The Deadfall

by Lilly Black

  Then Liana came back to the booth alone and slumped down into her seat beside June.

  "What's the matter?" Olivia asked.

  "I lost my wingman," she grumbled as she pointed with her eyes at Dani who was sitting at the bar with Jax Bonham! He was wearing an untucked silk shirt with the top three buttons undone, his jet black hair a wild mess that hung to his shoulders, his eyes a piercing blue that stood out from all the way across the bar, and he had his arm around Dani as he fed her the cherry from the top of her drink.

  "When did this happen?" Olivia asked.

  "I watched him come in about an hour ago," June said.

  "Yet you didn't think that was worth mentioning to your best friend who's been crazy about him since the seventh grade?" Olivia demanded.

  "It worked itself out," she said with a snide crinkle of her nose, bored, annoyed, and wanting to just go back to the hotel and watch TV.

  "It sure did," Liana said. "I just wish I didn't have to wait so long for my spell..."

  Olivia shot her a very clear shut the fuck up look, not wanting to have to explain to Alek that there was a possibility that he was there because of some voodoo rather than a genuine attraction to her. She didn't believe in it, but she wasn't sure about his beliefs. Though he had a perfect American accent, he was Swedish, and she really knew very little about Swedes beyond a few words she had learned in high school to hit on a hot, blonde exchange student.

  "I just meant I'm bored is all," Liana said, trying to cover up her faux pas.

  "Well, Canada is a long way away," Olivia whispered with a wink. "But you know what you should do? You should get our chauffeur to join us. His name's Mitch. He's a nice guy, and he's been sitting in that car waiting for us while we have a good time all weekend."

  "I think that's a great idea," Liana said. The same thought had crossed her mind. Not only was he a really nice guy, he was polite, respectful, and safe. She didn't feel like he would put the moves on her, and despite that she agreed that the goal of the weekend was to get laid, the truth was she didn't want to get laid. Well, she did. She wanted to be kissed and licked and fucked like the world was ending, but there was a reason she had spent the last five years of her life committed to Bob. It was why she feared that even if the gypsy brought Aiden LaCroix into her life and he fell madly in love with her, she'd still be stuck with Bob in the end.

  But there was no reason the sexy chauffeur couldn't act as Bob's fluffer for the night.

  Mitch was a good looking guy - tall, light brown hair with a well-groomed beard, a little older than Liana but not too old to get her attention, and he was happy to spend his evening with her rather than in the car waiting for her. For hours, they sat at the bar keeping each other well entertained, but as she threw back drink after drink, he only nursed a single beer himself. Right beside them, Dani kept Jax Bonham's attention solely on her, despite that they had to pause their conversation every three minutes so he could sign an autograph or pose for a picture. Alek had to endure similar interruptions, though with much less frequency as he angled himself inward, keeping his back to the crowd while he and Olivia got to know each other. They learned that they had a lot in common, and though he seemed to have little in common with June, he chivalrously included her in the conversation as she sat there feeling like a third wheel. Then just as he and Olivia had gotten into the deep, philosophical subject of the imaginary world of the demon character he played on television, his cell phone alarm went off.

  "Fuck," he groaned. "I have to get to the convention center."

  "At one in the morning?" Olivia asked, suspicious that it might be a ruse to rescue himself from her.

  "We're doing a promo in full makeup at 5:00 AM, and you wouldn't believe how long it takes to get my horns on," he said apologetically, then he looked up at her, suddenly excited. "You could come with me."

  "I would love to, but I can't. We're leaving in the morning," she said with a pout.

  "Then I guess this is goodbye," he said as he stood, and when he reached for the hand closest to him, her left, he held it as if he couldn't decide whether to shake or kiss it. "I've really enjoyed your company tonight, Olivia. I'm sorry it had to end so early."

  "Me too," she said, and just as he was about to ask for her phone number, he noticed a set of rings he hadn't before. His eyes lingered on them for a moment, then he forced a smile.

  "Have a safe trip home," he said.

  "Have fun getting...your horns on," she said, barely resisting the urge to tell him to have fun getting horny, but as she sat there looking up at him, he realized what she almost said as if he could read her mind. A grin spread across his face.

  "It's no fun at all when I'm alone," he said, then he crinkled his nose before heading toward the door, and she was glad he didn't look back to see the blush on her cheeks as she watched his perfect ass walk out of her life, leaving her guilt-ridden and wishing Reid was waiting for her back at the hotel.

  On the other side of the bar, Dani was about to experience the same disappointment. Gino, the ParraJax crew member most hated by any fan who had ever partied with the band, had come to wrangle Jax. The bus was leaving for Cleveland in half an hour.

  Jax grabbed a pen from the bartender and wrote his private cell phone number on Dani's palm, then he put his hands on her shoulders, bracing her as he pulled her in for a kiss. Slowly their faces moved toward each other, their eyes closed, Dani began to tremble, and Jax Bonham slipped his smooth, wet tongue between her lips. Her hands went to his head, twisting her fingers in his long hair as they attacked each other forcefully, ravenously. He grabbed her leg, hoisting it up over his hip, and with her dress riding up to expose the crotch of her panties, she could feel his cock, hard and yearning for her just as her suddenly throbbing clit yearned for him. At this point, she would not have had the power to stop him if he had tried to fuck her right there in the middle of the crowd, and Jax felt just as weak.

  This man who couldn't leave the safety of his hotel or limousine without droves of women begging to fulfill his every possible fetish or fantasy found himself in unfamiliar territory, wanting Dani so desperately, he could have fallen to his knees and begged for her, but even more delicious was the idea of dreaming about her for the next two weeks as he waited for the tour to take him to Indianapolis where they'd planned to meet. Summoning what little willpower he had, he pulled his lips from hers, tracing them along her face toward her ear, and with his cock still rubbing against her, he whispered.

  "Don't wear anything special when we meet in Indianapolis because when I get my hands on you, I'm going to rip your clothes to shreds and use them to tie you to my bed, then I'm going to make you come until you beg me to stop because making you come is all I'll be able to think about for the next two weeks."

  He thrust his cock against her as he bit down on her ear lobe, and when he started to softly grind into her, he heard only the slightest moan escape her lips as an orgasm seized upon her right there in the bar in front of everyone. Her breath grew heavy, her body quaked, and a very satisfied smile spread across the face of Jax Bonham as he slowly teased her through the aftershocks.

  "Call me," he breathed, pressing himself against her once more before he allowed Gino to finally pull him away, leaving her flushed and exposed but too high to feel embarrassed until she realized how many people were looking at her. Suddenly shy, she covered her mouth with her hand and scurried away from the bar to the booth where June and Olivia giggled at her, having watched the entire scene.

  T

  1:00 AM Monday Morning

  Once Jax was gone, Dani asked if they could call it a night. June had been ready to leave since dinner was over, and Olivia had been bored since Alek left. After drinking all night, she thought she would be nicely hammered rather than racked by guilt, but she hadn't even managed to catch a buzz. In fact, the only one of them who seemed tipsy at all was Liana. She had sucked down a lot of shooters, hoping she could talk herself into inviting Mitch up to their room, but
even if she had gotten herself obliterated enough to make such a bold move, it would not have worked. Mitch was a nice guy. He would have refused to take advantage of her in that state.

  With Liana draped over him as he walked her out of the bar, he helped her into the back of the limo and asked the others if they would like him to stop to get her coffee on the way back to the hotel. While they debated it with their stubborn, drunk friend, Olivia noticed something strange going on down the street. There appeared to be some sort of brawl on the sidewalk involving about ten people, and each time someone new came out of the club nearby, they were drawn into it.

  "Olivia!" Dani shouted. "Get your ass in the car! Let's go!"

  "What's the hurry?" she asked as she closed the door behind her, bummed that their vacation was essentially over.

  "You need to help me decide if I should text Jax or not," Dani said, then as Mitch pulled onto the road, she excitedly told her friends everything about her time with the lead singer of ParraJax, omitting the fact that he made her come in the middle of a crowded bar. "And now I want to call him so bad...just to make sure it's real. But I don't want to look desperate. I don't know what to do."

  "Well, you could tell him I spilled a drink and smudged the ink, so you wanted to make sure you had the number right," Liana suggested as she reached to open the limo's bar.

  "You're cut off," Olivia said, smacking her hand.

  "I'm going to do it," Dani said, and she tapped out a text.

  This is Dani...just making sure I got your number right.

  With a deep breath, she hit send, but Jax didn't text back. He called.

  "Hello?" Dani said, suddenly grinning as she bit her lip and twisted her hair in free hand. Giggling, the others tuned her out, talking among themselves as Jax told Dani he regretted not getting her number the minute he got on the bus because he would have called her already. He also regretted not sneaking away with her and letting the bus wait for him. He was, after all, the star, and that star was as taken with Dani as she was with him.

  Olivia thought it was cute, but it made June anxious. She wasn't even comfortable with what they did at Madam Levinia's when it was all just a joke, but now that it seemed like the spell was coming to fruition, she didn't like the implications for her immortal soul.

  "We shouldn't have done that," she said.

  "Done what?" Olivia asked as she stared out the window at another street fight, this one involving fewer people, but two of them had a third down on the ground, really attacking him.

  "Messed with witchcraft," June said.

  "Shut the fuck up, June," Olivia groaned with an impatient eye roll as she leaned forward so Mitch could hear her better. "Is it common around here to see this many people fighting in the streets?"

  "Not unless there's a WVU-Pitt game going on," he said with a laugh. "That's the fourth fight I've noticed since we left the bar. Maybe it's because of the comic convention...young people not used to drinking..."

  "Maybe," Olivia said as she sat back in her seat. They had decided not to stop for coffee, so a couple of minutes later, they were in front of their hotel, but Mitch couldn't pull the car under the awning because it was too congested. That was weird too. It was a busy hotel, but there was no reason there would be so many cars clogging the way after 1:00 am on a Monday morning even with the comic convention in town. The really weird thing was, there seemed to be some sort of altercation happening here as well.

  "Stay put, ladies," Mitch said. "I'm going to see what's going on before I let you out of the car."

  Liana was almost passed out, and as Dani argued with June about the spell she allegedly cast on Jax, Olivia's focus was locked on the activity under the hotel awning. She noticed that all of the cars appeared to be left running with their doors open, and as Mitch approached the valet stand, she saw several people rush him, knocking him to the ground. They seemed wild, mindless, and terrifying, and that something is amiss in the universe feeling suddenly flooded her system with adrenaline.

  We have to get the fuck out of here! her every instinct told her, and without even thinking, she crawled through the window separating the cab from the back and slid into the driver's seat, throwing the car in reverse and backing up just enough to be able to move it out of the circular drive.

  "What are you doing?" June demanded.

  "Making sure we don't get blocked in," she answered as she drove into the fire zone in front of the hotel to get as close to Mitch as possible, then she cracked the passenger side window. "Mitch! Come on! Hurry!"

  He looked up, and as he shoved a man off of himself and tried to make a run for it, he realized someone else had a hold of him. It was a woman lying on the ground with her arms wrapped around his ankle. He struggled to pull away, but instead of letting go, she clutched him tighter. He could feel her fingernails digging into his flesh just above his sock, and as he bent over to free himself, she bit him, taking a hunk out of his calf. He screamed in agony, but he couldn't let his wound slow him down because more were coming. With his other foot, he kicked the woman in the head until he could pull free from her, and even though he shouldn't have been able to put weight on the leg that had been bitten, he couldn't even feel the pain as he raced to the car with others running after him.

  "Go! Go! Go!" he shouted as he rolled into the backseat, pulling the door closed behind him. Olivia hit the gas and tore off onto the street where she could now see people wrestling and chasing each other everywhere.

  "What's the quickest route to the hospital?" she asked Mitch as June and Dani tried to clean his wound using vodka from the mini bar.

  "Doesn't matter," he said.

  "Of course it matters!" Liana cried. She had abruptly sobered up and began taking care of him. "We're taking you to a hospital!"

  "Look at what's going on around you, ladies. What do you think the hospitals will be like?"

  "What is going on around us?" June asked as they all turned their attention to the world outside where things were growing increasingly chaotic. People were running in the streets - way more people than should have been awake after 1:00 AM on a Monday morning - and now emergency vehicles were lining the sides of the roads. Flashing lights. Sirens. Gun shots.

  "No!" Dani cried as she watched a man tackle a woman and take a bite out of her face, the shreds of muscle stretching like cheese on a freshly baked pizza as he pulled away. She covered her mouth as her chest began to heave.

  "Pull over!" Liana shouted. "I think Dani's going to throw up!"

  "I can't," Olivia insisted as she stared ahead, her eyes glazed because running down the walk in front of the convention center was Alek Hellström. She knew it was him by the shape of the horns on his head, his face covered with the prosthetics from his demon makeup, and he was wearing a white t-shirt that was spattered in blood.

  Speechless, everyone in the car watched him being chased across the lawn, and despite all of the potential threats between them, Olivia had tunnel vision as she sped forward on an intercept course, terrified that she might see him go down right before her eyes when someone caught up to him from behind. Alek turned, swinging at the man with a prop from the show - a large bow with a pentagram in the center, and as the man went down, June spoke, her voice carrying a weight beyond its power in the eerie silence of the limousine.

  "Behold," she whispered. "A white horse, and he who sat upon it had a bow and a crown, and he went out to conquer."

  For a second, everything seemed frozen, her words hanging in the air like the narration of a bad dream until Olivia was abruptly awakened by the anger they provoked.

  "Shut the fuck up!" she snapped at June as she slammed on the brakes and cut the wheel, slinging the car toward Alek and the two crazed people who tailed him, their eyes glassy, their teeth gnashing violently. Olivia rolled down the passenger side window and called his name.

  "Hurry!" she cried desperately, and when he dove into front seat, his face in her lap, she hit the gas, rushing away before his pursuers could grab
his legs.

  "Thank God you were here," Alek breathed as he righted himself on the seat and began peeling the horns, mask, and cowl from his head and face.

  "God?" June butted in. "I don't think God is the reason we were in the exact right place at the right time, huh, Olivia?"

  "Stop it, June!" Dani demanded.

  "Why? Afraid to admit it? We did this! It's what happens when you summon demons!"

  "There's no such thing as demons!" Olivia hissed.

  "Then what would you call it when people start eating each other in the streets?"

  "I don't know, but if you don't give it rest, I'll throw you out the fucking window and you can see for yourself!" Olivia snapped at her, and June scowled as she slumped back in her seat.

  "Maybe it's some kind of virus like mad cow disease," Liana suggested, trying to keep the peace. "Or bath salts. Remember that video of the man in Florida who was on bath salts and bit someone's face off?"

  "It's not bath salts," Alek said as he pulled the bald cap off his head, releasing his gorgeous blonde hair. His demon costume was pretty bad-assed, but his human character was what Olivia liked best about the show.

  "How do you know it isn't bath salts?" she asked him.

  "I watched someone get bit and become one of them," he said. "It may be a virus, but if it is, it acts fast." He had been in the makeup chair when a man came running into the backstage area and attacked a member of the FX crew. The security guard had to shoot him to stop him, but before he died, he managed to bite the makeup artist on the neck. She fell in the scuffle and bled out, then a few minutes later, she got back up, infected. It was a chain reaction from there, and Alek had run with two crew members, both of whom were attacked and bitten along the way. He didn't want to abandon them, but having seen firsthand that one bite was all it took, he knew they were beyond his help.