My body twisted as the blade came towards me. It was the weirdest feeling to have my body moving without me being in control. It was one that I didn’t exactly enjoy, but if I came out of this alive, well, I guess I’d just have to be a little bit grateful.
At the same time I was spinning away, my hand shot out and grabbed the man’s wrist forcing the blade wide. I heard his wrist break and the blade falling at the same time my other elbow slammed into his ribs. The force of the blow snapped something inside of him, sending him flying away from me. He would have smashed into the wall, but I still held his wrist.
Pulling him back towards me, my knee came up into his stomach knocking whatever air he had left right out of his body. Then my fist came down on the top of his head like a hammer, and he hit the ground hard.
Oh how I’ve missed the song of battle. Destroying the tainted was so much more fun a thousand years ago. Now, it’s all guns and bombs, those types of weapons just don’t bring the same level of satisfaction.
Well, it turns out Gideon is a badass warrior angel. “Yeah, I guess I can see the appeal.” I couldn’t, but there was no reason to bring him down.
The heads-up display Gideon flashed through my mind still showed the last man waiting in the back of the house. Kneeling next to the man on the ground I checked for a pulse. It was weak, but it was still there. Gideon must have restrained himself just enough to leave him alive.
Not by choice.
Did that mean I had some kind of influence or power over my angelic sidekick?
That was kind of a cool thought. All the power of heaven and only some of the morals. Before standing back up, I picked up the knife that my unconscious friend had dropped. It might come in handy. Already a plan was forming in the back of my mind on how to quickly subdue the third man. The bastard had better have some answers for me, or I might just let Gideon take control again.
“Do I need to worry about this guy getting up anytime soon?” I whispered.
No.
Well, at least that was a comforting thought. He wouldn’t interrupt my meeting with the third man. Still, I had this feeling it wouldn’t be the last time I saw this man, and the next time I ran into that bastard, he wasn’t going to be so happy to see me. I might not have my angelic counterpart around to help me out. At least, that would be the case if David could find me something I could use to send Gideon back to heaven.
There wasn’t time to waste. Rain wasn’t here, and I needed to know why. I also had to call her office and find out if she was at work. Who knows, maybe it would be our lucky day, and she had left before these idiots had shown up. Then I could just drive over and pick her up, and drag her back to my place. She’d have to stay at the house until we figured all of this madness out.
Part of me warmed to the idea of having her in my home again. Maybe we could finish what we started in the kitchen. In my experience, though life tended to shit on you more than it blessed you with the kind of luck I was hoping for now.
We edged closer to the back room, and I felt the knife flip in my hand so the handle was facing out and I was gripping the blade. Stepping into the doorway I felt my arm move upward and then it snapped forward.
I couldn’t explain the feeling exactly. It was something between throwing a baseball and a punch. The blade flew straight, and the handle thumped into the side of the third man’s head sending him to the ground.
It wasn’t like in the movies where the blade flipped end over end. Sure that shit looked cool, but you didn’t have any control like that. Based off what I had just seen Gideon do, throwing the blade straight either with the point or the handle was the way to do it. Man this guy really was a badass.
They teach you that move in angel school? I asked.
We are God’s chosen warriors.
Well, that summed it up nicely. I’d told Gideon to throw the knife softly, so I didn’t know how much time I had before guy number three woke up. A quick look around confirmed we were in a home office so I had everything that I needed for a little Q&A time.
Gideon used a little of his strength to help me lift the guy into the chair. They make it look so easy in the movies, but lifting a two-hundred-pound unconscious sack of shit wasn’t that easy, at least not if I didn’t want to spend the rest of the week lying in bed with a hot pad on my back.
Rain was going to need some new equipment in her office or a really handy repair guy after this. I stripped the power cords from her printer, fax, and mouse, and then used them to tie Mr. Baddie to the chair. When I was done, he was still out. I slapped his face a few times to bring him around, but it didn’t work.
“Just fucking great. How hard did you hit him anyway?”
Not hard enough to kill him.
I could almost hear Gideon laughing inside of my head. Did he just give me some attitude? Being stuck inside of me was already starting to rub off on him. There was a vase on the table with some half dead flowers in it. The flowers came out easy enough, and the face full of water brought guy number three back around. At least enough to sputter and curse before he realized that he couldn’t move his arms. Then the real cursing started.
Standing in an almost casual position, I said, “If you’re done, I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Fuck you!” he spat, water dripping down his face, eyes half-squinted while trying to keep the liquid out even as he fought to get a look at me.
“Are you sure that’s the way you want to go? I might just be the kind of guy that’s inclined to enjoy that sort of thing.”
Unclean blasphemy.
Gideon hadn’t figured out my plan yet, and the last thing I wanted was for him to go against me in the middle of it. I hoped when I thought the words he was receiving them loud and clear. Relax my angelic friend, I’m just talking shit, I thought as I looked down at the man in front of me.
His eyes widened in fear at my pronouncement. He started to struggle harder, but the wires didn’t give.
How does one talk with a mouth full of excrement?
Now, I didn’t know if he was being snarky or just hadn’t heard the expression before. I walked out of the room and found a guest bathroom with a towel in it. After coming back into the room and moving toward the man in the chair, I smiled and said, “Bite down on this, it helps.”
His eyes widened in fear, and he started to struggle again, this time bucking in the chair trying to topple it over. “Fuck you! I’m not going out like that. Just kill me.”
“Now, where’s the fun in that? I’d prefer to leave you alive with a fun story to tell all of your friends.”
The man was just frantic now. His side to side movements threatened to send him to the ground shortly. I reached out and grabbed his leg to steady him, and he jerked away as if I had hit him with a Taser. This time the chair did fall over. The back of his head cracked against hardwood floors, but by the swearing he was still able to accomplish, it hadn’t knocked him out.
Moving around the desk so I could pick up the chair from behind, I kept my eyes locked on his. It didn’t look like any of the cords had broken, but it was always better to play it safe. When I reached down to grab the chair he started bucking wildly again. “I love a man with a little bit of fight in him; this is going to be fun.”
I will not let you do this.
As if you have a choice, little buddy. We played that game last night, and I won, I mentally argued.
It’s not right, Bozley Green. Rape is an unforgivable sin.
I’m right there with you, Gideon. I’m not going to touch this man, I just want him scared and off balance.
This is an interrogation tactic I’m not familiar with.
Gideon sounded confused so I tried to explain the method to my madness. At his confusion, I explained further. Well, not all of us can promise to bring the might of heaven down upon those that we have to question, so we have to get a little creative. This guy’s not a real deep thinker, so I took an aggressive approach. Still, it’s not a real interrogation y
et. I’m just scaring the crap out of him, and it seems to be going to plan.
My co-host remained silent, but helped me lift the chair back up from the ground. The man sitting in it was still bucking wildly, but stopped when his face brushed against my hand. Then he went stone still his eyes still wild with fear.
Moving back around in front of him I picked up the towel and the knife. “So fucking help me, if you bit my fingers, I’m going to stab you.”
It only took a few seconds for me to brush the remaining water off the man’s face. He didn’t move, but the tip of a blade pressing against his ribs probably had more to do with that than the fact I was wiping the water off his face and not shoving a gag in his mouth. I tossed the towel on the floor and set the knife back on the desk. The man was still frantic, but slowly he was accepting his fate.
Time to toss him another curve ball. “So, you ready to talk yet.”
He nodded his head vigorously. “Just don’t touch me, ok?”
I waved my hand as if his comment was out of place and completely outlandish. “Oh, that, I was just fucking with you. I’m not into dudes.”
The look of horror he had been wearing before now was replaced by one of sheer fury. “You’re a sick fuck, man. What in the hell is wrong with you?”
“Says the guy hiding out in someone else’s house after kicking in the front door. I’m sure you were just here to give Rain a gift basket and some concert tickets.” His eyes started following me, but now they were calculating instead of scared. “Yeah, I know why you’re here, and if killing innocent women isn’t a good enough reason to fuck with you, well, I don’t know what is.”
“We weren’t here for that bitch. Balthazar’s already got her. We were waiting here for you.”
They were waiting here for me. So, maybe the note from Katerina had just been a setup. Oh well; one less Christmas card I had to send out. There was a reason people told you not to trust the strippers; they’d do just about anything to make a buck. Money talked, and bullshit walked with that crowd. I wondered just how much she was offered to sell me out.
The man continued speaking. “Too bad you didn’t show up last night like the boss thought you would. We had three times the number of guys waiting for you.”
Picking up the knife, I turned it and tapped the flat of the blade against his head. “Do you mind telling me your name? I’m kind of tired of referring to you as guy number three in my head.”
“It’s Bruce.”
Well, at least we had gotten past the point of him not answering questions. “Ok, Bruce, tell me, where are they holding her?”
“I can’t do that man, they’ll kill me.”
I tapped the blade against his head harder trying to keep him focused on what I needed. “Bruce, what do you think I’m going to do to you?”
He looked nervous, like maybe all that stuff I said before wasn’t a ruse after all. “Listen man, Balthazar has this cabin out in the woods. He does all kinds of sick shit there. I can show you where it is. Just let me go ok?”
I already knew where the place was, at least in general. Stories had been coming out of that area for a while, but each time the police investigated, they came out with nothing. Balthazar probably has the place warded up the wazoo. They’d have to be strong wards to confuse and turn away the police like that.
Now, that I had everything I needed, it was time to put this guy down for a bit. I kept a firm grip on the handle, blade facing away from the man as I slammed the hilt into the side of his head. He went down in a heap right along with the chair. He didn’t move as I stood back up.
Rain is going to hate me, I thought as I grabbed one of her lamps and cut the cord off of it. Not that it was going to move me down much in her book after the way I had treated her the other day. What’s a few broken appliances between friends when you already broke her heart?
Shrugging, I cut three more cords free as I walked through the house. Tying up the rest of these guys might help to buy me a few more hours. That’s all I could ask for unless I killed them all, and I wasn’t willing to cross that line yet. Killing demons was ok, but people, well, that was a whole different ballgame.
15
The cabin where Balthazar did his freaky shit wasn’t as far out of town as you would have expected. That was the thing about Oregon, it never seemed like you were too far away from a secluded forest. That was, unless you had to walk, or lived in the center of Portland. Maybe that wasn’t true; even in the big city, you could find a little green if you looked hard enough. This whole state was covered in trees and mountains.
That didn’t mean I knew the exact route to get there. I’d never been, and frankly, for me and Balthazar to keep working together, I’d ignored most of the rumors. Sure, the guy was a sleaze and a little bit dark, but that was it.
At least, that’s what I told myself when I needed something from him, which thankfully wasn’t often. It looked like the blissful ignorance I had been living in was over. It was time to burn down his whole operation.
That’s how Dad would have done it, that or a flood.
“I’m not really going to burn the cabin down. At least, not until I get Rain out.”
But you will need my help for this, yes? he asked.
“Not only yours, but I’m counting on you the most.”
There was a certain sense of contentment that I felt as I said those words. Maybe we were actually bonding; it was hard to tell. Gideon was pretty serious, but I’d felt a few changes in him since that first night. I climbed into the car and hit the gas. There was no time like the present to go on a demon hunt, but first I needed a real location, and that meant I needed Benny again.
I pulled out my phone and hit the number. The car's system picked up the call and put it on speaker.
“Detective Benitez.”
I hated that I was about to wreck his day, but it had to be done. “Benny.”
He cut me off. “I can’t help you, Bozz.”
“Seriously, is that any way to talk to an old friend?” I asked.
“Friends don’t normally leave you to clean up all of their shit. Oh, and sometimes they even call when they don’t want anything.” Well, he didn’t sound happy to hear from me. Shame.
I got the feeling Benny was about three seconds from hanging up on me and stepping out for a long, long lunch. “Don’t you even want to know what happened?” Curiosity was a real bug-a-boo, and Benny had the bug bad. I had to hope this was enough to keep him talking.
“I guess you might as well tell me what illegally giving you an address has gotten me into,” Benny said with a deep sigh.
“Oh, Benny, it doesn’t have to be like that. This time, I left you a present.” When he didn’t say a word, I plowed ahead as if he sounded excited about my call. “You’ve got a crew that has been trying to bring in some of Balthazar’s guys, right?”
“We do,” Benny said perking up just a bit.
Oh yeah, now I had him by the short and curlies. “I just left three of them tied up for you inside of Rain’s house.”
“How did you…” he paused. “Wait, I don’t want to know. All I need to know is what kind of shape they are in.” Now, he was back to sounding worried.
“Alive, talkative, and possibly in need of some minor medical attention.”
“Jesus, Bozz. What kind of trouble are you dragging me into now?”
“The kind that gets your ass out of that desk and earns you a big fat promotion.” That might not actually be true, but I hoped it was. The least I could do was get him back on even footing after what had happened with Gabrielle derailed his career. “I also have a favor to ask.”
“I knew there would be a catch. It’s always tit for tat with you.” Benny said with just a tinge of disgust clouding his words.
“There is a certain cabin I need the location of,” I started.
“I’m going to stop you right there. No way in hell I’m giving that to you.”
“I can find it on my own, but I don
’t know if Rain has that kind of time. Don’t tell me you had me save her just to let her get taken by Balthazar,” I said, playing on his sense of duty to help the innocent—regardless of my involvement.
“Fuck.” I heard the phone get set down. A minute later he picked the phone back up. “You didn’t get this from me.”
“Of course, I didn’t, Benny. Let’s just say, if this works out, I owe you one.”
“And if it doesn’t work out?” he inquired.
“Then I probably won’t be around for you to collect.”
“Shit. Do you need me to come with you? These are some pretty serious people.”
It meant a lot to me that he offered. Most people would have heard where I was going and done everything in their power not to come. “No dice, Benny. I need you alive and well. Who else am I going to call when I need help?”
“Remind me to change my number,” he retorted without hesitation.
“Just give me the damn address.”
“Forty-two Pine Bluff Court. It’s the only thing out there for miles in any direction. Even you can’t miss it.”
“Get to Rain’s and take care of those bad guys, yeah?” I said, reminding him of his potential career-boosting arrests awaiting him.
“I’ll do what I can.” He sounded tired as he said it, like he knew his life was going to be reduced to paperwork for days after he brought them in.
The phone disconnected, and I typed the address into the navigation system. I’d never done anything like this and attacking someone with power on their home turf was downright suicidal, but I wasn’t going to leave Rain there to be his plaything. Whatever this was, it felt personal, like he was coming after me, and she was just a tool he could use to draw me in.
I had no idea how to plan for something like that. I hunted demons. The problem was Balthazar didn’t employee demons. He had people on his staff. People I didn’t want to kill despite how complicated they were with Balthazar’s activities. Thankfully, I had one badass warrior angel on my side.
Possessed (Bozley Green Chronicles Book 1) Page 14