by Lizzy Ford
Normally, autumn was Nathan’s favorite time of year. That was before he killed the one person he shouldn’t have.
Content waiting to see what Zyra had planned for him, Nathan sized up the four bodyguards and driver in silence. Their auras read as agitated – nervous? concerned? – he couldn’t pinpoint their exact emotions without speaking to them. It was clear they were unsettled, and he was all but certain it had nothing to do with him. In their eyes, he was no threat, not when surrounded by four of them armed with a small arsenal.
The idea they underestimated him left him smiling to himself. It meant he could catch them off guard, if he needed to act.
The van pulled off the road onto a bumpy, gravel side road. Nathan had expected them to take him to one of their off-sites or operation centers. The van pulled up to a small clearing instead.
The moment he stepped foot outside the van, Nathan understood the test. Zyra and two more of her 3G compatriots stood in the center of the clearing on either side of a bound man kneeling on the ground. The familiar face of Randy, one of Maggy’s lieutenants, was battered and bloody from what Nathan assumed had been an interrogation, probably to discover the location of Maggy – the leader of the legit spirit guides searching for Kaylee in the DC area. Maggy alone understood Nathan’s purpose in infiltrating the 3G and would never blow his cover. He had no fear of his true intentions with Zyra being discovered during the interrogation.
Nathan approached without waiting for his guards to escort him. He glanced at Randy then at Zyra.
“I’m guessing you’re done with him,” he said dryly.
Randy looked up at his voice. “Traitor!” he hissed.
Aware they’d both die – along with Kaylee – if he hesitated, Nathan held out his hand for Zyra’s weapon.
“Use your hands,” she said firmly. “It’s too easy to put a bullet in someone.”
Raised in a much different world, where only the ruthless survived, Zyra could be as heartless as Nathan.
“You all will go to Hell for betraying the angels and your god!” Randy said. “Especially an apostate like you, Nathan.”
“Tell Pedro I said hi, and his advice sucked, as usual,” Nathan replied as he moved behind Randy. “Don’t struggle. I’ll be quick.”
When Nathan put his hands on either side of Randy’s head, the spirit guide did struggle.
I’m sorry, Randy, Pedro. Nathan thought to himself.
He yanked Randy’s head back and braced his knee against the guide’s spine to keep him in place. Death had been part of Nathan’s world for as long as he could remember. He didn’t take it lightly, not like he had as a Roman soldier, but neither was he about to back down when his only chance of saving Kaylee rested in his ability to prevent 3G from reaching her first. He had to make it look like he was the man Zyra needed him to be.
Before Randy could try to wriggle free, Nathan snapped his neck.
He released the spirit guide, whose body slid to the ground, and stepped back.
“Anyone else you want dead?” Nathan asked, glancing around the group hesitant to accept him.
“You satisfied?” Zyra was smiling. She addressed one of the men in particular, who regarded Nathan with such malice that Nathan wondered if he was a jilted lover, and not someone truly concerned about loyalty.
“For now,” was the stiff reply.
“We were always a good pair.” Zyra approached Nathan and kissed him lightly.
He wrapped an arm around her, pulled her into him and kissed her more deeply. Often, he pretended his ex was Kaylee, who would probably – and rightly so – never, ever, ever let him touch her again.
Nathan released Zyra, who stepped back with a wink. “Later,” she promised. “Henry is satisfied enough for us to take you to one of our satellite sites. I won’t give you the keys to the kingdom until you’ve contributed more, but this is a start.”
“I’m here to stay,” Nathan said, aware of Henry’s death stare. “I’ll be the second in command by the end of the month.”
“Asshole,” Henry muttered.
“Let’s go!” Zyra said and strode towards the van.
The group trailed her.
As much as he wanted to, Nathan didn’t look back, didn’t ask why they weren’t going to bury a fellow guide. The price of speaking up now was too high.
Nathan climbed into the back of the van. “Do I get a gun?” he asked as he slid the door closed.
“Nope,” Zyra said. “You get the pleasure of fighting with your hands and any other weapon you come upon. If you survive, you might be initiated.”
“Survive …” he repeated, waiting.
“We found one of the Satanist sites,” Zyra said from the front seat. “Kill more of them than Henry, and I’ll consider giving you a knife for the next raid.”
“Challenge accepted.” While his words were calm, friendly even, Nathan’s mind was racing. He doubted they had found the location, but he couldn’t be certain, since he’d been sequestered in the hotel with no access to information of any kind for a month. Last he’d heard from Maggy’s intelligence collection efforts, Kaylee was alive and imprisoned in a Satanist stronghold.
No questions, no hesitation, no regrets. If he wanted to make his dedication to Zyra and 3G look real, he had to play the part in every way. He knew how to kill with or without a weapon. While he hadn’t had to resort to such measures in a very long time, he had trained for it, just in case.
His mind went to Randy who lay prone in the field. Nathan pushed the thought of what he’d done away. It was a necessary evil, and it hadn’t been the first time he’d killed in the line of duty as a spirit guide. It wouldn’t be the last, either, he understood, eyes on the back of Zyra’s head.
He silently said a short prayer for Randy and focused on meeting whatever challenge came next.
Three
“My friends are getting restless,” said Eddy the Satanist.
Kaylee looked up from her tray of food. She had always thought the assassin with spiky blond hair tipped with black would be handsome, if she didn’t already know he was a raging psychopath. His deceptively wiry frame hid tremendous strength, and his smile hid menace she didn’t know existed before crossing his path. Wearing a pentagram pendant, Eddy had chosen his Spongebob t-shirt this day and wore a sweatshirt tied around his waist. His colorful tattoos were on display down his arms once more. His smile was always quick and wide, though his eyes pierced straight to her soul.
She sat among Eddy’s friends in a small cafeteria in the underground bunker where his secretive cult was hiding. She had grown accustomed to the looks the others gave her, which ranged from suspicious to awe to curiosity. Eddy’s people had thus far kept their distance from her, as if they already understood how dangerous the fallen guardian angel – an archdemon named Shadowman – connected to her soul really was. She was harmless, but no one would risk provoking the demon.
“If Shadowman doesn’t want to show up, I can’t make him,” she replied to the only person seated at the table with her.
Her shadow, Eddy, was also her protector, the only person standing between her and the other members of the cult as well as their leader, a tall man with hooded eyes who went by the name Bullet. Whenever she spoke to him, she understood how he had been able to pull in the several hundred people to his cause. Quiet, calm and sharp, Bullet was also enigmatic, unnaturally so.
“You can feel him?” Eddy pressed. The cheerful assassin with a camp counselor voice always smiled when he talked to her, though his eyes told her a different story. He was constantly evaluating her to determine if she told the truth.
Kaylee was too scared to lie to anyone, let alone to her companion, who freaked her out on a daily basis. “I can,” she replied without looking away. “Like I said. It feels like our connection has been torn most of the way through. I don’t know what that means or if it’ll heal or even if he’s okay. I don’t know what else to tell you, Eddy.”
“That’s good,” he s
aid in encouragement. “You’re doing good, Kaylee.”
What the hell did good have to do with anything in her life? Kaylee kept this thought to herself. Since meeting Nathan, her life had taken a turn worthy of the horror movies she used to watch.
“Any dreams?” Eddy asked curiously.
“Just the one about lightning and rose petals two weeks ago. It’s weird, but every other time I fall asleep, I feel like I’m back where I was when I died. There’s … nothing. I don’t feel like I’m sleeping. I feel dead.”
Eddy’s glass hit the floor. “Looks like I need more coffee. Not awake yet.”
“You okay?” she asked.
Eddy was the most careful man she’d ever met. Further, he was also one of those annoying morning people who always woke up happy. He didn’t need coffee to be on his game.
“Groovy.” He leaned down and swooped up the glass.
Her attention dropped to her food. She finished the mashed potatoes and set her fork down. The food was good. The cult members were nice, the few times she interacted with them. Her room was large and comfortable, despite the constant presence of Eddy. She was treated well.
She’d accepted her current circumstances, despite understanding how truly bizarre they were. Was this Stockholm syndrome? Was that why her alarm had faded, why she felt safer with Eddy than she ever had around Nathan?
“Every once in a while, I question my sanity,” she admitted quietly to the only person she’d had to confide in for a few weeks.
“It’s understandable,” Eddy replied. “You’ve been through a lot. We’re not exactly a mainstream group of people, either.”
When the friendly neighborhood assassin agreed with her, Kaylee found herself questioning whether or not she should feel the way she did.
“How have you been feeling?” he asked.
“Like my heart has a hole in it,” she replied.
Eddy laughed quietly. “Yeah. I get that. You’re almost completely healed, though. No need to worry about your heart. Physically, anyway.”
Eddy read her too well. Among the cult members was a surgeon who had stitched her back together after Nathan killed her. If not for Eddy, and the cult surgeon, she’d be dead. Nathan’s impact on her life had been more than physical. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, and some part of her ached for a stranger she didn’t think she should ever have anything else to do with after he murdered her and left her for dead.
“I’m still not … right,” she added. “It might be in my head, but sometimes, I have this weird sense of … heaviness. Like I’m suffocating beneath it. It’s different than Shadowman’s stifling presence.”
“You’ve been through a lot. I’m sure it’s a side effect of being dead. That’s not normal, you know.”
She sighed. “Definitely not.”
“Bullet has an idea for encouraging Shadowman to appear,” Eddy continued. “I’ve put him off for a few weeks, because you needed to heal. But … if you’ll accept my advice, it’d probably be a good idea to humor him.”
“I’m in danger here?” she asked and met Eddy’s gaze.
“Not in danger. But I don’t want him to take more drastic measures than necessary.”
“Does it involve chopping off body parts or sacrificing me to demons?” she asked cautiously.
“It’s just a demonstration.”
“Demonstration? Like asking Shadowman to take his human form?”
“Not quite that but similar.”
Kaylee studied Eddy, sensing the assassin wasn’t going to reveal exactly what they had in mind. It scared her to think of what these people were capable of and more so that Eddy was concerned enough about the equally secretive alternative to recommend she cooperate with whatever Bullet wanted to do. Eddy was her protector, but she didn’t know the extent of his power at the cult.
“Okay,” she said. “When is this demonstration?”
“Tonight.”
Kaylee swallowed hard. “So no shooting range.” Eddy had been training her to fire a weapon. While she doubted she’d ever use one on a person, she appreciated the distraction. Being surrounded by a cult waiting for an archdemon to talk to them didn’t exactly help her anxiety.
“Better to get it over with than stew, right?” Eddy asked and stood. He picked up her tray and returned it to the window of the kitchen where several other trays were stacked.
Kaylee trailed him. She stretched her senses to feel for Shadowman, the archdemon whose soul was connected to hers in the manner a guardian angel’s was supposed to be. How had she gotten the worst draw of the lot? Was this karma for some past life event, assuming she believed in any of that stuff?
Or just another example of the shitty luck plaguing her life? She had once thought her father was the devil, and her former boss one of his rabid minions, before being introduced to the insane world of angels, demons, and spirit guides. In truth, Nathan’s appearance in her life hadn’t been the strangest thing. Shadowman’s oppressive presence was what started everything and drawn Nathan to her.
Why couldn’t she dismiss her soul mate from her thoughts? She’d already written off Mike, her old boss, who was slain by the leader of the group called 3G. But Nathan? A man she had known for less than a couple of weeks? Why had he sprouted deep roots in her mind? How had she fallen for him without even knowing his real last name, or where he lived, or even what his favorite food was?
Why did he matter?
“We’re going above ground,” Eddy said, breaking into her thoughts. He waited for her at the doorway of the cafeteria.
Kaylee nodded absently and followed him through the familiar hallways whose cool shadows never fully dispersed despite the bright fluorescent lighting. She had spent enough time around Shadowman to understand these shadows weren’t normal. They felt like he did: cold, damp, heavy.
She shivered and crossed her arms.
Eddy led her in a direction she’d never been before, away from the wing where the rooms of the cult members were located. The underground bunker often reminded her of the world’s largest basement, what with the plain cement walls and the musty scent and chill that never quite left.
But that’s where the similarities stopped. The bunker was equipped with a ventilation system, full bathrooms, a massive working kitchen, firing range, a gym where she did her physical rehab under the surgeon’s supervision, even a tiny arboretum where the master chef grew his herbs. Running water, cable television, a library … it was an itty-bitty, self-supporting town beneath the ground.
Kaylee had no idea how someone had built this place or how much it cost to maintain, except that Bullet was either extremely wealthy or had the support of someone who was.
Eddy led her to a parking garage where several dozen people had already gathered. They were loading up into a tour bus, a perfect disguise for a group of people around the DC area. He headed towards his car.
One of the things she was strangely grateful for: Eddy was her companion, not the beefy security guards who roamed the halls at night with dead eyes that left her wondering if they were demons. Eddy at least appeared to be human. He slept in the room next to hers and had probably booby-trapped her door to alert him if she tried to leave. She didn’t put anything past him, and she had no intention of testing him. He was dangerous; she didn’t need to see him in action to understand a predator when she saw one.
Like Nathan.
Whenever she thought of him, her mood turned foul, and anger blinded her.
“The usual warning,” Eddy said, pausing beside the car. “Don’t run. We both want you to keep your fingers and so on. We straight?”
“I understand.”
Eddy flashed a smile and climbed into the driver’s seat.
In moments like this, Kaylee wondered if she should have tried to escape at any point the past month. Did going along with her captors make her party to her own kidnapping?
She shook her head, hating this thought. In her position as a junior attorney, she had intervi
ewed many victims of heinous crimes. She used to wonder why they felt guilty about what happened to them, even though the crimes were never their faults.
I get it now, she thought. There wasn’t a day she awoke without feeling both frustrated and powerless by her situation.
Opening the car door, she dropped into the passenger seat of Eddy’s beater car.
He drove through the garage, up a ramp, and into the night.
Kaylee rolled down her window and breathed in the crisp, autumn air. “Oh, god,” she murmured. “I’ve missed fresh air so much.”
“Yeah, the air gets stale down there.”
“Do you think we can go out every once in a while? Even if we just sit in the driveway?”
“Maybe.”
They pulled out onto a gravel road that led to a dirt road, which eventually led to a two-lane country road. Kaylee twisted to see behind her. When the underground entrance closed, the bunker’s location was completely invisible.
“Amazing,” she breathed. “I didn’t think it was possible to build a doomsday bunker that nice.” Noticing the tour bus continued to follow them on the main road, she frowned. “Are all of them coming with us?”
“Yep,” Eddy replied. “But that’s a good thing. The more witnesses, the better. No one can claim you aren’t who you are, if everyone sees it. You’ll be safer.”
“I don’t feel safe.”
He glanced at her, amused. “C’mon now. You’ve got the world’s best assassin as your wingman!”
“I meant in general. Not about you,” she replied. “You are strangely … comforting to have around.”
“Sweet!”
And weird. She added silently. “Does your family know about your profession?”
“No family,” Eddy answered. “I was orphaned around the age of two or so. Grew up moving around in different foster homes.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. But … that’s probably better than having shitty parents.”