Savior Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  More from Rhys Ford

  Readers love Rebel by Rhys Ford

  About the Author

  By Rhys Ford

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  Savior

  By Rhys Ford

  415 Ink: Book Two

  A savior lies in the heart of every good man, but sometimes only love can awaken the man inside the savior.

  The world’s had it out for San Francisco firefighter Mace Crawford from the moment he was born. Rescued from a horrific home life and dragged through an uncaring foster system, he’s dedicated his life to saving people, including the men he calls his brothers. As second-in-command of their knitted-together clan, Mace guides his younger siblings, helps out at 415 Ink, the family tattoo shop, and most of all, makes sure the brothers don’t discover his darkest secrets.

  It’s a lonely life with one big problem—he’s sworn off love, and Rob Claussen, one of 415 Ink’s tattoo artists, has gotten under his skin in the worst way possible.

  Mace’s world is too tight, too controlled to let Rob into his life, much less his heart, but the brash Filipino inker is there every time Mace turns around. He can’t let Rob in without shaking the foundations of the life he’s built, but when an evil from his past resurfaces, Mace is forced to choose between protecting his lies and saving the man he’s too scared to love.

  To Michelle and Maite, who kept me company while I pulled through this book and cheered Mace on.

  And to Jules, who told me, “No, you didn’t go over the edge there.” Let’s hope she’s right, because she wasn’t right about us being able to eat all that cake.

  Most of all, this book is dedicated to Yoshiko, my beloved Writer’s Cat, who stoically battled through a lifetime of sunbeams, belly rubs, and beating up the dog because she felt like he needed a smacking. I will miss you so much, baby girl. My laptop is lonely without your company, and my heart will always hold your purrs.

  Acknowledgments

  TO MY beloved Five—Penn, Tamm, Lea, and Jenn. Through thick and thin and through dangers untold, you are my true, constant stars. Kind of like a constellation… but with more bickering about tea and someone losing their knickers. I felt this was so true to form I’m using it again.

  Much affection and love to my other siblings—Ren, Ree, Mary, and Lisa. And of course the San Diego Crewe—Andy, Steve, Maite, and Felix.

  Thanks will always go to Dreamspinner—Elizabeth, Lynn, Naomi (who suffers my insanity), Liz and her team, and everyone else who works so hard to polish what I send them. So much admiration for all of you.

  A special shout-out to Micah Caudle for putting up with me. Dude, I owe you every bit of coffee you can drink in your lifetime.

  One

  MASON COULDN’T remember the last time he’d eaten, but that was normal. Money was tight, so food was scarce—something his ten-year-old mind accepted without question. That was a lesson he’d learned a long time ago. He’d also learned to be thankful for the shelter he’d been given. Complaining only strained his father’s already-frazzled nerves, and Mason still clearly remembered how deeply the cold had gotten into him when he’d been taken up to the rooftop and left there overnight, something he’d driven his father to do because he hadn’t been grateful for what he had.

  His ribs and hips ached with the memory of the frost and the bitter wind he’d been unable to hide from that night. When the sun got too high in the sky, Mason had wondered if he’d been forgotten and would have to suffer another night in the frigid winter weather, but the heavy steel door had cracked open and his father’s gruff voice ordered him to hurry up and get inside.

  It’d been too hard to walk. His limbs were unresponsive, but Mason knew that if he didn’t move, the door would close and that imagined night would become real. He crawled past his father’s legs, and his knees caught on his heavy work boots, but he made it inside before the door closed.

  His life was made up of closed doors, hunger, and now an impenetrable silent darkness.

  This time the hunger was different. This time it came with a thirst Mason couldn’t shake and a fear that pressed in on him with a fierce, monstrous will. He couldn’t hear anything or see anything in the close confines of the closet his father had shoved him into.

  “Stay there,” his father ordered. “Don’t make any fucking noise until I let you out. Do you understand?”

  Mason barely had time to nod before the door closed and he heard it lock—a small, inconsequential click that shut his world down and left him in a three-by-three space with nothing but his own breathing to keep him company. He did everything he normally did to pass the time when left to himself, and then he slept… anything to avoid the dead silence.

  His hunger grew, but the silence never broke.

  It was impossible to tell what day it was or even how long he’d been behind the closet door. Even when he accidentally kicked one of the walls when his cramped leg spasmed uncontrollably, his father didn’t respond.

  No matter what, his father always came and pounded on the door if he made a noise. Sometimes he even opened the door to teach Mason to be quiet.

  But this time his father didn’t come.

  They hadn’t been in the apartment for more than a few months the first time his father shoved him into the hall closet and told him to stay put. There were angry voices out in the corridor, and then his father’s fingers were in his shirt, in his hair, and he was tossed into the closet before he could catch his breath. His father had no time to give Mason a water bottle or anything to soften the roughness of the industrial-grade carpet the landlord put in every room.

  Mason was so very tired of the silence and darkness, but the door wouldn’t budge, and he was too small and weak to do anything but pound on the walls… if he dared.

  And he would never dare.

  Sleep came more and more often, or at least that’s what it seemed like, and every waking moment felt like the scrape of a knife against his spine. He was too tall for the space, and he couldn’t get comfortable. His knees and elbows ached from being bent and scraped raw by the acrylic carpet. His fingertips were sore, and one blistered and rubbed to a swell when he tried to scratch through the wall. He felt the bump grow, and when it burst, he was so thirsty he put the injured tip on the flat of his tongue, as grateful for the salty water as he was for the closet he was given to hide in.

  And still the silence never broke, until one time he woke up coughing.

  There were colors now in the darkness—fantastical sprites and murmuring voices speaking about things Mason was probably too stupid to understand anyway. His father always told him that. It was one of the things he was told to be grateful for, because the only thing being smart got him was beaten.

  He wasn’t cold anymore, but it was getting harder to breathe. His eyes burned, and his throat felt as torn up as his elbows. No matter how hard he tried to swallow, he couldn’t get any moisture in his mouth, and his tongue felt swollen and heavy and pressed against his teeth. It’d been so long since he’d heard something other than his own movements, Mason was startled to hear the quiet crackle.

  The silence had broken, but he was now too weak
to move.

  There were definitely voices, and Mason tried to scream for his father, but nothing came out but a croak. He ached everywhere, and as the crinkling noises slowly turned to a full roar, Mason clenched his fist and flung it at the door. He needed to get out because the air was too thick and he couldn’t catch enough of it when he breathed.

  Just when Mason thought he couldn’t hold on any longer, the darkness cracked.

  There was a slice of light, and then Mason saw the monster who’d opened the door. Or it could have been an alien robot from one of his stories, the kind he saw in the old black-and-white movies he watched late at night when he didn’t have to be kept away. The monster reached for him, and Mason tried to get loose, but the closet was too small and he was too little and too tired. The thing’s hands closed over his arms. He should’ve been too old to be scared—he’d just turned ten—and despite what his father told him, Mason was pretty sure monsters weren’t real.

  This one was very real. It was man-shaped and yellow-striped with squiggles on it—words smart people would know but someone like Mason could never understand—and the monster breathed funny. It hissed and spit behind its single frosted eye. The air it brought with it was filmy, hard to see through, and smelled of burned toast. Then Mason saw the man’s face caught inside the eye.

  It was a mask of some kind, and he wanted to laugh at his foolishness, embarrassed by how stupid he was, but he didn’t have enough air to breathe, much less chortle. The man’s hands were still on him, and he lifted him up while another pseudo alien worked to get a plastic triangle over Mason’s face.

  The man terrified him. Mason struggled to make sense of his fear and loathing of what the man was and give in to the palatable relief at being found. For him the monster became a man who would expose him to the world and go against everything his father had pounded into his head.

  He didn’t know who he was more afraid of… his father or the man rescuing him.

  “I’ve got you, kid,” the man said through his mask. He looked angry, and Mason struggled to apologize, fearful of the power in the man’s arms. “Just lie back and relax. I’m going to get you out of here… just… hold on. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Twenty Years Later

  “MONTENEGRO!” MACE knew he didn’t have to yell, but the adrenaline pouring through his blood made it impossible to do anything but shout. “Let me do a final check, and then we’re clear. I’ve got 4B and 4A to check over.”

  “Copy.” Mace could hear Rey’s amusement loud and clear through their connection. “I’ll hold the hall. You go do it, but make it quick.”

  He always made it quick, but Rey liked to remind him, especially when time was tight. This fire was slow moving and losing its power. The call that had begun as an inferno started by a balcony barbecue grill was now a weakening, sputtering bank of flames trapped between two fire crews. Still, nobody would turn their back on the building until it was called in as an all clear.

  For Mason, that meant doing one final sweep of every room.

  It was stupid… and he got shit for it sometimes… but like a lot of things Mason couldn’t put into a box and lock away, he wouldn’t be able to rest until he checked every door and every closet in the area they’d been assigned. Often there was no need, but the few times he didn’t, he itched beneath his skin for days, and a nagging sense of something left undone haunted him until they went on the next call.

  The search was less of an obligation and more of an onus, a burden much heavier than the breathing apparatus and gear he carried into the fire—a legacy of sorts, a sword and shield he had picked up the moment he earned the right to call himself a firefighter.

  “Just remember, Crawford, we’ve got a pot of Dungeness crabs over at the house waiting for us.” Rey’s voice echoed through Mace’s helmet. “And I haven’t seen Gus in three days, so… hurry it up.”

  “Hold your horses, Montenegro,” Mace scolded back as he opened a hallway closet door. “I need, like, five minutes.”

  They were in a part of the building that hadn’t been touched by the fire itself, but the walls showed signs of smoke damage. Dark gray curls of soot brushed over yards of ivory-white paint. The owners had been evacuated before Mace and the others moved into that end of the floor, but there were signs that a child occupied the small, boxy apartment—either that or they had a very spoiled puppy that slept in a bed shaped like a racecar in a room right off the kitchen.

  With the power turned off, it was a little dark, and the afternoon sun was hidden by other buildings that crowded in over the apartments, but there was enough light for Mace to see the closet was empty.

  He swept through the rest of the apartment, and his boots left deep tracks over the area rug in the center of the living room. There was no avoiding the filth of a fire or spreading it when they walked around. No matter how careful they were, fire brought destruction and everything that came with it. It was part of the job to wade through the mess and pull out what lives they could find.

  The carpet was crispy under his feet, but the crunch came from a bag of chips spilled on the floor rather than the scorched remains of a rug. Whoever decorated obviously felt there was no such thing as overkill, because no matter where Mace turned, there was another piece of furniture blocking his way.

  “Hey, Montenegro, when I’m done here, can we see if anyone from 4B is downstairs?” Mace’s voice echoed in his helmet, turning him into a Sith Lord when he spoke. “You can tell them their place is intact but just a little dirty. Maybe the chief will let them come up and get some things, but no one’s going to be sleeping here tonight.”

  “Can do that. You about finished? Crabs. Family dinner. Gus,” Rey drawled. “You know… just reminding you.”

  “Yeah, asshole. I know. You want to get laid,” Mace grumbled back. “I’m coming out after one more door check in here and a quick scan of the other apartment. Then we can call it clear.”

  “What the hell is he doing? The floor’s empty.” Another voice broke over the communication, the querulous whine of one of the newbies assigned to the station to earn their chops. “We should have been out of here by now.”

  “It’s a thing he’s got to do. Also, we operate under a ‘better safe than sorry’ motto in this house.” Rey’s calm voice dropped a register, and an undercurrent of menace echoed through the line. “So we’re going to wait as fucking long as it takes, because it’s what he needs to call the job done.”

  “Ten minutes, tops,” Mace promised. “And quit yelling at the kids. Don’t want to scare them off the job, Montenegro. The sooner they graduate, the sooner we don’t have to work double shifts to cover.”

  Fire was a fickle thing. No matter how many times Mace had been told not to anthropomorphize the flames, it always seemed like fire had a mind of its own. Ravenous and unyielding, it ran and leapt along the inside of walls, sometimes playing hide-and-seek with the men and women who’d been sent to kill it. But if there was anything Mace knew, fire—despite not being sentient—had a fucked-up sense of humor.

  So it came as no surprise when he opened what should have been the last closet door he’d have to check before calling the building clear… and found the back wall being eaten up by flames.

  “Crawford, what do you see up there?” Their battalion chief’s voice broke over the line. “We’re reading a hotspot—”

  “Found it. It’s gone into the apartment next door.” Mace ran through the building schematics in his head. There’d been little space between the walls on the other floors. The thick wooden framing was solid and gave the fire a lot of fuel but little space for someone to slip through. Mace didn’t think the closet would be any different. “It’s in 4A. Don’t think I can go through the wall.”

  “Did you call that space clear?” the chief asked. “If not, get through the door and check.”

  “Got it. Place is riddled with studs, and the fire is moving fast. Going ’round to the door. Montenegro, send the crew ’rou
nd, and we can get it contained before it spreads.”

  “See you in a second, Crawford,” Rey responded. “Floor crew, move east.”

  As soon as Mace heard his best friend give him the clearance, he unlatched his suppression equipment and began to move, hoping to beat the flames before they consumed the other apartment. It was hard going. Moving quickly in fire gear was difficult, and he was hampered by furniture and tight spaces, especially in San Francisco’s narrow housing. Mace’s pack caught on the wall as he went through the apartment’s hallway, knocking a picture frame off the wall. As he negotiated the living room, with its obstacle course of sofas and a coffee table, he caught a glimpse of something shifting.

  The floor rumbled with the sound of firefighters entering the area as Mace checked the apartment’s doorknob. They poured out of the hallway to Mace’s right, and he gestured toward the apartment he’d just come out of and guided them with curt instructions to the closet space. Rey jogged over with a hook in his hand, and Mace took up position next to 4A’s door, ready to enter once Rey broke in.

  “Check the knob?” his best friend teased.

  “Yeah, locked.” Mace angled his shoulders to give Rey as much space as he could. There were times when someone couldn’t make it out. Mace had pulled out more than one person from a deadly situation and had nightmares about the moments he hadn’t been able to get there in time. This was not going to be one of those times. “Break it down, Rey, and let’s hope no one’s inside.”

  415 INK was a dream.

  And Rob Claussen knew it.

  415 Ink was a legend of sorts, a Camelot of inkers with skills Rob could only dream of. Situated across of Fisherman’s Wharf on Jackson, the tattoo shop was constantly busy with walk-ins. That ensured a steady paycheck, but working shoulder to shoulder with some of the best artists in the business made the busy shop the dream of a lifetime. In the few months since he’d been given a shared stall at the pierside shop, he’d sucked up many tricks of the trade from master inkers like Ichiro Tokugawa and Georgie Baker. Barrett, himself a master of American Traditional and Neo-Traditional, spent time patiently tattooing a piece and explaining his choices to Rob whenever he was able to.