by JL Terra
The kid nodded.
Mei headed for the EXIT. It was likely too late to catch up with Bella, but what else could she do but at least try to fix the giant mess she’d made? And it was so much more than a mess. Sheila was dead.
“Mei.”
She didn’t turn, just kept walking, heading to the other side of the building where her car was parked. Unless fourteen-year-old Bella had also taken the car. Malachi caught up to her, slung an arm around her shoulder and quickly tugged the brim of his ball cap down.
Two kids passed them, headed in the opposite direction.
He managed to keep his face averted.
Mei groaned aloud.
“Talk to me.” His voice was a whisper beside her face they walked.
“You’re wanted by the police.” And she’d done nothing to help so far. She hadn’t even thought to ask him how it was going—just called him cute. She wanted to blame him for her distractedness, but it was all her. She shook her head and tried to get some equilibrium. “Now Sheila’s dead.”
“The two aren’t related, Mei. Unless somehow the high lord got to Bella, and now she’s working for him.”
“But we rescued her from his drug dealing operation.”
He said nothing.
“I messed up. There’s no pretending I didn’t.”
“We all do. What matters is that you keep going, and you can even work to put things right. Isn’t that better than wallowing in guilt and shame.” His words rang with integrity. She could tell he was speaking from first-hand experience. He’d been there. “I committed one of the worst crimes there is. Denying Him, and thinking my way was so much better. We aided corruption in the world. Humans suffered, forever changed because of what we did. We had no care for the sacredness of life. It should be safeguarded, but we broke that for our own pleasure.”
“I need to stop her. Especially now that she’s in league with the high lord.”
He nodded. “We should call Ben.”
“No.” she shook her head adamantly. “My mom is pregnant. They can’t get involved.”
“Okay.” He squeezed her shoulders again. “I’d call Remy but she’s working on proving that the surveillance video of me supposedly murdering the mayor is fake.”
In the aftermath of that attack on the house, Mei didn’t blame Remy for wanting something “normal” to do—normal for her, at least. “Okay, so we work the problem through ourselves.”
Malachi nodded in agreement. “What’s first?” He knew she wanted to take the lead, and so he was giving her the opportunity to do that.
“We need to find Ricardo. Even if he doesn’t care about Bella, he has to know where to find the high lord.”
They rounded the corner and saw both their cars. Mei breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that she cared about the car so much as she cared that a fourteen-year-old girl without a license wasn’t out on the streets, joyriding. Putting everyone else in danger.
He walked her to his car and essentially loaded her into the passenger seat. When he climbed into the driver’s side, he glanced at her.
“I’m not going to lose it.”
“It wouldn’t be bad if you did.”
She figured she already had, and didn’t want to dissolve now that they were in the car with an actual plan to do something. “Drive to Enrico’s on Central.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He shot her a small smile and put the car into gear.
As he got close, she told him where to park.
“We’re going in?”
“We would be—” She studied the door, open now while a group emerged. “—if that wasn’t Ricardo right there, leaving.” She pointed him out. “Let’s follow and see where he goes.”
“Hopefully, please lord, to the club.”
“Bella said she’d been there.” Mei didn’t exactly want to reiterate the tale of a fourteen-year-old using her feminine wiles—kissing a bouncer—to get in. What had really happened once Bella was inside? Mei hoped they would find out soon enough, but right now her mind was going crazy imagining all kinds of scenarios of what the high lord—or any of those armed men he employed—had done to Bella.
Still, Mei wasn’t sure even that added up. She’d met victims of trafficking before. Bella didn’t exactly fit the bill, though the aftermath of how a victim behaved wasn’t one-size-fits-all. Everyone dealt with trauma in their own way. She just hadn’t recognized that in Bella from the get-go.
Then again, she’d recognized nothing untoward in the teen.
Which meant Mei had more than dropped the ball.
She’d been duped.
Malachi touched the back of her hand, and she realized she’d been clenching it into itself. She relaxed her fingers and he laced his through them, his palm on the back of her hand. She curled her fingers so they could hold hands. But it didn’t make her feel any better.
How long ago had Bella met the high lord? Months, weeks, or days? Longer? Who knew how deeply her life had become intertwined with his.
“I guess this is it.”
The BMW, with Ricardo in the backseat, pulled up to the front door of a warehouse. From the face, the place didn’t seem like a nightclub. She figured that was the point. The high lord operated under the radar.
Ricardo headed inside with his entourage of three guys. Probably packing.
“We need to go in.”
“Side door, or the front?”
“Can you do some mojo?”
A muscle clenched in his jaw. “It’s likely got the same security measures as the house. Maybe more. Let’s go for a side door.”
The alley was pretty quiet, a long narrow pathway barely big enough for a car to pass through. Dingy, greasy. They approached the side doorway secured with a single padlock..
Malachi grasped it.
“You can like…unlock that with your mind?”
He frowned at her. “Uh, no. But I can tell if it’s been safeguarded. And this hasn’t.”
“No magic?”
“No.”
“Good.” Mei pulled a folding wallet from her back pocket. Sandwiched between two twenties and her debit card was a lock pick kit. “Give me a minute.”
Maybe it was more like two, but she managed to get the lock open and, looking at each other with a here-goes-nothing-type of anticipation, they went in. The stench of sweat and beer filled Mei’s nostrils as her head thumped to the music. As the door closed slowly behind them, the light vanished. It was dark enough she could barely see a foot in front of her.
“Lovely.”
Malachi didn’t seem much happier than her right now. It helped bring levity to the situation to imagine he was sore about still having to mask his identity by wearing the ball cap. Mei thought he looked adorable, even if it didn’t suit him to try and look younger. It didn’t match the age of his eyes. The thought made her smile, but she knew he wasn’t thinking those thoughts at all. He had to be dreading the fact he might have to go toe to toe with his brother in the next few minutes. The high lord.
Beyond the end door was the nightclub dance floor. Raised bars on three walls. The room was a stifling mixture of alcohol and pheromones. Bodies stood shoulder to shoulder, swaying to a techno beat that was quickly giving her a migraine.
Malachi kept his eyes down. She wasn’t sure she could resist the urge to get close and talk with him in quiet tones. So Mei turned to face him, instead, so their bodies were almost touching. She ran her hands up his arms. Doing anything more to fit into the scene would have freaked them both out, but this was just enough that anyone watching might buy into it, and not too forward as to make things awkward between them.
One eyebrow rose under the brim of his ball cap.
“How are we going to find him?”
“You find Ricardo. I’ll go for the high lord. He’ll know I’m here, even without a magical barrier on the building.”
“Split up?”
“Do you need my help to confront Ricardo?”
“Normally, I�
�d say, ‘no.’ But right now I’m not feeling too skilled. I’ve messed everything else up.”
He touched her cheek, his skin rough and worn, but in a way that felt familiar. “You’re human. But you’re on the right path.”
“Am I?”
“You’ll make things right.”
That was true. She had a reputation of wading in, causing chaos, and fighting like crazy until the end to get the win. “This time I’m not sure I’m prepared to pay what this will cost.”
He leaned in and touched his lips to hers. “Just get the sword back.”
Mei pushed away from him and got to work. It wasn’t a command, as such. What it was, was a mission. He knew she could do this, and Mei didn’t need to stand around any longer wasting time. Or asking to be coddled. This wasn’t about her, or her failures. It was about saving lives.
And Malachi believed she could do it.
Mei threaded through several groups of people, trying to stay under the radar and never taking her eyes off the room. Scanning the whole dance floor and surrounding walls, she kept going, taking a step back when she jostled a teenage girl. The girl squealed as she spilled her drink.
“Hey! Watch it lady!”
Mei put her hand up in apology, quickly leaving the glaring girl behind. She looked up just in time. Ricardo was heading up the stairs to a VIP area.
“Bingo.” She thought to herself. She slinked up to the bouncer, giving him her best coquettish expression and fluttering her eyelashes. It felt strange to be this close to a man she didn’t know...almost as close as she’d been with Malachi. It one hundred percent felt wrong with this guy.
Mei leaned back on one elbow, tossing her long black hair flippantly behind one shoulder. “Hey.”
He stared at her with interest. “Hey.”
“Can I get up there?”
“Depends.” His hands moved to her hips and slid down even lower. “What are you doing after the club closes?”
She let him pull her close, pretending to return his interested gaze. “Whatever you want.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded, trying to look like this was enticing for her. Normally this act would simply be part of the mission, but somehow it felt wrong. “First, I gotta talk to a man about a wayward kid.”
The guy cracked a smile.
“Seriously. I’m a social worker.”
“Right.” He let her go and slapped her butt as she passed him while heading up the stairs.
Mei gritted her teeth. Lovely.
With any luck, Malachi hadn’t seen that.
Ricardo had settled into a sectional in the corner. No drink or company. She ignored his bodyguards and dragged the coffee table out from under his foot. It hit the floor with a thump as he looked up in mild surprise. Then she stepped onto the table and over it, plunking down right in front of him, practically knee to knee.
“You’re hard to shake.”
“You have no idea. Where’s Bella?”
“How’m I supposed to know?”
“What is between her and the high lord?”
That earned her a flinch.
“You know.”
“And now you know?”
She nodded. Bella wasn’t interested in being the hero in this tale.
“I had a debt that needed paying.” He glanced aside. Not exactly remorseful over what he’d done. More like an attempt to convince himself it was a necessary action.
Mei leaned close. “Bella is the only one who can stop the high lord. You aren’t special. You were cherry picked only so he could get to her.”
There was a tiny flicker in his eyes. His hand whipped out, and before she could stop him, Ricardo stabbed what looked like an Epi pen into her thigh.
She gasped and reflex had her clambering to her feet. To escape.
Malachi.
She turned.
Everyone in the VIP area had white hair.
Chapter 20
Malachi. Her voice wasn’t something he could hear audibly, rather in his mind, and he rushed to pinpoint her location. Too bad there wasn’t a source linked to the urgent request. He didn’t know which way to go in order to find her. She was so new to this mind-sharing thing they had going on. She didn’t know how to tap into the full benefits yet.
He looked up the stairs towards the VIP area. It was closely guarded. Though he couldn’t see anyone inside, he knew that the occupants could see down to the dance floor from the exclusive area.
He felt a mental tug, but not in that direction.
Malachi followed the sensation to a doorway that read Employees Only. A different hall than the one they’d entered through. This one turned a few corner before splitting off in two different directions, one of which led up a flight of stairs. The other had a door that said Storage.
The tug grew stronger, leading him to another corner.
Malachi spotted a flash of dark clothing a second before it disappeared out of sight at the end of the hall.
It wasn’t Mei. Not that he could tell. Where was she?
He wanted to turn back. To find her. She was in trouble. It ached in him to help her, especially if she was in over her head and needed saving. And yet, the tug continued to pull on him to keep going. Away from her.
To his brother.
Malachi followed because if he could deal with Barnabas, then ultimately, she would be safe. She would no longer have to confront his brother. He would have to break his promise, but then it was the right thing to do. The safety of the world had to come before a covenant made with a man who had betrayed everything good in this world.
He picked up his pace and managed to catch up far enough to finally see his brother at the end of the hallway. “Stop!”
His brother kept walking toward the EXIT sign. How big was this place? It seemed like a maze of hallways and right turns.
Unless this was magic.
Was he being played?
The team had gone through so much. That included the evil druid who had warped the entire team’s sense of reality. Malachi’s experience that day remained some of the worst of his life. And yet, this enemy seemed so much more…ancient. Evil. Powerful. Barnabas had gained strength over the centuries.
Fear shuddered through him, sparking a couple of beads of sweat between his shoulder blades that ran down to the small of his back.
Despite the fear he might not be powerful enough to defeat the evil, Malachi still intended to face his brother.
“Barnabas! You’re done!”
A whisper of laughter drifted toward him, though not at all audible. The sound rang throughout his mind; that callous chuckle he’d heard many times before. Shivers ran down his spine.
Barnabas opened the door to the outside, though Malachi could swear it opened up without so much of a touch from his hand. It simply opened all on its own. And then Barnabas was gone, off into the night where Malachi would have to search for him. And wasn’t that the theme of his entire life? Spinning his wheels to do damage control. All while his friends worked to prove his innocence and then go on to build happy lives with their families—the latter more important than his own future. Meanwhile, Mei suffered. Where are you? He needed to know she was all right.
But he couldn’t go back. Not when he was closer than he’d ever been to his brother—to the end—and gaining his freedom. Whatever that looked like—a life on earth, being granted access to a peaceful hereafter, or simply oblivion—he didn’t know. He’d never asked, too scared to force a promise from the One who held the universe in His hands. Or was it more than that? Maybe he was actually fearful of the answer.
Malachi grabbed the handle and hauled the door open.
He stepped out.
“Freeze!”
“Hands up!”
The shouts came from every direction. He blinked. The scene in front of him literally bled away, falling like a curtain in front of his eyes.
And now he was faced with an inundation of police. SWAT. Uniforms. Pistols and rifles
pointed at him. Black and white cars, doors open. Officers crouched behind as though he were the dangerous one and not his brother, who he’d followed out here.
Malachi put both hands up. He was patted down, and his weapons confiscated. Arms roughly twisted behind his back. He gritted his teeth as the clank of cuffs sounded. He wouldn’t have such a problem being arrested if he’d actually done what they were accusing him of. If he acted out his frustration, screaming to whoever was listening that he was innocent, that would only end in him losing all credibility. Probably every criminal arrested said that.
Instead, he kept his mouth shut as they loaded him into a car. All he really wanted to do was scream for someone to go find Mei. Make sure she was okay. Maybe they would give him a single phone call, and he could let Ben know the trip to the club had gone wrong, and she needed help.
He stared out the window at the bright lights of New York City. He’d never liked it here, despite what everyone said about how great it was. The press of humanity, so many who threw away their souls for instant gratification. Refusing to bow to the higher good—let alone any other noble reason—favoring, instead, the dictates of their flesh.
Malachi was dragged through booking and sat in an interrogation room, still cuffed. When the door shut and he was left alone, he tried to call up the connection between him and Mei.
Nothing.
Was she dead?
There were a limited number of reasons he might not be able to tap in to her whereabouts. He should be able to know where she was at all times—and to an extent, what she was thinking. It might only be flashes at times, but it connected them together. Now that was gone.
The door opened and Malachi lifted his head, the room blurry from the sheen of tears in his eyes. He blinked away the wet while a detective pulled out the chair across the table.
“You’re not what I thought.”
Malachi took in the detective’s graying hair and the olive tan of his skin. Probably ex-military with a tattoo of the branch in which he’d served underneath the sleeve of his blue shirt.
“I’d like to remind you that you can request a lawyer at any time. In fact, given the circumstances, I’d advise it. If you don’t have a lawyer, I’ll have the court appoint one to you at no charge.”