by Michele Hauf
“These aqueducts maze all under the city,” Kir said, noting Stryke’s interest. “And don’t get me started on the underground tunnels that twist and twine some seven stories below the city.”
“Really? Deeper than the demon lair we found? That’s cool.”
“There’s a whole legion of humans that call themselves cataphiles, who explore, party and even live beneath the depths of Paris. Some of the demons who are incapable of pulling on a humanlike glamour also live underground. You don’t want to mess with those horns.”
“I imagine not. So this is a gang of demons you’ve heard that are stealing valuable artifacts?”
“We call them denizens,” Kir said. “Large groups of demons that follow one particular leader. Like a vampire tribe or a werewolf pack. This particular denizen is headed by a wraith.”
“Is a wraith actually a demon? I thought wraiths were ghosts or spirits.” Stryke ducked to pass under a particularly low section of ceiling formed by arched limestone.
Kir came out on the other side and stopped before a rusted iron door that had a big red symbol drawn on it.
“A wraith demon moves like a ghost but it’s solid and deadly. It’s powerful and wields some wicked talons. No lower jaw, either,” Kir added. “Nasty things. So you got any weapons on you? Salt?”
Stryke shook his head and chuckled. What kind of idiots walked into a demon nest unarmed? “You got me, man. I’m so unprepared for this mess I stumbled into in Paris.”
“I suspect you probably didn’t stumble so much as fell under my sister’s allure. You must really like Blyss to be doing this, Saint-Pierre.”
“It might be more than that.”
“Right. You said you’re looking to start a pack. You think hooking up with a werewolf who denies her heritage is such a wise move?”
“I know Blyss likes her men rich and human. But right now I’ve got her attention and we’re having some fun together. She deserves whatever I can do to help her out of this situation.”
“Damn, I wish you lived in Paris. You’d be good for my sister.”
“I don’t think she’d care for my idea of living in the country. In fact, she’s already made it very clear she would not.”
“She is abrupt.” Kir rapped the door, avoiding the red marking. “This is a demon sigil drawn in...” He sniffed at the red mark. “...human blood.”
“Nice,” Stryke said with no appreciation whatsoever.
“I think it best if we stay as far from the nest as possible but get close enough to see if we can pick up a scent trail,” Kir said. “You’d recognize the scent, yes?”
“Of course. I’m still thinking about our lack of weapons, though. How to fight a demon?”
“Move fast, and if you can help it, don’t bite them. Demon blood won’t kill us but it is nasty.”
“Got it. So are we going to shift?”
“Much as I’d like to, I think it’s wiser to keep our wits about us.”
“Yeah? My wits are fine when I’m shifted. If we’re overwhelmed, I’ve got your back, but it’s going to be in werewolf form. I can promise you that.”
“Deal.”
“You want to lead the way?”
Kir stepped aside and gestured toward the door. “I thought I’d give you that pleasure since you’re the guy with the nose.”
“Sure thing.” Stryke tilted his head side to side, snapping the kinks out of the muscles. With a shrug of his shoulders he bolstered up his courage.
Thing was, all the courage in the world wouldn’t save him from a creature who served a wraith or even the devil Himself. He flexed his fingers, feeling the tingle of his werewolf right there. Close, if he needed it. It took only seconds to shift.
“Hey!”
Both men turned to spy a tall, dark-haired man dressed all in black striding down the narrow aqueduct ledge.
Stryke scented him before he recognized the hematite glint at his temples. “Thrash.” He fisted a palm and set back his shoulders.
“Dial it down,” Kir cautioned as he stepped around Stryke and offered his hand.
Edamite Thrash shook Kir’s hand and the two greeted one another as old friends.
What. The. Hell?
* * *
Blyss paced in the kitchen, unsure what to do with herself. Something felt off about the diamond situation. Le Diabolique had been missing for days now, and the original owner had not checked to reclaim the borrowed property.
In fact, she was baffled why the police and detectives hadn’t knocked down her door yet. And then she realized she couldn’t quite place a name to the person who had loaned her gallery the diamond.
Where had it come from? Had the owner known it contained a demon? Maybe that person had wanted it to be stolen and eventually unleashed on the city?
Crazy thoughts. But really, when one had possession of a diamond that contained a demon, could anything be more crazy?
“I need to check the paperwork.”
And while most of the gallery’s paperwork was digitized and accessible from her home computer, this particular acquisition was not in the records. Further weirdness.
So she dashed on some eyeliner and lipstick, slipped her feet into a pair of red leather Jimmy Choos and headed off to the gallery to try to figure out this mess.
* * *
“You’re working with the wrong side, Sauveterre,” Stryke said as he strode up to Thrash and Kir. “This asshole kidnapped me the other day and he’s extorting your sister.”
“Yeah, about that.” Kir punched the demon in the jaw.
“Seriously?” Stryke asked as Thrash shook off the iron-fisted hit with a red-eyed smirk. “So why the friendly handshake? You knew what he was doing to Blyss.”
“Ed and I go way back. He’s okay,” Kir said. “Except when he screws with my sister.”
“Hey!” Ed put up his palms to ward off the next imminent hit. “Kirnan, you know I respect Blyss. I would do anything for her. She came to me. We’ve had this business arrangement for years. I am helping her.”
“Helping her?” Stryke wanted to be the next in line for the punch. “If she doesn’t pay you half a million by the full moon you’ve threatened to kill her family. That would be your family too, Kir.”
This time Thrash’s body soared with the punch that Stryke delivered. The demon’s head and shoulders hit the limestone wall and he collapsed in a heap before the men.
Stryke rubbed his knuckles and cast Kir a sidelong glance. “Your priorities when it comes to friendship are questionable.”
“I know he’s been supplying Blyss,” Kir said. “I didn’t realize he was making threats. He’s...” The werewolf bowed his head and said in tight tones, “...sort of family.”
“What?”
Kir rubbed his jaw, thinking for a moment as the demon shook his head, attempting to pull out of the bruising punch Stryke had delivered him.
“Blyss doesn’t know this,” Kir said, “but years ago, when my father was forced out of the pack because he was having an affair with a vampire...”
“Yeah?”
“Me and the old man had a good long talk. He’s into more than vampires. Demons are his first choice when it comes to women.”
“Don’t tell me. He had an affair with Thrash’s mom?”
Kir nodded. “Long time ago. We’re half brothers.”
“Yikes.” Stryke didn’t know what to say to that one.
“We’ve been—well, I wouldn’t call it friends, but it’s something—since learning about one another. We keep each other up on the weird and wacky family we’ve been meshed into. But we decided to keep it from Blyss. She likes to stay as far away from the paranormal realm as possible. She hates being a wolf. Can you imagine what it would do to her if she learned Thrash was her half brother?”
“Apparently Thrash wasn’t going to tell you about the threat to your family. And I suspect family includes you.”
Kir lifted Thrash by the back of his shirt and pushed him against
the wall. The demon spat black blood to the side. “What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s Le Diabolique,” Thrash said. “I need to keep it out of the wrong hands.”
“What?” Stryke shoved a hand against Thrash’s shoulder and Kir stepped aside. “Blyss said you wanted to release the demon within the diamond.”
“Great Beelzebub, no! That stone imprisons Xyloda from this realm. That demon gets out, I’m finished. I want to keep it out of the wrong hands. I should have never trusted Blyss could handle the snatch. Why the hell did she give it to you?”
Stryke shook his head. “I’m two pages behind you, buddy. This whole affair confuses me. So you want the diamond to keep the demon inside? But right now some demons have both the diamond and the demon scepter. And yesterday, Kir and I found the lair where they’re going to perform the release ritual. They’ve already got demons caged and waiting for the sacrifice.”
“Merde.” Ed pushed down his shirtsleeves and pressed a thumb to his mouth in thought. His hand, which was concealed by a black leather half glove, revealed dark scrawls on the fingers that looked like tattoos, but Stryke felt sure they were far more evil in nature. “Where was the lair?”
“Beneath Club l’Enfer,” Kir said. He met Stryke’s castigating expression with a shrug. “Believe it or not, he is on our side.”
“This asshole had his thugs work me over. Punches intended for your sister. He was going to hurt Blyss.”
“I would never hurt her. She’s my half sister. I...” The demon shook off what he was going to say. “The pills she takes are expensive, and I do have my own finances to manage. But I had to make the threats to ensure she actually did it. If she doesn’t bring me the stone she won’t get the pills she so desperately desires. I sure as hell won’t lay a finger on any of her family members. Including you, Kir. But without those pills you might have a howling werewolf on your hands in a few days.” Ed arrowed his gaze on Stryke. “Bet you’ll be thrilled about that, eh, country boy?”
This time Stryke’s punch knocked out Thrash and toppled him to the right. The demon’s body teetered toward the river. Kir managed to catch his half brother by the wrist as his legs slipped into the Seine.
“I know you’re angry,” Kir said as he struggled to hold the unconscious demon above water, “but we can work with him. We’ll make him pay later for being cruel to my sister, and the threats.”
“What? With a brotherly punch? I know how that works.”
“Just chill, will you? We can trust him. Right now Thrash is the closest connection we have to whoever might have stolen the diamond. We need him.”
“Fine.” Stryke bent and reached for the demon’s pant leg and helped Kir hoist him onto the cobbled sidewalk. He stepped back and leaned against the wall, catching a palm against his forehead. “If the lair was in the club owned by Himself, why don’t we go straight to the source? The devil is obviously behind this. Let’s just call him here. The Old Lad, right?”
“Dude, no. Don’t say it—”
“Himself!” Stryke called. “We need to talk. Himself!”
“Merde,” Ed said as he sat up. “Tell me he didn’t say that name three times?”
“You rang?” a sepulchral voice echoed from down the way.
Chapter 17
Before heading into the office, Blyss unlocked the door to the acquisitions closet, which was a small room where she stored all items received before placing them in the gallery. It was built like a safe, with two-foot-thick walls and a digital keypad that was supposed to reset the password every day, which she got updates for on her mobile.
On the night of the Marie Antoinette exhibit, she had slipped in early, replaced Le Diabolique with a fake and then placed the real diamond in her desk drawer until she knew she could return later with a dupe. Someone who could carry the diamond out of the museum without a clue.
Stryke was no dupe. But he had, unfortunately, served a purpose. Too well. She never could have anticipated the diamond being stolen from him at the wedding. Or that those who had taken it would be demons.
“Such a mess,” she muttered as she stepped into the dark room and flicked on the lights. A Rembrandt sat upon an easel waiting for next weekend’s showing. In the center of the room, sitting under a glass case on a pedestal also made of glass, sat...
“Where is it?”
She lifted the glass cube and set it on the floor. Bending before the pedestal, Blyss examined the empty platform, her eye searching for fingerprints. She’d worn black gloves when replacing the real stone with the fake.
Someone had stolen the fake?
“They must have thought it was the real thing. More demons?”
She stood and pressed a hand to her chest. What the hell was going on? And who had gotten into this locked room with no noticeable signs of forced entry?
She turned and inspected the lock and the interior door frame. Pristine. No scratches in the metal sheathing. Her eyes took in the small room from every corner of the ceiling, down the walls and along the baseboards. There were no security cameras. She hadn’t felt them necessary in this safe room. A vent near the floor was too small for anyone to access.
Unless they could shape-shift.
Blyss gasped on her own breath. A demon had been here. Had to have been. She sniffed the air, then cursed her inability to detect minute scents that Stryke or any of her breed might do with ease.
Closing the door and marching down the hallway toward the office, she cursed loudly. She did not like losing control. Someone had taken that away from her when the diamond had been stolen at the wedding. And again when stealing the fake.
Alone in the gallery office she paced, hands to hips, her high heels angrily clicking the marble floor. She couldn’t call the police. To report a stolen fake? The last thing she wanted was police involvement.
She had planned this carefully. The event featuring Le Diabolique had not been announced to the public because she’d never intended to go through with it. Lorcan was the only one she’d needed to fool. And she had. He hadn’t asked after the diamond since the night of the showing.
“This should have been so easy.”
Could Edamite be behind this? Then why had he insisted she find the diamond and bring it to him?
No, there must be another faction of demons who were also after Le Diabolique. How had anyone, beyond Ed, gotten the information that her gallery was to display the diamond?
She sat before the desk and scanned the acquisitions files for the past few weeks. She had been the one to receive Le Diabolique. It had been delivered via courier, from the back of a black Mercedes. Such a private delivery method was often utilized with valuable works that the client trusted only to his closest employees.
The courier had unlocked the titanium case from around his wrist and walked inside the gallery. She’d handed him the bill of lading to sign and had signed it herself. In turn, she had signed a form from the courier and...
“Where did I put that form? I did get a copy. It was a yellow piece of paper and had the owner’s monogram on it.”
She’d noted the elaborate monogram, but at the time, she’d been so nervous about receiving the valuable item she hadn’t taken time to really look at it, to determine what letters were woven into the monogram.
She’d become accustomed to overlooking things. Her expectations for all things fine and luxurious had blinded her to details. She could spot a bottle of Krug fifty feet off, but to really say what the label looked like? No clue. Louboutins were a no-brainer. The red sole! But as for the actual design on the main part of the shoe? Just glimpses here and there.
And a sparkling ten-carat diamond always caught her eye, but the setting was never important.
“I can’t find it. Maybe Lorcan hasn’t transferred it to the digital files.”
Her assistant went through the paperwork every few days. And where was Lorcan, anyway? He hadn’t called in sick. He simply hadn’t shown up for work. Could he be on a bender? She had s
uspected him of excess drinking or a drug problem because his eyes were often red and puffy and he always had an excuse for a missed morning.
Blyss dialed his number but the phone didn’t ring. Instead she got a canceled-number recording.
“Weird.”
She had a sneaky feeling she’d never hear from Lorcan again. Had he been in on it? Who was Lorcan Price? She’d thought him merely human. Could he possibly be a paranormal breed? But what? Thanks to the pills she took, she had no way to sense a fellow paranormal. Was it possible he’d been in on the placement of the diamond from the get-go? Could Lorcan be demon?
Had Le Diabolique specifically been delivered to her with the hopes it would be stolen because...
“Why?” Blyss asked herself. “It doesn’t make sense. Unless Thrash is involved. But then he would have never needed me to steal it in the first place. I don’t understand this.”
It was as if someone had expected her to take Le Diabolique and wanted to make it easy. And with no police investigation to hamper or bring suspicion, then she got off free.
As did the person who had ultimately arranged for this heist in the first place.
That person had to be the one who sought to release the demon from the stone. Yes?
“Makes weird sense.”
Then again, why not simply keep the stone and not go through the process of handing it to her gallery? What if she had never agreed to steal the diamond? This made so little sense!
Blyss grabbed her purse and locked up. She hadn’t located any clues here. Instead, she’d found only further questions. And a missing fake. Should she call Stryke? He was out with her brother at this moment trying to track Le Diabolique. She couldn’t provide him any additional information that would help that search.
She’d wait for him to return and tell him her suspicions.
And then she’d tell him again that she loved him. Because more and more she believed what she’d said almost by accident earlier.
There was something about Stryke’s kiss that wouldn’t allow her to turn away. To instead seek a man who would offer her riches, vacations or false compliments. She wanted Stryke’s kiss. Because it tasted like him. Because it tasted like something fine she could never possess. Because it tasted real.