Possessing the Witch. Elle James
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surgery when she was attacked again and smothered to death before anyone could get to her.” Police units, lights flashing, rolled in beside the newswoman. Officers leaped out of their squad cars and raced into the building.
His blood freezing in his veins, Gryph realized what saving the woman had cost him and the rest of the outcasts who lived their lives beneath the city streets. With an animal like him identified as the beast who’d ravaged a woman on the streets, every police officer would be searching all the nooks and crannies in the city. If they dug too deeply, they would locate the Lair.
He’d put them all at risk of discovery. And whomever had attacked the woman outside the theater in the first place was still running free and had gone back to finish the job.
He had to get out of Selene’s apartment. She’d seen him in his half-changed form. She’d know the drawing was of him, and she might return with the police to haul him in for murder. Or if she didn’t turn him in, and the police found him there, he’d bring her down with him. The evidence was stacked against him by an eyewitness, who was dead. If Selene chose not to hand him over to the authorities, she could be arrested for aiding and abetting a suspected murderer.
With purposeful strides, he entered the kitchen and pulled open the compact clothes dryer, removing his cloak and the tattered remains of his trousers. He stepped into the ripped pants. The shirt was beyond repair. Rather than leave it there as evidence against Selene, he shoved it into a pocket, slung his cape over his shoulder and hurried toward the door.
Gryph paused by the small window beside the door, pushed aside the frothy mauve curtain and lifted the edge of the blinds to peer out at street level. It wouldn’t be long before people ventured out onto the early morning city streets. The sidewalks would fill with workers headed to their jobs.
He unlocked the door and eased it open. The sun had yet to top the horizon and spill over the crowns of the skyscrapers. For the moment, nothing stirred, nothing moved in front of Selene’s apartment. Lights remained off in the buildings surrounding the little dress shop and its basement apartment. One by one the streetlights blinked off.
Still weak, but getting stronger, Gryph slipped out the door, up the stairs and eased into the gloom. Years of blending into obscurity had refined his skills at disappearing.
Rounding the corner of the building, he paused and listened. The rumble of an engine grew louder until a dark motorcycle turned onto the street and slowed in front of the dress shop. Two people got off.
He risked being seen or caught, but he had to know if the rider or the passenger was Selene.
Both riders pulled off their helmets. The driver’s long, inky-black hair slipped free and fell to her shoulders, the streetlight shining down on it, giving it a blue glow. The second rider struggled with the strap beneath her chin.
Gryph held his breath as she finally loosened the strap and lifted the helmet up and over her head. Long, chocolate-brown hair slipped free and fell in a dark cloud, tumbling down her back. Selene, with her brown hair and deep, brown-black eyes, stood beside the motorcycle.
The driver pulled a gun from a holster beneath her black leather jacket, released the clip, checked her ammunition and then slammed it back into the handle.
Selene laid a hand on the woman’s arm. “Brigid, that’s not necessary.”
“I’d ball up some fire, but I don’t want to burn your place down.”
“He wasn’t the killer. Whoever it was had an enmity, an evil about him that was palpable. I never sensed that with Gryph.”
“So his name is Gryph, is it?” The woman with the coal-black hair and ice-blue eyes held out her hand, palm up. “Give me the keys.”
Selene dug in her pocket and handed over the keys. “He’s not a monster.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“He’s different,” Selene insisted.
“I’d say. How many people do you know who look like him? He’s a freak and he killed a woman tonight.”
Gryph ground his back teeth. I didn’t kill anyone, he wanted to shout aloud, but he held his tongue.
As the black-haired woman descended the stairs to the basement apartment, Selene turned in his direction. She stared straight at him, as if she could see into the shadows.
His eyesight, keen in the dark, both from experience at moving in the blackness of the underworld and from the inner lion’s nocturnal nature, could see the worry lines etched into her brow. He inched backward, ready to run.
A soft sensation brushed across his senses as if someone reassured him that it was okay. At the same time it gave him a gentle mental push, urging him to leave.
Headlights filled the street as an SUV turned the corner and came to a stop behind the motorcycle.
The redhead who’d helped Selene get him down the stairs climbed out of the driver’s seat and a man unfolded from the passenger side. A blonde and a brunette emerged from the back doors.
“Is he still here?” the redhead called out.
“About to find out,” said the black-haired woman with the key in her hand.
“I tell you, he wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Selene insisted.
“You saw what he did to that girl in the hospital. We all saw the bruises on your arms. He’s dangerous.”
“He didn’t kill her and he didn’t mean to hurt me.”
Guilt squeezed Gryph’s chest so hard he couldn’t breathe. He’d hurt her when all she’d tried to do was help him. Balthazar had been right all those years. The only place for him was below the surface. Up until the past five years, he’d lived his life in the underworld, where the misfits and freaks existed judgment-free, and where he wouldn’t be unleashed to hurt innocents. Amassing a fortune and building a business didn’t make him any more human.
“You say he didn’t hurt her, but the victim had the forensic artist draw a picture of her attacker, which happened to match your guest from what you say.” The redhead nodded to the woman at the bottom of the steps. “Sounds pretty damning to me. Let’s check out your monster.”
The woman at Selene’s door unlocked it and pushed it open, her gun held in front of her. A light went on inside the apartment. She disappeared inside. A few moments later, she called out, “He’s gone.”
It was time to go. Gryph turned to leave. His night vision temporarily compromised by the headlights, he didn’t see the soda can until he nudged it with his bare foot. The can skittered across concrete, making a metallic grating sound that echoed against the buildings in the alley.
“What was that?” the man who’d arrived in the SUV said from the top of the stairs.
“Probably the wind,” Selene said.
Gryph stood poised to run, out of sight of the group standing near Selene’s apartment.
“I’ll check it out,” the man said.
Gryph took off, aiming for the corner of the building at the end of the alley. If he could get there before the man rounded the side of Selene’s building, he could lose him in the maze of downtown structures.
Channeling his inner beast to give him speed and strength, he ran, reaching the corner as a shout rang out.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!”
He didn’t slow, didn’t stop, just ran as fast as his feet could carry him. At the end of another building, he flew around the corner, crossed the street and ducked around another structure.
Before long, he was several blocks away, the sound of pursuit long disappeared.
Careful to ensure he wasn’t being followed, he entered a back alley, swung wide around a large trash bin and a stack of decaying pallets, and stopped in front of a solid steel door.