by Liz Schulte
“I haven’t—”
“Lie,” he said, those dark eyes drilling into me. “You know, I’m not used to women ignoring me.”
I shrugged. “Maybe you should get to it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Saying things like that, only makes me want you more. I have tried no fewer than three times to get in touch with you. I could have just come to your house or bakery, but I wanted it to be your decision.”
I ran my hand hard down my face. “Here I am.”
He shook his head. “You came because you wanted something. That isn’t the same thing. I want you to come here because you want me.”
My eyebrows pulled together. That was the last thing I wanted. Phoenix and I had proven many times than we couldn’t get along. Like not at all. When we weren’t about to tear each other’s clothes off we usually fought.
“So I ask you again, why have you been avoiding me?”
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “Is this part of your price?”
A smile spread across his face. “Let’s say yes, for shits and giggles.”
I shook my head. “Because you make it hard to remember what I want.”
He took a deep breath studying me like he could see so much more than what was on the outside. Finally he nodded. “I’ll help you, if you help me.”
Here is was. Back to the deal. I didn’t want to be an assassin. It was mad enough I had to hurt people to keep from going insane, even if they were bad people. I certainly didn’t want to do it as a job. “I don’t want your deals. Maybe that’s why I avoid you. Every time I let you into my life you manipulate me. I can find my own demons to feed on. Please don’t make me do this.”
“This had nothing to do with that, but the offer stands, as it always will. We’d make great partners. But this is a little bit different. It needs a softer touch. You wouldn’t be working for me. You’d be helping me simply in this one case.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s it? I help you with solve this one problem and we are square? What is it?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It’s something you have to see for yourself. Come to the club tonight. I’ll have your license ready and then you can decide whether or not you will help.”
Chapter Two
There wasn’t any problem I could imagine Phoenix having that he couldn’t sort out on his own. The idea that this was just an excuse to get me to Xaviers had crossed my mind. As a nightclub completely run by jinn, it was a mecca for debauchery and darkness. Going there in my current state of hunger (which had been so much worse since seeing Phoenix) was sucha bad idea, but I didn’t have time to find a better solution. I’d just have to deal with it.
I might have changed my outfit four times before I settled on a black and white dress over black tights with a leather motorcycle jacket I rarely ever wore (bought in a total moment of weakness because it was cool, not because it was my style).
The moment I stepped outside I realized my first mistake. I wasn’t nearly dressed warm enough. I’d have to take a cab. An hour later I paid the cabbie and climbed out in front of Xaviers. The line of freezing people stretched down the block.
The huge bouncer who was almost as wide as I was tall, eyed me while I looked between the door and the line, not sure if I should just call Phoenix. “Ms. Edwards, right this way.” He undid the rope.
To the best of my recollection, I had never seen this man in my life. “How do you know who I am?”
He didn’t even look at me. “He said you were cute and owned a bakery.”
“Yeah…” What was I wearing a sign. Did I have icing on my nose?
He finally gave me a disinterested glance. “Look at the line, then look at yourself. You’re the only person here cute and baker describes.”
I glanced down the line with women who would be frozen to death by the time they got inside. The women in line all wore tiny skirts and dresses that barely covered their asses, plunging necklines, and had bare legs. Most of them had probably never had a cupcake. In a flood of sympathy for those poor souls, I was tempted to hand out my business cards to them. My phone chirped with a text.
It was from Phoenix. “I’m upstairs.”
I straightened my shoulders and looked at the bouncer. “Point taken. Hey, if I bring you cupcakes, would you feed these people.”
He finally smiled. “Ma’am,” he said with a nod toward the door.
I grinned back before I finally went inside. The corridor was so dark I could barely see. The music thrumming through the speakers made the hallway feeling like it was vibrating. I pushed my way through the crowd of people until the hall opened up into a big room. I glanced around, not immediately seeing a staircase. There was another door on the other side of the bar though. I started toward that.
“Excuse me. Excuse me. Sorry. Oops, sorry,” became my chant as I tried to make it across the room to the other door. Finally there, I opened the door and stumbled through. Another bouncer sitting on a stool against the wall eyed me up and shook his head. “You’re in the wrong place. Possibly the wrong club.”
This was getting insulting. My outfit was cute. “I’m looking for Phoenix,” I said.
He held up a finger and pulled out a walkie-talkie. “I have girl down here to see you.”
“Is it Maggie?” Pheonix’s voice came through the line broken and scratchy.
The bouncer raised a wooly eyebrow at me and I nodded. “It’s her.”
“Keep her there,” Phoenix said.
The door opened and two more people came through. One was a woman about six feet tall in a slinky red dress with board straight red hair half way down her back. With her was a somewhat hideous looking man with a nose like a boxer and a face that was rather bulldog-like all sitting on a stocky frame. I pressed up against the wall to give them room to pass as the bouncer nodded them through. The woman brushed against me, and my hunger perked up. She hadn’t even touched my skin, but I still knew what she was. Without a single doubt that woman was a demon.
“What’s back there?” I asked.
The bouncer folded his arms in front of him and leaned against the wall. “Nothing to concern a nice girl like you.”
The door opened again, but this time it was Phoenix. “I thought I told I’d be upstairs.” He brushed his lips against my cheek, making my heart speed up just a little.
“I couldn’t find the stairs. What’s back here?”
“Let’s find out,” he said with a wink and nod down the hall.
Didn’t have to ask me twice, I started down the hallway. His hand rested on my lower back as we went. “You know your people make a lot of assumptions based on the way people looked.”
“Oh?” he said, blandly.
“Yes. So far tonight I have been told I look like a cute baker and that I was a nice girl.”
Phoenix shook his head. “I can’t imagine. How insulting. How dare they speak the truth? I’ll fire them at once.”
I laughed. “Whether it is the truth is beside the point. I could be just as devious as that demon in the red dress. For all they know, I am here to kill you. We both know I could.”
We stepped into a much quieter room. The music in here was lower and I couldn’t even hear the deafening roar from the other room.
“I have no doubt,” he said, leading toward a table with a reserved sign.
I slid into the booth. “They’re all paranormals,” I said.
He leaned forward. “I know,” he said in a mock whisper. “The demons actually gave me the idea. It was a market we hadn’t tried to capitalize on. So I did a little remodeling and built this.”
I nodded. It was nice. Not so overwhelming and appeared to be popular. “You have a good crowd.”
Phoenix frowned. “Not at the moment, which brings me to why you’re here.”
I crossed my legs. “I can hardly wait.”
“You see the man sitting behind me, second seat from the end of the bar.”
I tilted my head to the rig
ht so I could see better. The man in question had small white and gold feathered wings sticking out of his back—that was new. His auburn locks fell in soft curls around his neck that led to wide muscular shoulders. His face was pointed down at the counter. “What is he?”
“Cupid,” Phoenix said without a hint of irony. “He’s been in here drinking every day for the past three weeks. I can’t get rid of him and he’s driving away all of my customers. He’s also averaging about fifteen breakups a night. Xaviers is becoming known as the place to go to dump someone. He’s gotta go.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Do you think I would have recruited you to help if all it took was me to say, ‘hey guy, get outta here.’ He’s a god. We have to tread lightly or he’ll bring this whole establishment down on top of us.”
I nodded. “So you want me to talk to him?”
His eyes smiled even if his face didn’t. “Sure, let’s start with that.”
I could do this. I was good at talking to people. So what if he was a god. Talking was talking and most people loved to tell you about themselves. “As soon as a seat opens up, I’ll go over.”
Phoenix looked over his shoulder, catching the bartender’s attention then nodded toward Cupid. Within minutes, both people on either side of him were gone, leaving two chairs open. “I’ll wait here,” he said.
“Gotcha.” I scooted out of the booth and headed up to take the seat on his right.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked as I sat down.
Since Phoenix was buying , I was tempted to order the most expensive drink in the house, but everything I drank tasted like motor oil to my ruined taste buds. “Just a water.”
He nodded and went away.
“Hi. I’m, Maggie,” I said.
Cupid looked much younger than I anticipated. Maybe eighteen or nineteen, but extremely handsome. His eyes were sky blue and endless. He shot back the rest of his drink. “Hello, Maggie. What brings you here tonight?”
A man brushed against me as he passed reigniting my hunger. I squeezed my hand into a fist. I had to focus. “You actually.”
He motioned to the bartender for another. “Then aren’t the lucky one.” His eyes filled tears and his nostrils flared. “So lucky,” he choked out.
I glanced back at Phoenix and he nodded encouragingly. Obviously he couldn’t see what was happening. “You seem a little upset. Do you want to talk about it?”
The bartender slid a drink in front of him then got out while he could.
“No,” he said. “She’s gone. My beautiful, darling Psyche. Gone.” He collapsed against me, burying his head in my shoulder full blown sobbing bobbing his shoulders up and down.
I patted his back gently. “I’m sure it isn’t as bad as it seems.”
Across the bar two people started shouting at each other. Phoenix threw his hands up in the air.
Damn it. It wasn’t like I had any control over the weepy god. “It will be okay.” I was distracted and I couldn’t help it. The room was filled with plenty of dinner options.
“No. It won’t.”
“If you just calm down a little. I can help you.”
Nope, that made it worse. The bar suddenly went dead silent. The sound of a glass breaking grabbed my attention. I looked up just in time to see the demon slap the bulldog looking man. Phoenix was headed toward us. I was about to be fired and I needed that license.
Gentle obviously wasn’t working. “Stop crying,” I snapped at him. “How is anyone supposed to help you if you keep blubbering?”
He pulled back from me, eyes wide. He ran his hand across his nose. “What did you say to me?”
“I said, stop crying. You’re annoying everyone. We all have problems. Either man up and talk to me or leave. Don’t you have a mountain you can sit on or something?” Phoenix came to a stop next to me. If looks could kill, I’d be a goner. “He’s unreasonable.”
Cupid looked between Phoenix and me then back again. “Unreasonable,” he said slowly.
“That’s not what she meant,” Phoenix said.
I started to agree with him perfectly ready to backpedal when Cupid snapped his fingers. Next thing I knew I was nodding and everything I felt came spilling out. “Yes I did. He is completely unreasonable. You are. We all get tough breaks. People we think we love leave or die or cheat. That doesn’t mean you get to make everyone else’s life miserable. You just have to deal with it. That’s life. Maybe Psyche got tired of your clingy bullshit. Did you ever think about that? Maybe—” Phoenix’s hand clamped down over my mouth as he dragged me from the stool.
“Ignore her. She’s drunk. I don’t even know how a human made it back here.”
My first instinct was to bite him, but I didn’t because I was more afraid of what else I would say if he let go.
“Let her go,” Cupid said. Hey, at least he had stopped crying.
Phoenix slowly removed his hand from my mouth, but kept his arm banded around my waist.
“How do you propose to help me?”
Both men stared at me. “You haven’t even told me what happened.”
“Psyche left. I want her back. That’s all you need to know. I don’t care what it takes. You find her for me and talk her into coming back or I will break every heart in this world and create a chaos like you have never known. Oh, and I will destroy this club first.” His eyes narrowed but he flashed a megawatt smile. “And just to show how reasonable I am. you have until the fourteenth.”
Before I could say anything, Phoenix answered for me.
“She’ll do it.”
“Good. I send you the address where she can be found,” Cupid stood up with as much dignity as a man with feathery white and gold wings who had just been crying on my shoulder could muster, and left the room.
“Have you lost your mind?” Phoenix said. “You were supposed to get him out of here, not get involved. You were the light touch. If I wanted to yell at him, I would have done it myself.”
Chapter Three
“Hangry?” Phoenix said slowly, sitting on the couch in his office with his fingertips pressed together in front of him.
“It’s a real thing.” I paced the room, unable to sit still and Phoenix wouldn’t let me leave. “It’s not an excuse—I know this is all my fault. But it was like a walking buffet in there and he just kept crying. So what his girlfriend left him. I haven’t eaten in weeks.” It honestly hadn’t been that bad before I saw Phoenix and he reminded me how good it felt to indulge. The last demon had really been sticking with me, but then as soon as I walked through the doors tonight, the hunger was there gnawing at me. Maybe it was the concentration of darkness within these walls.
He pulled out his phone typing with his thumbs not looking at me. “Now we have a much larger problem. Do you have a plan for Psyche?”
I grimaced. “Well, what do we know about her? She was pretty. Venus hated her. Cupid married her, but she didn’t know it. They were in love because they both stabbed themselves accidentally with Cupid’s arrows….what else?”
Phoenix shook his head. “Venus put her through some trials. She is whipped by worry and sadness. She has to sort a pile of grains and a bunch of bugs help her. She has to get wool and something else, I can’t remember what tells her to collect it from the briers. And her last challenge was to get water from the River Styx. Eagles get it for her.”
I snorted. “So she didn’t actually complete any of the tasks. Someone else did them all for her. Maybe it won’t be that hard to convince her to come back.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Psyche managed to not only finish her tasks, but then to still get everything she wanted. As a human, she bested Venus. Her last task is to go into the Underworld and get some of Proserpina’s beauty for Venus. She manages to make it through and get it, but then opened the box and falls into a coma. Cupid finds her and saves her, stabbing her with an arrow again. He gives his mother the box and makes a deal with some of the gods in return for them supporting hi
m and Psyche, basically making Venus back off. Psyche was made immortal and they were supposed to have lived happily ever after.”
I sighed. “We need to know what split them up. That might help. But I’m not the girl for this job. More importantly, I don’t want to talk her into going back.”
He nodded. “Really bad news for us, but possibly worse for the world. But luckily, you don’t have a choice. You started this and you ‘re going to finish it.”
I stalked toward his massive desk and back again. Why would someone break up with the god of love, other than the fact he was a whiny, crier. He was handsome, probably romantic, but maybe too romantic. Was that a thing? “Maybe Cupid’s arrow wore off. I mean she scratched herself the first time then he did it again. Why if she already loved him would he do it again in the story? And that’s just the two times we know about. He could have been doing this time and again over the years, right? What if the arrows only work for so long and in that time when people’s defenses are down they are supposed to fall in love.”
“Okay. We just need to snag one of his arrows, get her around him, and stab her.”
I shook my head, my hands already moving as the though began to take hold. “If that was all it took, he would have done it himself. Cupid knows why she left. That’s why he’s upset. What if after thousands and thousands of years he stopped using the arrows because she should have been in love with him, but she isn’t. Do you know what that means?”
“I imagine you are going to tell me.”
Damn right I was going to tell him. “He’s been keeping her prisoner for pretty much ever. If we bring her back then we are helping him.”
“And here I thought helping him was the point.”
“Not at her expense. I won’t do it.” Part of me did acknowledge that I had no proof for any of it, but as I spoke the words they made sense to me.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Phoenix said.
A woman about my height with perfectly tussled bedhead and bee stung lips came through the door. “You summoned me. I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”