Page 33 of The Seeker
The Grigori turned and stared at the man. “What did you say to me?” His voice dripped with disdain.
“Just asking for a buck, man.”
The Grigori stared at the human and walked over, drawing a hand from his pocket. Rhys was expecting a dollar to emerge, not a stiletto.
“Stop!” he shouted, but it was too late. The knife plunged into the human’s neck. The man seized, his arms and legs flailing before he went suddenly limp.
The Grigori didn’t even turn. He took off jogging back toward Frenchmen Street.
No!
Rhys ran over and bent down to the human, but the human was dead, his blood pouring into the gutter where the Grigori’s blade had slit his throat.
Rhys took off after the murderer. He touched histalesm primas he ran down the road, following the man into the shadows and activating the magic that acted like living armor. The Grigori was fast, but Rhys was faster. He leapt over a garden fence and through a backyard, following the scent. He could see the Grigori in the distance. The man was standing frozen in the middle of a residential street, then he walked into another alley as if he was in a trance.
Rhys silently followed.
The alley was bound by a brick house on one side and darkened garden gates on the other. The Grigori walked to a gate and paused. He pressed his hands to the gate and fell to his knees just as the gate creaked open.
Meera stood in the gate, the bloody Grigori fallen at her feet.
Chapter Six
Another one had found her.
Before Meera could register the weeping Grigori at her feet, a deadly figure flew from the darkness and pulled the man away.
“Rhys?”
He pushed the Grigori up against the brick wall and pulled his dagger on the struggling man.
Meera shouted, “No!”
Her words rang hollow in the dark alley. Rhys plunged his silver knife into the back of the Grigori’s neck. The man’s back arched before he fell to the ground; his body curled into a fetal position before it began to dissolve.
Rhys turned back to her. “Meera?”
“Why did you do that?” She felt the tears welling in her eyes. Angry tears. “He wasn’t attacking me.”
The scribe stepped closer. “How did he know where you live?”
She shook her head and felt the tears hot on her cheeks. “You didn’t have to do that. He wouldn’t have hurt me.”
Rhys raised his hands. They were covered in blood. “He murdered a harmless man in front of me. The human asked him for a dollar and instead got a knife to the throat, so tell me again, Meera,how did he know where you live?”
She slumped against the gate. “They find me. They always have. But I can send them away. All I have to do is talk to them and they leave me alone.” She turned and walked back into her garden, ignoring the scribe who followed her.
Meera’s heart hurt. She could still feel the torment of the Fallen son who had found her. He’d been young. Sometimes she could ease their emptiness. Sometimes she could give them peace. She would touch them and whisper a spell, easing some of the relentless soul hunger that plagued all their kind. Most of them never returned.
She heard the gate close behind her and Rhys’s footsteps on the path. He strode past her, walking toward the house.
“Stay back,” he ordered.
“There’s no one else here,” she said woodenly. “Just me.”
He ignored her, walked up the steps and through the kitchen door. Meera followed him into the cozy house that had become her refuge. Rhys kept his dagger drawn as he swept through the kitchen and past the antiques and eclectic collection of furniture in the living room, his head swinging every direction.
Despite his size and speed, he didn’t make a sound. His magic permeated the air, drawing up the dark hair on her arms and making her skin prickle.
