by Harley James
Yes, teacher, he wanted to bark back, but he was trying so hard to be considerate and well-mannered for Jessie’s sake. He respected—and dammit, even liked—most of the Unholy Inc partners that he’d met over the years, but that didn’t mean they had an easy alliance.
He still didn’t know why he’d thrown himself in front of a blade meant for a perfect stranger. He’d died, and that one self-sacrificing act allowed him to become a Guardian.
It was a complete aberration from decisions he’d made before.
What he did know was that this Guardian gig was a test. If he failed, he’d spend eternity in Hell.
Yay for second chances.
“Well, do you?”
He blinked at Katherine, then remembered her question about why they’d started their business. “What do you think?” he threw back sarcastically.
“I don’t know, Nate. When you act like an immature and over-stimulated adolescent, it makes me suspect you need a reminder.”
Humans were generally at their most uninhibited state in nightclubs, and thus more vulnerable to demonic influence, not to mention possession. The nightclubs gave Guardians the unique opportunity to lure and deal with demons. It would be swell if all bars, lounges, and nightclubs in the world were Guardian-owned. But even then, human free will would still be a factor. The Guardians could never vanquish every demon.
As it was since the beginning of time, the path of wickedness was so very tempting.
Nate put an arm around Katherine. She stiffened in his arms before shrugging him away. It took all his power not to tease her. “I’m sorry, Kat. I promise to be a good little Guardian and watch out for monsters messing with all the innocents.”
“You call me Kat one more time, and I’ll flood this dance floor with salt water one second after the last person exits the building.”
Nate chuckled and held his hands up in a universal no-contest gesture. She’d do it and bring in man-eating sharks to boot. “My apologies, fair lady.”
She straightened her suit jacket as they walked toward the hallway leading to the stairwell. “Have you tried reaching out to Alexios regarding Jessie healing your death wound?”
“Not outright, but he’s touched my mind.”
Katherine nodded. It was something Alexios did to all of them. Somehow he was able to gauge what was going on by telepathically reaching out. While all Guardians could communicate telepathically, no one else had that one-way ability of discernment that Alexios possessed.
“Have you heard if he’s been able to locate Sophia yet?” Katherine asked quietly.
“I don’t think so.” Both Guardians were silent for a time. In return for the valorous Spartan warrior’s sacrifice as the first Guardian, the Archangel Michael had promised that the love of Alexios’s life, Sophia, would return to him again and again, reincarnated through the ages.
It must be an exquisite torture to watch your soul mate die over and over.
Perhaps worse yet, to not be able to locate her, knowing she was alive somewhere and at great risk because demons the world over knew the lore of their abiding love story.
Nate’s gaze found Jessie. If he were in Alexios’s shoes, he would be as relentless in his search for his soul mate as his leader was.
“I added an extra layer of wards to the building’s exterior after the exorcism,” Katherine said.
Nate’s gaze returned to his partner. “Thank you.” Katherine’s wards were nearly as powerful as Alexios’s, and with the threat of the Seam opening soon, they’d need all the reinforcements they could muster. Thing was, the wards they used at the nightclubs were different. These weren’t protection wards that kept demons at bay. Rather, they worked to keep the monsters locked inside the club until they could be dealt with permanently.
Setting wards on top of an exorcism, however, must have depleted Katherine considerably. Her jeweled, sea green eyes were now a faded blue. “Why don’t you take five in the sanctorum,” Nate suggested.
“I’m in no mood to meditate.”
He shouldn’t. Really. He knew he’d regret it, but… “Then I highly recommend lovemaking as a means to recharge. I’m quite certain Ari would be happy—”
He sputtered and gagged as a surge of water blew him backwards against the wall. The attack hit him only a few seconds before he managed to manipulate the drywall around him like a caterpillar building a chrysalis.
When he pushed out of the drywall cocoon, he saw two people at once.
Katherine…and Jessie’s friend Dante.
The Dead Enders’ band member stood twenty-five feet away, two large drum cases on the ground at his side. When he recovered from his shock, he grabbed his cases and stiffly walked out the back door.
Fuck. Nate sprinted to intercept the drummer before he started jabbering about the impossibility of what he’d witnessed. “Dante.”
The drummer froze, but didn’t turn around. Other Dead Enders band members were getting their equipment unloaded from a small trailer hitched to Dante’s truck. Nate slowed, praying Dante kept it cool for two more minutes so he could get him alone for a mind wipe.
“You guys go on and get shit set up, I gotta talk to Mr. Temple, eh?”
Dante’s band mates nodded and called a greeting to Nate before leaving him and Dante alone. When Katherine slipped outside, Nate steepled his fingers to ramp up the mind wipe energy as he approached the drummer. “Dante, I’m so glad you accepted my invitation to play at tonight’s Grand Opening.”
Dante watched Nate’s hands, then met his stare. “I always knew there was more out there than what most people believe about the world.”
Nate froze. “What do you mean by that?”
Dante’s smile faltered. “Ghosts, spirits, poltergeists…aliens.”
Nate glanced back at Katherine who mirrored his humor, curiosity, and caution. “What do you think just happened?”
“You’re not denying that those things exist?”
How to answer? Dante might be testing him. “Not responding to a question is neither acknowledging the validity of the claim nor denying it. I’m asking what you think you observed moments ago.”
“You and you,” Dante’s gaze swept over Katherine, “aren’t human. No human I know can manipulate wall pipes to spurt water or peel the fucking wall back to block such an impossible geyser.”
“Nate.”
Katherine wanted him to proceed with the mind wipe. He knew he should, and yet…
“Shit!” Dante’s stance widened as though he was preparing for a possible ambush. “You’re going to make me forget, aren’t you?”
“Nate.” Katherine moved to Nate’s side, intentionally pressuring him to get on with it.
“My Noni practiced voodoo until she died. She still comes to visit me from the other side. She doesn’t mean for it to happen, but sometimes mean son of bitches cross over with her.” He took a deep breath and continued, “not too much scares me anymore, so believe me, I can live with what I saw and not squeal. What I can’t live with is having my memories taken away against my will, so be ready for a fight.”
Interesting. Nate could count on one hand the number of humans who were able to deal with scary shit like that. “If I wipe your mind, you won’t have any awareness of it. Your life will go on as before, undisturbed.”
“I don’t know who or what you are, but if you disrespect human life enough to rape their minds, you should go back to wherever you came from. The Earth’s already full of lowlifes.”
Katherine glanced at her watch. “Fifteen minutes until the doors open.”
Nate pitched his voice as placid as possible. “How many humans do you think can live peacefully with this type of knowledge? Mind wiping is an act of kindness, not a violation. We don’t touch or look at anything in your memories besides the supernatural acts you witnessed.”
Dante paled a little. “What are you?”
“Nate, this is absurd!”
He turned to Katherine. “Go inside and see to yo
ur health. You know where the key to the sanctorum is.”
Katherine suddenly looked more exhausted than he’d ever seen her. She put a hand on his arm. “Please. We’ve worked too hard to drop our guards now.”
She was referring to all the years of sustained effort it had taken to build the Unholy Inc clubs into the successful enterprises they’d become. But really, she had nothing to worry about. Mirage was opening on schedule. “You’re just tired. Trust me, I can handle this. After tonight, you’ll see light at the end of the tunnel.”
Katherine sighed and walked to the back door hugging her arms against the chilly, fall air. At the door, she looked back. “I hope you’re right, Nate. But sometimes that light in the tunnel is an oncoming train.”
Chapter 19
Three hours into the wildly successful opening night, Jessie winked at a departing Elvis impersonator who’d left her a twenty-dollar tip. She glanced up at the mirrored glass of Nate’s office, adding a dash of grenadine to a Blazin’ Apple Martini, one of her signature drinks. Was he upstairs watching the dance floor crowded with sweaty monsters and skimpily clad sirens?
She’d thought—okay, hoped—that he’d spend a good share of the evening within eyeshot. Not that she needed help or wanted him sitting smack in front of her, but she wanted to tell him how much she appreciated her set-up. This bar was a total dream, with each of the mixologists having their own stations with ice makers, individual soda and liquor guns, garbage cans, speed rails up front with the most common spirits used in mixed drinks, and—thank you, God—their own cash registers. Best of all, there was a separate station for waitresses and runners to pour their own beers and wine, so the bartenders could focus on their liquor art.
Mostly, though, she wanted him around because she enjoyed having him around.
Ugh. That doesn’t sound needy at all.
He was responsible for the safety and welfare of the five hundred imbibing customers. Of course he had a thousand things to attend to instead of mooning at her while she juggled cherries and martini glasses.
“JBlaze! When are you gonna get your sweet ass up on them rails, sugar?”
Jessie looked over at Eugene, the club promoter who didn’t spare her the courtesy of eye contact before shoving his head in a young coed’s cleavage. In between classes and spending time with Nate this week, Jessie had managed to catch up with a few of her uncle’s previous employees. Based on those brief conversations, Eugene seemed the likeliest candidate for bringing the drugs into Mason’s club.
Her uncle had been aware of the illegal activities and did nothing to stop them.
How many people had he hurt by turning a blind eye? It was so disappointing.
Earlier this afternoon, Mason’s sometime girlfriend Sonja had reached out, saying Mason hadn’t returned her calls in a couple days. She worried he was having a breakdown. Was it due to drugs or a chemical imbalance? Her uncle obviously needed an intervention. Maybe rehab? Jessie’s shoulders dropped. Gramma and Grandpa would be devastated. It was like her mother’s situation all over again.
First things first. Find Mason and make sure he wasn’t hurting himself or anyone else. She wanted to talk to Nate, too, because she trusted his insights. She would go from there and hope she didn’t have to involve law enforcement, but she would if she had to.
Receiving a drink order from a server, Jessie reached once more for the Goldschlager, unable to tear her eyes from the scene in front of her as Eugene raised his glass in a toast to those gathered around him. For some reason it brought to mind the Bible passage etched on the aged fireplace mantle in Nate’s special room:
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
A shiver passed through her. Eugene turned her way in slow motion, his eyes morphing to slits of a glowing, repellent yellow. His lips retracted in a snarl to reveal a mouthful of dagger-like teeth, the black plastic spiders above his head quavering as though awakening from a long slumber.
The Goldschlager bottle slipped from her fingers to shatter on the floor. She felt the cool wetness of the liquor all the way up her thin socks, smelled the bold tang of cinnamon, and heard blood rushing in her ears, shutting off even the heavy bass of Dante’s band on the stage.
“Blaze, you okay, babe?”
It was José. She blinked at him, then looked down at the mess on the floor and quickly back at Eugene.
All was normal.
No yellow eyes. No mouthful of tiger teeth. No vibrating spider web. The club promoter was merely a man in a perverted doctor’s lab coat, smiling and drinking amid a circle of laughing women.
Then he looked over once more and winked. Her breath came out in a quaking rush. Jessie swallowed with difficulty. How silly she was being. How utterly ridiculous. The Halloween decorations were influencing her imagination. Clearly, this week’s lack of sleep was catching up to her.
But she could sleep all she wanted next week.
Alone.
She sighed, determined to push loneliness and thoughts of intervention aside until tomorrow. She took the broom from one of the bartenders who’d started cleaning up the glass, jumping when someone’s hand groped her ass. Immediately the offender was lifted from his stool and escorted out of the club by Nate’s head of security, Dorian.
Why couldn’t Nate come to her rescue instead of José and Dorian?
A hot tide of shame filled her. She was acting clingy and insecure and purposeless. The next thing she knew she was going to start crying like a spoiled brat who’d had her candy plucked away. How could she be an example for the downtrodden if she couldn’t even pick herself up from the weight of her emotions?
Maybe a mood disorder thing ran in her family after all.
“You gonna get back to work, Blaze, or you gonna stand there all night looking tasty and gettin’ the men riled up enough to get their asses kicked out of the club?” The other mixologist, Drake, tossed a bottle up in the air, caught it, and poured a shot with his unique flair. José wheeled a mop bucket to the spilled liquor and swabbed the area.
“Yo, Jessie, I need two Blazin’ Heat Moonshines and one Legal Brief with three cherries, please!”
Jessie nodded at the sleek, cat-suited server, grateful for the order. Grateful to have created something people enjoyed even if it was only sweet-tasting liquid courage. When she placed the last drink on the server’s tray, she glanced toward the stage. She smiled and started to wave in greeting to Dante, but his hands holding the drumsticks had frozen, pausing mid-song, staring at someone or something in the crowd so intently it made her stomach drop.
Jessie’s gaze rapidly scanned the faces below Dante, trying to identify who or what was affecting him so keenly, but the dance floor was too crowded and half the faces were covered with costume paint or a mask.
Dante had always been a rock amid sifting sands in her life. Not much rattled him. Not giving up an MIT scholarship so he could help his sister build her motorcycle repair business after their parents’ death. Nor being wrongly convicted for assaulting a peace officer and spending a year of his life behind bars in place of one of his buddies, so his friend could stay home and care for his dying wife.
He’d told her he’d sought ugliness so he could better appreciate beauty. Exposed himself to hate so he could feel the depths of love. He said extremes forged character. For how could he know one if he didn’t intimately know its opposite?
Jessie poured a whiskey neat as the Dead Enders launched into the final set of their allotted gig. What could have given Dante such pause? A small voice inside urged her to ignore it all. To carry on with her job, and later, enjoy her last night with Nate. To return home with Scourge and make a fresh start tomorrow when she’d have fewer worries and more money in the bank after fulfilling her contract.
Dante can take care of himself.
Yes, but...
Something was wrong.
She knew it. Call it a sixth sense, in
tuition, whatever…
She felt it.
Jessie turned and motioned to Stark, a security team member here temporarily from Katherine’s Hawaiian club, Liquid. Stark nonchalantly pushed away from the pillar that belched green mist from a fog machine and wove toward her through the crowd, his golden haired, blue-eyed looks capturing more than a few interested gazes along the way. Jessie capped the whiskey and set it on the mirrored shelf behind her when Stark none-too-gently nudged aside the frat boys in front of her station.
“These jokers bothering you, Little Red?”
She shook her head rapidly, pressing her hand against her fluttering midsection as the uneasy sensation multiplied. “Can you find Nate and ask him to stop by when he has a minute?”
She should have felt better when Stark was en route to Nate, but she didn’t. Her eyes scanned the dance floor, lifting to take in the balconies, and all she saw were angels, devils, and monsters.
Chapter 20
Nate pulled the mic out of his ear and shoved it in his suit coat pocket. The piece of shit had only worked for the first couple of hours of the night. But whatever, things were going well. What a relief after Michael’s ominous warnings about the Seam splitting tonight on his watch.
It’s not over till it’s over.
Yeah, but so far, there was no demon bullshit that they hadn’t been able to handle. The place was seething, so he was going to let the good times roll.
And fantasize how he was going to tie Jessie to the bed in a few hours.
He looked up to the third floor balcony where Alexios’s right hand, Jawahar, kept aerial watch. When he signaled the all’s well, Nate turned his attention to the crush of people at the bar. He couldn’t see Jessie for all the bodies, but since everything appeared to be in order he forced himself to check out one of the VIP rooms on the north end of the club.
It was quieter and less frenzied here. A girl in Betty Boop duds was giving a lap dance to a lusty fireman. They sprawled on a leather chair near three occupied pool tables. Live and let live.