by Harley James
He looked at Kat’s bathroom door, rubbing his neck, then turned to stare out the second-story windows where the full moon glimmered on the ever-rolling Pacific. The ocean called to him. The feel of the wind in his hair, the salt on his tongue, his ship rolling under his feet, the crack of the sails…
For him, there was peace on the water. A rightness and a belonging.
He’d once had that with Kat.
He hungered for both, yet feared never the twain would meet.
He walked to stand in front of the bathroom door, his hand poised over the handle. He could sense nothing beyond the door. No noise, no heartbeat, no current of her essence. She’d masked it all from him.
His hand lowered to his side, and he quietly left the room.
Chapter 11
Club festivities were in full swing when Ari made his way downstairs and headed for Konani’s station. Kat had created one hell of a nightclub. Its seductive turquoise lighting glowed off luxurious white leather seating that ringed a gorgeous, trapezoidal dance floor made of native koa wood. Its grains were so fluid the entire floor seemed alive with movement.
Inlaid in the wood was an exceptionally large Devil’s Trap in its usual configuration—a circle with five magical sigils inscribed between the legs of a star. Next to the dance floor, south of the bar, was the large stage where a young woman in a barely-there glittering leotard defied gravity with her aerial dance on a silk rope suspended from the ceiling.
Ari scanned the other side of the dance floor, where the sound tech and DJ booths took up most of the wall next to the wide doorway leading outside to the terrace, pools, and swim-up bar.
Liquor was flowing, and humans were flirting, laughing, and dancing.
Status quo. Ari’s shoulders relaxed as he turned back to the bar.
“Hello, handsome, where have you been all my life?”
Ari caught Konani’s eye roll before he looked down at a curvy brunette blocking his path. He smiled. “Chasing demons and learning how to meditate in India, Nepal, and Bhutan.”
The brunette cocked her head. “Good-looking, well-traveled, and intelligent. Maybe you can tell me more about your adventures over a drink?”
“Much obliged, but I have to decline.”
“You damn right, he does.” Jade inserted herself between him and the brunette, her hands doing all manner of communicating to the shorter woman. “Now, bye.”
The brunette’s gaze shot to Ari’s over Jade’s head. He shrugged with a grin. When the young woman melted into the crowd, Ari slung an arm across Jade’s shoulders and continued on to the bar.
“You start smilin’ at every pretty young thing who bebops into your path, and this whole place is gonna go down in a waterpocalypse if Kat finds out,” Jade huffed.
“She’d actually have to like me to be jealous of another woman.”
“Stop acting stupid. She never would’ve let you keep her in bed for three days if she didn’t like you. And damn, by the sounds we heard coming from the apartment, the shit you two have been doing, neither of you oughta be walking upright.”
Ari eased to the crowded bar in front of Konani, who promptly slid Jade a glass of chardonnay and then uncapped his favorite stout. His mouth watered looking at the label.
“You remembered.” He toasted Konani and took a long swallow, while Jade bartered with an arguing couple for their stools. He smacked his lips. “Liquor perfection.”
Konani nodded with a smile, pouring blue curaçao into a martini glass for a server. “Dried cherry and fig aroma. Kat always makes sure we’re stocked.”
Jade wiggled her eyebrows at Ari. “That should tell you something.”
It did, but he wasn’t sure what. That Katherine expected he’d come, and she wanted to make sure his favorite beer was on hand? Unlikely.
More probably, she’d tested it on her customers, and it had become a crowd favorite.
Christ, stop with all the speculation. He put his elbows on the bar. “So, Nani, did you ever finish your teaching degree?”
“Kat would’ve skinned me alive if I didn’t.” She loaded up a server’s tray with four colorful daiquiris. “Now, I co-teach math to eighth graders. I love it. And when I’m not here or at school, I keep books for GAN, the charity Makoa and I started for homeless and sexually exploited youth. We named it the Guardian Angel Network because Kat was our ānela kiaʻi—the guardian angel who saved us. She gave us the seed money to open our doors. Don’t tell her I told you though. She’d be mad.”
Ari leaned back in his stool. Most people loved announcing their good deeds, raising themselves in the esteem of others. Not Kat. She didn’t want people to know she had a heart of gold. She’d rather they assumed she was cold and indifferent so they kept their distance.
Less chance to be hurt that way.
Kat felt more comfortable in the shadows rescuing the forgotten, the sick, the broken.
Elskan. My love. Ari reached out telepathically, finding her essence in the hallway that led to the bathrooms, club office, and sanctorum. She startled before quickly blocking him, but her walls had been down for a brief time. A small victory. He celebrated by downing the rest of his stout. As much as he wanted to go to her, it was better to let her come to him when she was ready.
He swiveled on his stool, surveying the scene. All ages filled the dance floor, where laughter and leers and too many beers usually spelled demon trouble before the night was through. Club security generally spotted the Possessed and demons right away. If not, and the demons realized it was a Guardian nightclub, one of Kat’s complex wards would prevent them from leaving until they were dealt with.
Most nights, the security team was able to publicly subdue the evil because the majority of humans assumed the offenders—who were being carted off for exorcisms or extermination—were juiced up on drugs.
Security also looked for humans who saw beyond the veil and recognized what was actually happening. People who suddenly realized demons walked among them. Katherine dealt with those panicked individuals, usually by mind-wiping.
At the bar Jade was talking to Maddox and Stark about their strategy for the night. As the men dispersed into the crowds to consult with the bouncers, Kat appeared on the second story overlooking the dance floor. Her long fingers curled over the ornate balustrade, her eyes finding his through the colored haze cast by the flashing lights.
“You’ve built a solid, loyal team,” he pushed at her. “Everything is going to be okay.”
There was silence in the space between them, then, “We can’t know what Leviathan is capable of. All I ask is that you guard my staff to the best of your ability. They are…my family.”
His gaze traced the tense line of her shoulders, the whiteness of her knuckles. How could she ever think she wouldn’t be a good mother? All she did was protect and elevate those she loved.
He nodded, watching her shoulders ease slightly. He would do whatever she asked of him, but no one’s safety would come before hers.
Three hours passed unremarkably. Feeling restless, Ari made another round of the club, spotting Kat amusing a bachelorette party table. He walked by, his fingertips skimming her ass.
“Holy fuck, it’s Adonis in the flesh! Come here, sexy. I’m ready to put my yoga practice to work!” The girls at the table burst into raunchy laughter.
He smiled and kept walking.
“Good news, ladies.” Kat’s voice was more animated than it had been all week. “That fine piece of man-flesh will be going up for bachelor auction if he’s still in the area next weekend.”
You little vixen. He glanced over his shoulder and winked at the women who broke into hoots and applause.
Downstairs near the entrance to the kitchen, Maddox was in a heated conversation with Jade. Ari moved closer, catching snatches of troubling dialogue on the high-pressure currents he pulsed around the room.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
Maddox swung around, his eyes angry, entire body stance ready for bat
tle.
Ari spread his hands wide near his hips. “Hey, take it easy, brother. I’m not the enemy here.”
“You are not my family,” Maddox gritted out, “and it remains to be seen if we’ll be enemies.”
Jade patted Maddox’s shoulder, looking at Ari. “We’re a little edgy tonight.”
“Jade—”
She turned back to Maddox. “We can trust him. I promise.”
Maddox stared at Jade a long time before he nodded.
She leaned closer to Ari. “Maddox is psychic. Most of his life it’s been a traumatic experience, but Kat and a specialist have been working with him for the past year to control his abilities. A few minutes ago, his senses jumped into high alert.”
Interesting. Kat probably planned to mentor Maddox in casting out demons. Human psychics could be powerful exorcists once they’d mastered their gifts. “What are you sensing?”
Maddox rubbed the scruff on his cheeks. Ari drew closer, focusing on the intense young man, trying to latch onto a thread of his thoughts, but he only encountered a disconcerting silence.
Maddox turned to Ari with vehement silver eyes. “Something’s coming…and it’s bad.”
Chapter 12
Ari scanned the stage, dance floor, and, upper balcony. Nothing seemed amiss, but things could go to hell quickly. The DJ announced a popular new song, and the dancers erupted in cheers and spilled beer.
“Tell Ari what you explained to me,” Jade urged Maddox, yelling over the heavy bass of the music.
Maddox’s eyes took on a faraway look. “I hear wailing behind the walls. People suffering, pounding, trying to get in. In here, I see flames on people’s bodies as they dance. And when they turn my way, blood runs from their eyes. Then I blink, and all the impressions are gone.”
“Have you told Katherine?”
Maddox nodded. “The whole security team knows, too.”
“We have a cache of demon weaponry stashed at multiple checkpoints around the club. We’re ready for anything,” Jade said.
Ari wasn’t so sure about that, but he wasn’t going to undermine her confidence. “Did the chrism oil finally get here?” When Jade confirmed, he relaxed a little.
Wards, Latin incantations used with ash, and salt across doorways and windows kept demons either in or out, but if Leviathan was the one triggering Maddox’s psychic sensitivities, they’d need all the firepower they could muster.
Chrism oil, made from olive oil, scented with balsam, and consecrated by a bishop on Holy Thursday, was more powerful than holy water, which was fine for use on run-of-the-mill demons.
A Molotov cocktail of holy water and communion wine was almost as powerful as chrism oil. When lobbed with an incantation, it incapacitated all demons within a block radius so they could be dealt with.
Ari, Kat, and the rest of the team would need all of that and more.
Even then, it might not be enough to fight Leviathan.
“Stay open to your impressions. They could be our only advance warning. Nice work.” He lifted his hand to Maddox, who hesitated a moment before shaking it. “I know your exposure to all that darkness is a sacrifice.”
Ari turned away to find Kat when a harsh scent overlaid the club’s piped-in essential oil blend. This new odor was pungent and…acrid. Ari frowned, expanding his senses beyond the dance floor and surrounding tables—where he encountered a suspension of carbon particles. Smoke.
People began to yell and scream.
“Fire at the DJ booth,” he pushed at Kat as he streamed there.
Kat was right behind him. Members of security herded people toward the exits as the emergency sprinklers went off, and Stark used a wooden cross to back a broad-shouldered, black-haired man into the Devil’s Trap. A woman shrieked from her position on top of the bar, pointing at the pair.
The sprinklers weren’t putting out the fire so Ari gathered a blast of hot air from the flames to form a ring around the resisting, possessed man.
“Ari, be careful! That’s Makoa!” Kat yelled and circled around behind the tall Hawaiian. “What happened?”
Stark switched the cross to his left hand, brushed the wet hair out of his eyes, and reached for the vessel of holy water that another security team member brought him. “He didn’t look well about twenty minutes ago. I told him to go outside to get some air. He came back in like this.”
“Get out of my way.” Kat raised a shaky hand toward the sprinkler above her to direct water at the DJ booth to put out the fire. Ari dropped the fire ring around Makoa to contain him. Then he built the pressure in the air to give Kat’s water a push and to keep Makoa from leaving the room.
Every time the brawny, young Hawaiian attempted to run away, he bumped into Ari’s invisible air force. The demon inside him howled, looking for a way out or a body to hurt.
“Makoa, stop this madness. You are goodness and light. Fight this.” Kat’s voice was faint.
Ari glanced sharply at her. What the fuck? Her cheeks were draining of color, her eyes becoming a washed-out blue. Impossible. She shouldn’t be so exhausted after such a minor encounter. Certainly not after three days in his care.
The sound of sirens grew steadily louder.
“Can you make the emergency responders turn around?” Kat weakly pushed at Ari.
“I thought you didn’t like my use of mind control.”
“Only when you use it on me.”
“I wouldn’t ever make you do anything you don’t want to.” Unless it was for her own good. He was almost ready to call on Alexios to force Kat into an ether sleep until he figured out why she was so compromised.
“Just do it now!” she snapped.
He compressed his lips, sending a massive pulse of ‘all’s well’ to the emergency responders. Then he created a vacuum around what remained of the DJ booth blaze, depriving it of oxygen, and the fire went out instantly. In the next breath, he lifted his hand, creating an air pressure lasso around a snarling Makoa, pulling him closer to the Devil’s Trap.
Jade and the security team got the last of the drenched partygoers outside where Ari did a quick group mind wipe, while Kat, Maddox, and Stark moved to defensive positions in case Makoa found a way to escape. When Ari came back inside, Makoa looked unhinged, groaning and holding his head with both hands as he lurched forward, finally pitching into the Devil’s Trap.
“Makoa, stay with us. You are strong, kaikaina. Aloha au ia 'oe.” Konani’s golden skin was pale, the shadows under her eyes pronounced as she moved to the edge of the Trap and pulled out a rosary. Makoa wailed when he saw what was in his sister’s hands. Konani shook her head, glancing at Ari. “I don’t understand. Out of all of us, my brother should have been the least vulnerable to invasion.”
That had been Ari’s initial impression as well, but over the centuries, he’d learned that people hid all manner of disturbing secrets behind serene exteriors.
Suddenly the front door of the building caved in and half a dozen Possessed scattered inside like ants fleeing a razed colony.
“Heads up!” Jade yelled, chasing in on their heels with a crucifix in one hand and a St. Michael medallion in the other. “A posse of demons were waiting for hosts out there, and guess what, those bastards found ’em after you finished the mind wipes, Ari.”
Ari grabbed one by the back of the neck as another pair of newcomers tore into each other, nails rending skin, teeth biting, falling half-in and half-out of the Devil’s Trap. One of them pulled a small knife and gouged a painted chunk out of the wood floor, destroying the protective circle of the Devil’s Trap.
Ah, shit, no—
Ari didn’t make it in time before Makoa trampled over the fallen bodies and escaped the Devil’s Trap. Ari shoved the man he was holding into a chair in the Trap, then used air pressure to push the fallen Possessed the rest of the way inside the circle. After he resituated the wood chunk in the painted circle, he reinstated its binding power with an incantation.
By the time he turned around, Makoa
had found the one place that didn’t have counter pressure holding him inside the building—the dead air zone by the DJ booth where Ari had suffocated the blaze.
Makoa spun around beside the cabana, closest to the swim-up bar, his possessed senses immediately alerted to the Guardian at his back. His whole body twitched with the strength of the war being waged inside. “You’re nooo good for her.”
Ari knew it didn’t pay to engage in verbal skirmishes with demons, especially when they were in that near-feral state, trying to stake their claim on a host.
He also wasn’t a hold-back kinda guy. “You presume to know what’s good for Kat?”
Makoa walked stiff-legged toward the edge of the pool, his body jerking every couple steps like he didn’t want to move, but didn’t have a choice. The demon was probably whispering to him that if he didn’t give over, he’d drown his body, then find another host. “Sheeee doesn’t like to be c-c-called Kat.”
Once upon a time she did. Could she have changed so much?
Stop. This is exactly what demons did. Mess with your mind until you didn’t know which end was up, and you fucked yourself without any extra help from the demon.
Ari sent his senses inside the club to gauge other threats as well as the progress the team was making to manage the Possessed. Kat’s group was getting the last of them into the Trap, but there was something dark gathering around the building. “You feel that?” he asked her. “Outside in the front.”
“I do. Stay with Makoa. Don’t let anything happen to him.”
I might, he thought, but didn’t let Kat hear it. The young Hawaiian would have to prove his worthiness. Ari looked up, gathering the wispy nighttime clouds high above them, swirling them violently as a distraction for Makoa’s demon. It would be best if the young man could overwhelm the demon himself so they didn’t have to exorcise him. It’d give him confidence in his abilities to aid and protect Kat. “It’s time for you to go back to Hell, demon. My soul mate won’t be happy if I let you take over her pet employee, so you can either leave peacefully, or I’ll make you howl on your way out.”