Riley hadn’t been quite so lucky in their prior engagements, though. She’d gotten the shit kicked out of her twice, courtesy of her penchant for diving feet-first into trouble without stopping to take a look at where she’d land. That had resulted in two lines of stitches in her side. Not to mention the scratches, the cuts, the scrapes, and the odd side effects she dealt with after opening the box they’d stolen from Brandon Hall—who had, in turn, stolen it from the Smithsonian.
Her eyes weren’t brown anymore, but gold. And not gold like hazel-yellow, either. Gold like sunlight. Yellow like a cat’s eyes. It was disconcerting looking her in the eyes for any length of time. It gave Scott the odd sensation that she was looking right at his soul.
And that wasn’t taking her hands into consideration. Her palms were marred, covered in an odd red spiral pattern that started in the center of her palms and wound its way around and around until both of them were covered, and it’d begun to inch up her arms, making its way to a spot just above her wrists. And the marks weren’t just there for decoration, either. It seemed that something ancient and powerful had established itself inside Riley with the appearance of those markings, something that charred the skin of those who were possessed, that exploded outward in a shockwave of power that blasted everything within its radius clear of Riley. It was, in a nutshell, strange. But it had gotten them out of their last misadventure alive, and he figured at least it was useful for something.
Though he had to wonder when his life had become the stuff of horror movies.
The water in the bathroom shut off, though the singing continued. Now Riley was harping about loaded six-strings on her back. Scott groaned and shoved the blankets off himself, climbing out of bed with a stagger and a roll of his shoulders. He snagged a t-shirt off the lounge chair in the corner by the windows, sniffed it, then pulled it on. As he padded across the room to get a bottle of water from the supplies they’d bought at Walmart, the bathroom door swung open, and Riley strolled out, wrapped only in a towel, her dark hair bundled up in a towel turban. Scott didn’t bother turning away. It spoke to how comfortable they’d become around each other that, after two weeks on the road, he barely even blinked when she did stuff like that anymore.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Riley greeted, her voice impossibly cheerful. Despite the perkiness of her voice, the words sounded tight, forced. He almost asked about it, but he opted to stay silent as she made a beeline for the suitcase on the luggage rack near the bed. She flipped the lid open and rummaged through it, tossing articles of clothing onto the bed. “I thought you were going to sleep the day away.”
“What?” Scott glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. “It’s only eight-thirty.”
“Yeah, and I’ve been up since five,” she said. “The gym here is amazing.”
“You woke up at five to go to the gym?”
“Hey, I’ve got to keep this fine body hot somehow, don’t I?” she teased.
Scott wasn’t fazed by her teasing; she did it too often for it to really affect him anymore. “Okay, but…you went by yourself? Why didn’t you try to wake me up?”
“I did. You muttered something about a horse and went back to sleep.”
“Oh, the hell I did.”
Riley wandered up to him and gently patted him on the cheek. “You’re right. You didn’t say horse. You said pony.”
Scott rolled his eyes and decided to change the subject, even as his body took notice of how close Riley stood to him. He could smell her shampoo and body wash without even trying. “Did you have a nice shower?” Damn it, brain. What the hell sort of question was that?
“Unbelievably,” she said perkily, moving away from him and taking the scent of her body wash with her. He almost missed it the moment the scent of strawberries was gone. “I can’t get over how much I adore the showerheads here. This is one of the only hotels I’ve ever been in where the water pressure isn’t the equivalent of someone peeing gently on your head.”
Scott raised an eyebrow and cracked open his water bottle, an awkward process since he had to do it one handed. “I sincerely hope you are talking metaphorically and not from experience.”
Riley laughed and gathered her clothes from the bed, moving back to the bathroom. She left the door open as she dressed. That was a step too far for Scott, so he made a point of turning his back. He figured that would be way too much for his brain to handle. “Is there anything in particular you want to do today?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard in the bedroom.
“I don’t really care,” he admitted. He started the arduous task of opening a bottle of non-narcotic prescription painkillers with one hand. Damn the man who invented childproof packaging. “This is your little vacation, remember?” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Though whatever you choose, as long as it involves food, I’m happy.” He lost his grip on the pill bottle, and it tumbled to the floor, the pills rattling as the bottle rolled along the carpet. He wore and went after it.
“So you wouldn’t have any sort of objection to, say, walking to Jackson Square?” she asked.
“What’s in Jackson Square?”
“Chicory coffee,” Riley said. She emerged from the bathroom, barefoot, drying her long, dark hair with a towel. “And, of course, beignets. Because you can’t go to Jackson Square without eating some beignets.”
“Always with the food, huh?” Scott commented, smiling.
“Hey, you were the one who said you were hungry!”
“True,” he acknowledged. He popped his painkiller in his mouth and took a deep swig of water to wash it down. “I wasn’t expecting you to suggest sweets for breakfast, though. I was expecting pancakes and bacon or biscuits and sausage gravy like we got at that diner a few days ago.” Those biscuits had been damn good, and he wouldn’t have minded having them for breakfast again.
“I don’t know that I’d consider beignets sweets,” Riley said, her tone thoughtful. She tossed her towel onto the end of the bed and pulled a comb out of her back pocket, working it through her hair from ends to roots. “They’re more like…doughnuts.”
Scott snorted. “Doughnuts covered in copious amounts of powdered sugar.”
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “It isn’t like we have to worry about calories, not with our jobs. Besides, we’ll burn part of it off before we even get there.”
“Sounds like you’ve already thought this through.”
“It’s the way women work. We use logic and reason to excuse ourselves into eating junk food,” she quipped.
Scott laughed and went to the nightstand, picking up the holstered pistol he’d offloaded there the night before. He tried to fasten it to his belt and failed miserably, so Riley moved to help him, buckling it on for him.
“So we’re walking there, then?” he asked, struggling to keep his brain focused on the conversation and away from how close Riley’s hands were to a certain part of his anatomy. The scent of strawberries emanating from her hair made it almost impossible.
“Why not?” she said. “Traffic around here is a logistical nightmare this time of morning. And it’s only about half a mile.”
“Walking is a logistical nightmare,” he retorted.
Riley grinned. “Oh, come on, you like a challenge,” she said. She fastened her own weapons to her belt and dug into her suitcase again, coming out with extra magazines of ammunition. She tucked them into her pockets, and then they both shrugged on short-sleeved, button-up shirts to cover the weapons so they weren’t obvious. They had FBI badges—fakes, the same ones Damon Hartley had given them during the demon problem in Alabama—as cover, so Scott wasn’t terribly worried about the local police giving them much trouble. Regardless, there was no sense parading exposed weaponry around in front of civilians.
“So are we sufficiently armed enough to go to breakfast?” Scott asked.
“Almost,” Riley said, and she pulled a massive knife that couldn’t possibly have been legal out of her suitcase, along with a pa
ir of socks. She sat down and slid on her socks and shoes then hiked her pant leg up and strapped the sheath around her calf. “Now I’m ready,” she announced, standing. She grabbed her black backpack—he still refused to call the thing Linus like she did—and draped it on her shoulder.
“You are something else,” Scott commented, shaking his head. Then they left the hotel to start their walk to Riley’s chosen breakfast place.
The shrill ringing of his cell phone startled Zachariah awake. He opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling, waiting through two more rings before the phone fell silent. He breathed in deeply once, twice, then turned his head slowly to the left, like he was worried he’d startle a wild animal.
Ashton Miller laid beside him, pale and wan, his eye sporting the mother of all dark circles under it. His brown hair was rumpled, and he looked exhausted. Clearly, he hadn’t slept—again—and it was showing. He’d hardly rested in the past two weeks, not since he’d been freed from possession by a fallen angel named Ananael. He’d barely been out of bed during that time, either, except for the occasional trip to the bathroom or to get a bottle of water.
“Good morning,” Zachariah murmured, keeping his voice low.
Ashton blinked, slowly, but didn’t respond.
Zachariah’s cell phone started ringing again, the vibration making the device dance across the nightstand’s tabletop. He growled under his breath and rolled over, stretching for the phone and scooping it off the nightstand. He squinted at the screen, and his growl became a groan as he read the words “Damon Hartley” on the caller ID. “Oh, son of a bitch,” he said. “Can you just not leave us alone?” He didn’t dare say that directly to Damon, though. He’d probably get his ass handed to him if he dared. With one last glance at Ashton’s silent form, he answered the call.
“Good morning, Zachariah,” his father’s voice said in his ear.
“Yeah, it was a good morning, until you called and ruined it,” Zachariah replied, not entirely truthfully.
“What’s crawled up your ass this morning?”
“I’m sure you already know the answer to that question,” he said.
There was silence on the line. Zachariah kept his mouth firmly shut. He wasn’t going to be the one to speak first; he was, overall, still too angry. When Damon recruited him into a life as dangerous as the one he lived in and waited until he was thoroughly entrenched in said life to tell him, “Oh, hey, I’m your biological father; your mother and I put you up for adoption when you were an infant for your own safety,” well, it was enough to put anyone in a foul mood.
Finally, Damon cleared his throat and asked, “Do you happen to be busy?”
“Actually, I’m still in bed,” Zachariah said.
“Ashton?”
“Still the same.”
“Give him time,” Damon said. “He’s been through something that I imagine is significantly traumatizing.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
Another silence descended.
Zachariah opted to break it this time, in the interest of expediency. “I’m assuming you have a reason for calling me.”
“Actually, yes,” Damon said. “Angelique Rousseau is back at work.”
“Good for her,” he muttered. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful. She’d saved Ashton’s life at the risk of her own, and he could never thank her enough for that. It was just that he was too emotionally exhausted to muster up enough care to sound enthusiastic right now.
“She’s dying to get back into the field,” Damon continued, ignoring what he’d said. “Considering how shorthanded we are in your division at the moment, I’ve agreed to it with conditions.”
“What sort of conditions?”
“She can only do investigatory work, nothing active in the field,” Damon said. “In other words, no fighting. But she’s a superior investigator, and I don’t want her talents to go to waste while she’s waiting to be cleared as fully recovered.”
“This is wonderful and all, but what does it have to do with why you’re calling me?”
“I want you to partner up with her until she’s fully healed.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking you,” Damon said. “It’s an order.”
“Someone has to stay here with Ash,” Zachariah said. “He’s not in a good place. You said that yourself.” Hell, I’m not in a good place, either, he thought. “You can’t expect me to leave him here alone.”
“You’re right,” Damon conceded. “I’ll come over there personally and hang out with him until you two clear up from where you’re heading.”
Zachariah hesitated. His mind filled with images of Damon in his apartment, browsing through his belongings, poking around in his dresser drawers, examining the food in his refrigerator… The thought was enough to make him nauseous. He couldn’t even imagine what sorts of judgment Damon would pass on him and Ashton and their lifestyle based on what he found in his home. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said uneasily. “Maybe you need to find someone else to accompany Angelique.”
“You’re going with Angelique,” Damon said in a way that suggested he’d decided and that his decision was final.
“What’s so important, anyway?”
“There’s been a report of a burned body found near Meridian Hill Park,” Damon said. “A young female. The call came in early this morning. A couple found her at five a.m. while they were out jogging.”
“Who is insane enough to get up at five in the morning to go jogging?” Zachariah muttered. He rubbed his face and fought off a yawn, the mention of the early time of day reminding him of how tired he was.
“Apparently, the two joggers who had the misfortune of finding a body,” Damon said. “Shut up and let me finish. The girl doesn’t appear to have been killed and burned there. It looks like it might be a dump site.”
“What does this have to do with The Unnaturals?”
“The timing is odd. I want you and Angelique to check it out and make sure it isn’t related to anything that’s been going on,” Damon said.
Zachariah sighed and sat up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed. “When will you be here?”
“In just a few minutes,” he said. “I’m about five blocks away. Do you still have those extra parking spaces in the garage?”
“Never stopped paying for them,” he said.
“Good. I’ll be there shortly.”
Zachariah hung up and tossed the phone on the nightstand then looked at Ashton again. The man hadn’t budged during the entirety of his conversation with Damon. He crawled back onto the bed to get closer to him, kneeling beside him and gently brushing his fingers through his hair. “I wish you’d snap out of it already,” he said softly. “I know what happened was bad, and I know it’s really messing with your head, but you’re leaving me out in the cold here, and you know how much I hate that.”
A flicker of acknowledgment, small but there, flitted through Ashton’s eye as he turned it onto Zachariah and then quickly away.
Zachariah couldn’t stop the smile that crossed his lips. “I knew you were in there somewhere,” he murmured, pressing a light kiss to his forehead. “I’ll cut you a deal. I’ve got to go out on something. Damon’s orders, of course. He’ll be here shortly to sit with you while I’m gone in case you need anything. If you get out of bed and take a shower today, I’ll cook you a really nice dinner tonight.”
There was a long pause, and then Ashton nodded, a single bob of his head that said more than Zachariah could have hoped for.
Thirty minutes later, Zachariah headed out of his apartment, leaving Ashton in Damon’s care. He crossed the garage to the four spaces he paid too much money for every month and stood there for a moment, wavering between the Camaro and the Harley Davidson. He didn’t even consider the Suzuki parked beside the Harley. He was dying to feel the wind in his hair and the heavy vibration of a Harley motor underneath him, but his nerves were shot, and there was no way he could maintain control
of his motorcycle while feeling like this. With a sigh, he went to the Camaro and got in.
On the way to Meridian Hill Park, Zachariah activated the Bluetooth in his car and called Angelique. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since the attack on The Unnaturals headquarters when she’d taken a bullet for Ashton. She answered on the second ring.
“Hey, where are you?” she asked, her French accent a bit thicker than he remembered. “Damon tells me you’re supposed to be working this with me.”
“I’m on my way,” he assured her. “You?”
“I’m already here,” she said. “It’s a mess, Zachariah. I think it might be something for us, but I’d love your expertise.”
“I’ll be there shortly. Don’t let anything interesting happen without me.”
“You’re really going to regret saying that one day.”
Brandon Hall tapped his pen against the closed folder on the desk in his hotel room in Baton Rouge, the only outward sign of nervousness he showed as he waited impatiently for his guests to arrive. It had been risky leaving his office—he was supposed to stay in D.C., and he could only leave for personal matters and not take on anything resembling work in the field, which was the price he paid for stepping into the position of deputy director for the Agency—but he’d started to slide into a mindset where he just didn’t care anymore. The work he’d been attempting to do was too damn important to worry over small considerations like what policy he was breaking this week.
He squeezed his pen, so tightly that he was afraid he’d break it. He forced himself to drop it and watched as it fell onto the folder in front of him and rolled off the edge of it. He contemplated the pen for a moment then glanced at the clock.
It shouldn’t be much longer now. The thought made his stomach churn.
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