The Vengeance Demons Series: Books 0-3 (The Vengeance Demons Series Boxset)

by Louisa Lo

  “Getting soft?” I teased.

  “Done with being Pukie Miss Puke?” He shot back.

  And with that, we were back. Time to get to the point of getting him out here.

  “Gregory, so far I’ve been getting your help by threatening to hurt your clients’ claim to vengeance. But you heard the broadcast. There’s not much hope for small fishes like your clients now. The Council is going to put their allies over anyone else. You have less reason to help me now than you did a few hours ago. But we still need your help. We’re heading into unknown territories at Dualsing and we need your improvisation skills. And we need you to not screw us over. So how about I offer you something else to keep you around?”

  Gregory raised his eyebrows, then a smile teased at the corner of his mouth. “You’re sweetening the deal without any prompting. I keep forgetting how practical you are.”

  I shrugged. “I’m a realist.”

  I told myself it was simply a good strategic decision, not because the little things I’d observed in the last day had slowly warmed me up to him. But that damn ferret wasn’t helping as it crooked its head toward Gregory, let out a contented sigh, and drifted to sleep.

  “So what is it you would like to offer me?” There was respect in his voice now. No mockery, but genuine respect from one pro to another.

  “The full financial benefit of getting the supernatural kids back to their rightful parents.” I briefly explained the rescue plan. “Fir will be a hero among the tricksters just for returning Eldon, and anything more would be considered a sell-out from their bohemian worldview. Serafina doesn’t care for the glory, and it would attract unwanted attention for Pedro. That leaves just you and me, and I’m willing to give you my half in exchange for your help. You mentioned once that some of your clients have children held by the changelings even right now. Getting those kids will give you something to take back to them. It’s not the vengeance claim they hoped for, but it might be even better. At the very least you can earn out your retainer—I assume you took it—while not burning bridges. As for the rest of the kids, those that don’t belong to your clients, well, that’s where the real pay dirt is. You can collect rewards for their safe return. Getting their own flesh and blood back aside, the rich families would pay extra to keep the switch as quiet as possible. You might even make new clients out of them at the end of the day.”

  I listed out all the benefits of the new arrangement for Gregory in one breath—thank Hades for my supernatural lungs, then I waited for his reaction. It wasn’t every day that I proposed something to a mercenary and a part of me was nervous. Threats of legal technicality was one thing, a business deal between two equal partners was quite another. It wasn’t something we covered in Demon U, where at the end of the day, vengeance demons were an order-taking bunch.

  Gregory’s face split into a big smile and he offered me his hand. “You got yourself a deal.”

  High on my jubilance at the successful negotiation, I totally forgot about what happened the last few times we touched—not counting the puke-in-his-arms incident because I was too out of it to note any physical reaction. I went for the handshake, then pulled my body back when the tingling sensation once again started at the point of contact. I jerked back just a little too, well, jerkily, lost balance, and ended up on my ass on the floor of the infirmary.

  Gregory grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled me up. “You’re okay?”

  Gregory smelled of sandalwood and pine nuts, offset by the crispness of oak bark. And his large and callused hands, in such sharp contrast with his aristocratic blood, held me firmly against his toned body.

  Alright, maybe I felt something while I was in his arms earlier, puke or no puke.

  “I’m…okay.” Was that breathless voice really mine?

  He paused, then tightened his hold and breathed in my scent. Then his head lowered toward mine.

  I closed my eyes.

  It felt strangely right to do that, my logic already thrown out the window when my butt kissed the floor.

  Talk about kissing…

  In a moment of flaring desire, my wings burst out of my back. It was a common indicator of unchecked passion, except Gregory was holding onto me when it happened. The blast of energy ejected me from his arms as if we were doing a throw jump in figure skating, and remarkably, both of us managed to land on our feet.

  I hastily pulled back my wings, but not before noticing he had to do the same with his.

  Breathing heavily, I backed away, the full impact of what just almost happened hitting me like a freight train. I almost kissed Gregory.

  Let me repeat. I. Almost. Kissed. Gregory.

  What felt right just seconds ago now felt like a trick of the mind, and my cheeks grew hot at the thought of my wings coming out in such an embarrassing manner.

  Vengeance courtship was still stuck in the Victorian era, and the wings didn’t make an appearance until, like, the thirtieth date. Not that this was a courtship, but still.

  Maybe mercenaries did things differently…

  Not. Going. There.

  There was a war to prevent, and it took no pity on my frayed nerves.

  “Let’s get back,” I managed, and walked toward the groom room, not bothering to check if Gregory was following me.

  It wasn’t every day that a girl was glad of having an Extinction Level Event to distract her.

  ***

  “What happened to your face?” Fir demanded upon my return to the groom room, with Gregory a few steps behind me.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “It looks like you’re in a ‘before’ picture of a hemorrhoid cream commercial.”

  Ouch. In hopes of heading off Fir’s inquisitive observation, I weaved a spell over myself that should suck out all the stray lustful vibes and leave no hint of whatever the hell it was that had just happened. Sounded like I might’ve gone overboard and looked like a sour prune or something.

  The downside was, both Serafina and Pedro now looked stressed, probably thinking I had a falling out with Gregory that might derail everything.

  “Of course she does,” Gregory interjected. “Megan has just agreed to give me her entire share of the profits for my trouble.”

  I looked at Gregory. He was smirking with infinite arrogance, the mask of his mercenary jerkiness fully back on. None of our shared intimacy was on his face.

  Schooling a scowl on my own face, I pretended to go off in a huff, grabbing myself another long-haired cat to groom along the way.

  It was Gregory’s turn to cover for me, and I liked it.

  ***

  An hour or so later, a pale Esme staggered into the grooming area. She looked even worse than I feared and was rubbing her forehead. I weaved a quick spell to keep Rosemary and Jordan engrossed in their task as I rushed forward and put my arms around her. She squeezed me tightly then collapsed onto a nearby chair.

  “Let me help her.” Serafina knelt down and took Esme’s hand. As Esme’s pearl earrings went from near transparent to a healthy luster, and color returned to her cheeks, I knew that Serafina was sharing her life force with my half-sister, recharging her.

  I tugged at Serafina’s sleeve. “Alright, my turn. You have to conserve your strength for the fight ahead.”

  Serafina stubbornly held onto Esme’s hand. “I’m fine. I’ve been having a lot of excessive adrenaline and energy. I have plenty to share. This way we both get something out of it.”

  I kicked myself for being so focused on the big picture that I failed to truly see what a bag of nerves Serafina must have been. She was so quiet that sometimes I forgot she had a full reserve of raw vengeance power, a ticking time bomb that was not above being triggered by volatile emotions.

  After a long while, Serafina finally released her hand. I noted that there was no change to her own coloring after the energy transfer, suggesting that she was telling the truth about having more than enough to give.

  Esme sat up, her eyes full of concern for
me. “Megan, what happened? I was in the middle of climbing up Mount Olympus when suddenly the headache began, and I lost the ability to move my right leg. I almost fell to my death at forty thousand feet above sea level. I would have if my mother hadn’t been there.”

  A wealth of emotions rose within me, I couldn’t decide which one to process first.

  Horror, that I’d almost cost Esme her life.

  Love, that despite what I’d just put her through, her first concern was for me.

  More horror, as I realized how hard she would’ve had to push through her pain to get here from where she was. Mount Olympus was a plane that was abandoned at the same time their gods were abandoned by humans. Every year the plane drifted farther and farther away from both the vengeance and the human planes, and in a few more generations accessing it would be a distant memory. You don’t get any more remote than that. It took a while for the negative side effects of our contact to wear off, and Esme would’ve had to travel for miles in pain before getting to the exit point of the plane.

  I winced. No wonder she looked like hell when she got here. That was why the method of communication that I employed was reserved for extenuating circumstances only. “I’m so, so sorry that I almost got you killed. I have a good reason for calling you on your vacation, I swear.”

  “What is it? Your message sounded like it was coming through water. I couldn’t pick up your exact words.”

  “Then how come you knew to come running?”

  “I could sense the urgency of it. And I figured you wanted me to come alone. You know how hard it was to shake my mother after what almost happened?”

  As it turned out, the plane which Mount Olympus was on was so remote, Esme and her mom didn’t even hear the Council’s broadcast, so her shock was complete when I told her the whole story.

  “You should’ve called me the moment you came in contact with the changeling,” she hissed.

  “I didn’t even know what I was facing until I was neck deep in it.” I tried to downplay the whole thing.

  She gave an exasperated sigh. “I would rather you call me and give me a splitting headache then find out later that you’d come face to face with a member of the Greys again. You don’t know who’s masquerading as this Sui-Ling. She sounds dangerous.”

  And there it was again, her protectiveness of me. Just a few months ago, Esme was trapped next to me while the Greys attempted to push me over the edge using my own anger and fear. I doubted she was going to forget that anytime soon.

  “To be fair, I didn’t know she was the bad guy when she first showed up. If I’d known I would’ve set all four of my brothers on her.”

  “Megan, don’t try to make light of this.” Esme’s jaw hardened. “All the way here I was worried for you, wondering how bad this is.”

  I lowered my head and dropped the cockiness in my voice. Esme was right; this was no laughing matter. I thought I was easing her mind by downplaying it, but I wasn’t. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Esme’s hand, which was fisting and un-fisting the fabric on her pants, relaxed. “Tell me your plan.”

  I introduced Gregory and Pedro to Esme. She already knew Fir and Serafina.

  “Gregory.” Esme gave him a once-over, then realization dawned on her face. “This is the mercenary you mentioned before, right?”

  Gregory’s eyes lighted up in amusement, as if he was wondering what exactly I had told Esme about him. Esme glanced back at Gregory, clearly not done with her speculation.

  Not ready for yet another person analyzing what even I didn’t understand, I said just a little too brightly, “Yep, we got a team full of interesting people. There’s Gregory for the muscle, Serafina and Pedro for the passage opening, you for the respectable cover, and Fir for…well, simply being an evil genius. Now all we need is a good base of operations with some heavy security, and I know just the place to go.”

  PART THREE

  NATURE VS. NURTURE VS. CHOICE

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Enemy of My Enemy

  YOU KNOW WHAT THEY say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I certainly hoped that was true, even if those friends turned out to be obnoxious evil-villain-wannabes who had been the bane of my existence since the first time I laid eyes on them.

  I took our little group to the Bureaucracy. It was a downtown night club on the human plane catering to supernaturals on shore leave. They came here looking for a place to let their hair down, may that said hair be a troll’s coarse wisp, or Medusa’s live snakes.

  The club was owned and run by the Off-Blacks. Yes, you heard the name right. It wasn’t some sort of politically incorrect racial reference, but a group of elves who were into worshiping the Absolute Evil. In deference to the fact that they weren’t quite as evil as their master yet and needed a reminder to be bad, they called themselves the Off-Blacks.

  Similarly, the choice of name for the Greys, who followed the teachings of the Absolute Good, stemmed from their desire to be a lighter and lighter shade of grey until one day they would be as pristine white as their idol. To be frank, the two names sounded like some sort of botched marketing campaign for a new laundry detergent, or in the Greys’ case, an erotica book title. I would snigger if the Greys hadn’t been such an effective pain in my ass, or the Off-Blacks not so pathetic in their attempt to be eeeeevillllll.

  But the main takeaway was that the Off-Blacks and the Greys hated each other, and I was going to use that to serve my purpose.

  The first time I was at the Bureaucracy, I came to get some information out of the Off-Blacks. Instead, I was magically ejected out of their office and dumped in the alleyway next to their building. Once I got out, I couldn’t get back in no matter how hard I tried. I’d since figured out how to visit the Off-Blacks using other means, but that first experience taught me just how good their security system was.

  Since these guys were making a living by posing as clairvoyants, it was inevitable that they would have a lot of unhappy customers wanting their money back. Hence the need for the world’s best supernatural security system, which in turn made the club an ideal place to hide. Esme was off connecting with Grandma—being considered respectable, she was the perfect person to fly under the Council’s radar at this point. We would take a rest here until she came back with the latest intel. I’d like to say we were going to set up the ritual that would take us into Dualsing right away, but the truth was, I’d gone almost forty-eight hours without sleep and it was taking a toll. There was only so far a Blue Unicorn could take you, and I was on my last can.

  When Esme had been kidnapped, I’d interrogated the Off-Blacks for information to find her. After the dust settled and one of the Greys’ agents, Dan Pillar, was captured, I had a decision to make—did I turn the Off-Blacks over to the Council or release them?

  It was Fir who convinced me to let them go, arguing that the Council would’ve laughed and done the same anyway, as they never considered anyone not of vengeance blood to have anything worthwhile to say. Besides, he claimed, you never knew when you’d need someone like that on your side.

  Like now.

  I suspected Fir’s original suggestion to live and let live didn’t have much to do with the current scenario, though. In the course of helping me torment the three silly Evil-Lites, my half-brother had formed a weird rapport with them. Somehow, the catch-me-if-you-can attitude of the Off-Blacks was a perfect foil for my half-brother’s flamboyant personality, and much to my annoyance, they had become fast friends.

  So yes, I had figured out a way around the club’s security system. But no, that wasn’t how we were going to roll tonight. Instead of sneaking around, we were welcomed in by the bouncers, through the front door, thanks to Fir’s VIP status.

  The Bureaucracy was a three-story complex. The bottom two floors of the building had the usual club fanfare: loud music, dim lighting, and patrons dressed in party clothes at least one size too small. There was also plenty of Blue Unicorn and regular human beer flowing aroun
d. The top floor, however, held a labyrinth of rooms, each of them an underground market of a different sort, trading in all things legal and not entirely legal, from spell ingredients, love potions, to magically enhanced “super-pets.”

  Talk about spell ingredients, this place was like a football-field-sized pantry for all our prepping needs. That textbook I took with me, 1001 Wild Herbs and How They Can Kick Start Your Vengeance Career, actually had an old recipe for herbs that might help with the ritual. Why not, right?

  The bouncers ushered us directly up to the top floor, much to the audible complaints of the people in the long line for the stairs. I guessed that was what they called VIP access. Once we got onto the landing, the loud music of the lower floors faded to an ambient level thanks to a built-in privacy spell. There was a small balcony right off the landing that overlooked the party below, with a wrap-around lounge sofa. Seated on the sofa were the three members of the Off-Blacks—Bonaventure the Third, Wistari, and Naracion. Surrounding them were half a dozen buxom brunettes in mini-skirts and fuck-me boots.

  The three detangled themselves from their entourage of admiring females and pulled Fir into a group hug. All four of them squealed and giggled like little girls.

  “Fir, how have you been, man?” Bonaventure the Third slapped my half-brother on the back none so gently.

  “Bo, Wis, Na! So great to see you.” Fir laughed.

  I rolled my eyes. As I mentioned before, I did that a lot with this bunch, especially when the Off-Blacks were over at my parents’ house for the Trickster Cup Playoffs or Halo. It was truly amazing that the three guys were totally able to get over the fact that the first time they set foot in that basement was when they were being tortured for information. Maybe the humans were onto something with that tidbit about goldfish memories.

  “I read about what happened with that bank robber and the Nerf gun. Was that you who pulled the switcheroo?” Wistari asked.