Unholy Pleasures (Half-breed Series Book 4)

by Debra Dunbar

  “Hey,” I whispered, gently shaking her shoulder. “I’m heading out. Feel free to use the shower.”

  She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Your couch smells like blood and semen.”

  Yeah, well there was a good reason for that.

  “I’ll run home after work to shower,” she continued. “Your bathroom has too much metal in it. I’m afraid to touch anything.”

  I grabbed a box of donuts from the kitchen for us to eat on the walk to the vineyard, and poured some coffee to-go for the pair of us. As we were getting ready to leave, Irix stumbled into the room, sleepy-eyed with bed head—and completely naked. Hallwyn rolled her eyes but didn’t seem phased at his nudity. I guess it was the sex acts she was offended by and not the actual body parts involved.

  “You’re not leaving,” he told us, his voice rough with sleep.

  “We’re going to work,” I replied. “We’ll be back around three.”

  “No, you won’t. I’m not sitting here and watching this guy all day for you. I need to go out and hunt. Besides, this is your project, not mine. I made all those phone calls yesterday, kidnapped the guy for you and went out to get Chinese food last night. That’s the extent of my contribution. I’m leaving. I’d suggest one of you either stay here to watch him, or figure out something else.”

  Jerk.

  “We could kill him,” Hallwyn suggested. “But then I guess we wouldn’t be able to find Gallette.”

  “I promise I’ll stay here.” Aaron twisted his neck and I heard it pop. The guy had to be stiff as a block of cement after being duct taped to a chair for six hours.

  Of the pair of us, I had to be in to work later. “Go on,” I told Hallwyn. “I’ll stay behind.”

  That way I could let Aaron stretch his legs, and perhaps work some begging, pleading, blow job action on Irix and get him to at least take watch duty for half the day.

  Hallwyn grabbed a donut from the box I was holding, then we all froze as a cell phone rang. Shit. Shit! It was Aaron’s and his hands were duct taped. We all scurried around, me cutting the tape from the guy’s hands and throwing the scraps onto the growing pile on the floor while Hallwyn grabbed his phone and pushed the answer button, holding it to his ear as he shook out his numb hands.

  There was a mumble of words. Aaron and Hallwyn’s eyes grew big. The elf shook her head.

  “No. It’s too early to meet at the bank,” Aaron replied. “They’re not open and I’m not even in Sonoma. Meet me at Santor Winery. Their elf died and they need me to fill out some paperwork.”

  More mumbling, although this time it sounded like mumbled shouting.

  “Look, we’re broke. There’s no money in the bank and two of our clients won’t work with us again. Santor wants us to place another elf with them. We need their business. And they have some life insurance thing on their employees. I need to get it to the dead elf’s next-of-kin to fill out.”

  There were a half-second of silence, then thoughtful mumbling.

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “Yes, it’s a lot of money. And obviously you need to take the form with you since you’re the only one who knows who the elf’s next-of-kin is. I’ll meet you there, get you the form, and we’ll discuss this situation.”

  Aaron pushed a button on the phone and handed it back to Hallwyn.

  “Is that true?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, actually it is. I was going to have Santor Winery just mail the forms to me, but I figured it would be a good way to flush Gallette out of hiding. They do want another elf placed there, and I’d planned to swing by today on my way out of town.”

  Life insurance. I was willing to bet Gallette had never thought of such a thing. We really needed to get him in the custody of the angels, because once he figured this out, he was likely to go killing off every elf he placed, just to collect on the policies.

  “What time?” Hallwyn asked, setting the phone on the counter and taking a bite out of the donut.

  “We’ve got an hour. We’re meeting in one of their fields.”

  “I’m coming along.” Hallwyn crammed the remaining part of the donut into her mouth. “I’ll call in and tell Jorge I need the day off.”

  Good, because I got the feeling the elf would come in handy in a fight against Gallette.

  “I’m coming, too.” Irix scowled. “Let me get a shower first. And I’m driving.”

  I handed him a donut and my coffee, giving him a quick kiss. “Thank you.”

  “Yeah, right. Like I’d let you face this guy with only an elf to protect you.”

  Irix headed into the bathroom. Hallwyn stepped outside. I freed Aaron and offered him a donut. Then I called in to work, and sat down to make one more call.

  “Sam? I need an angel. And yes, this satisfies the extra favor you owed me.”

  “Where’s the form? I’m still working on the plague demons, but maybe I can manage to fill this spot at Santor in the meantime.” Gallette looked at me then did a double take, staring at my ears.

  “This is my girlfriend, Amber,” Aaron said, smiling weakly. His hands were sweating all over the life insurance forms.

  The elf shook his head. “For two hundred thousand, I could have gotten you a real elf, instead of this ugly human lookalike.”

  “I don’t want a real elf.” Aaron switched the papers to his other hand, wiping the one on his pants leg. “Is that what happened to the other two elves? The ones that were about to be canned but went missing?”

  Gallette laughed. “I wish. I went by their place as soon as you told me they were losing their jobs, but they’d already run away. They’ll eventually turn up. Now, the death-payment papers…what do I need to fill out to get the money?”

  Where was the angel Sam was sending? I wasn’t sure Aaron could drag this meeting out much longer.

  “Here. The next-of-kin needs to fill this out. I’m not sure how quick the process will be since elves don’t have the paperwork that human insurance companies require. I guess the elves will help?”

  He took the papers, grimacing at the sweat stains. “No, humans will help. I’ll give them a cut, and in a few days I’ll be…” he glanced at the papers, “…I’ll be Callia’s brother, or husband, or father. I wish I’d have known about this earlier. These elves are worth more dead than alive.”

  Asshole. Gallette turned to leave and I panicked.. He needed to stay just a bit longer, just until the angel got here.

  “You need to die.”

  The elf stopped, his head swiveling slowly to the side. Aaron’s and mine did the same. A few feet away stood Hallwyn, her body shaking with rage.

  “You place us in jobs where we have no skills. You drain us of all our income, basically enslaving us. You turn plague demons loose on our employers, threatening both our jobs and our lives. Callia died because of you, and here you are to steal what should rightfully go to her family.”

  Gallette grinned. “No one forced you to sign that contract. And Callia died owing me a lot of money. Her debt doesn’t go away when she dies. This,”… he waved the papers, “…this will help pay it off. The rest will continue to accrue interest until her family can manage to get jobs and work off her debt in addition to their own.”

  Hallwyn’s hands formed fists. “You have no loyalty, no honor. I, Hallwyn of Wythyn, sentence you to death.”

  He laughed. “Try, little one. You’ll never take me alone, and when I kill you, that will just be one more life insurance policy I can collect on.”

  Aaron turned and ran. Irix appeared by my side to grab me and pull me backward. I struggled, not wanting to leave Hallwyn to face this asshole alone, to most certainly die in this fight.

  “But I am not alone,” Hallwyn spat out. All around us elves materialized from the grapevines. This time I did let Irix yank me backward, out of the circle they were forming.

  For an instant, Gallette looked shaken, then he stood tall, tucking the papers into the back of his waistband and bringing his hands forward. Fireballs shot from his fingers, deflected
by the two elves in front of him. The dirt at our feet rumbled and shifted, a hole forming right where Gallette stood. He pushed his hands downward, a silvery light flowing from them.

  The ground pulsed, and the elves closed in, tightening their circle and chanting. Roots emerged like tentacles to wrap around Gallette and pull him downward. He struggled, silver light burning the roots to ash as they tightened on his body and firmed the ground at his feet. I held my breath, safe in Irix’s arms as I watched a dozen elves continue to work their magic, slowly overwhelming Gallette’s counter attack until all I could see was a mass of dark brown roots, like a cocoon, with bursts of silver light coming from the center.

  There was a muffled scream and a crunching sound, then the silvery light faded and all that remained was the giant cocoon of roots.

  Two of the elves put out the embers from the deflected fireball, then they all vanished into the vines, leaving Irix and Hallwyn and me.

  The elf walked over to the cocoon of roots and punched it, sending it toppling to the ground. “There. I’ve been wanting to do that since I got here.”

  “How did…where did…” I stammered.

  Hallwyn turned to smile at me, brushing the dirt from her hands. “The day I came to work and realized that I was unable to perform my job, I began to track down all the elves in the area. We need to stick together, to help each other. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to make it in this human world. I know you want me to make human friends, but I also think we need to form an elven community, to come together to discuss challenges and think of solutions. And to take care of problems like this piece of durft dung here.” She motioned to the cocoon.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. Elves coming together as a community sounded fine, but it was one step from elves banding together to attempt another overthrow of the human world. But that was a problem for the angels.

  And speaking of angels. “I’m really pissed at Sam. She promised me an angel would be here.”

  There was a flash of light, and before us stood a being with huge wings, the feathers a gradient of purple hues. He was pretty—really, really pretty. Like, pretty enough to be a male model in a magazine.

  He bowed, and I caught a flash of mischief in his violet eyes before his dark hair spilled over them.

  “I’m here to collect a naughty elf.”

  “Well, you’re ten minutes late,” I told him. Nicely, because he was an angel and I didn’t want to piss him off, late or not.

  A watch suddenly appeared on his wrist and he frowned at it. “Sam said nine forty-five. I’m actually here five minutes early, which is a miracle. I’m never early to anything except dinner.”

  I’d told Sam nine thirty. That imp was so owing me another favor for this.

  Hallwyn waved a hand at the cocoon. “The elf is in there. Actually, I’d appreciate it if you took him away since I don’t know how the winery will react to having a dead, entombed elf in their vineyard.”

  The angel approached the cocoon and shuddered. “Eww. You squashed him. Oh well, makes him easier to transport.” He looked around at the three of us. “Well then, I’m off.”

  He waved a hand at the cocoon, and with a flash of light, they were gone.

  Hallwyn sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I’m glad that’s over with.”

  But it wasn’t. The Jobber was gone, and these elves were no longer bound under his draconian contracts. But we still had two plague demons to deal with, and I wasn’t sure Gallette’s demise would be enough to stop their efforts to lay waste to DiMarche and all of Northern California.

  Chapter 26

  Hallwyn and I both went into work late. I succumbed to Matthieu’s advances after work, just so I could pull additional energy from him through our tie, then detoured through the vineyard on my way back to the trailer, hoping to catch Hallwyn before she staggered home.

  Her car was still in the parking lot, a golf cart visible out in a distant field.

  “Hey,” I called to her, jogging up the row of vines. “Thought you would have left by now.”

  “I wanted to catch up, since I came in so late.” The elf looked horrible, dark circles under her eyes, bits of hair loose from her usually neat braids and tangled around her ears. “Besides, with Gallette gone, I’m hoping the plague demons will leave and I’ll be able to actually make progress in healing these vines.”

  I eyed the angle of the sun. “Promise me you’ll leave at sunset? I don’t want you to get caught out here alone in case the plague demons don’t leave.”

  Actually I didn’t want her out here alone right now either, but I knew how stubborn she could be. And yep, there was the iron set to her jaw as she looked up at me.

  “I cannot promise that. I’ll work until I’m tired, then I’ll go home.”

  She was tired now. “Can I at least bring you some dinner?”

  That perked her up. “If there is any of that noodle and vegetable dish from last night, I would truly enjoy some of that. And the rolls of egg.”

  I jogged back home, raiding through the refrigerator and heating up the leftovers. I was just putting them all in a box to carry along with a few bottles of water when Irix came through the door. He sighed when he saw what I was doing.

  “Stray puppy?”

  “She’s working late. She was up all night guarding Aaron, then fought Gallette, then went straight into work. I don’t think she’s eaten more than a donut today. She’s hungry and exhausted.”

  He took the box from my hands. “Well, come on then. Let’s go feed her.”

  We walked to the fields, the green leaves rustling in the breeze, the fruit full and thick on the vines. It was going to be okay. It was all going to be okay. I kept telling myself that, repeating it like a mantra just to make sure it was true.

  “Do you think Txipa and Apixt went back to Hel? Or went somewhere else to spread their ick?”

  I wanted to believe it was all going to be okay, but there was something deep inside me that knew the plague demons were still out there, that feared they were having too much fun, that this had become more than revenge to them, it had become an obsessive hobby.

  “I don’t know. I spread the word around town that Gallette was dead, and that his human partner had taken off. I even stopped by the ice cream shop. No one has seen them since last night. That’s a good sign, but we won’t know for a week or two.”

  If Hallwyn’s healing wasn’t reversed, if all the blight and the epidemics lessened, knocked back by human medicines, then we’d know they were gone. But I still wanted Hallwyn to be out of this field by nightfall.

  The elf was thrilled to see us, sitting on the ground and devouring the leftovers while Irix and I kept her company. After she’d finished every last scrap, I packed the box with the garbage and gave her a stern shake of my finger.

  “Now go home and get some sleep. These vines will be waiting for you in the morning. It won’t do either you or them any good to keep working as exhausted as you are.”

  She gave me a soft smile, her eyelids half-shut already. “I’ll finish this last plant, then I’ll head home.”

  “Pinky promise?”

  “I have no idea what that means, but yes, pinky promise.”

  I shook my finger again, just for good measure. “Text me when you get home so I know you’re safe, okay?”

  “Bossy human,” she teased. “Yes, I will text you.”

  We left her to her vines—her vines, not my vines. As much as I still felt a responsibility toward this vineyard, I’d recognized that these plants were now hers. I was just an intern. I’d leave at the end of the summer while she’d remain behind to finish out the harvest, prune back the vines for winter, and continue to nurture them through another year.

  Irix pulled the box from my hands and put it up on his shoulder, freeing one arm to drape around my shoulders. “You’re good at this stray puppy thing.”

  It was a mothering thing. And that thought twisted my heart.

  “
Once we get settled in New Orleans, maybe we’ll get a dog,” Irix teased.

  Was that one step away from a child? I didn’t want to push him. I didn’t want to be that girlfriend, always hounding him for a ring, a wedding, kids.

  “Maybe we could have a baby?” I couldn’t help it. He and Harkel would most likely be having a demon together. Why not us? Why not me?

  Irix sucked in a deep breath. “Our child would be three-quarters demon, Amber. We do pretty well walking among the humans as a couple, but it would be very difficult to raise a demon-child here. The first time he electrocuted one of the neighbors, or burned down a church, or at the age of five seduced his Kindergarten teacher…?”

  I remembered my own childhood, how I’d killed my human father accidently on purpose because I was five and angry and had no idea what power I’d held inside of myself. The memory, the guilt, still haunted me. Irix was right, but I still felt the sting of tears at the thought that we’d never share that bond of raising a child together—our child.

  “Maybe a dog then—”

  “If you want a child with me, then we’ll make it happen. Someday. In the future once we figure out how we can make it work, or we can go to Hel and raise it among the demons.”

  My heart jumped with hope. “No dwarven nannies? No demon foster-care?”

  He chuckled. “No demon foster-care, although trust me, you’ll probably be begging me for a dwarven nanny after the first week. Demon children are a handful.”

  Yes, but this would be our demon child. “Thank you for not saying no.”

  He sat the box beside the trailer door and took me in his arms. “I have a very hard time saying no to you. And honestly, I love the idea of creating with you. I love the thought of us planning what we want for our child, the long gestation period to anticipate, the joy of a being that is a part of you and a part of me. I just want to make sure that you’re aware of all the challenges, and the way a demon-child would change our lives.”