by Nina Bangs
Kayla couldn’t stop staring. She might have ambivalent feelings for the cosmic troublemaker, but she couldn’t ignore his absolutely incredible beauty. His blond hair fanned around his head like an evil angel’s slightly tarnished halo. His face was breathtaking. And even though she preferred her ancient vampire with his bad attitude, Kayla could appreciate Ganymede’s perfection. She checked out his body. How did he maintain that kind of definition when he was an eating machine?
Sparkle wasn’t quite so appreciative. “You’ve trashed my store.” Her voice shook with outrage. “And you’ve eaten my profits for the next month.”
He turned his head to stare at Sparkle. “I had to eat something, sugartart.” Ganymede frowned. “I crave something salty now.”
His “sugartart” huffed her way across the floor, stepping over and around mashed candy. She stood over Ganymede. “Do you stay awake nights trying to think of ways to hurt me?”
Kayla winced. She could hear the tears in Sparkle’s voice. This was personal. She started to back out.
“Please stay, Kayla. I won’t be here long.” Sparkle didn’t turn around to look at her.
Ganymede stared up at Sparkle, and Kayla wondered if her client was blind. Even a stranger would recognize the love in his eyes.
“I’ve filled my sleepless nights with more entertaining thoughts.” He lowered his lids, hiding any message Sparkle might read in them.
Sparkle started to pace, the click, click of her heels on the tile floor beating out an agitated rhythm. Kayla saw tears sliding down her face. She didn’t try to wipe them away. “I should give Thorn what he wants. My businesses are going to hell anyway. Some jerk is eating his way through my candy store, and Live the Fantasy will be bankrupt soon if I don’t get more visitors.”
She turned teary eyes toward Kayla. “To be honest, every business in Galveston is going down the tube except for Nirvana. Too many bad things are happening here. People are afraid to go in the water, and stores are shutting down because Aegir is driving owners away.” She threw up her hands. “Every night there’re explosions and fires. The police don’t have a clue. How could they?”
Sparkle blinked her tears away. Her expression hardened. “But Nirvana is doing fine. He has his demon and vampire whipping up fantasies that keep people coming even if all they do is visit his park and then go home.” She drew in a deep breath. “But that won’t last long.”
“Why not?” Kayla watched Ganymede watch Sparkle. His expression disturbed her.
“I have a plan for tomorrow night.”
Kayla listened as Sparkle told her about the demonstration. While Sparkle spoke, Kayla kept her attention on Ganymede. He saw her studying him, and he winked. She looked away.
When Sparkle finished, Kayla made the expected appreciative noises. “Sounds like a great plan. I hope the police can keep control of the crowd, though. You wouldn’t want it to get out of hand and spill over into the castle.”
Sparkle looked as though she hadn’t thought about that. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“Or not.”
Kayla speared Ganymede with a hard stare. “And that means?”
He put on his innocent face. Kayla could’ve told him that innocence would never work for him.
Ganymede shrugged. “I don’t know. Things happen. You can’t predict what a crowd driven by fanatical beliefs will do.” He glanced at Sparkle and then looked away.
Sparkle seemed a little troubled. “The police will control the demonstrators. I want his business gone, but I don’t want him hurt.”
“And why don’t you want him hurt? Before you knew who he was, you didn’t much care what happened to him. I seem to remember you asking me to incinerate his ass.” He sat up in one smooth motion. Ganymede wasn’t looking away from her now.
The silence had teeth. Kayla could feel it digging deep and drawing blood from both Ganymede and Sparkle. This could be a bloodbath. She needed out of here.
Sparkle met his gaze. “I cared for him once. Yes, it was a long time ago, but his safety is still important to me.”
He swung his feet to the floor and stood. Ganymede towered over Sparkle. The expression on his face reminded Kayla that he was one of the universe’s most powerful beings. She backed toward the door.
“Maybe you still care for him. You’ve allowed your spy lady to fart around for a whole week without doing any real damage.” He glared at said spy lady.
Kayla swallowed hard, but then she straightened her backbone and glared right back at him. “If Sparkle had wanted a wrecking ball, she would’ve hired you. She wanted something a little more subtle. Finesse takes more time.”
Ganymede turned the full force of his displeasure on Kayla. “Doesn’t seem to me that Mackenzie has cared too much about being subtle. Or maybe that’s not it. Maybe he’s just smarter.”
Kayla wanted to slap his face, but she had enough sense to realize you didn’t attack beings of his power without chancing annihilation. Besides, he was right. Thorn had been smarter. But that wasn’t her fault. Dad hadn’t prepared her for this kind of warfare. So she just lifted her chin and glared at him.
“Stop picking on Kayla when I’m the one you’re mad at.” Sparkle moved closer until only inches separated them. She held him with an unblinking stare.
Uh-oh. The tips of his hair burst into flame and his eyes glowed. The floor beneath Kayla’s feet rippled. Gasping, she put her hand on the wall to steady herself. She glanced longingly at the door, but she wouldn’t run now. She owed some loyalty to Sparkle, so she’d stay to make sure nothing happened to her client. Not that Kayla would be much of a threat to Ganymede.
He growled deep in his throat. “You had sex with him.” His outrage shook the walls. A crack appeared in the ceiling.
“Stop wrecking my store.” Sparkle spoke through clenched teeth.
Surprisingly, the rippling and shaking stopped.
Sparkle’s cheeks were stained red with rage. “Yes. I made love with him. And it was damn good. Deal with it. That was a thousand freaking years ago. And how many women have you had?” That thought seemed to make her even angrier. “We both existed for millennia. What we’ve done during that time is no one’s business except our own.”
Personally, Kayla felt that striking at him by using the word “love” had been a mistake.
Ganymede looked stricken. “I thought we were—”
Sparkle had reached the shrieking stage. “We were nothing. We are nothing. Now get out of my store.”
The expression in Ganymede’s eyes shocked Kayla. He loved Sparkle, and she’d hurt him. But right now she was too furious to recognize it. The drinks Sparkle had downed before coming here probably weren’t helping her make wise choices.
Kayla tried to intervene. “Maybe we should all calm down and—”
Ganymede didn’t wait for her to finish. He scooped his shirt from the floor and left. The slamming door shook the store.
Silence settled around them. Sparkle leaned against the counter and then slid slowly to the floor. She sat there looking shattered. “What have I done?”
Kayla couldn’t think of one comforting thing to say. He’ll get over it? From the look on his face, she didn’t think that was true. You’ll get over him? Kayla somehow doubted that.
Sparkle struggled to her feet. “I’ll find him. I’ll apologize. Things will be fine.” She ignored Kayla as she walked unsteadily to the door.
“Give me your key. I’ll lock the door.” Kayla waited while Sparkle rooted around in her purse.
Once she’d taken care of the door, Kayla followed Sparkle back to the castle. Her thoughts tangled and knotted in her mind. Too much was happening. Aegir was systematically destroying Galveston. The god’s three-week deadline was fast approaching, and no one had come up with a plan to stop him. Sparkle and Thorn were still trying to destroy each other’s businesses. Which was really dumb, since all they had to do was sit back and wait for Aegir to take care of things.
Kayla considered that. Come to think of it, why didn’t Aegir just take out Nirvana and Live the Fantasy the same way he was getting rid of everyone else? Why bother with a deadline? He was a god, for heaven’s sake. There could only be one answer. Even with all his power, Aegir didn’t want to go head-to-head with them in battle. Interesting.
Her thoughts turned to tomorrow’s demonstration. Should she warn Thorn? She bit her lip. Sparkle was paying her and deserved some loyalty. Telling Thorn would be a betrayal. She couldn’t justify it short of quitting her job. Kayla decided that Thorn and his people were powerful enough to take care of themselves. Still . . .
She suspended her thoughts until she was lying in bed. Kayla stared at the darkened ceiling and thought of Ganymede’s cherubs and fat naked man. She smiled, but it faded quickly. What was she going to do with this thing, this feeling, she had for Thorn? As she drifted off to sleep, she still didn’t have an answer.
* * *
Thorn stood on the roof of his apartment, the wind whipping his hair around his face, and stared at the crowd roiling and buzzing like a hive of angry bees outside Nirvana’s gate. Grim stood beside him.
“Zane says they’ve been gathering since this afternoon. Someone’s getting booze to them. Don’t know how. So far the cops have kept things from turning ugly.” Grim watched Nirvana’s employees escort visitors out of the park. “The police are keeping the demonstrators far enough away from the entrance so people leaving the park won’t be hassled.
“You were right to close down Nirvana until tomorrow. We don’t want to take the chance of someone getting hurt.” Thorn wondered if Kayla had known this was going to happen. Had she approved? Had she been tempted to warn him? He’d like to think so.
Thorn wasn’t so worried that he couldn’t think about her. He already regretted last night’s words. If he had to apologize, he would. He frowned. Apologies had never been his favorite things to do, so that’s why he rarely bothered.
“I called every nonhuman into work. Just in case.” Grim glanced to where his supernatural team had gathered right behind the gate.
“Good call.” Thorn read some of the signs the demonstrators were carrying. “Death to demons?” He smiled. “I’d like to see them go up against Klepoth. He’d toss them into an illusion that would fry whatever few brain cells they had.”
Just then the police controlling the crowd started leaving. Most of them ran to their cars and took off, sirens shrieking. Only a few stayed behind. Too few.
“Where the hell are they going?” Grim sounded worried.
A few minutes later, Eric joined them on the roof. “I jumped into a few of their minds before they left. Dispatch put out a call for as many officers as possible to respond. There’s a bunch of stuff happening around the city. Break-ins, people running naked on the beach, fights breaking out everywhere. Even had a report that a parade of elephants was coming across the Galveston Causeway.”
A parade of what? “Everything’s happening at the same time?” Thorn didn’t believe in that kind of coincidence.
Eric nodded. “What’re the chances?” He looked at the huge screaming crowd. “What’ll we do if they get out of hand? Must be hundreds of them out there.”
Thorn had a bad feeling about this. The mood of the crowd, the liquor, the cops’ sudden abandonment, and . . . He glanced at the TV cameras filming the whole thing. “We can’t hit them with anything too obvious. Not if it’s going to be on the late news. Use your own judgment, and I’ll back you.”
The mob got louder even as Thorn stood there. They crowded the police trying to hold them back. There were too few officers for so many. By the time reinforcements came, it might be too late.
You can use your persuasion. The temptation was there. He fought it. He’d come so far in the last two hundred years. He didn’t want to start over—fighting the compulsion, spiraling downward again. Besides, this was a large crowd. He remembered trying to persuade a big group right after becoming vampire. It hadn’t ended well.
Thorn made his decision. He’d use it as a last resort and just deal with the consequences.
Tense, he watched the crowd pressing against the gate. The police had retreated behind it with Thorn’s people. They were calling for backup.
“The other police won’t be in time.” Grim looked at Thorn. “I’m going down to the gate to see if I can help.”
“Only use obvious power to save yourself.” Thorn was still staring at the crowd, so he saw the exact moment they tipped over into an outright mob.
Over the next five minutes, demonstrators scaled the gate, climbed up the pilings from the beach, and even managed to swim to the stairs at the end of the pier. They wielded baseball bats—where the hell had they come from—in a frenzy of destruction. They smashed equipment and screamed their rage. He didn’t care about the material stuff. It could be replaced. He did care about his people.
Time for him to join the others. He leaped from the roof and fought his way through the mob. Since no one wore Nirvana uniforms, the H.A.T.E. idiots had no one to focus their fury on. Thorn hoped it stayed that way.
He’d just jabbed a big mouthy jerk in his paunchy gut when he saw her. No. She couldn’t be here. Why would she put herself in the middle of this mess? Thorn got serious about punishing anyone in his way as he cleared a path to reach her.
Meanwhile, Kayla wasn’t doing any helpless hand-wringing. Thorn saw her sock a man who shoved her too hard and kick another in the knee as he tried to grab her. She wore an I-am-woman-watch-me-kill expression.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He pushed a screaming woman away from him and listened as the crowd’s roar blended with the shriek of the rising wind. Thunder rumbled, sounding closer and closer as lightning played a zigzag pattern across the night sky. What was up with the weather?
For the first time, he felt fear. He had to keep her safe. He could hear the distant sound of sirens. Gunshots made a distinct popping sound. Shit. He only hoped those shots came from the police. He had to make a decision—try to beat the crap out of every H.A.T.E. member in a “human” way or use his power.
“I’m here to help you.” She had to scream to be heard above the roar of the mob. Kayla held up her crowd-control weapon of choice—a canister of pepper spray.
The uncontrolled sea of people churned and fought around them, screaming curses and striking out at whatever was nearest them. They were starting to fight with each other.
The Viking in him wanted to leap into the crowd and start slamming heads together. Bloodlust rose on a tide of red. He fought it down. No killing, no killing, no killing. His silent mantra helped.
But he had to stop the crazies. Time to use his persuasion. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t have to tackle this whole mob. He grabbed Kayla’s hand. “Stay with me.”
“Where’re we going?”
She got a man with her spray as he swung at them with his bat. Kayla ignored his agonized shrieks as she tried to keep up with Thorn.
“I have to find the bastard in charge.” And put an end to this cluster fuck. He tried to control his fury. Throwing someone the length of the pier would get him noticed.
Jeez, where had they found all of these morons anyway? One big redheaded guy carrying a sign that read ALL PARENTS, TURN IN YOUR DEMON CHILDREN used it to whack another H.A.T.E. member over the head. With a roar, the man he’d attacked gripped his own sign—OUR GOVERNMENT IS RUN BY DEMONS—like a sword and tried to behead his fellow dumbass. Great. Just freaking great.
If he wasn’t so pissed, he would’ve laughed as some of the rioters tried to take their bats to the controls of the carousel and landed on their asses. The wards were keeping the most important equipment in the park safe.
“If you want their leader, I’d follow the megaphone.” Kayla sounded a little out of breath as she ducked under the swing of a wild-eyed demonstrator and came up spraying.
She was leaving lots of pain and tears in her wake. He was proud of her. If he could’ve smile
d with clenched teeth, he would have.
“There.” He pointed.
A short distance from the entrance gate, a short, skinny guy stood on top of a pickup cab shouting encouragement through his megaphone. Ten big men stood in a circle around the truck. Guards.
Thorn shoved and punched his way out of the park and over to the truck. He squeezed Kayla’s hand. “Stay back.”
“Not going to happen, vampire, until they pry this pepper spray from my cold dead hands.” She sounded committed.
Thorn knew better than to argue with a woman wielding pepper spray. Now, if he could only do this right, she might not realize he was using persuasion.
He shouted at the nearest guard, infusing his words with power. “Yo, I have an important message for him.” Thorn pointed. “Let me through.”
Only Thorn would have recognized the flash of confusion in the man’s eyes before they cleared.
“Sure. Come on.” He waved Thorn and Kayla to the truck.
Kayla looked a little puzzled, but she didn’t say anything.
Thorn stood in front of the cab and called up to the skinny guy. “I need your megaphone for a minute.”
The man blinked at Thorn but handed it down without a word.
Thorn held the megaphone to his mouth and spoke to the mob. “Stop.”
The crowd stilled. Everyone turned to look at him. “You’ll listen to your leader and do everything he tells you to do.”
Thorn handed the megaphone back to its owner. “You have to stop your people. The police are almost here. You’re in a world of shit. The owner of this place will sue your ass. Besides that, the cops are going to throw all of you in jail. So stop them now.”
The man stared at him blankly for a moment and then nodded. “Have to stop them.” He put his megaphone back up to his mouth and started ordering everyone to calm down and leave the park.
Thorn turned to Kayla. She stared at the skinny guy and then at him.