Death Wish

by Brooks, Harper A.

  And now I was standing face-to-face with one of them. An original sin demon.

  Greed, who wanted to be called Monnie. Pronounced like “money.”

  You got to be kidding me. Did he think he was funny? I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

  He was waiting for me to do something. Whether it was marvel at his presence, comment on his cleverness with his name, or run for the hills, who knows. Unimpressed, I just stood there, hands raised and ready to blast this cocky S.O.B. back to where he came from if I needed to.

  “Are you proud of that? Really?”

  He sighed and dropped his hands, disappointed. “Don’t have much of a funny bone, do you?”

  “What do you want?” I shot back, growing more annoyed.

  “Jade, right? That’s what you’re going by now?”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  “Yes, well,” he went on, “I’ve come topside to help you, actually. I’ve heard you are in quite a bind.”

  “I don’t want your help,” I snapped.

  He held up a finger. “Why don’t you hear me out first. I’m sure I can change your mind.”

  Not wanting anything to do with Monnie, I turned around and marched away. Turning my back to a powerful, full-blood demon probably wasn’t one of my smartest ideas, but nothing about Monnie screamed trustworthy. I needed to get away from him and fast. The grave dirt would have to wait until another day.

  Maybe going for this walk by myself hadn’t been such a good idea.

  “Your Medium friend may want you to reconsider,” he called, and I halted at the mention of Kay.

  Guilt bubbled up, as it always did when I thought of Kay and the trouble I had put her in. I hadn’t even gotten that far down the sidewalk before spinning around to face him again. That got a pleased smile from the demon.

  “There,” he purred. “A little bit of your time. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “Talk fast.”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? At Fairport’s oldest cemetery? You’re looking for the next piece of the demon cure. To save your friend.”

  How did he know any of this? Had he been following me?

  Unease skipped through me. I didn’t like this; I didn’t like this one bit.

  Monnie took his chance and closed the distance between us. “I can help you save her.”

  The red color of his eyes flashed for a second before turning the human’s normal brown again. Whoever Monnie had taken control of, I felt bad for them. No one deserved to unknowingly surrender control over their own body, especially by a demon.

  And he was expecting me to trust him? Just like that?

  Despite my gut twisting in warning and all the sirens going off in my head, I heard myself asking, “How?”

  His grin spread wide. “I won’t only tell you, I’ll take it a step further,” he said. “I’ll give you the key to the cure.”

  “And what do you want in exchange?” No one ever did anything for free, and something told me there was no way Monnie, the demon of Greed, was going to do anything for free.

  Shrugging, he said, “Nothing much. Just…a kiss.”

  I almost choked on my tongue. “Excuse me?” He couldn’t be serious. What kind of weird, pervy request was that?

  “That’s my price. My information for a kiss.”

  I said nothing as I considered his offer. Was I considering it? I guessed so. Finding out how to save Kay’s life had been my main priority since the attack in her shop. Her time was limited to find a way to help her, and we weren’t even sure if our interpretation of the cure was the real one. I promised her I’d do everything to save her. And I would.

  What was a kiss? Nothing really. A quick two second peck and that was all.

  Wasn’t much of a sacrifice on my end.

  “That’s really all you want? A kiss?” I asked. “And you’ll give me what I need to save Kay.”

  “That’s all.”

  “No tongue, do you hear me?” I said, firmly. “Two seconds, max.”

  His perfectly shaped eyebrows arched. “That’s only if you don’t beg for more.”

  I resisted the urge to vomit. Probably one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do in my afterlife.

  “I expect payment up front,” he said and puckered his lips.

  I hesitated. What if he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain? I mean, I wouldn’t be losing much if he did decide to leave after, right?

  “I’m waiting,” he chastised, pursing his lips out farther. “Just a little kiss.”

  Taking a deep breath, I told myself it would be over in seconds. It wasn’t like he was asking me for a limb. I needed to suck it up and do it. For Kay.

  Closing my eyes, I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his.

  A zap of energy surged between us, ricocheting from my head to the tips of my toes and back again. I leapt back, stunned, and when I opened my eyes again, I was staring at the hideous red eyes and gray face of the full-blooded demon, Mammon. Similar to Xaver, he had a protruding brow and pointed ears, but unlike him, Mammon had an oversized mouth jam-packed with sharp teeth.

  I gasped, backpedaling. But as quick as the image appeared, it vanished, replaced by the suave and collected man I had been talking to all this time. He was staring at me with a puzzled look.

  “What did you see?” he asked, intrigued.

  It took me some time to find my voice again. My heart felt like it was stuck in my throat.

  “You,” I whispered, and rubbed my lips together. They still tingled from the electric charge that had passed through me. “I saw you. The real you.”

  “Interesting…” When he smiled again, I thought about the huge mouth with hundreds of pointy teeth—what really lay underneath the human façade. “I wonder if that’s because of what you are.”

  “A reaper?”

  To my surprise, Monnie laughed so hard, his head snapped back and his shoulders bounced. His laughter boomed loud enough to wake the dead.

  “You’re joking, right?” he said. “You have to be joking.”

  When I said nothing, his laughter died abruptly. “You’re not joking.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You don’t know what you are?”

  “I’m a reaper,” I said, growing more and more skeptical about his intentions here.

  “I can’t believe they didn’t tell you.”

  Who was they? And tell me what?

  “You bear the angel mark,” he said and pointed to the strange branding above my heart.

  The what?

  “This?” I pulled down my tank top a little, just enough to expose the symbol and not slip a nip. “This is just a tattoo. One I’m guessing I got when I was alive.”

  His eyes widened in shock. “You really do have no idea.”

  Now he was getting on my nerves. What did he know that I didn’t?

  “Are you going to tell me or just keep dicking around?” I snapped. “Angel mark? What the heck is that?”

  “Quite the opposite of heck actually. You’ve been touched by one of those halo-wearing freaks.” He gestured to the mark again. “There. They’ve branded you.”

  Hadn’t Wyatt and Sean said something about seeing the mark in ancient texts? Some that talked about higher beings? Could Monnie be telling me the truth?

  “What does that mean exactly? You said you knew what I was.” My heartbeat was speeding up now. “What am I?”

  “Oh, sweetie,” he said with fake sincerity, “I would love to tell you, but that’s not my place.”

  “Bullshit. Like you care about that.”

  “You’re right. I don’t,” he said. “I’m all for breaking some rules. But”—his voice dropped low, ominous—“the answer to that questions will cost you a lot more than a measly peck on the lips. And it’s a price I doubt you’re willing to pay.”

  I was about to press him for more information, like what that price would actually be, but I stopped myself. As much as I wanted
to know who and what I was, deep down, I knew I had already kept this interaction going for long enough. And something told me he was right—the price he would ask of me would be too much, and I wasn’t willing to risk anything else for a demon.

  If Monnie was telling the truth, the tattoo on me was called an angel mark, which apparently meant I was touched by an angel. The only angel I knew was Azrael. I wondered if this had anything to do with him.

  Either way, I had more information than I had before. Maybe I could go back to Sean and Wyatt and ask them about it. Having an actual name to go on might help in the search.

  I’d find out the answer I’d been looking for on my own. Later.

  For now, I needed to get the secret he’d promise to tell me for the cure. That was more important.

  “Fine,” I said. “You got your stupid kiss from me. Now it’s time for you to hold up your end. What else do I need for the cure?”

  He tugged at the jacket of his expensive suit, readjusting it. “Yes, well, it’s obvious you know what the Holiest ground is. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? And the Breath of Life is the smoke from an ancient herb, which I’m assuming you also know…”

  He was stalling. If he had any connection in the underworld, he most likely knew Cole and I had battled a group of Halflings in Marla’s shop and could gather why we were there in the first place. Hell, he may have even been the one to send the Halflings. That bone-chilling thought reminded me that I had to tread very carefully with this demon.

  “Hell’s fire is obvious.” Monnie clicked his tongue, pausing again for dramatic effect. “So, it’s the Blood of the Damned I must be talking about.”

  “I know what that is,” I cut in. “That one’s obvious, too.”

  “Is it though?” he said. “Or maybe with this, the less obvious answer is the right one.”

  I growled, “Out with it, Monnie.”

  “Right.” He chuckled. “I apologize.”

  “You’re probably thinking the damned blood is the blood of the one affected, the one you’re trying to save. In your case, the Medium. But actually, the blood must come from the one who inflicted the damnation. Where the curse began. The blood you need to make the curse reverse is—”

  I gasped. “From Xaver.”

  “Precisely.” Monnie smirked. “The one who impregnated your friend in the first place.”

  Oh shit. This mission just got a whole lot harder.

  We didn’t have time. How was I going to track down the full-blood Xaver and get a sample of his blood? There was a chance he was still possessing Laurence’s body, but who knew where he was right now. Tracking him down could take weeks. Months.

  Maybe Cole knew a way to track other demons. Or maybe Wyatt and Sean had some kind of book on summonings that we could try.

  And what did that mean for Cole? Did he have to find the demon responsible for knocking up his mother? His demon father?

  Did he even know who that was? That was a better question.

  “And as the second part of my end of the bargain, I’m going to tell you how to find my brother,” Monnie said. “It’s easier for us to come topside nowadays, and because of that, he’s going to be looking for and collecting his conquests.”

  Conquests with a S. So Xaver had many women out there in the world carrying his children? Gross.

  “If he hasn’t already, he’ll come for the Medium,” he continued.

  “He can’t get to her. She’s somewhere safe.”

  “Are you sure about that?” He smirked. “There aren’t many things that can hold us back.”

  Fear laced up my spine. All this time, I assumed Kay was protected at the vampire club. I cursed. Had I made a mistake trusting in Cole’s judgement—a mistake that could cost Kay her life? What if Xaver had already snatched her from Andre and had dragged her into one of those Hell pits?

  I had to go to Red. I had to check on her and make sure she was okay.

  Spinning around, I forgot all about Monnie, my thoughts pinned on getting to Kay as fast as possible. I only got a couple of steps, before the Greed demon called out to me again.

  “Don’t you want to know what’s going on here? Why the veil is thinning and creatures like me are going topside without the solstice?”

  I ignored him, even though my head was screaming to stop. Was he just trying to waste my time, or did he really know the answers I needed? Also, did I trust him to tell me the truth? Most likely no. I was better off getting to Kay and making sure she was all right.

  There was a whoosh of air, and suddenly, he was standing in front of me. I skidded to a halt.

  “I think you should,” he said.

  Trying to sidestep around him, he met my movements toe for toe to block me.

  I clenched my fists, my anger growing.

  When I was about to curse him off, he held up his hand to stop me. “All right, reaper. I’m going to give you this one for free. Only because, believe it or not, I feel bad for you.”

  Monnie glanced at the cemetery, where the ground still shimmered with energy, and then back to me. His eyes flashed red again to reveal the evil within, and leaning in close, he whispered three words that made my heart seize in my chest.

  “A war’s coming.”

  Then, he was gone.

  I headed straight for uptown and the vampire club called Red. It took me some time to get there, but it wasn’t like I could hitchhike or grab a taxi. Jogging at a decent pace was the most I could do, and since breathing wasn’t a requirement when you were dead, I managed it okay.

  When I reached the club, I slipped past a huge, angry-looking bouncer guarding the locked door. It was still too early for them to be open for business, so my guess was they just had him standing there for security reasons. An extra pair of eyes, especially since vamps didn’t do too well in the daylight.

  Inside was quiet. Dead, for lack of a better word. No one tended to the bar. No girls danced in the hanging cages. No one sat at the tables along the stage. Not a soul around.

  Was it still sleeping time for these vamps? Guess so. That was good for me though. Then I could find Kay and not worry about running into Andre or one of his workers. They wouldn’t be able to see me, of course, but if I needed to sneak out Kay, it’d be better without them around.

  Glancing up at the second floor overlooking the main club, I realized that if I were a vampire needing a place to sleep, behind a wall of tinted black glass was the winner. Unless there was a dungeon in the basement. But that was a bit melodramatic.

  Even for Andre.

  I climbed the modern-style staircase and walked into a large lounge area with a circular black leather couch and red carpeting. Off the lounge was a long hallway lined with doors. All closed. Most likely all locked.

  But that wouldn’t be a problem for spirit Jade.

  Approaching the first door, I listened for any movement or sounds inside. When I heard nothing, I stepped through.

  It was an office. The entire wall behind the desk was made of darkened glass, making the club below visible with a slight shade to it. I could bet money this was where Andre did his work and where he observed his customers and employees down below. Something told me the glass was bulletproof, too.

  Unlike the rest of the club’s modern decor, the desk was as wide as the room itself and made of a solid wood that looked as heavy as an elephant. Grand, vintage, and very out of place among all the straight lines, red paint, and smooth metal accents.

  Oh man, I bet that desk held some secrets in its drawers. Curiosity itched at me. What did a centuries-old vampire keep during his long lifetime?

  That was a question for another day. I had to find Kay and get her out of here.

  I phased into the adjoining room and wasn’t surprised to find a bedroom as grand as the desk in the office. A huge four-poster bed made of mahogany and draped in red fabric sat in the very center of the room. No windows or glass at all in here, but there was a stone fireplace that was alive and giving off so much
heat, I could feel the caress of warmth, even in my spirit form.

  If I were going to decorate for a vampire, this room would be how I would do it. It looked like something straight out of Dracula’s castle. The only thing it was missing was the coffin and gas lanterns on the walls. I guess some habits were hard to break.

  As I crept toward the bed, I noticed a shape underneath the thick quilt and a wave of blonde hair. I didn’t need to get much closer to know it was Andre. His handsome, pale face and golden hair were the only parts sticking out of the blanket as he lay unmoving—barely breathing—on his back. He was so still, he reminded of a corpse or Sleeping Beauty, stuck in some kind of magical sleep trance. Yeah, maybe that was a better comparison. Less morbid.

  He definitely did remind me of a princess with his sharp, regal features and long straw-colored hair.

  I chuckled. He probably wouldn’t have liked being called a princess.

  Andre’s eyes snapped open at once and jerked upright in bed so fast, I choked on my laughter from shock. His icy stare locked onto me, and I froze.

  But he couldn’t see me. Right? I hadn’t shifted unknowingly again, had I?

  I didn’t think so. He shouldn’t be able to sense me, yet he was sitting upright in bed, his gaze locked on me across the room.

  I shivered. When I had first visited Red with Cole, I could have sworn Andre had been watching me then.

  He shot out of bed and was in front of me in half a second. I jumped back out of reflex.

  With eyes narrowed, Andre studied me. Then, he swiped his hand out, across my stomach, his hand going through me completely. He rubbed his fingers together as if expecting something to be there.

  That’s when I realized he was completely naked.

  My breath froze in my chest. Forget the princess comment. There was nothing princess-like or dainty about that package. Even without the stiffness of arousal, his cock was thick and large enough to please any woman. His body was a lot leaner than Cole’s wider frame, but I wasn’t complaining. He was just as enjoyable to ogle over.