Page 52 of Saint of the Shadows

He opened another compartment. A rack of random outfits jutted out. Among them a neon vest, hard hat, and a tie rack of… facial hair? “Reconnaissance clothes.” He hung his jacket and closed it, opening another one immediately after. “Night and heat vision goggles. Gas masks.” Then he slammed the drawer shut and opened another one. “Smoke bombs. Concussion grenades.”

Her stomach somersaulted. “Weapons.” Vincent’s nightlife wasn’t the brutish simplicity of punches and bloody noses. It was all-out warfare.

But it was across the underground space where she warily eyed a vault door with a small window. Inside of it, something glowed blue. “What’s in there?”

His pupils darted, unfocused. “Other weapons.” He told a half-truth just like she’d done before.

Perhaps he’s rich and radioactive… “We’re not sitting on some nuclear warheads, are we?”

He scoffed and shook his head. “Of course not! I use nothing that’s lethal… on purpose.”

Marisol swallowed to hold herself back from asking if he had killed anyone. A tight sensation in her chest revisited the times Caz had returned home with a rehearsed calm. She didn’t want to know the answer to that nagging question. “Is this what you needed to show me?”

Vincent pocketed something from one compartment and elbowed the button to an elevator. The doors soundlessly glided open. “It’s upstairs.”

Marisol hobbled into the elevator. She squeezed his hand as they rode up, staving off the anxious notion that recently, she had bad luck with elevators. She closed her eyes and teleported back to the lake house where all life’s sharp corners had been sanded smooth by Vincent. The elevator arrived on the second floor with a gentle stop. She opened her eyes.

“We’re in the eastern wing. Follow me.” He kept an ever-widening lead over her as they moved through the hallway.

The ceiling soared above them, supported by sharply arched wooden buttresses. Thick tapestries hung from the walls, billowing into strange shadows among the limited celestial light from the windows. The dust particles clung to the inside ofher nose. She sneezed them away. Yep. Definitely didn’t keep maids and butlers around.

Their footsteps echoed as they proceeded down the cavernous hallway. They passed through a towering archway. Its height reached Heaven, but she felt dread and wonder, as if she entered Hell. He prowled farther ahead of her. “Vincent, slow down!”

Thunder roared and lightning cracked, strobing the hallway in blue. He stopped. Blue light emphasized his back muscles tensed in vigilance.

She hobbled, catching up with him. Breathless, she said, “You’re being weird and not in that usual charming way.”

Though still, he stood with the rigid energy of prey caught in a predator’s trap, too frozen with fear to play dead.

“I do it too,” she said, soft and low. “When I’m afraid someone won’t like what they see.” She was a moment from touching him, to bringing him back to the Vincent she knew. “Ask to meet my family, and I’ll be a real dick.”

His shoulders moved as he breathed deeply. Lightning struck close, practically blinding her and charging the air with static. In the brief shutter of darkness, he picked her up. Her crutches toppled to the ground.

This was his plan, right? Goosebumps traveled up the nape of her neck. Right?! He rushed her along the hallway. Only through flashes of lightningcould she see his face—all angles and muscle. Sharp and cruel.

They passed the grand staircase of the ballroom and entered the west wing. This wing was a wicked parody of the other side. Sheets covered the windows rather than thick curtains. Tapestries peeled off the walls, shredded by time. The air smelled musty, as if the rain rotted the home’s insides. Broken furniture cluttered the hallway. Vincent charged and kicked through the mess, heading to wherever he was determined to take her.

“Put me down,” she demanded, but to her escalating fear, Vincent tightened his grip around her.

He kicked open a set of double doors and entered a dark room. A flash of lightning revealed the place to be a study, and he set her down on a desk. She squeezed herself tightly together to shield herself as he broke furniture around the room, gathering objects. He arranged his tools in a line next to her on the desk—syringe, scissors, circular saw, and a bedpan. If she escaped, she’d manage three hops to the door before he’d catch her—to do what? With those tools, what was he going to do to her?

Just under her legs, he opened a drawer. The top of his hand brushed against her thigh. Her breath hitched. Even silent and terrifying, he had that siren allure—maybe even because he was silent and terrifying. He pulled out something metallic and slammed the door shut.

After crossing the room, he grunted, turning the lights on with an old brass lever. The sound of the electricity buzzed and crackled. The light fixture above them flickered on. It pulsed from dim to bright and back again.

“I can fix you.” He drew a vial from his pocket. “All I have to do is inject you with this regenerative serum. But it isn’t perfect. You can build a tolerance, and if you get hurt again, it won’t work as well. Subsequent doses have unseemly side effects.”

“Is that what you have to tell me?” She sighed, allowing her breath to return to normal. “A bit dramatic but—”

“No.” Vincent held the scalpel to his other hand and sliced it open.

Marisol froze. Blood dripped from the deep cut, but it gradually shrunk in size. Then it faded to nothing. His palm returned to unblemished perfection. Her eyes burned with tears as her gaze moved from his hand to his expressionless face. How?

Her throat squeezed tighter. “You’re superhuman.” The words came out like a whisper.

“I am,” he answered with an icy resolve.

Her breathing became loud and shallow. “I need a moment to think.” Another layer of Vincent peeled away, bringing her closer to his true center. She would accept new, world-destroying information about him the way the dying accept death. The secret side project? The rumored super-cop program? Marisol remembered the oldshopkeeper patient saying the Patron Saint was stronger than any man. And his kiss—being around him electrified her, standing her hair on end, a psychosomatic response. But now? What if Dr. Varian didn’t just experiment with nuclear energy? What if—Marisol’s mouth went dry—this Varian man was the nuclear experiment? Rich but radioactive. “You said your grandfather worked in nuclear power and researched its effects.”

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