Shadow Guardians: The Beast
Chapter 13

When they parked in front of the apartment building, Magnus could smell the usual rank odors of all shoddy residences. Sex, alcohol, cigarettes, and mold growth. At least this one had proper waste disposal. Katherine saw him pull a face when they climbed out of the corvette. “What’s wrong?”

Humanity. “Just allergies.”

She snorted. “It smells bad to you, doesn’t it? You’re probably smelling all kinds of stuff I can’t.”

He came around and placed his hand on the small of her back. His touch heated her skin even through the sweater, and all the movies and novels depicting vampires as cold, corpse-like beings sprang to mind. She smiled. Oh, how wrong they were. They ascended the stairs, then went through the lobby.

The receptionist, Sue, was startled so much when she saw Magnus that she dropped the whole lot of files she was carrying. The dark, foreboding giant gave her a baleful grin, and then he disappeared with that emaciated woman from the Shelter into the elevator. Good God in heaven, Sue thought. That poor woman! She’d brought a killer into the building! First the anorexia thing, and now this. She shook her head and clucked her tongue. That girl was into all kinds of nasty things. Pity, such a pity.

“You know,” Magnus said while they waited in the elevator, “I’m of a mind to go rip that receptionist’s throat out, too.”

Katherine shook her head. “Leave the poor woman alone.”

Magnus drew in a calming breath—at least, he intended for it to be calming. But all it did was fan his wrath. He felt the beast surface, clamped down on control, and started counting. “Hold my hand, meeran."

She did, and she started rubbing her thumb over his hand in slow little circles. The gentleness of the motion eased him down slightly. He needed to focus on what needed to be packed. He could shelf his anger and take it out on demons later, he told himself. Now he just needed to will his body into responding to that thinking.

The elevator doors opened, and the smell of sex and sweat hit him square in the face like the rank stench of rotting food in a dumpster. “Gods, Katherine, how could you stand this?”

“Stand what?”

They walked to the door, and she knocked. Loud rap music boomed inside the apartment. This is no place for the recovery of any illness, and definitely no place for his meeran. Magnus thought. “Nevermind, let’s just get the stuff and get out before I lose my mind.”

She knocked again. “Just let me do the talking, okay?”

“If you insist...” He sensed the nose-dive in her energy levels just from standing outside the door, negating all the good progress she’d made since she’d started eating again.

She lifted her hand to knock again, but he knocked first, so hard that the door nearly came off its hinges.

“Why can’t I just buy you new clothes?” he asked.

She was starting to consider the same thing. She wondered then if she was really here for the clothing or just to tell Kyle that she was leaving. She had so little, and nothing of sentimental value. What the hell was she really doing here? Coming to collect her containers of Ensure? She had no photographs of family members or little baubles that she had collected over the years that meant anything. The only thing of value was her cellphone, and maybe even that wasn’t worth much anymore. She only had the numbers of her doctors and her co-workers on there. She was, she thought now, just a living, breathing ghost. A hollowed person who’d gone through the motions of life simply because she had to.

Kyle finally opened the door, naked as the day he was born and smeared with something that looked and smelled like chocolate sauce. The brown spread was lightened here and there by the trails of tongues. Behind him, two women were grinding against each other and moaning above the rap music, calling to Kyle as their Lord of the Dark Side.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Kyle yelled, his eyes popping and smoke wafting into them from something he held in between his fingers. “This house is a goddamn mess! Who the fuck is that guy?”

Trying to ignore the bending heat of wrath behind her, Katherine straightened herself. “I’m here to collect my stuff, Kyle. I’m leaving. Get yourself another housekeeper. You can afford it.”

“What? You can’t leave!”

“Why? Because you won’t be able to humiliate me in front of your friends anymore? Stand aside and let me in.”

Kyle daringly glowered at the giant behind her. “You’re going with him?” he pointed, then laughed. “Why would he go with you? She’s just a little fucking bitch who can’t even get a man high. You’re wasting your time, my friend.”

Before she knew what was happening, Magnus had dematerialized behind her and reappeared behind Kyle. He grabbed him by the shoulders and swung him around, lifting him clear off his feet. His lips peeled back to reveal elongated fangs. “Let me count the ways in which I want to kill you, you sickening, weedy, arrogant worm. Get out of the way!” He hurled him against the far wall, the blow to his head knocking him out cold.

The women were too high on something to even care. They just continued their sexual quests of each other. Magnus didn’t look back at Katherine. He knew she was standing there with her lips on the floor. He simply marched into the only place where her smell was the most intense.

“What was that!” she yelled at him, stomping after him. “I asked you-”

“You asked me not to kill him, and I didn’t.” Magnus butted in. “Do you need me to help you pack so we can get out of this fleapit faster?”

She thinned her lips at him, then clamped her jaw and marched to the worn-down dresser. She opened the drawers, then got her only suitcase out from underneath her bed.

“I’ll pack the toiletries first,” she said, and went into the small bathroom. Magnus went to the drawers and started packing the best clothes she had. He was only packing the best. He’d instruct Solomon to go and buy her a whole new wardrobe. That roach could throw the rest into a dumpster for all he cared.

He neatly folded her clothes and layered them into the small suitcase. When she came back out of the bathroom, she suddenly seemed faded. He stopped what he was doing immediately. “Katherine?”

She met his eyes, and he saw hers glisten and well up with tears. She pressed her lips together. “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she said. A sob broke out of her.

He approached her, and his arms came around her. She was huddled into rigid, warm muscle, with the steady pulsing of a heart against her cheek. Beneath the trench coat, she could feel the hard crystal of his weapons. She wished then she could just be at the house in bed with him, wrapped into him skin to skin. Instead, he was going out there to fight the seeds of evil, risking his life for someone like Kyle.

She’d been allowing this pathetic existence to define her for years. First the orphanage, now this. She was so tired of it. If she chose to turn, she could become a warrior herself. The lust to kill would be inside her, too. But it would be for a worthy cause. After all, what was a greater act than saving the world from eternal damnation? But she was afraid. The transition could kill her tonight, whereas if she chose to stay a neron, she might have another three years left. She would be ailing, but at least she would be with Magnus.

“I know what you’re thinking,” He murmured, his warm hand stroking her body. “Don’t think about what you could lose. Focus on what you could gain. I don’t want to push you in either direction, but I want you to be here with me in this moment.” He pulled back and framed her face, those teal eyes meeting her own. “Cherish it with me.”

She hiccupped a breath in. “I want to fight with you, but I’m scared of the transition.”

“I understand. You’re not ready. I won’t push you.” He planted a kiss on her forehead, stroked her hair.

He led her out of the building, leaving the clothes just as they were. She was getting new garments, and she was not going to argue it.

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