on it and she fully expected a harsh scolding when he opened his mouth to speak.
“What is in the chest?” The question seemed so oddly placed that Rachelle had to blink several times before she answered.
“A series of books. I’ve been looking for them for nearly a year and I had received word two days past that Mr. Ramsey had them.” Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Books? You came here for books?” He was getting angry again and Rachelle was thoroughly not amused.
“Yes, I did.”
“Of all the stupid, dimwitted—” Clenching his jaw to keep from cursing out loud at her, he muscled his emotions under control and instead glared hotly at her.
“It is most certainly not stupid or dimwitted, Gabriel,” Rachelle said heatedly, forgetting to call him Mr. Dashiell. “This is, after all, a book shop and the Encyclopedius Demonicus is well worth the effort I assure you. This is the original manuscript. I checked the scribe’s signature myself. Why are you here tonight? Surely not for books,” she ended sarcastically, glancing around the room completely lined with bookshelves.
Gabriel went very still, his face losing all expression but for a sudden hardness in his eyes. It was not possible that she was after such a thing. Not even he had been after that particular set of manuscripts though to be perfectly honest he left the search for those tomes up to far more academic people than he. No one was supposed to even know of its existence let alone actively seek it unless they were a Hunter.
Or a Shadowspawn.
It was the look on his face more than his anger that cooled her own temper and left her watching him carefully.
“What is wrong?” she asked quietly, torn between backing up and getting closer. She shouldn’t care about him. In fact, she should hate him, but it seemed she didn’t have it in her. She was sure it was because she was utterly exhausted and her back and arms were really beginning to hurt now. Perhaps later she would drum up the energy to truly loathe him.
“Nothing. You should get home,” he said abruptly, standing straight and plucking up the chest of books as if it weighed nothing at all. Rachelle backed up a few steps, mostly because if she hadn’t he would have walked straight into her, and she sighed in exasperation.
“I do not appreciate being manhandled or ordered about, especially by you,” she said, following him, but only because he was currently carrying her books.
“This is not a game, Miss Raine,” he said, putting far more emphasis on her title than he needed to as he paused and turned around, his body now blocking the store’s front door. “These books have far more worth than you think and they are dangerous.”
“How can a book be dangerous?” she countered. Gabriel said nothing because anything he told her would be too much and he much preferred that she hate him than get dragged any further into his world. Instead he just turned around and left the store.
“Wait! You cannot just take them, I—” Rachelle stopped as if she’d run into a brick wall, her eyes wide and lips parted on words that never came out. She felt like she’d just been doused in freezing water and her lungs seized at the sensation, her very breath stolen from her chest. The edges of her vision began to dim, darkening until she could barely see the street in front of her. Her feet seemed rooted to the floor and she distantly felt the hem of her gown seething around her legs in a wind that wasn’t there.
She saw Gabriel turn, his expression full of that frightening cold anger and a single word hissed out of her lips in a voice that sounded like broken glass and snapping teeth and claws on stone all at once.
“HUNTER.” It was both a curse and an acknowledgment.
Gabriel’s frustration with her evaporated in an instant, replaced with sick fear as he dropped the books on the ground and faced her fully. The shadow of the doorway all but enveloped her. Her gown seemed completely lost in darkness, her skin muted and dim. Even her hair was dull, as if she’d been dipped in a fine mist of charcoal dust.
Oh God, not this. Anything but this.
Her eyes were utterly black and her lips curled in a smile so grotesque it hurt him to see it on her face.
“Rachelle!” He shouted her name and a flash of pain crossed her face, hands that had curled like claws reaching up to press against her head.
“NO, NO, NO!” she shrieked in that harsh voice. “IT CANNOT BE!”
Gabriel watched, stunned, as she threw her head back and screamed, long and high and thin. Her spine arched back far enough that he was afraid it might snap in half before a huge wind gusted outward, the edges of his coat snapping loudly in it. The scream continued, but not from her. It bled away as if shut inside a box, muffled and dim, and the shadows around her simply disappeared completely.
“Gabriel?” was all she said, tentative and terrified before her eyes rolled back in her head. Gabriel raced forward and caught her only just in time as she dropped like a stone. God, her skin was like ice and she weighed hardly more than the chest of books did.
“Rachelle?” Her eyes were closed and her lips were so pale they were nearly white.
And she wasn’t breathing.
“Rachelle!”