Called, p.1
Called, page 1
part #2 of The Grey Gates Series
CALLED
The Grey Gates - Book 2
Vanessa Nelson
Copyright © 2023 Vanessa Nelson
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
For more information about Vanessa Nelson and her books, click or visit: http://www.taellaneth.com
For my very own hell-hounds, August and Neo
Love and head scratches for you both
Contents
1. CHAPTER ONE
2. CHAPTER TWO
3. CHAPTER THREE
4. CHAPTER FOUR
5. CHAPTER FIVE
6. CHAPTER SIX
7. CHAPTER SEVEN
8. CHAPTER EIGHT
9. CHAPTER NINE
10. CHAPTER TEN
11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
12. CHAPTER TWELVE
13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
19. CHAPTER NINETEEN
20. CHAPTER TWENTY
21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THANK YOU
CHARACTER LIST
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter one
Max pulled to a stop at the junction and drummed her fingers against the wheel, staring at the roads ahead lit by the pick-up headlights and the orange glow of the street lights. There were three possible routes in front of her, and she wasn’t sure which one to take.
In the short pause, with nothing else demanding her attention, her mind gave her a flashback to another night not that long ago when she’d woken to the feeling of hard, cold concrete under her, followed by the white-hot pain of a knife cutting through her skin and the too-cheerful voice of her would-be killer as he chatted away about his plans.
She shook her head, trying to clear the memory. She had survived, and that night contained just the most recent additions to a whole gallery of bad memories that she carried. In time, it would fade into the background with the others, taking its turn to invade her sleep with vivid nightmares. Right now, it was still creeping into her waking mind.
She had a decision to make about which road to take. She should focus on that. Not having a clear direction was an unusual feeling. She was used to having a purpose. But right now there was no one demanding her time or attention. In the two weeks since she had been attacked by the great, winged Strump and then kidnapped by the talkative killer, she had been either at home or on desk duties at the Marshals’ offices, recovering from her injuries. No one particularly needed her to be at the offices. Her house and garden were tidier than they had ever been. She had found time to read through the pile of books she had been collecting, and gather more from one of the city’s bookshops. She had even cleaned the house windows, inside and out. It had been a peaceful couple of weeks, with nothing and nobody trying to kill her, yet she could feel an itch building under her skin. She wanted to be working. She wanted a purpose.
She should go home. That would be sensible. Go home, get some rest, and plan what to do tomorrow. Or she could go to the Hunter’s Tooth and see Malik, and whoever else she might know in the bar. Neither option really appealed to her. She was too restless to sit in a bar, or her clean and organised home.
Before she could decide on her next step, a pale flash at the edge of her vision made her groan. Not again. Her kidnapper had used a drug to keep her still, like his other victims. She had somehow managed to break free from the effects of the drug and had used magic to burn her attacker. Ever since then, she had been having moments of displacement when her senses betrayed her. Sometimes it was her hearing, sometimes her sight, and occasionally she had experienced phantom tastes in her mouth. She had thought the episodes were improving, and had managed to avoid talking about them with any of the health professionals who had been looking after her. The last thing she wanted was more needles and more tests and more scans.
She shifted her foot on the vehicle’s pedals and felt the discomfort and tightness in her still-healing leg. Three different health professionals had told her that although the stitches were now all out, and despite the additional healing magic that had been applied, the underlying tissue was still weak and vulnerable to fresh injury. There had been twenty-eight stitches along her outer thigh from the razor-sharp claws of the Strump. It had been sheer luck the damage hadn’t been worse, she knew. That didn’t help heal her faster, though.
Another pale flash shot across her line of sight and she frowned. That wasn’t in her head. There had actually been something crossing the road ahead of her. It had looked like a half-dressed woman. Even as she turned her head to follow the woman’s path, a pair of men dressed in nothing more than jeans ran past the front of her vehicle.
Without thinking, Max turned the pick-up to follow them. Dealing with humans in trouble wasn’t her job, but she couldn’t stand by and let a woman be chased down by two men.
The pick-up caught up with the trio at the end of the next block. This was a business district, and all the buildings were empty at this time of night. The woman was cowering in the recessed doorway of an office building, pressed back against the red brick wall, the building’s lobby dark, its glass doors locked for the night. It looked like the woman was wearing nothing more than a pair of jeans and a sleeveless top, short, spiky dark hair standing out from her head. The two men were looming over her. Max couldn’t see more than their backs, but the tension in the men’s shoulders and closed fists was clear.
Max left her engine running and got out. Even though she was off active duty, she was still dressed in her usual work clothes of a leather jacket and tough, flexible trousers, and she was armed. She pulled her badge out from under her jacket and drew her handgun, but kept the muzzle pointed to the ground.
The three people seemed to be having a low-voiced argument of some kind. The woman - no, girl - was pleading, tears streaming down her face. There was a trail of vivid bruising along both of her arms, shocking against her pale skin, as if she had been gripped by large hands, and one side of her face was swollen. She was trying to make herself as small as possible against the wall.
“Marshals’ service,” Max announced herself.
The men stiffened but did not immediately turn around. In the orange glow of the street lamp, Max could see that both were leanly muscled, and had intricate tattoos on their right shoulders, the trail of the tattoos’ jagged, geometric designs extending down their arms.
“We don’t need your help, Marshal,” one of the men said. He half-turned towards her and she saw the hard planes of his face and the flicker of power in his eyes. Not quite human. That probably made him dangerous.
“Two men chasing a girl through the city at night? I’d like to hear an explanation for that,” Max said, keeping her voice calm with an effort, trying to project confidence in her posture. It was difficult when she was keenly aware of the disadvantage of her human nature and the handicap of her injured leg. Her fingers tightened on the gun grip but she kept the weapon lowered. The girl was behind the two men, and Max didn’t want to risk hitting her with a stray bullet.
“It’s family business,” the man said. His companion hadn’t moved, still watching the woman.
“That’s not an explanation,” Max said.
“It wasn’t meant to be.” He fully turned to face her and she saw that the tattoo spread across the front of his shoulder, too. An old, intricate design, it made Max’s mouth go dry. She knew that symbol of intertwined triangles. Everyone in who was part of the city’s law enforcement agencies - human or supernatural - would know it. It was the mark of the Huntsman clan, one of the Five Families that ruled the city. Unlike the other four Families, the Huntsman clan members were not related by blood or family ties, but rather gathered together a variety of non-humans in search of a home. They were also vicious criminals, although the power of the clan meant that very few of their members had ever been successfully convicted of a single crime.
The Huntsman clan fell in the murky ground between the Marshals’ jurisdiction over supernatural creatures and the city’s police, who dealt with more mundane human crimes. The Marshals’ primary focus was on the creatures who couldn’t pass for human, but they would make an exception for a rogue who caused injury to other city residents. As it was, the standing order from the Marshals’ office was to avoid the Huntsman clan where possible, particularly where they were involved in any non-supernatural crime. The system was far from perfect, as far as Max was concerned, but taking on the entire clan would be tantamount to starting a war in the city and she honestly wasn’t sure who would win.
Like all of the Families, the Huntsman claimed a stretch of territory in the city, and this wasn’t it. As far as Max knew, this particular bit of the city didn’t belong to any of the Families.
Max stayed where she was. She had had time to see that the girl huddled in the doorway didn’t have any ink on her skin, so she wasn ’t one of the clan. Or not yet, at least. The Marshals’ updates hadn’t mentioned that the Huntsman clan were forcibly recruiting members, but it was in keeping with their reputation.
“Is she a relative of yours?” Max asked the man who was facing her. He was mostly human, she thought, with perhaps a quarter amount of something other in his make-up. Enough to give his face those hard lines and the power in his eyes. She suspected that most humans would cross the street to avoid him, even when he was wearing a full set of clothes.
“It’s not your concern,” the man said. “Now, go. Leave us be.”
He lifted a hand and a wave of magic slammed into Max, taking her by surprise, lifting her off her feet. She flew back, hitting the side of her pick-up hard enough to knock the breath out of her before sliding to the ground.
The man raised his hand again, but before he could unleash whatever magic he had prepared, two dark shapes launched themselves out of the back of the pick-up. Max’s shadow-hounds, Cas and Pol, reacting to an assault on their person. The giant hounds shifted into their attack forms mid-flight, landing on the man before he had time to react, digging in with their elongated claws, dragging him to the ground.
Max fought to get her breath back as the man tried to wrestle with her hounds. He was almost as strong as they were, but Cas and Pol were used to dealing with predators larger and stronger than they were. It was a matter of moments before Cas got hold of the man’s throat in his jaws, effectively holding him still.
The other man snarled, advancing on Cas, just in time for Pol to slam into him, driving him away from the girl. Pol grabbed hold of the second man’s arm and pulled him away from Cas and Max as if the fully grown man was a toy.
Max scrambled back to her feet. She had kept hold of her gun, which was one of the first things she had learned as a Marshall. Her chest hurt, lungs burning as she took a much-needed breath.
Before she could say anything, movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned, raising her gun, to find another three people coming towards her, two men and a woman. They all moved with the smooth grace of predators, and one of them was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt that showed the Huntsman clan marking on his shoulder.
The newcomers took in the situation with a quick glance, then charged at Max, ignoring the seven-pointed badge clearly visible outside her jacket. She fired, her bullets somehow missing the three completely. One of the men slammed into her, pinning her back against the truck, and grabbed hold of her wrist, squeezing so hard she had to let her gun go. He leant into her, baring his teeth, staring down at her with the promise of pain in his eyes, his breath hot on her skin.
Max brought her knee up, hard, catching him off-guard, and twisted out of his hold as he grunted with pain. She tried to reach for her gun, but the other two were waiting for her, a fist slamming into her face, a kick connecting with her ribs, and she stumbled back along the length of the pick-up. Away from her gun. Her heart thudded in her ears. It was three to one, and she had never been good at hand-to-hand combat.
Loud snarls announced the arrival of her dogs. They leapt on the closest attacker to Max, dragging the man away, giving Max just enough time to draw her back-up gun from the holster in the small of her back and fire point blank at the woman who was closing on her fast, a long knife in her hand.
The small calibre bullets barely made an impact on the attacker. She kept coming.
Max ducked to avoid the knife, rolled on the ground, crying out as the movement woke up bruises and sent a twinge through her barely healed leg. She managed to reach her handgun, its worn grip familiar against her skin, using the side of her pick-up as leverage to help her get up, firing as she straightened. The larger calibre bullets hit home, sending the woman staggering back. Max braced herself against the vehicle, ready for the group to attack her again.
A sharp whistle split the air, and the attackers backed away, turning and running into the night, moving too quickly for Max’s eyes to follow them.
Max frowned after them, trying to breathe through the sting of her bruised ribs, wondering if she had managed to tear open the wounds on her leg. It was holding her weight, but sending waves of pain through her in counter-point to her pulse. Her hands were shaking as she put the gun away. That done, she turned to the girl only to find that the girl’s throat had been ripped open, blood vivid red against her pale skin, her dark eyes sightless, staring up at the night sky. While Max had been fighting, one of the Huntsman clan had killed their prey.
A lump rose in Max’s throat. She had wanted to protect the girl. And had failed. The guilt was a sick stab through her stomach. If Max hadn’t been there, the girl might still be alive. Terrified and bruised and in the hands of the Huntsman clan, but perhaps still alive. Max had failed. Again.
Max took a step towards the body, eyes travelling over the girl’s injuries, the weight of obligation pressing on her shoulders. She was responsible for this girl’s death. The least she could do was remember the unnamed victim and what had been done. The girl was barefoot, wearing a pair of ragged jeans that had seen far better days, and what looked like a camisole. She was too thin, the bones of her collar bone forming deep shadows in the poor light. From the way she was huddled against the building door, knees drawn up, Max could see that her feet were bare and covered in scrapes and blood. The lump in Max’s throat grew, accompanied with the first spark of anger rather than guilt. The Huntsman clan had chased this girl when she had been barefoot.
Between one step and the next, the world shifted. Max’s vision went blue then yellow and red and green, the colours swirling and unsettling her stomach. The Huntsman clan might have chased the girl, but they had only killed her when Max intervened. The girl had not deserved to die.
Max’s hands had been shaking, and her voice unsteady, when she had called the police to the scene. The girl seemed human, outside the Marshals’ jurisdiction. The city’s police would need to be the ones to take care of her and notify whatever family she had.
Max had gone back to her pick-up, leaning against the side with Cas and Pol pressing their weight against her, offering her their silent warmth and comfort while she tried to swallow the guilt and breathe through the various bruises she’d acquired. Her hounds had shifted back to their normal forms, looking like smooth-coated, dark coloured giant dogs, with gentle eyes and silky soft ears that she stroked, soothing both her and them. She had been fairly sure that the Huntsman clan wouldn’t come back. The girl they had been chasing was dead, and the Huntsmans were unlikely to pick a fight with a Marshal outside their own territory.
It hadn’t taken long for the police to arrive. The first officers on the scene were two who Max had met before. They asked her some questions, but seemed more concerned with keeping away from the body altogether when Max mentioned the Huntsman tattoos. That didn’t surprise Max. No one wanted to risk annoying the Huntsman clan by getting involved in an investigation involving them.
With the members of one of the Families being involved, and a need for some diplomacy, the officers summoned a detective, and wanted Max to wait for more questions.
Tired and sore, Max agreed. It was the least she could do. The police and Marshals usually cooperated in their different roles as much as possible. She took a moment to send a message to Faddei Lobanov, the head of the Marshals’ service. He would want to know the one of his Marshals had encountered the Huntsman clan outside their territory.
The arrival of a sleek vehicle made Max’s heart sink further. Of all the detectives in the city, she had to get Ruutti Passila. It made a certain sort of sense, as Ruutti was connected with one of the other Families. But Ruutti set Max’s teeth on edge. She was stunningly beautiful and used her looks and her natural magic, from her non-human nature, to get what she wanted.
The detective got out of her car looking as if she was ready for a fashion shoot, her finely boned face striking even in orange tint from the street lights, blue eyes vivid, short blonde hair a carefully arranged halo around her head, pale skin almost glowing in the poor light. Like a lot of the city detectives, she adopted a casual style with a leather jacket and jeans. Her clothes always fit her petite, delicate form perfectly and never seemed to stain. Max felt tall and clumsy by comparison with the detective, and was abruptly aware of the scuffs and marks on her own leather jacket and hard-wearing trousers. She lifted her chin, telling herself not to care. Her own reddish-brown hair was probably a tangled mess, shoved behind her ears, and her skin, far from being perfect, showed traces of scars to anyone who looked closely. The sharp planes and angles of Max’s face hadn’t come from her genetic heritage, like Ruutti’s striking features, but from her past, which had burned away the softer shape of her younger face, leaving her with nightmares aplenty.
