Bad Angel

by JC Andrijeski

  “Excuse me?” he said.

  “You heard me. You want to know what I want? I want to know what your problem is. I want you to explain it to me, Mr. Jourdain.” Pausing at his silence, she frowned. “Seriously. Are you brain damaged?”

  Dags’ gaze narrowed.

  He opened his mouth, about to answer, but she went on before he could speak.

  “She told me everything, you know,” Asia informed him, folding her arms. “I know all about you two. I also know she caught you fucking someone downstairs. Just now. Like, what? Twenty minutes after we walked through the door? Because I’m sure that’s a coincidence. Because that’s totally the mature way of dealing with your issues with Phoenix. See her for five seconds and drag some rando into a closet⏤”

  “Asia!”

  She turned, glaring at him. “What? Are you really going to deny it? Really?”

  Dags stared back at her, utterly at a loss. He’d said her name to stop her from speaking. He really didn’t have anything to follow it up with.

  “She really told you? About us?” he said finally. “Why?”

  “She didn’t just tell me. She told Karver.”

  Dags felt his jaw harden.

  “That’s none of my business⏤”

  Asia laughed, cutting him off again.

  “Right,” she said. “Sure.”

  For a few seconds they stared at one another.

  Then Dags looked away, scowling.

  “I’m glad she told him,” he admitted. He gave her a hard look. “Not to cause problems between them. Not to fuck with him. I’m just glad he knows. I felt shitty about it.”

  “They broke up.”

  Dags felt his jaw harden more.

  After a pause, he shook his head. “Not according to every article I’ve seen, every social media post on⏤”

  She laughed again, incredulously this time.

  “God. You can’t honestly believe that shit’s reality?” Pausing at his silence, she rolled her eyes. “They have a movie coming out, Angel-guy. They’re not going to torpedo ticket sales right before the damn thing hits the theaters. They’ll let it leak out after it’s been out a few months. After they know if there’ll be funding for a sequel or not.”

  Dags fought to process this.

  He also fought to keep his reaction off his face.

  “You’re an idiot,” Asia proclaimed, taking a long swallow off her martini glass. She set it back down on the mat. “I told you to call her. Remember? On the sound stage that day? I said call her.”

  He glared at her. “You told me to leave her the fuck alone.”

  “That day,” Asia said, exasperated. “I think my exact words were, ‘Call her tomorrow.’ Or at least pick up the damned phone when she called you. She’d just broken up with Karver, for shit’s sake. She wasn’t up to talking to you that exact minute, which is why I told you to call her tomorrow. Or pick up the damned phone when she was ready to talk to you.”

  Pausing, she sharpened her voice.

  “How many times has she called you, Dags? How many messages has she left? Did you just erase them all without listening to them? Like, seriously… what the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He averted his gaze, shaking his head in annoyance. “You know what I am. You know damned well I don’t have the luxury of⏤”

  “Don’t give me that tortured superhero crap,” she said, frowning. “She broke up with him. She broke up with him. Are you honestly going to pretend you don’t know you’re the reason why?”

  Dags stared at the pool.

  After a pause, he shook his head.

  “I highly doubt that,” he muttered. “Things must not have been good with them already. People don’t step out unless⏤”

  “Bullshit.” Asia laughed. “And really? Really? So you know Phoenix better than me now? I’ve only known her for, what? Ten years? Eleven? But sure. Please. Enlighten me on why she broke up with her long-term, movie-star boyfriend⏤”

  “Maybe she finally figured out he was a prick,” Dags growled, glaring at her.

  “Or maybe you brought out the prick in him,” she shot back. “Did you ever think of that? I’ve never seen Karver act like that with anyone before you. No one. He just doesn’t get hostile like that normally, even when he’s jealous.”

  Snorting a little, Asia shook her head, adding sourly,

  “It’s like he knew. It’s like he knew somehow, what you were to Phoenix. Not like we all didn’t see the way you two were around each other. Like you were entangled on the molecular level as soon as you laid eyes on one another.”

  She turned to look at him, shrugging.

  “Honestly, I never would have pegged Karver as being that intuitive. Maybe it was some male thing, where he just picked up on the scent of pheromones or whatever.”

  Dags was already shaking his head.

  He held up a hand, opening his mouth.

  Asia talked over him that time, too.

  “I know you’re hearing me,” she said, her voice genuinely annoyed. “I know you’re getting exactly what I’m telling you. At least she’s being honest with herself about it. At least she tried to talk to you. You just ghost her like some kind of asshole. I thought maybe you weren’t into women or something. That whatever this weird thing was between the two of you, it wasn’t sexual on your end… that you saw it more connected to your angelic-magic-mojo thing, and poor ‘Nix turned it into a romantic crush.”

  Asia turned, glaring at him.

  “But then she tells me what happened between the two of you at The Roosevelt. And tonight, she tells me how she walked in on you downstairs, while you were basically fucking some woman you’d picked up⏤”

  “I wasn’t fucking her⏤” he growled.

  “⏤and I realized you’re just an idiot,” Asia finished, louder. “And probably a coward. Whatever this you and Phoenix thing is, it’s clearly got you pissing your pants. So you’d rather just bolt, sleep with faceless bimbos you pick up in bars⏤”

  “Asia!” he growled.

  She closed her mouth a second time, glaring at him.

  He met her gaze, scowling back.

  “She knew her, you know,” Asia snapped. “Phoenix. That red-headed chick had some bit part in Phoenix’s last movie. She knew her. So… yeah. Classy, Angel-guy. Real classy.”

  Dags opened his mouth.

  Then he closed it, frowning.

  Something about them knowing one another bothered him, even beyond the reasons it bugged Asia. He had no idea why, but the detail nagged at some quieter part of his mind, and not only because of the weirdness of him and Phoenix.

  Remembering what Daphne said about Phoenix, he realized he should have picked up on it before. He’d chalked it up to professional jealousy, not anything personal in a real way.

  Clearly, he’d been wrong.

  But why did it matter?

  He was about to say something to Asia about that… when movement in the corner of his eye caused him to turn.

  Jade was heading for the stairs, walking with long strides.

  She’d looped her arm into the arm of a big, buffed guy with a bald head. Whoever he was, he wasn’t part of Jade’s demon protective detail.

  He definitely wasn’t Alvin.

  Dags vaguely recognized him, even apart from tonight, but he had no idea from what, or where. All he knew was, the guy had been in Phoenix’s party of friends and hangers-on when they all first walked into The Dolphin’s main bar downstairs.

  Cursing under his breath, Dags pulled himself to his feet.

  Asia grabbed his leg, staring up at him incredulously.

  “Seriously?” she said.

  “I’m working,” he growled. “I told you that.”

  Hesitating, he reached into his back pocket, then pulled out his wallet. Extracting one of his business cards, he tossed it into her lap.

  “Look,” he said. “Tomorrow, okay? If you really want to yell at me that damned bad, then at least buy me lunch. Venice. I
have to meet someone down there anyway.”

  She plucked the card off her lap, staring down at the black print.

  He saw the incredulity in her eyes grow more prominent.

  He saw her look up.

  He saw her open her mouth, probably to lay into him again.

  Before whatever he could see building behind her eyes could burst out of her lungs, he walked away. Walking swiftly around the edge of the pool, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, following Jade as she reached the door to the stairs.

  He’d made up more than half the distance by the time she disappeared from his view.

  He reached the stairs himself right as she threw back her head, laughing at something the tall, bald, hyper-muscular, probably-movie-star guy said to her.

  The laugh didn’t sound like Jade at all.

  It sounded nothing like her.

  It was genuinely disturbing how different that laugh sounded from Jade’s unique, eccentric bray laced with high-pitched giggles. Her demon laugh stripped every hint of Jade out of it. It didn’t bear any relationship to Dags’ high school friend at all.

  Somehow, hearing that boring, calculated-sounding, phony laugh out of Jade’s mouth did what nothing else had managed for the past few weeks of his life.

  For the first time since he met her, Dags managed to successfully push Phoenix out of his mind, however temporarily.

  He zeroed in on a different problem instead.

  He was getting this demon asshole out of his friend.

  Tonight.

  No matter how many of the demon’s asshole friends tried to stop him.

  Chapter 12

  Following

  Dags gave his ticket to the valet, luckily catching him before the man left with the ticket Jade’s “date” had already handed him.

  Dags had to hope they had two drivers to bring the cars back, not just one.

  In that, he was lucky.

  A midnight blue, brand new McLaren pulled up to the curb in front of The Dolphin.

  Right behind it, a second valet in the same uniform pulled up with Dags’ black and chrome ’69 Ford Mustang.

  Stepping forward without hesitation, Dags tipped the guy and took the keys from him smoothly, managing to get behind the wheel and situated before the two people in the McLaren in front of him. After inserting his key in the Mustang’s ignition, Dags glanced up in time to see Jade strutting around the McLaren’s front grill, smirking at the buffed movie-star, and sliding under the raised wing door and into the passenger seat.

  He had to be a movie star, Dags told himself.

  He had to be.

  If nothing else, he looked way too familiar, and Dags knew he’d never met the guy. He must have seen him on posters around town or something.

  Anyway, he was one of Phoenix’s friends. It stood to reason she would know a lot of industry people, given who she was.

  The male actor slid under an identical wing-like door on the driver’s side.

  Slowly and smoothly, the two doors began to lower once the muscular actor arranged himself behind the McLaren’s wheel.

  Dags, who’d been pretending to get himself situated in his own car, started up the Mustang, revving the engine a few times, stretching, then again taking his time to put on his seatbelt and open his glove box to see if he still had a hunting knife in there, in case of emergencies. The knife was there, but Dags had known that. Looking was just another stalling tactic, since he had no intention of using the thing.

  He’d left the other demon in the club⏤the one riding around in Alvin’s skin.

  The thought didn’t thrill him, but he was dealing with Jade first.

  Even as he thought it, he wondered if he should text Asia, tell her to stay the hell away from the guy. Remembering Phoenix dancing with a male with dark hair in a kind of pompadour with shaved sides, he grimaced, fighting the image out from behind his eyes.

  She was single now.

  Unless Asia was messing with his head, Phoenix was single.

  Gritting his teeth at the thought, he glanced back at the club’s entrance, wondering why the hell he hadn’t picked up any of the several dozen times Phoenix tried to call.

  He wondered why he hadn’t listened to a single message she left him.

  But he knew why.

  He was still staring at the club’s front door, the bouncer sitting there on a stool, when the McLaren pulled away from the curb, screeching its tires and swerving a bit as the actor must have floored it. Clearly his mating dance was still going on, even though he already had Jade in his car.

  Dags followed the McLaren with his eyes as it pulled out on the street, heading west on Sunset.

  After a bare pause, he followed, flipping around to make a right turn onto the street, even as he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and hit in a contact, then the number, putting it on speaker phone as he rested the phone on his car’s gauge panel.

  She picked up after four rings.

  “Phoenix?” he said, not waiting for her to answer.

  The silence was almost physical.

  “Is this…” She trailed, her voice utterly bewildered. “You’re… calling me?”

  He didn’t know how to respond to that.

  So he didn’t.

  “That guy,” he said. “He was with you. With your party at least.” He paused. “The big one. Bald. Tattoos. He drives a blue McLaren…”

  He trailed, waiting for her to answer.

  When she didn’t, he clenched his jaw.

  “Do you know him, Phoenix? It’s important. I think he’s in danger.”

  He could practically feel her staring at the phone.

  “Do you mean Jamie?” she said finally. “Jamie Paz? The thirty-million-a-picture action star, Jamie Paz?”

  Dags jerked the wheel sideways, swerving around a green Mercedes and into an opening behind a tricked-out pickup truck with flames painted on the sides.

  “I guess,” he muttered. “How well do you know him? Can you call him? Right now?”

  “You seriously don’t know who that is?” she said. “Jesus, Dags. How do you live in Los Angeles and not know who Jamie Paz is?”

  “He looked familiar,” he said, hearing defensiveness creep into his voice.

  “He looked familiar.” She snorted. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Phoenix. He’s in danger, okay? He left with that woman. With the one I went there to follow.”

  “The one you want to fuck, you mean?” she said, cold.

  “Phoenix. I’m serious. Call him. Tell him to get away from her. Make up some excuse if you can. Then call me back.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he hung up the phone.

  He hammered down the accelerator, realizing he’d let the McLaren get too far ahead. He was losing sight of them in the sea of tail lights. He managed to glimpse them then, as they hung a left onto some side street, what looked like North Palm Drive.

  He jerked the wheel in the same direction, earning a chorus of honking horns as he cut in front of traffic and aimed the Mustang down the same road.

  He was heading south now, towards Santa Monica.

  He kept more of a distance once he confirmed that the McLaren was up ahead, carefully navigating the narrow, two-lane residential road lined with expensive, mansion-sized houses on either side. The McLaren had to be doing eighty down that same road, but Dags was able to maintain more of a distance since there was almost no traffic. He followed the flash of tail lights as the McLaren braked and fish-tailed to avoid parked cars and the occasional oncoming vehicle.

  “Guy drives like a fuck,” Dags muttered under his breath.

  The phone rang, making him jump in the silent car.

  He didn’t even look at the caller I.D.

  “Did you get him?” he said.

  She let out a disbelieving snort. He could almost see her shake her head.

  “No. Straight to voicemail.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Is he really in danger?
” she said, her voice wary. “Why? Who is that woman?”

  Dags ignored that, clenching his jaw.

  He knew how well his next request was going to go over, but he took a breath and said it anyway.

  “Phoenix,” he said, voice hard. “I need you to get out of there. Now.”

  “What? Excuse me… what?”

  There was a silence.

  Steering, one-handed, gripping the phone in his other hand, he hit the gas harder when he saw the distance widening between him and the McLaren. He could barely see them now, after they rolled through another four-way stop, this one at Carmelita, then accelerated down another stretch of North Palm. Glancing down at the phone he held against the dash, Dags gritted his teeth, then said it anyway.

  “Just do it, okay?” He subdued his voice with an effort. “Please do this, Phoenix. I need you to leave The Dolphin. I need you to get Asia out of there, too. I need you to leave without anyone else. Just the two of you. Now.”

  “Jesus, you’re serious.” She burst out in a humorless laugh. “Blow me, Jourdain.”

  Pausing at that, she added sourly,

  “Although I guess I should watch my wording with you. You seem pretty free with the sexual favors these days⏤”

  “Phoenix,” he growled. “I need you to listen to me. And to think about this. What possible reason would I ask this of you? As in me. As in, me, specifically. Why would I tell you to leave a place? Why would I do that?”

  Pausing at her silence, he spoke louder.

  “Phoenix? You know me. Why would I say you were in danger?”

  “Danger?” she said. “Now it’s danger? You didn’t say danger⏤”

  “Can’t you just trust me on this?” he cut in, exasperated. “I need you to trust me that I wouldn’t ask this if it wasn’t important. I need you to trust me it’s not personal. Do you know a guy named Alvin? He’s there tonight, too. Possibly a regular at the club, although he looks different than usual. Black shirt, black suit jacket. Red pants. Red tie. He was by the bar at one of those tables⏤”

  “Yeah. Okay. I know who you mean.” There was a silence. “Him? He’s the danger?”

  She snorted, obviously watching Alvin from wherever she was in the club.

  “I actually know him, you know. He tried to put me in one of his movies, way back when I first got here. He fancied himself some kind of up-and-coming producer. Of course, it required me to be naked in about half of my scenes⏤”