The freezing wind caught us by surprise when we rounded a corner onto Broadway. I burrowed my face against Sean’s shoulder. Practically dancing, I tugged his arm and dragged him down the street. The sidewalks were still busy even at this time of night. People eddied and flowed around us as the current swept us along. Everyone seemed to be going someplace and stared straight ahead as they made their way along. No one stopped to look at anything along the way. Only tourists gawked at the glass storefronts. Real New Yorkers knew where they were going and forged ahead with that goal in mind. They didn’t have time for silly little side trips into liquor stores or pizza joints. Real New Yorkers also did not stop in the middle of the sidewalk to crane their heads at the ridiculously tall buildings that loomed above all real estate in central Manhattan. I learned this last rule the hard way. I was rear-ended by a man in a black leather jacket when I got distracted by the shining blue lights that capped the Empire State Building. We were walking along when the building suddenly came into view. I stopped to stare, and the man slammed into me from behind. He knocked me heavily into Sean who grabbed me to keep me from falling. I started to protest, but the man was gone.
“Freakin’ tourist!” The man mumbled as he disappeared into the sea of people.
It was Sean’s turn to tow me along. He guided me to the awning of a little grocery store and stopped. He leaned his back against the glass window and pulled me against his chest. For all the world could see, we’re just a couple of young lovers out enjoying the night. I tilted my face for a lingering kiss totally forgetting that I was supposed to be pretending. He kissed me back convincingly, but his eyes scanned the street across from us. A couple of bulky guys wearing black skull caps and heavy jackets whistled their approval. Sean gave them a head nod that meant something only guys understand. The two men laughed and kept walking. I flushed scarlet and buried my face in his jacket. He chuckled and patted my butt familiarly.
“Anything?” I asked. The rich smell of marinara sauce was drifting into my sinuses, and I realized we hadn’t eaten since lunch. My stomach growled with an alarming demand for pizza.
Sean remained still and continued scanning. He stood loosely with an arm draped casually around me while his eyes searched for our prey. I huddled against him for warmth and tried to mimic his casualness. In contrast to my beloved Secret Agent Man, I was coiled like a spring. I was unused to hunting, and my neck ached from the tension. He scowled slightly and massaged my shoulders. Even through the layers of my clothes, I felt the heat pulse from his hand and gradually the tension eased from my shoulders to a much lower spot.
“Is that better, love?” Warm blue eyes crinkled down at me as he kissed the tip of my red nose with cold lips.
Yep, I was warm pudding now. Let’s go to bed. I teased his bottom lip until he gave up and let me kiss him breathless. “I love you. You know that?”
“I do know. You’re a lucky woman.” He ducked my right hook, but grunted when my knee whispered passed the family jewels.
Twenty minutes later, I was drooling over the smell of freshly baked pizza and nibbling from the ceramic bowl of olives on our table. The little table was covered with an ancient red and white checkered plastic cover, the condiment jars were sticky, and the menus were wrinkled. The neon sign was only halfway lit up. Red letters proclaimed ‘Pizz,’ and a neon pizza slice was only half filled in. It looked like someone had already eaten part of it. It was awesome! This was a real New York pizza joint!
The guy behind the counter called our number. I snapped a picture of him with my phone. I hadn’t been able to tear my eyes away from him since we got here. He wore his head shaved and had piercings in both eyebrows and his lip. I tried not to stare, but the eyebrows were fascinating me. He had a hook in each brow and a small chain connecting them across the bridge of his nose. Hanging from the chain was a tiny green lizard. The lizard danced back and forth every time he moved. He caught me staring and smiled good-naturedly at me. He was sporting three gold teeth.
The wind had died down by the time we left Pizz. I was warm and drowsy from too much chewy crust and bubbly mozzarella. Pizza this good should be illegal. I bumped contentedly against Sean as we made our way down the other side of the street. We were heading back toward the penthouse for the night. Manhattan at night was amazing! Neon lights competed with every kind of LED display I could imagine. Buildings were covered with banners and signs. The skyscrapers loomed above as we made our way. The sidewalks were less crowded now, and there were fewer cars on the streets. Small groups of younger men stood together outside of the liquor stores. It was getting late. Uneasy, I walked a little faster until Sean suddenly stopped to zero in on something just ahead. What was he looking at? At first I didn’t see anything, but then a shadow detached itself from the side of a building. It slipped around the corner and disappeared.
Determined to follow, Sean broke into a jog. We cleared the corner and kept straight. I scanned the area for… whatever we were following. I didn’t see anything, but Sean must have. We nearly knocked a homeless man down a flight of stairs when he staggered in front of us. After several blocks of twists and turns, I still didn’t see any sign of a person or anything else that casts a shadow. Sean must have been stumped too because he moved more cautiously along the dark, narrow street. Dead end. We were far away from the sounds of the city. The silence was eerie as we considered our options. A cat screamed from a dumpster, and I jumped. Marinara sauce sloshed unpleasantly in my stomach. Friggin’ wildlife! Snow piles against the back entrances of the dark brick buildings glowed in the pale moonlight. As I caught my breath, faint sounds of music came from someplace ahead of us.
The thumping of drums was muffled but distinct as we came to the end of the alley. A steep set of concrete steps led down into a set of dark metal storm doors. One of the doors had a tiny window cut into it. The other was chained shut at the top. The metal railing was hanging loose halfway down the steps and didn’t look safe. Several sets of shoes had packed the snow into unfriendly ice. One word was spray painted across the brick lintel. In neon green letters, someone had defined this space as Dump. It seemed to fit.
“I don’t know, Sean. This looks sketchy to me…” I didn’t feel good about this place. It seemed… well, seedy. Yes, seedy was the right word. Probably, I was overdressed.
Sean, being Sean, just smiled reassuringly and told me to relax. He didn’t sense any demons, and he could always handle any human problems that came up. I was still dragging my feet when I heard her. The woman sang with a raw intensity that sent a shiver down my spine. The words were muffled, but the powerful voice wasn’t diminished by brick and concrete.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” I slid most of the way to the bottom of the steps and dusted my butt off while Sean pulled the door open.
Dump was a dark little place that had probably never seen better days. Most of the fluorescent lights were burned out. A tiny strobe light flickered sadly in one corner. It smelled like stale beer and mildew. The music stopped abruptly when we walked in. My ears rang as one last discordant chord fell away. Everyone stared at us, including the band. The band, and it was an actual band, was set up in a little space off to the right. There wasn’t room for a proper stage, but someone shoved a handful of rickety tables to the side, and the musicians squeezed into the space. The five musicians gave us the hairy eyeball or balls since there were five of them. Well, mostly they glared at Sean who unconsciously projected violence as he assessed the room. The female singer gave him a long appraising look that made me grind my teeth. Really, wench? I sighed and pulled my purse closer to my hand in case I needed my Sig. She’d have a hard time pulling off those high notes with a bullet through her chest. Yeah. That would fix the problem. I smiled the feral smile I’d seen on Killian’s face so many times. The woman suddenly found something else to do.
A peeling, paneled bar with three ancient wooden stools was the centerpiece of the room. The neon beer signs were mostly dead with random letters stil
l glowing like fireflies on the wall. The bartender was a huge hairy man that reminded me of an old biker. He wore a faded blue bandana over his head and had bushy black hair and a long greying beard. Someone had put some small braids in his beard. He had tiny little eyes that were swallowed up in the fatty creases of his face. These piggy eyes watched us now. He didn’t look friendly to me, but Sean didn’t seem alarmed. He simply returned the appraisal and waited. Easy for him, he’s got superpowers… I stood closer to him and tried to look cynical.
The bartender hollered over to us, “Hey! Don’t stand there with the door open. It’s cold enough in here.”
That was about as much of an invitation as we would probably get. We both relaxed and made our way to a small table that looked sturdy enough to hold a beer. Nervous, I fiddled with my purse strap. There were other people sitting around, and they were looking us over with varying degrees of interest. Sean bent over and kissed me hard on the mouth. Grinning, he turned around and went to the bar. I caught one of the musician’s eyes and flushed. He gave me a knowing look and downed a shot of something. He licked his lips and saluted me with the glass. Fuming, I waited for my hero to return. Marking his territory! Why doesn’t he just pee on my leg? Ugh. Men!
The band picked up their instruments to play again, and I’m sure the 15 people listening appreciated it as much as I did. Wow! I was completely blown away. The singers put their hearts into every song, and the drummer and guitar players were every bit as talented as any professional group I’d heard. Occasionally they’d pause and work on some dance move or re-do a piece of a song that wasn’t exactly right. They had too much heart for this dive, but I guess everyone starts somewhere. One of the singers, the guy who gave me the look earlier, directed everything. I wondered how much Red Bull he slammed before the show. Taking his job as front man very seriously, he introduced the band as if they were performing in a packed arena.
Standing on a chair with a mic, he boomed, “How’s everyone doing tonight?” This was met with silence. I felt bad for him.
Undaunted, he continued, “We appreciate your hanging out with us! We are RockHard! and we’re going to party with you tonight. My name is Aiden, and this is the beautiful and talented Missy Devoux. Come on, people! Let’s do a shot!” People clapped and whooped weakly.
Each member of the band bowed and played up their introductions. I was impressed. They had spirit, for sure. Aiden was interesting to watch. He didn’t just sing the lyrics; he performed them. What was he doing here? He should be on Broadway.
Missy was covering Lady GaGa’s song “Bad Romance.” The power in her throaty voice was stunning. How did she get stuck in this Dump? I looked over at Sean, and said, “Wow!”
Since he was watching the door the whole time, he missed the visuals, but he couldn’t miss the sound. He smiled at my enthusiasm and agreed with me. I was totally into a guitar solo when Sean tensed at the table, and whispered into my ear, “Don’t look. We’ve got company.”
“Where?” I swiveled in my chair to see what he was talking about.
Sean spun me back around, hissing, “Are you deaf? Go to the bathroom and wait for me. Try not to shoot anyone unless you’re really in trouble.” I bristled at his bossy tone but did as he ordered. We’d talk about this later.
The smell of urine slapped me in the face as soon as I opened the door. Gagging, I sucked in my breath. There’s no way I could stay in here for more than 20 seconds. That’s approximately how long I could hold my breath. Apparently functional plumbing wasn’t in the budget and neither was Lysol. This place was disgusting. A minute later, the woman from the band joined me.
As way of greeting, she said simply, “This place is a hole.”
Wow, she was tiny. I was at least six inches taller than her, and I’m not very tall. Despite the freezing weather, she wore a long black skirt with ripped fishnet tights. The skirt was shredded and floated away from her whenever she moved. I was totally checking it out when she was performing. Underneath, she wore a pair of black cowboy boots. The heels on those boots gave her some illusion of height. At the moment, she was finger combing her hair in the mirror while checking me out from the corner of her eye. Seeming to make up her mind about something, she asked casually, “So, is that your man out there?”
Well, yes and no. Oh, he was mine all right. But he wasn’t technically a man. I didn’t think she’d understand so I just said yes and casually patted my purse. The shape of the gun was barely visible.
Unconcerned, she shrugged a shoulder, and said, “As soon as you came in here, some blond bitch pulled him outside. I thought you might want to know.”
Feigning a coolness I didn’t feel, I said, “Really? Thanks. By the way, your band is fabulous. What’s the name again?”
Her pretty face brightened at the compliment, and she gushed, “RockHard! Our name is RockHard!”
Chapter 21: Fear of Change
“YOU COULD'VE AT LEAST WARNED ME! How could you do that to me? That’s our contact?” I wasn’t even trying to keep my voice down. A light came on in a second floor window next door.
Sean hushed me for the third time and dragged me behind a parked car. “We can talk about this back at the penthouse. Hold onto me.” He wrapped both arms around me, and I elbowed him in the gut. I was in no mood for cuddling.
“Let go! I’m done talking to you.” I started off down the alley in a huff.
At the same time, a window screeched open above us, and a man stuck his head out, yelling, “Hey! What are you doing with my car?” Accompanying the yelling was the unmistakable sound of someone ratcheting a shot gun.
Things happened quickly then. The sound of the shotgun blast echoed in my ears as Sean grabbed me with both hands and threw me to the ground behind the car. I sucked in my breath as we vanished into thin air. We landed hard on the marble foyer in the penthouse. Sean broke our fall so I landed sprawled on top of him. He grunted with the impact and clapped a hand hard over my mouth to stop my screaming. I looked wildly around and then calmed down when I saw where we were. He didn’t remove his hand though. Clearly, he was unhappy with me. Well, that was too bad. I wasn’t happy with him either. With absolutely no regret whatsoever, I bit his hand until he started swearing and let go. I was in the middle of scrambling off of him when boots came running into the room. I looked up into several pairs of amused male eyes. I looked down and to see I was straddling Sean’s waist with both knees and one hand was pressed against his groin.
“It’s not what it looks like!” I blushed to the roots of my hair.
Killian swept his eyes from the top of our heads to the tips of our toes and settled on my hand on Sean’s crotch, and asked, “What do you think we think it looks like, exactly?”
I jerked my hand away like it was on fire.
Dec gave Sean a thumbs up. Sean’s response was a smirk--the jerk! Jordan and Alex observed from the back of the room and wisely said nothing. Sometimes age is a good thing. Dec came over and offered me a hand. After he pulled me up, Sean got stiffly to his feet. Killian whistled with alarm.
To say I was uncomfortable would be an understatement of gigantic proportions. I was lying on my stomach letting my angry boyfriend pick shotgun pellets out of my butt. He wasn’t being very gentle about it either. To make things worse, we had an audience because Alex thought that would be more proper. When forced to choose between Killian and Dec as a chaperone, I picked Dec because I thought he would be more sympathetic. The problem was the only one who had any surgical skills at all was Killian. He had some real experience with patching up people on the battlefield. He offered to take out the pellets, but Sean flatly refused. He would do it, and Killian could supervise. So that was the compromise. As a result, my butt cheek was on display, and I was wishing for death. Ouch!
“Dec, she’s doing it again,” Sean observed without sympathy.
Dec was trying hard not to look at me and sidled up to me now with averted eyes. He picked up my hand and rubbed it in between his own. I
knew the drill by now. I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. Drowsy and warm, I dozed off to the sound of his tuneless humming of an Irish folk song.
The next morning I couldn’t get up. I opened my eyes to find Jordan sitting in an armchair beside the bed.
“Good morning, young lady! How’re you feeling this morning?”
“Not horrible but I could use a hand getting up if you don’t mind.”
“Of course! Take my arm.” He offered his arm and pulled me to my feet.
“Where’s Sean? Is he all right?” Why wasn’t he sitting with me?
“Not to worry, he’s in his room recuperating from his own, uh, procedure.”
Oh, Sean! Poor thing. It was my fault he was hurt. We could’ve been killed. As it was, my butt would hurt for a while since Raphael was not here to heal me. Sean could heal himself but still had to go through the pain of having pellets dug out of his back. Killian did the honors, and I’m sure he didn’t sleep through it. He would consider that the easy way out. Probably, he took it in stride… just another day. I remembered the blonde. Growling at the image of her pulling Sean outside, I limped to the bathroom. I hoped he was suffering! Jerk.
A few days later, I was up and around but moving stiffly. Luckily, my body was busily healing itself at a pretty fast rate. We were going back out to Dump tonight. To my chagrin, we were stuck with the blonde. She was an informant who worked with the Primani in the city. She’d been sent to track Sean down because she had information on Dagin. She was supposed to meet us at Dump and give us an update.
The taxi dropped us off a few blocks away. Sean fell into soldier-mode and moved with caution. He seemed to be listening for something as he walked. A wave of dread assaulted me as we turned the corner. I held my breath to listen. It was quiet here… too quiet… unnaturally quiet. I strained to see into the shadows but saw nothing out of the ordinary. My intuition was growing. Maybe I could use it to sense the bad guys. I scrunched my eyes and tried to sense them. A muffled snort from Sean interrupted my concentration.
The Lost Soul Trilogy (Primani Book 5) Page 21