Death Wish

by Brooks, Harper A.

Now wasn’t the time to pass out.

  By the time it took my eyes to adjust again, Laurence’s distinct figure disappeared through the broken front door.

  Cole rubbed his eyes to refocus them. Once he realized Laurence was gone, he ran to the door and leaned out. A flurry of curses escaped his mouth, and he punched the wall hard enough to dent the plaster.

  “Fuck!” he shouted one last time for good measure and shook out his wrist. There was a glint of blood on his knuckles.

  The severity of what had just happened socked me in the gut. I had touched Laurence, expecting to kill him, or whatever beast had taken him over. Not shoot white light from my fingertips. And the burning skin? That was new.

  And terrifying, quite frankly.

  I looked at my bare palm, expecting it to look different, but the same pale skin I was used to was there. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  Kay crawled out from behind the table. “Is he gone?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  When Cole marched back inside, I finally got a proper chance to look at him. Even with his expression heavy with raw anger, he was strikingly handsome. Blond hair, crusted with mud, was mussed as if he had styled it beforehand with some kind of gel. A growing beard and mustache shadowed his strong jawline and full mouth, and a new cut across his cheek, just above another faded scar. Even with the oversized jacket on, his wide shoulders and muscular build were obvious.

  If it wasn’t for the cuts and bruises, I would have guessed he had a career in modeling or TV. Not mercenary work. He reminded me of a college pretty boy, not a ruthless killer.

  But I had seen him shoot that gun, and he definitely was familiar with it.

  “Yes. He’s gone.” Cole’s voice was as surprising as the rest of him. A deep sound that was a bit too gravelly and severe to match his golden-boy exterior.

  His blue-eyed gaze shifted to me. “What was that?”

  I held up my hand and wiggled my fingers. “Oh, the old emitting lights from my fingers thing?” A too-fake laugh spilled out without my control. In that moment, I wanted to laugh and cry, and I had no idea why. But I reined my hysterical fit in as much as I could and said as calmly as I could manage, “I have no idea.”

  Cole’s stare told me he didn’t believe me, but I ignored it. It was my turn to ask questions.

  “What was that thing? Laurence—”

  “That wasn’t Laurence,” Cole interrupted. “Not entirely, at least.”

  Kay moved to my side, rubbing her arms. She was shaking, and every so often, she glanced at the door, as if the thing that had attacked us was due to return at any moment.

  “So, you saw the weird creature face underneath Laurence’s, too?” I asked.

  Cole cocked his head.

  I glanced at Kay, who looked just as confused.

  “You know, fangs? Thick brow? Glowing red eyes?”

  They both stared at me like I had just sprouted another head.

  “Just me. Huh.”

  After a long moment of uneasy silence, Cole said, “You saw the demon within.”

  Now it was my turn to stare at him in disbelief. “Excuse me?”

  “Not familiar with them, are you?”

  I shook my head. “Never seen one in my life.” Then after a second, I added, “Ugly bastards.”

  That won me a smirk from him.

  “Laurence is a demon?” Kay peeped beside me.

  “No, he’s just possessed,” Cole answered, matter-of-fact. Like this was the kind of shit he dealt with all the time. Totally normal.

  “Just possessed.” I shook my head. “Wait a minute. It isn’t the solstice. Demons shouldn’t be crossing over. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “So you do know about demons,” Cole said.

  “Just the basics.”

  His expression changed suddenly to all seriousness, the same hard look I’d seen in the alley right before he shot at me. “Then you know your friend here is still in a lot of danger. If I’m right about why I think Xaver was here, then we need to get her somewhere safe. And fast.”

  “What would he want with Kay?” I glanced at my friend, and her eyes widened.

  “I don’t have time to explain right now. We need to go. And I need my backpack.” His jaw tightened. “Xaver’s going to be back, and I’m all out of bullets.”

  That was all Kay and I needed to know. We followed Cole out of the shop but didn’t get too far because of the raging storm. Kay paused on the sidewalk, instantly soaked from the harsh rain. Glancing back at the broken glass door and the visible inside, her shoulders slumped forward, and she wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

  My chest ached for her. The man she loved had just attacked her. And apparently, now possessed by a demon, wanted to come back to finish the job.

  Her shop was wrecked. All her hard work, ruined. It was going to take a lot of money and time to get the place back to the colorful and welcoming esthetic that drew customers in.

  I reached out to wrap a comforting arm around her shoulder, but then I noticed my ungloved hand and stopped myself. That was definitely a mistake I would never forgive myself for. I shoved my hands in my pockets instead.

  Cole led the way to the side of the shop, to the alley where I had originally found him unconscious. He walked straight for one of the knocked-over trash bins and grabbed a ripped, navy-blue backpack that had been hidden behind it.

  “So,” I started, spotting my leather glove on the ground. I picked it up and slipped it back on. “I have a lot of questions that need answers.”

  He reached into his bag, pulled out a wrapped umbrella, and handed it to Kay. She took it shyly with a nod of thanks and pushed it open.

  “We need to get uptown,” he said. “We’ll take my Jeep. It’s parked right around the corner here.” As Cole began striding ahead of us, Kay and I exchanged looks. She didn’t need to say a word. Her expression said everything. She was wondering if we should trust him. Honestly, I was wondering the same thing.

  “What’s uptown?” I asked.

  “A safe house for…”

  “Kay,” she answered.

  “Right.”

  Kay waited for him to follow up with his name, but when he didn’t, I took it upon myself.

  “His name is Cole Masters. He’s a paid assassin. Which brings me to my next question. What was that thing you shot me with? How did it not fly through me like the first one?” I glanced at my shoulder again. The wound was smaller, but the skin was black around the edges and still stung.

  He walked over to the mouth of the alley and peeked over his shoulder. His face was all cold seriousness, but his eyes… A silent challenge shined in them. “I have some questions for you myself, but we’ll get to all that in the car.”

  I didn’t know if I wanted to go into a car with an assassin half-demon with weapons that could actually hurt me, and I definitely didn’t want to risk Kay’s life at all. But when Cole started walking down the street, we followed. Did we have any other choice really? Cole knew about demons. I sure as hell didn’t. He even knew the demon’s real name. Xaver. They’d seemed to have history together.

  That didn’t ease my nerves any, but Cole had weapons and not just any weapons. They were ones that could wound a spirit. I didn’t know such a thing existed. I believed him when he said Kay was in danger. I witnessed it for myself in how Laurence went after her in the shop. Cole could protect her better than I could. All I could do was touch the demon again, and although the light show had been enough to scare Xaver off before, who knew if I’d be able to get close enough to lay a hand on him the next time.

  Kay stayed close behind me. She held the umbrella over the both of us. Even though the rain couldn’t touch me, I didn’t stop her. The gesture was heartwarming in itself. It was so…human. As if she considered me alive, like her. It meant more to me than she could probably understand.

  Cole’s Jeep was parked down a small side street. It was more on the sidewalk than on the actual blacktop. He made sure to
park right underneath a sign that clearly stated No Parking Any Time.

  The Jeep itself was a faded dark blue color and was scraped up pretty bad on the right side, as if someone had sideswiped him and drove off. The back light was broken, the canvas top was ripped in a few places, and there was a pretty big ding in the bumper. Definitely not what I expected from a notorious gun-for-hire. Killing people for a living had to earn him a pretty penny. He should have had the money to buy one of those luxury cars, or at least to fix this one up. It was ugly. Plain and simple.

  He must have caught my expression because he said, “It runs fine. That’s all I need.”

  “Right.” I tried to offer him a smile, but it came out more of a cringe.

  As he opened the passenger door for Kay, I phased through the back and sat in the middle seat. Cole threw his backpack near me, and when he started the car, it made a terrible sputtering sound. He quickly shut it off and tried again. A few nasty clicks and it turned over, roaring loudly.

  “How do you sneak up on your victims with this monster?” I asked.

  Kay glanced over her shoulder at me nervously.

  Cole pulled out of the small street and whipped onto one of the main roads, lights off, despite the pouring rain. “Victims? I prefer targets. Sounds nicer to the ear.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I mumbled.

  His reflection peered at me through the rearview mirror. “So, you said you had questions.”

  “And you said you do, too.”

  “How about we do a one-and-one kind of thing,” he started. “You ask one and then I’ll ask one. Seem fair?”

  “But I get to go first,” I said.

  “Fine.”

  I shifted uneasily in the seat. Was it me or did it smell like wet dog in here? I didn’t need to focus on that. Instead, I needed answers. There were so many questions. Where to start?

  The beginning would be best.

  “So, Cole, why can you see me? No other living people can, except Kay that is. But she’s a Medium, so that makes sense. I’ve never met anyone else who can see me.”

  “That’s a complicated one to start with,” he said, his gaze flicking between me and the road. Whatever the speed limit was, there was no doubt he was exceeding it. We were whipping in between cars on the main highway and passing others with ease. “I’m not sure I can even answer that one…” He paused. “Is what Xaver said true? You’re a reaper?”

  I hesitated. Kay had turned fully in her seat now and was staring at me. Should I tell them? Better yet, would the censor even let me say it? Could this end up badly for me in any way?

  So much shit had hit the fan tonight, it was hard to believe I would come out of this unscathed from Azrael at all. Might as well let the truth out and get the information I wanted.

  I took a deep breath. “I am…a reaper. Yes.” No twist to my words. No censor. That was odd. I didn’t expect it to be that easy.

  “Makes sense on why I’ve seen you before, after some of my kills…” he mused, his eyebrow raised.

  So, he’d seen me before, too.

  “That makes you a spirit, which is why Kay can see you. But then, how could Xaver see you? And touch you? He was able to throw you halfway across the room.”

  I was wondering that one myself. Wasn’t it my turn to ask the question, anyway? “I was hoping you knew the answer to that one.”

  “My guess is that it has to do with his demon blood,” he said. “Technically, demons are from the same plane as you, the spiritual plane. Just a different part of it. Am I right?”

  I nodded. Sounded logical to me.

  “Then that would explain how I could see you, being half-demon myself.”

  Did that mean he could make physical contact with me, too?

  The thought of his hands on me made a very different feeling spike through my veins. Tangled in my hair, caressing my breasts, gripping my ass. In an instant, desire took hold and tried to run free.

  I stomped down my climbing libido and quietly told it to stay put. I definitely didn’t need those kinds of ideas distracting me. Especially with so much at stake.

  “Half-demon?” Kay croaked, looking paler than before. “A reaper? That’s why you can get rid of all of those ghosts who follow me around?”

  My throat dried. Even though I hadn’t been allowed to tell Kay the truth of what I was before, for some reason, it felt as if I had betrayed her somehow. Like I had lied and disappointed her.

  Two things I never wanted to do.

  Cole cut in. “Being a reaper also explains why my specialty bullets affected you.” When I threw him a questioning look, he explained. “They’re made of pure iron and blessed in Holy Water, just in case.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Pure iron repels spirits of all kinds. Even fairies. Holy Water is for the more demonic creatures, like demons or vamps. This way I have double the protection.” He grinned.

  “You seem pretty damn proud of yourself.”

  “I am. They’ve made my job much easier.”

  I wondered if Azrael knew about after these types of weapons in the hands of the living. Bullets that could harm the dead? Not good.

  Cole took the exit for uptown Fairport a little too fast, sliding me across the back seat and swinging Kay into the door.

  “I hope you all are buckled in,” he said.

  Kay quickly grabbed her seatbelt and fastened it. There was no need for me to. My hand went right through the thing.

  “I think it’s still your turn technically,” he said after a moment.

  “Uh, yeah.” I went through my mental laundry list of questions. “What were you doing in the alley before I found you? What happened?”

  His jaw tightened. I could see the muscles pulsing by his ears as he ground his teeth. “Xaver.”

  “You got into a fight or something beforehand?”

  “I’ve been chasing Xaver for a while. After he possessed your friend, I followed him to your shop, Kay, and surprised him. We scuffled for a bit, but he threw me against the wall. I guess it knocked me out. That’s all I remember before you showed.”

  I wondered if he was telling the truth. His profile had said he’d been hit with a blunt object and had suffered major head trauma. Enough to kill.

  Really, he could be lying, and I had no way of knowing. On the other hand, he could be telling the truth, too. What reason did he have to lie to us? I couldn’t think of any at that moment, but then, I couldn’t think of any reason for him to want to tell the truth either.

  “Why were you following him to begin with?” I asked.

  “Hey, you asked your question. Now it’s my turn.”

  I scowled at him. He returned it with a wicked smile in the rearview mirror.

  Now in the heart of Fairport, Cole turned left, deeper into the newer part of town, past high-rises and expensive storefronts. I wondered where this safe house was that he was taking us to. Was it in one of these five-star hotels?

  “Why were you there in the alley in the first place?” Cole asked me, breaking the silence.

  Of course he would ask the one question I really didn’t want to answer. I sighed. “Take a guess.”

  He stopped at a red light. A herd of people crossed in front of our Jeep as the Walk light flashed.

  Cole turned in his seat. “Me? You were there to reap me?”

  I nodded. “You were my next assignment.”

  His expression became unreadable. Plain and guarded, as if my admission to almost killing him wasn’t shocking. “But I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t even close to dead. Just knocked out.”

  “I’m just as confused as you,” I said, the weight of the situation only growing heavier and more suffocating. “It’s never happened before.”

  Once the light turned green, Cole punched the accelerator, making me jerk back.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “We’re almost there.”

  When I looked out the window again, I realized we had trave
led to a very different part of the city. Graffiti decorated the many closed storefronts and walls. Bright neon lights flashed from both sides of the street, beckoning for patrons to come get dollar peep shows and see live nudes. Something told me that if it wasn’t pouring rain, we’d see women dressed in scandalous outfits and high heels gathering on the street corners.

  Uneasiness crept up my spine.

  Kay finally spoke again. “Uh, where are you taking me?”

  “A friend of mine owes me a favor,” Cole answered. “He’ll keep you safe for me while I figure this out with Xaver and Laurence.”

  “You won’t hurt him, will you?”

  “I’ll try.”

  However, the severe pinch between his brows said he couldn’t make any promises.

  He whipped his car into a handicap parking spot along the curb and shut it off. After reaching behind him, he snatched his backpack and jumped out. I hopped out, too.

  Kay struggled to get her umbrella open again, so she left it behind. The harsh rain continued to whip against her and Cole.

  Cole gestured to the building in front of us. “Here we are,” he said. “You’ll be safe here.”

  Its brick face had been painted black, making the neon sign stand out even more against it. The word Red gradually flickered from crimson to white and back again. Every window was covered by dark curtains, but they didn’t completely block everything from view. Silhouettes of women danced in the background, shaking their asses and gliding up and down poles. Just enough to tease. Top that with a muscular bouncer beside the door, and I knew this wasn’t your typical twenty-four hour bar. This was something more devious.

  “A-A strip club?” I sputtered in disbelief. “Your safe house is a strip club?”

  “Not just any strip club,” Cole replied with another grin. “A vampire strip club.”

  “No. No way,” I said, staring at the darkened building in shock.

  That blow to the head had done more than knock him unconscious. He had lost his damn mind.

  There was no way I was allowing Kay to go anywhere near there. Let alone inside.

  “Vampires? Really?” Was I really having this conversation? It seemed like common sense. “They’ll eat her. Or did you forget that?”