by Jodi Redford
Nikki pointed to the left, and he turned in that direction. Sure enough, a block down, a black SUV was parked at the curb. He slowed the car and shot the bird to the pair of goons slouched in the vehicle before roaring down the street.
“Subtle.” Nikki snorted.
A quick glance in the rearview mirror verified that he’d indeed gotten the thugs’ attention, and they were now tailing at a discreet distance. Idiots honestly thought they were pulling a fast one on him. “I’m kinda hungry. How about you?”
“Like you even need to ask.” Nikki draped her arm on the window ledge. “I hear the new Chinese place over by Lafayette is good.”
“It’s nine thirty in the morning. Probably won’t be open.”
“Damn. And here I had a hankering for Kung Pao chicken. Although, I could also go for an artery-clogging omelet.”
“You’re in luck. There’s a good greasy spoon over on Liberty.”
“You mean The Chow Barn?” Nikki’s eyes glazed over like she was seconds away from experiencing the rapture. “Ooh yeah, that place is awesome.” She abruptly snapped out of her trance and stared at him. “Whoa, do you realize we actually were having a conversation that didn’t involve thinly veiled death threats or yelling?”
He mulled her announcement over. “You’re right.” There was definitely something fucking wrong with him. Disturbed into silence, he gripped the steering wheel tighter and eased into the right lane. Was this all somehow related to his seal breaking? His odd behavior lately seemed too timely to mark it off as a coincidence. The prospect of what his strange metamorphosis could mean stirred a gloomy brew in his gut. Paranoid as it was, he imagined the cells in his body mutating with each passing second, slowly leaching away from everything safe and familiar to him.
You’ve been watching too many bad sci-fi movies. Grunting at his own idiocy, he swung into the lot of The Chow Barn and parked near the doors. He and Nikki walked inside and grabbed a booth that faced the entrance. His cousin snatched one of the grease-splattered menus and began perusing it while a rosy-cheeked waitress with a bouffant hairdo wandered over and inquired if they wanted coffee. After gaining their assurances that they did, the waitress waddled off again and Nikki lowered her menu.
She glanced out the window and chuckled. “Moe and Curly have gone stealth in the funeral-home parking lot.”
Following her gaze, he spotted the SUV clumsily hidden behind the bank of rhododendrons across the street. “Fucking morons.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got to admit the location of the funeral home is freaking brilliant. They don’t have to go far to pick up clients who’ve keeled over from a heart attack after ingesting the chili-cheese omelet. Speaking of which, I know what I’m having for breakfast.” Nikki gave a shrill whistle to snag the waitress’s attention. In the process, it gained everyone else’s and probably scared off every rodent in a five-mile radius. Despite that, he didn’t feel all that tempted to reach across the booth and strangle her.
Definitely something wrong with me. Reluctant to let his mind veer down paranoia lane again, he looked for a topic to distract him after the waitress took their orders and moseyed in the direction of the kitchen. “Did Cass have any luck finding that address?”
“Yeah, it was in your jacket pocket just like you said. She wasn’t able to get Sat-link access to that ward’s registry, but Hal knows a few demon soul collectors. He’s gonna see if one of them might know something.”
He was tempted to point out that Hal was a bozo who’d say anything in the hopes of getting inside Cass’s pants but decided to let it pass. Hell, who knew? Maybe Hal would come through.
A few minutes passed and the waitress returned with his and Nikki’s omelets. While Nikki attacked hers like it would possibly try to make a break for it when she wasn’t looking, he sipped his coffee and kept an eye on the SUV across the street. Hopefully the air conditioning was shot and the two assholes were stuck in there roasting like pigs on a spit.
Finished gorging herself, Nikki pushed her plate away and delicately blotted her lips before releasing a belch that probably made the adjacent booth of truck drivers envious. She glanced toward his uneaten omelet and frowned. “I thought you said you were hungry.”
He had been, but the worries brewing in his head were one hell of an appetite destroyer. “Guess not.”
“Well, it’d be criminal to let that go to waste. Think of the starving children in Africa.” Nikki grabbed his plate and shoveled up a portion of the eggs. He had a feeling she would fork one of those starving African children in the eye if they came between her and that omelet.
Five minutes later she’d managed to polish off his breakfast and ordered a side of bacon to go. Shaking his head, he paid the bill and left a few bucks for the waitress’s tip. He and Nikki stepped out into the muggy Savannah heat. A weird growling noise came from the corner of the building, along with a chorus of obnoxious heehawing laughs. He and Nikki exchanged a look before simultaneously walking in that direction.
A trio of teenaged punks were clustered around a scrawny orange and white tabby cat, taking turns poking it with a long stick. Its eyes wide and terrified, the cat alternated between batting at the stick and hissing.
“What the hell are you doing?” Nikki demanded.
One of the punks turned in her direction and saluted her with his middle finger. “Fuck off, lady. Ain’t none of your business.”
Sam stared at the cringing feline. Something snapped inside him. “Leave that cat alone.”
The punk who’d sworn at Nikki puffed out his chest and adopted a menacing expression. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a switchblade. “Whatcha gonna do if I don’t?”
Sam narrowed his eyes and hitched his T-shirt up just far enough to reveal Lucy’s handle.
The kid’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Shit, he’s got a gun. Let’s get the fuck outta here.” His comrades required no further invitation and jumped to their feet.
Once the trio raced off, Sam approached the crouching cat and bent to offer it a reassuring pat. It sprang at his arm, scratching the bloody fuck out of it before streaking off in the opposite direction.
“Son of a bitch. That’s the thanks I get for rescuing your scrawny ass?” Grumbling, he wadded the hem of his shirt and pressed it against the oozing scratches. “Shit, my luck, I’m going to get rabies.”
“You can’t get rabies from a cat scratch.”
He scowled up at Nikki. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She continued staring at him for a long moment, as if she were extremely baffled by something. Or maybe she was still in a brain fog from all the food she’d gorged on.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he demanded.
“Dude, you saved that cat. A freaking cat.”
Her statement hammered into him like a two-by-four. Hell, she was right. If this didn’t prove he was going batshit crazy, nothing would.
He let go of his shirt and dropped his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay. Where do you want to go next?”
The small amount of joy he’d gotten from messing with Pricilla’s goons had evaporated. “Home.”
“Really?” Nikki cocked her head to the side and considered him. “If that’s what you want.”
Shit, he didn’t know what he wanted. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He knew he wanted to be normal again and not trapped in this weird Freudian nightmare where he was constantly doing insane things like having pleasant conversations with his cousin and saving vicious alley cats. That may or may not have rabies.
His jaw aching from clenching his teeth, he pivoted and stalked toward the GTO. Nikki joined him, and within a matter of minutes they’d left the greasy spoon behind and were halfway to his house.
“Should I have not brought up the cat?”
He kept his focus glued to the windshield. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Are you just saying that because I’m not Cass, and I tend to screw up these kin
ds of conversations?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Apparently satisfied he was telling the truth, Nikki turned up the radio and flipped through the stations until she found a song she could sing off-key to.
He didn’t even grumble.
Definitely something hideously wrong with him.
Twenty minutes later they pulled into his garage, and he hit the remote. Tossing his keys onto the dash, he shoved the door open and climbed out. He and Nikki walked into the house and were bombarded with the tune of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” at a blasting decibel.
“Aw shit. I must have left my cell on the counter.” Nikki dashed into the kitchen and snatched her phone just as the last few bars of the ringtone blared. “Hey, Cass. What’s up?” Nikki was quiet for a moment before grimacing. “Okay, you can stop reading me the riot act. I wasn’t ignoring you. I accidentally left my cell at Sam’s while we were out driving. Yeah, he’s with me. Why?” Nikki’s forehead scrunched into a scowl. “You know, I’m getting fed up with everyone telling me to get my ass somewhere.” She heaved a breath. “Fine. We’ll be right there. Sheesh.”
Nikki disconnected and clipped her phone onto her belt loop before removing her reaper cuffs and slapping them onto the center island. “We’ve been summoned. Time to hit the teleportal highway, dude.” She snatched his arm and tugged him next to her as she triggered the launch coordinates on the bracelet. An instant later they landed in Marabella’s living room. Marabella was sitting on the couch, her expression perplexed as Cass paced in front of her.
The moment Cass noticed them, she halted and tunneled her fingers through her hair. “Thank God you guys are here. I’ve been going crazy trying to make sense of all of this.”
Nikki crossed to the couch and plopped down onto its arm. “All of what?”
“The fact Marabella is the offspring of Sascha Bahltair.”
It took a moment for Cass’s words to register. Once they did, Sam staggered back a step as if someone had just punched him in the solar plexus. “What the bloody fuck are you talking about?”
Cass ran her hands down her face. “Sascha Bahltair. You know, the freaking brother of the demon king?”
“I fucking know who he is, Cass,” he bit between his teeth. “What I want to know is what the hell you’ve been smoking to make you think she’s his daughter.” He jutted a finger in Marabella’s direction and noticed her face had suddenly turned white as chalk.
“W-what do you mean by demon king?” Marabella whispered. Looking like she was on the verge of hyperventilating, she transferred her stare between him, Cass and Nikki. She gulped. “Are…are you telling me my father was a demon?”
“No,” he answered in a flat voice.
The color slowly returned to Marabella’s cheeks, only to be highlighted a second later by the confusion in her gaze. “I don’t understand. How can one brother be a demon and the other not?”
“Because Sascha was an angel,” Cass offered quietly.
“She means that literally,” Nikki piped up. “Not in the sense of how some mothers call their babies angels when really they’re just tiny people with weird-shaped heads who poop a lot and smell funny.”
Cass rolled her eyes. “Thanks for clearing that up, Nik. Extremely helpful.”
Nikki bobbed her head. “Glad to be of assistance.”
“So…my father was an angel?” Marabella still had that deer-in-headlights look about her. “But that makes even less sense. How can an angel and a demon be brothers?”
“In the Christian religion, it’s believed Lucifer is a fallen angel. In essence, there is some merit to that theory. Demons and angels are essentially opposite sides of the same coin. Where one is light and carries a conscience, the other is dark and…well, we talked earlier about what demons don’t possess.”
They’d spoken earlier about demons? Sam glared at Cass. Why did he have a feeling he came up in that particular conversation? “You still haven’t explained how you were hit with this epiphany about Marabella being Sascha’s daughter.”
“He wrote letters to her mother. Judging from their contents, he was quite in love with Domino.”
Sam grunted, earning Marabella’s frown. Her knuckles whitened as she grasped her knees tight. “Why is it so impossible for you to believe love exists?”
“Because I’m a demon, remember? The word isn’t even in our damn vocabulary.”
Marabella appeared stricken by his answer. An odd twinge of pain cramped in the vicinity of his heart, and he lifted his hand to rub the spot. She straightened her posture and eyed him unwaveringly. “You can think whatever you want. I know my parents loved each other.”
Cass sat next to Marabella and squeezed her shoulder. “You’re absolutely right. I think if Sascha hadn’t been called away to duty, he would have ultimately stayed with your mom and married her.”
Marabella whisked a tear from her cheek. “Duty? I don’t understand. My father died in a car crash. That’s what took him from my mom. From me.”
“No, he didn’t. Many of the angels stood in the front lines of battle in the war waged against the various evils that plague this earth. Sascha was one of them, and it ultimately cost him his life.” She gave Marabella a soothing pat. “I know it doesn’t make up for your loss, but your father was nearly nine hundred years old when he was slain by an evil Wendigo that was terrorizing a small mining community in South America. Nine hundred years was a pretty darn good life.”
Marabella sucked in a shuddering breath. “Nine hundred years old? Wow, that’s…crazy.”
“Angels and demons can have an incredibly long life expectancy. Much more so than the rest of us. And they age different than we do. Kind of at a decelerated pace.” Cass waved a hand toward him. “Look at Sam. He’s one hundred and three, but you wouldn’t know it.”
Marabella gaped at him. “What?”
Well shit. Didn’t that make him feel like an old pervert robbing the cradle. “What can I say? Hugh Hefner wishes he could be me.”
Marabella returned her focus to Cass. “There’s something else I don’t understand. Why was my mom told that Sascha died in a car wreck?”
“To be honest, I’m surprised she was told anything. It would have been a lot simpler for Sascha’s colleagues not to contact her at all. The only thing I can figure is he must have informed them to make sure you and your mom were taken care of in the event anything happened to him. Obviously they couldn’t tell Domino the truth, so they were forced to improvise. My guess is they were also the ones who put the block on your soulprint, to cover up who and what you are.”
Marabella swallowed hard enough it could be heard clear across the room. “Are…are you saying I’m an angel too?”
“Not exactly. But you have the mixed blood and DNA of one, so that makes you several steps above the average human. I wouldn’t be surprised if you even have a longer lifespan than usual, courtesy of your dad’s genes. Really, who knows what kind of latent powers Sascha might have gifted you with?” Cass slid a glance toward Sam. “Although I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out what one of them is.”
The way Cass was staring at him made him infinitely nervous. “Care to share your theory with the rest of the class?”
“She can corrupt a demon.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sam leaned on the stairway banister and stacked his arms on his chest. “Not exactly late-breaking news, Cass. We already know she broke my seal.”
“Sam, I’m talking about you, not your soul-collector seal. Her angel blood obviously contains a force capable of corrupting your darkness and making you…nice.”
He narrowed his eyes. “If this is your idea of being funny, it’s not.”
Cass lifted from the couch and walked toward him. “Think about it. After your night with Marabella, you had that strange reaction that put you in bed for two days, feverish and delusional. Not to mention glowing like you were radioactive or something. It must have been her angel light working its way throug
h your system. Ever since then, you’ve been slowly losing tiny fragments of your darkness and growing a conscience about things.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Was it? He’d already figured out he was acting damn strange and experiencing emotions that’d been foreign to him. Guilt, compassion, unselfishness.
Bloody fuck. This wasn’t good. At all.
“You did save that cat,” Nikki offered unhelpfully. “And you didn’t even growl at me when I ordered the extra bacon at breakfast.”
He dropped his arms and glared at her. “Don’t worry. I’m two seconds away from doing it right now.”
She smiled sweetly. “Afterthoughts don’t count.”
Cass cleared her throat, gaining his attention. “Having a conscience isn’t the end of the world, you know. You’re still essentially you…only nicer.”
“Do not use that word again, damn it.” Just hearing it made him queasy. Who ever heard of a nice demon? It was a fucking abomination. He liked being bad. Reveled in being a truly uncaring bastard. Life was easier that way. Lugging around a conscience? Might as well chain a two-ton boulder to his ankle and put him in the path of an oncoming semi. Either way, the end results weren’t gonna be pretty. Though come to think of it, ending up as roadkill might actually be preferable to becoming the next fucking Mr. Rogers of the demonic neighborhood. “I need a damn drink.”
Marabella scooted hesitantly toward the end of the couch. “There’s still some sweet tea in the fridge.”
“Unless you’ve got a pint of whiskey to toss in there with it, that’s not going to cut it.” Grasping the newel post in a stranglehold, he pivoted toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Cass demanded in a tight voice.
“I told you—to get a damn drink.” Not waiting to hear her reply, he booked it down the steps.