Page 88 of Saint of the Shadows

The reality of the date hit Marisol. She kicked the glove box. “Damn, I go into work today! I’ll call in.”

“No. If he attacks the game, we’ll need our best people at the hospitals. Leave the game to Quinlan and me.”

“We’ll be canaries in the coal mine,” Tobias said.

And so they settled it. Her deathless saint and the man who would die for her were all that protected hundreds of thousands of Shadowhaven’s people from the Bloodsucker.

28

Parasitic Infection

She was as equally nervous for the bio-terror apocalypse as she was for her first shift since her life went through the rabbit hole, over the rainbow, and launched her into Neverland. Equal because she hadn’t really had any other apocalypses to reference, so this bioterror might as well be like the first time she started working at the ER. Could she stick a vein? Would she find her supplies? But unlike herfirstfirst day, a new question arose. Would she have enough beds ready if the Bloodsucker succeeded? One problem at a time…

With Vincent and Tobias off to work, she prepared for her job alone, just like her pre-boyfriend life—except this time in the underground hideout beneath the hospital. But when she stepped out of the shower alcove, Vincent waited for her. No mask or cape but still wearing his protective body suit. Like this, he seemed like a mermaid or centaur or other half human/half other creature.

“I thought you’d be en guarde at the arena by now,” she said, dressing in her scrubs.

“I’ll return there in due time, but I wanted to see you in case—”

“In case the world goes to shit?”

His mouth twitched into a crooked smile. Wordless, he handed her a wrapped box, small enough to hold earrings or a ring—God, if it was a ring, she had a right hook with his name on it. On a day like today, he’d pull a stunt like that?

She tore off the paper and flipped open the lid. It’d be better to get moments like this out of the way.

It was silver… and shaped like a large bean.

“An earpiece,” she said. Not exactly the jewelry she had expected. But of course, he operated beyond predictability, didn’t he?

He pressed the earpiece; his suit glowed. “It’s wired to me so wherever I go, you go.” Adding a shrug, he said, “And Quinlan. He has a watch.”

Even separated, she would always be by his side. Marisol put it in her ear. “Jewelry isn’t allowed on the patient floor.”

“I’m sure your supervisor can make an exception. After all, I know the guy whose name is on the building.”

“I got something for you too.”

“Really?”

Not exactly, but she reached back and unclasped Abuelita’s necklace from around herneck. She placed it in Vincent’s hand. “My abuelita wore it until she was in hospice. Said it didn’t belong in the ground with her. Las semillas de la fe crecen por encima del suelo.” Faith’s seeds grow above ground. “Not sure if it’s lucky but—”

“It’s powerful.”

“It’s what you make it.”

He kissed the pendant and tucked it into a small compartment on his utility belt. She began combing her hair into a ponytail, but Vincent stopped her, tying the low ponytail himself. With a few brushes of his hands, he kept the earpiece hidden behind her hair. After he tightened her ponytail, he kissed her neck, below her ear, jawline, and then lips—a kiss so strong she’d jump up on him and forget the whole world-saving business.

“She said something else too,” she mumbled between kisses.

“Hm?” His prompt challenged her to keep going as much as it invited her to answer.

She tugged the hair at the back of his head, and he jerked away. “Deber antes que devoción.”

Duty before devotion. He nodded, rubbing his lips together. Then, as if he conjured them from thin air, he pulled on his mask and cape. He had completely become him: her vengeance and darkness, her savior and lover. The city’s Patron Saint, her saint.

The wall opened, and he stepped to the other side.

She tapped the earpiece three times. His suit pulsed three times with blue bursts of light.

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