Night
Rafe made himself scarce for most of the day while I wandered the corridors and rooms, greeting Kensey’s minimal staff to reassure them he’d be back soon. I wanted someone to tell me the same, but nobody did. In the late afternoon, I fell into bed and woke before dusk to find Rafe draped sideways in the old armchair by the window, his wings loose over one arm of the chair, his legs bent over the other. He stared at the ceiling while the tip of his tail gently flip-flopped against the floor.
If he knew I was awake, he didn’t reveal it.
Arguing with him had apparently had no effect, and while he mostly kept his distance, he didn’t appear to be out to harm me. Yet. Although I hadn’t forgotten his “helping emotions along” comment. Incubi were well known for their seductive natures, but I’d always stayed a step ahead of his tricks. That hadn’t changed.
“Do you want me to go find your brother and bring him back?” he asked, turning his head.
Yes, my heart demanded, but Kensey had been clear about his desire to leave. There was no use in me having Rafe stalk him—he’d never forgive me. “No. He’ll either come back or he won’t. And Etienne is with him.”
“You trust the elf?”
“Some,” I admitted. “More when it comes to Kensey. For all their many faults, elves love wholeheartedly. Kensey is safe with him.”
“Get dressed. I’ll see if they’ve returned.”
Before I could reply, he’d vanished.
Why was he helping me? To avoid answering questions about his soul?
I showered and dressed. The station had altered my dress, making the skirts slim and asymmetrical, showing off my knee-high, lace-up boots. I’d learned over the years that the shorter and less complicated the skirts got, the more the station expected trouble. It was always practical.
Rafe appeared as I stepped from the stairwell into Night and reported Kensey had sent a note to say he was perfectly safe, but he wanted to fully experience Rome and our “new friends.”
“In Etienne’s absence, you are in need of a personal assistant,” Rafe said.
Moonlight washed over us as we walked alongside the wall of windows. At Night, all of Rafe’s edges and fine lines, like those of his horns and his dark eyes, were amplified. In Day, his demon attributes had softened. Even his smiles had appeared more genuine. But now, his smiles were sharp again. Did he deliberately look and behave differently at Night, like I did?
“Are you volunteering?” I asked.
“Why, Lynher, your offer is kind, but I did not progress through demon ranks to serve you tea.”
Interesting choice of words. He rarely spoke of his life. This could be a good opportunity to glean more information from him. “Then what did you progress f—”
A whip-like lash of movement shot toward us, so fast that had it been aimed at me, I couldn’t have avoided it.
Rafe lunged aside, and the sharp strike of blackness struck the floor where he’d been standing, scorching the carpet and making it smoke. Another strike of black lightning snapped and danced down the corridor. Rafe ducked, crouched on all fours, and bolted forward, toward the thing the lightning had emerged from.
At first, it appeared as though boulders had been rolled into the corridor, filling it from floor to ceiling, but then those boulders moved. Huge horns scraped the ceiling. Claws gouged deep grooves in the floor. I’d seen its likeness before, when Rafe had tricked me into summoning a demon, but this one was bigger.
Rafe ran at it, his wings tucked in, and sprang. The beast swatted him aside like a fly, tossing him against the wall, and then punched him through it. Clouds of plaster filled the air. A muffled scream sounded from inside the room, not Rafe’s.
Well, that was quite enough of that nonsense inside my station.
“Hey!” I reached behind me and plucked my twin daggers free. “You!”
The beast ignored me, reached in through the hole in the wall, and tore more bricks free, widening the gap. It stuck its head inside. More screams erupted, then the nearest door flung open and a pair of partially dressed guests fled from inside.
“That’s enough!”
The mark on my arm flared to life, sending sizzling heat through my veins and lending me the station’s strength. The beast still had its head stuck in the hole, but as I drew closer, it tore free, bringing more wall and plaster with it. Its huge fist emerged with Rafe struggling between its fingers. His tail lashed and had already ripped open the beast’s thick skin in places, but it wasn’t enough.
He heaved and bucked.
“Raphael must… come home.” The beast’s deep voice shook the windows. He must have squeezed tighter, because Rafe’s struggles stuttered. He gritted his sharp teeth, in pain.
Just a few more strides. With a quick flip, I reversed my grip on the daggers. “That incubus is mine,” I yelled and plunged the first dagger deep into the beast’s massive foot.
It roared, flung its head back, impaling its horns in the ceiling, and dropped Rafe. He scrabbled away, stumbling over tumbled brick.
But the creature wasn’t done. Furious, burning eyes fixed on me. It pulled itself free, raining ceiling down in chunks. Dust clouds swirled, but its eyes still burned red, and I was its target.
Its huge hand lifted, fingers rippling, and another reverse-lightning strike bubbled out of the air.
I lifted my arm, wrist out, showing the creature my blazing mark. “Stop!”
Its fat lips curved around a smile.
Power throbbed through me, lighting me up, and my next words reverberated through walls. “You are not welcome here!”
It freed its lightning. Rafe bellowed as the twitching black light struck, but instead of pain, the heat of power surged through me, and the lightning ricocheted off my blazing mark, turning bright as it snapped back toward its maker. It slammed into the beast. The creature wailed and rocked on its feet. It shook its head and fell forward onto its fists, the floor bouncing under its weight.
I staggered.
Rafe grabbed my arm. “Run!”
“No! Nothing gets past me in these halls!” Whatever Rafe saw on my face, it gave him pause, then he yanked me forward, seemingly into his arms.
An enormous hand slammed down, missing us by inches.
Rafe pulled me along, trying to make me flee.
“No,” I snapped again and twisted free.
Something like hurt or fear or concern widened his eyes, but it couldn’t be any of those things, because he had no soul to hurt.
The beast roared so close its foul breath blasted my back, almost knocking me over. I whirled, faced the creature’s hideous face—just inches from me—and slammed the final dagger into its blazing right eye. The gristly orb popped, and cool liquid splashed my face and arms. The beast screamed and clawed at its eye, gouging out more flesh as it tried to clasp the dragger with massive hands.
“How dare you attack on neutral ground, on my ground!” I said, funneling the same power in my veins through every word. “This is my home, and these guests are under my protection. I command you to leave this sanctuary!”
I stared up at the towering creature, so small in its shadow but blazing with power.
The beast roared in my face, the onslaught of noise shaking me down to the bone. But it was just noise. With its one good eye, it glared, marking me, cursing me.
“Raphael… is yours?” Its words sounded like rocks grinding against each other.
“All guests have sanctuary here.”
Rafe’s startled cry from behind me demanded I look, but I couldn’t break the creature’s stare.
“Return home,” I ordered, feeling the push and weight of the words.
“Mastema will… learn of this, Guardian.” And with that, the massive bulk of demon collapsed in a waterfall of sparks, just like Rafe’s, and was gone, leaving behind clouds of settling dust and a whole lot of wreckage.
I waited for another attack, but nothing came. My heart and breathing slowed, and the burning light of my mark faded as it returned to its normal tattooed state.
Sighing hard through my nose, I turned and raised an eyebrow at Rafe. He leaned heavily against a window, wings and shoulders sagging. “You will tell me everything that’s going on, or the next time that thing rampages through my halls, I’ll let it eat you.”
Rafe wasn’t listening. He stared at his wrist.
I brushed dust from my clothes and coughed. “Rafe?”
Blinking, he looked up.
“My office. Now.”
He scanned the debris as though only now seeing it. What was wrong with him? Then, with a nod, he vanished, hopefully to meet me at my office, where he would tell me every single detail about this attack, Lilith, and the jar.
Rafe didn’t arrive at my office, which wasn’t surprising. He never had struck me as the type to follow orders unless he had no other choice, but his absence left me with another worry, and without Etienne, I was left to manage mounting complaints from the guests. More noises in the attic, no hot water, a single guest from the east wing had put his foot through the floorboards, and, of course, there was still the mess in the hallway that the beast had caused, although the station should fix that itself within minutes. With no trains arriving and no destinations for the Dark Ones, they were beginning to leave the station. More names had vanished from the guestbook, leaving half the entries we’d normally entertain.
I should have been relieved. Fewer guests meant my work was easier, but with each vanishing name, my anxiety knotted tighter. My purpose in life was slipping through my fingers. What if they all left me?
I busied myself with what work I had, fielding reports of the damage in B wing. The station should have fixed the beast’s damage by now. Just one more worry, and where in all the nine realms of hell was Rafe? And Kensey and Etienne?
Another Night had almost passed with no trains, no new guests, and no humans to save when I retreated back to my office. My hostess smile fell away as I poured myself a glass of whiskey and took sanctuary at my desk.
In the quiet, I heard just the clock ticking alongside my heartbeat.
I’d vowed to make a difference.
I’d seen a girl run through the mud, desperate for freedom. Seen the vampires descend on her. And I’d promised to change things. Saying the words had been easy, but how was I supposed to change anything alone? For all my bravado, I was only powerful inside these walls.
I’d trapped Jack and his vampireguard in the demon realm, but it hadn’t been enough. Gerome had taught me to be strong, to put on many faces and lead the Dark Ones on while helping Kensey save people. But Kensey was leaving me. The Dark Ones were leaving me. My staff would be the next to go, especially if Rome was the sunlight haven it had appeared to be from the window.
I threw back the whiskey and poured another.
“Soon, it’ll be just you and me,” I told the station, grateful it hadn’t abandoned me too. I pulled the mysterious notebook from the drawer and set it down on the desktop.
Gerome’s cracked host’s key glinted inside the drawer. I stroked my fingers down the metal key, its surface ice cold. Gerome never had told me how it had gotten cracked.
A cloud of sparks erupted in the middle of the room, and Rafe paced from within it. Dressed from head to toe in black, every inch of him was covered in supple buckled-and-stitched leather. Daggers glistened at his hips. Two shorts swords were neatly fixed across his back, between his wings. Two smaller throwing daggers sat snugly against the shin of each boot.
I blinked, trying to realign my thoughts around his new demeanor. He continued to pace, his boots striking the floorboards.
“Well?” I asked, closing the drawer and leaning back in my chair. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
He looked over. No smiles, no laughter in his eyes. They were black again, as black as I’d ever seen them. He’d never looked more demon-like and less Rafe-like in all the time I’d known him. Did I know him? A flicker of fear dried my mouth, and I reached for more whiskey. I did fear… for him, for us, because things were changing, and not just the things I wanted to change.
He approached my desk, planted his ass on the edge, scooped up my freshly poured glass of whiskey, finished it in one gulp, then held out the glass for a second shot. I poured another, and he drank that too. As I poured a third, I spotted the tail end of a familiar mark peeking out from beneath his shirt cuff.
The sight of the station’s mark on his arm wasn’t entirely surprising. I’d guessed the station might have marked him from his reaction in the corridor, but it still unnerved me to see it there. The station had marked Etienne and Jack, and now Rafe? Soon, its human staff might be surplus to requirements.
“Welcome to the Night Station,” I said.
“No,” he replied, then pointed a finger at my face. “No. Because that’s not all you did to me, Lynher Aris.”
“I didn’t do that to you.” Why did everyone believe I had control of what the station did and didn’t do? “I have no control over whom the station deems worthy.”
“I’m fucked. We’re fucked. He’s going to…” He thrust both hands into his hair beside his horns and backed away, pacing again. “Why, Lynher?”
“Why what?”
“This isn’t the only mark you’ve put on me.” He angrily rolled up his sleeve, revealing the full mark on his pale forearm. As fresh as it was, it stood out. He’d have trouble hiding it.
“I didn’t—”
“Your words, in the corridor. You said, and I quote, ‘Raphael is mine.’”
“I just said that because, while you’re under this roof, I consider you a guest, like any other. So yes, you’re mine to protect.”
He pressed his hands against my desktop and leaned in. His hinged wings framed him, and that trickle of fear was back. I’d lost my knives fighting the beast, but I had some taped beneath my desk, should I need them.
“Everything in the Night Station runs on intent,” he said. “You didn’t just say the words, you meant them, and you were pretty fucking passionate about it.”
I’d only recently learned about the intent loophole, and I’d used it to trap Jack in a summoning circle, but I wasn’t sure what bearing it had on this. “I intended to keep you alive, yes.”
“You did more than that, sweet thing.” He said sweet thing like he’d tasted acid. “You claimed me.”
“I what?” A nervous laugh bubbled free. “No, I didn’t.” I didn’t even know what that meant, but Rafe was pissed about it. Pissed enough to use those knives he bristled with?
He shoved himself backward and threw his arms wide. “Whatever you think you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter. Facts are facts. So hear this, Lynher Aris. I’m no longer Lilith’s knight. I’m yours. Congratulations. You now own a familiar.”
I almost laughed again, but the strict look on his face implied he wouldn’t appreciate it. “That’s impossible.”
His smile bit into one cheek. “Forgive my bluntness, but who’s more likely to be right here—the centuries-old demon or the girl who lives in a fantasy world?”
The fear fizzled away, turning to anger. “I know enough.”
“No, you really don’t.”
“Well, if you told me what all this means instead of ranting at me, I’d be on the same page, wouldn’t I?” His words about not knowing sounded a lot like Jack’s, and hearing them from him resurfaced all those doubts. I’d learned my life was sheltered, but I was trying to fix that. I’d seen the truth outside the station walls only a few days ago. Less than that since I’d banished Jack and the queen had paid an impromptu visit. I was still fucking learning, and learning alone, so screw his superior tone. “Stop accusing me of things I don’t understand, Raphael, and teach me instead.”
He folded his arms and jerked his chin, looking me over. Maybe he expected some ruse or master plan from me. Maybe he was angry because he thought I’d manipulated him, which must have been new for an incubus. But none of that was true, and he knew it somewhere in that too-pretty head of his.
“In the corridor,” he began, “when you fought the beast, the station’s power ran through you. You called on it, it answered, and you fought… for me.” He hesitated and briefly bowed his head, searching for the right words. When he looked up, his eyes were blue and green, the bottomless blackness all gone. “You said I was yours, and the station took it literally. It marked me—for you. Deny it all you like, but it’s a fact, given my new body art. But that wasn’t all that happened. While you stood in that hallway, you were lit up like the north star. You had more power channeled through you than is right for a human to have access to.”
“It’s not mine,” I explained. “It’s always belonged to the station. The mark taps into that.”
“Whether it’s yours or not doesn’t matter. It gave you power, and by your will, you used it to claim ownership of me.”
His choice of words wasn’t lost on me.
“You can’t know that,” I said quietly.
“No, I can’t. But I can tell you what I do know. My entire life revolved around Lilith. Long ago, she claimed me. I served her, sometimes worshipped her, and always obeyed her. That’s all gone, and in its place is you.” He straightened. “I left to test it… to see how far I could go and not feel what you feel.”
He felt what I felt? I swallowed hard. “I take it the test failed.”
With a short, dramatic bow, he said through gritted teeth, “How may I serve you?”
I wanted to throw up. Claiming him didn’t have to be a bad thing, did it? The station believed it to be the right thing, else it wouldn’t have assisted in the matter. “What does it mean?”
“It means I must serve and protect you. And it means Lilith will kill me. Not to mention… other individuals will also not take kindly to a human owning me—no offense.”
“Other demons?”
He nodded.
I swallowed and reached for the whiskey. “I’ll talk to her. And I’ll”—I waved a hand between us—“fix this.”
“You haven’t heard the best part yet, darling.”
Wonderful. “Tell me.”
He pulled up a chair and sat at my desk. “Lilith is now unprotected. She doesn’t stay here for the company… She’s been hunted for as long as I can remember. I protected her until she arrived at your station and decided to stay. I’ve been her eyes and ears in the demon realm ever since. Do you know the name Mastema?”
“Only because the beast mentioned it.”
“Have you heard of angels?”
“I’ve read of them. They are demons who ascended to a higher level… like ultra-demons?”
“Mastema—an angel—has been trying to get to Lilith for centuries. The beast you defeated was sent by him to take me home.”
The last thing I wanted or needed was to get involved in demon politics, but I didn’t seem to have a choice. “He’ll send more beasts for you?”
“Yes.”
“Why for you? Why not for Lilith directly?”
“He can’t find her, and sending a single beast is draining. My presence here of late hasn’t gone unnoticed by your guests, and as subtle as I am, word of my whereabouts must have reached him. He still might go after Lilith, but he’d need to know her location first.”
Subtle was not a word I’d ever associate with Raphael. “Can’t you tell him you’re er… mine now, and you don’t know where Lilith is?”
His lips ticked. “Sure, I’ll tell him between him slicing my wings and tail off. The time for talk passed decades ago. Mastema and I… we have history. The short of it is, we don’t get along.”
“Why does he want Lilith?”
He gestured impatiently. “Old arguments. You’ll have to ask her.”
“Right… because it’s not like she’ll react badly to my taking her favorite toy and opening the door for this Mastema angel to find her.” Dropping my head back against the chair, I stared at the ceiling. “Gods, I’m so sorry.”
“What for?”
“I didn’t mean to claim you.”
“You did, Lynher. That’s how intent works.” When I looked down, he leaned back in the chair, smirking. “Your intent was pure, else it wouldn’t have come to pass.”
Gods and spices, what a mess. My feelings when the beast had threatened to take Rafe had been running high. And Rafe was right—I’d have done almost anything to keep him safe because I’d failed him before. When I’d told the beast that Rafe was mine, I’d one hundred percent meant it. “Dammit. At dusk tomorrow, I’ll speak with Lilith.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Lynher… whether you like it or not, I’m obligated to protect you.”
“She won’t hurt me.”
He breathed in and sighed slowly. “You don’t know her like I do.”
My gaze fell to the notebook with its inaccessible secrets, then back to the demon who belonged to me. Maybe I should have felt bad for trapping him, but it felt right. He felt right. The station had its reasons, and I trusted it more than I trusted myself.