Jagged Embrace

Chapter 16 - Will

"You good?" Will asked Ander after they'd put the gorgon on his examination table in the morgue.

Ander nodded. He already was in investigative mode. Will walked out and headed to the den where Mason and Maeve were waiting. Mason sat in her recliner, and Maeve sat stiffly at the dining table. Mason wasn't thrilled they had returned because she didn't know why they were there. He'd called ahead so she wouldn't be caught off guard with them arriving after one am.

"So that's the creature's blood?" Mason asked in her gravelly voice.

"Yeah, it sprayed me when Will took its head," Maeve replied.

Shit, they should've had her change before Mason saw her. He was gonna get hell for this. He got a glass of whiskey from the chest of drawers by the door and made one for Mason. On his way to the table, he handed the glass to her.

"So what did you bring?" Mason asked, before tipping the glass to her lips.

"Ander thinks it's a gorgon," Will answered. "Oh yeah, and the head of the angel that showed," he added.

Mason raised an eyebrow. "A gorgon?"

Will nodded and drank his whiskey. "You can go look if you want, but I wouldn't bother Ander. He is doing an autopsy and you know how he gets. Knowledge for future Soldiers of Night and all that."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Mason asked pointedly.

Will shrugged. "Other than the angels, I don't think anyone knew there was a gorgon running around. I mean, if Ander is right, it has stayed under the radar for a long time. Most soldiers thought it was the Jersey Devil,"

"Most soldiers are idiots," Mason countered and drank more of her whiskey. "But angels aren't. Why are they not going to show up on my doorstep?"

"Don't think they could track it. The wingback showed up around the time we did. It was surprised we were there, and got distracted trying to take out the gorgon."

"Where's the angel's body?"

"Ander cut it up, and we buried it. Made sure to stop along the way to spread out the body parts. If they want it, they're gonna have to search for it."

Mason finished her glass. "The head with Ander?"

"Yeah," He downed his whiskey.

"Well, you're gonna be here, at least until tomorrow. He won't stop or sleep until he's through. No reason to rush him if there isn't a threat. I'll make arrangements. You should clean up." She gestured to both of them.

"Yeah, I'll get her set up, and then I have a quick question," Will told Mason and stood.

Maeve got up from the chair. He motioned for her to follow him down the hall, and resisted the urge to take wrong turns to confuse her, and headed to their bathroom. He went in and turned the water on. While he waited for it to get warm, he peered around their small bathroom.

Apparently, Ander had cleaned up the last time he was in there. Traces of the cleaners he'd used assaulted Will. Everyone always assumed he was lazy and just didn't want to clean, but that wasn't it. With his acute sense of smell, certain scents were more horrid than others. Almost all chemically based cleaning solutions were offensive and gave him headaches. Any natural scent was acceptable, even the strong or disgusting ones. Will assumed the difference was that the manufactured scents had some base chemical he had an intolerance to.

He sensed Maeve and turned to her. Still hovering in the doorway, nervous to be there again, her fingers reached for her pink flower necklace. He was positive he was a bastard, but something about her fidgeting, with her eyes locked on his, made his skin heat. His fingers clutched the side of the tub as images of him chasing her through the tunnels played in his mind. It didn't matter where he caught her. Every time he did, the next pictures were of them naked, clinging to each other on the dirt floor.