Rage Against the Devil (Wild Beasts Series Book 2)

by T. Birmingham

  She saw that Zeke was about to ask a question, so she held up her hand and just said, “Don’t.” She put her power behind the order, and she saw them all flinch as she walked by them and to the bar. The blue-haired kid watched them from a distance. He couldn’t have seen anything much. Humans never did. Their minds loved order, closure, and what the Clans and the Others did was not something that fit nicely into their psyche.

  She walked to the back offices, her combat boots clunking loudly against the floor. She could have been quiet, but she wanted them to know she meant business. She didn’t have Gimp with her today to act as her temperance, and she hadn’t realized how much her Trow friend really complemented her until that moment.

  “So, what’s been happening with the case? Any new info?” Damon asked as he walked into the office behind her. Her oldest brother got it. Business. That’s what she’d been all about until these past three weeks. She needed to get back to that.

  She took a seat in one of the big chairs opposite Damon’s big cherry wood desk. The Fae did love their little luxuries. But as much as she loved that fucking cherry desk, she still had to make a show of it, so her dirty combat boots went right on top of that baby. Little trails of dirt and dust hit her brother’s desk, and she held in her snicker.

  She sobered as she felt Nicky move in behind her, her breath catching, and she didn’t miss the look Damon gave her as he walked behind his dirtied work area, looking for all he was worth like the king of his castle. King of Trappe’s if nowhere else.

  She shook off Nicky’s presence as much as she could and looked to Damon. She needed to get her shit together.

  “Ginny’s a good addition. Knows her shit. A little psycho and way too fucking chipper for a god damned Skröm…” She ran her hand through her hair. “But she’s competent. I can see how she’s survived in the field as long as she has. Stealth is an appropriate name for her club. Her abilities certainly are stealthy.”

  “But have you gathered anything new in terms of evidence?” Zeke asked from the corner. He sat in a leather high-backed chair, constantly pushing up his glasses, so serious, a notepad in hand, waiting on any data she could give.

  “Nothing new since I talked with Damon the other day. Wolfie over here was able to verify the same smells at all the scenes. Nicky tested out each previous site, though Damon here had basically wiped the sites clean. The bodies are cleaned up, but the stench is still there, and this guy has the best nose I’ve ever seen at work,” she said pointing behind her. She knew he wouldn’t leave her back. He had this obsession with covering her six that drove her insane, and fuck it, she wouldn’t lie, the constant protection made her feel safe too. She could protect her own back, but it was nice to have someone other than Gimp giving a fuck.

  “That almost sounded like a compliment,” Nicky said casually, almost amused but she ignored him.

  “So, the wolf pictogram carvings on the four surrounding trees... The temporal breaks at each site…” She paused, giving her brother a challenging stare and waiting for him to share whatever ace he had up his sleeve. At his questioning expression, though, she raised an eyebrow. He wanted to make this into a questions game, so what the hell, she’d play. “What?” she asked.

  “You could create your own temporal break,” Damon said with uncharacteristic hesitancy and shrugging. “Could you do it if we needed—”

  “Are you shitting me?” She examined his face for any sign that he was fucking with her. “You’re talking about a legitimate break between the worlds. That shit is fucking dangerous. I would know better than any of you. How much time have you spent in the Veil, Damon? Huh?”

  “Some,” Damon answered, holding steady with her gaze.

  Well, hell. She hadn’t expected that.

  “How?” Eire wouldn’t let up anymore. Always with the goddamn secrets. “How? How did you get in?” Her case had been different. Her gifts made her different and she’d been a minor even in Otherverse, so her grandmother had rights to her. Rights her brothers hadn’t had.

  “That’s a story for another time—”

  “Of course it is,” she said as she shook her head in exasperation. “Fuck it all, Damon. Do you share anything with anyone, or do you just hold everything so close to your chest that you have no one to share a goddamned thing with? What the fuck kind of life is that?”

  He raised his eyebrow. “You tell me, Eire. Looks like you’ve taken on some of my traits yourself.”

  “Fuck you, Damon,” Eire said, but her words fell flat. She had. Damn it all to the Veil. They were all ridiculous, the lot of them.

  “Awww…look at all this beautiful family therapy.” Loch moved in quickly behind her, giving her scalp a razzle as he messed up her hair and then kissed the top of her head. Her fist connected with his jaw, but when she looked up, he just smiled. There was a slight reddening of the skin, but nothing beyond that. She should have used her claws… Damn it, could she do that? Use her claws on her brothers? Was she that cold? The part of her that had been trained by her cold as fuck grandmother wanted to say yes, but she knew it was untrue. As much as she’d needed to avoid them this past decade, she’d never truly wanted to hurt them.

  “Shut up, asshole,” Damon said, casually leaning back in his desk chair.

  “So, the floral smell of the Fae…wolf carvings in the trees at each of the four directions, temporal breaks…” Zeke said, trailing off and momentarily lost in thought. He scratched his head and wrote something down. “We know from Damon that you all have reason to believe this is a Fae who devours and based on what I’ve seen of the scenes myself this past week, I’d agree. Loch also agreed. There is no power left from the Other, just the smell of Other. So, their power is taken, and the temporal break…that’s definitely Fae. So why the need for a barrier of some kind?”

  “That was our question too,” Nicky said from behind her. She’d confided in him about her suspicions that Damon knew more than he was letting on. “Based on what Matt, Eire, Damon, and Gimp have shared, a Fae who devours takes all the power in at once, not just the emotion the Fae normally need to feed on. So, what’s going on with this Fae? Have they completely lost it? Or are they gathering power for a purpose?” Eire noticed the uncomfortable looks Loch and Zeke gave the Vuković. The Fae were private and although many Clan and Others knew of the Fae abilities, most didn’t talk about what they knew. Even saying the word ‘Fae’ brought a sort of hush into the room.

  Eire’s eyes returned to Damon who lounged behind his desk, listening to the byplay.

  “Well, Damon,” Eire said, giving him an opening. “Any thoughts on why a barrier might be needed?”

  Damon didn’t budge, just gave a casual shrug.

  “What else?” Zeke asked hurriedly, pushing ahead and ignoring the interaction between Eire and Damon. “What else did you find at the scenes?” Excitement tinged his words, and Eire was so furious with Damon, she almost snapped at Zeke and his over enthusiastic questioning. There was nothing else.

  “It smelled strange,” Nicky said, as though tasting the word. “Rose blossoms, peat moss, dust, and talc powder—”

  “Shit! You didn’t tell me about the dust and the talc.” Eire sat still as stone in her chair. Fuck. She looked to her brothers. Their looks were just as worried. But not Damon.

  “You knew!” She jumped up from her seat and leaned over her brother’s desk. Her claws had unsheathed and she was seriously reconsidering her earlier thoughts that she would never slice one of her brothers up.

  “I’m assuming you all are going to tell me what this is all about,” Nicky added and his voice demanded answers as he moved in behind her. She’d learned that about him these past weeks. Nicky was quiet except for when he was in two different circumstances: when he needed to share information that he had, and he often had something to add; and when he was around Ginny and Danny, and sometimes even Alexia. Those three brought out a side of him that she’d grown fascinated with. But damn if him stepping in behind her didn�
��t settle her for a minute…in fact, damn if that movement hadn’t saved Damon’s life.

  “Yes,” Damon said, “I knew.” His gaze met hers and she saw the worry now, for all the good it did them. Fuck.

  “Dust and talc…” Eire barely heard Zeke’s whispered words as they trailed off.

  Eire turned on her other brothers.

  “Did you know?” she asked, moving closer to Loch and looking in his eyes, but she saw that he hadn’t. His angry, almost dead stare said it all. He fixed his eyes on Damon, who stood behind her, and there was retribution written there.

  She didn’t need to ask Zeke. His whisper from earlier was two parts fear and one part frustration that he hadn’t been let in on the secret.

  “Those scents are particular to only two people and we’d already ruled out one because she’s supposed to be six feet in the fucking ground. Garrison Damon Trappe,” Eire said, turning on him again and walking back to his desk. She used his full name and put the power of the naming behind it to let him know she meant to get the whole damn truth out of him. She was fucking done. This was ending now.

  How the fuck—

  She took a deep breath, trying to let her pain go, but damn it! Damn it. It was right there in front of them this whole time, who the killer was, and she’d not had all the goddamned facts.

  “How could you?” she asked, pain in her voice, looking back up at her brother once she’d calmed herself. “How could you keep this from us?”

  “I was trying to protect you all,” Damon said, and his voice lowered with every word, like he knew he’d fucked up big time. He rubbed his hand over his mouth and she watched the nervous gesture. Big brother was never flustered. His gaze came back up and he looked around the room.

  “It’s not your job to protect us, Damon!” Eire yelled. Yeah, Damon might look miserably repentant, but she didn’t give a flying fuck. What he’d done was wrong on so many levels. “Zeke and Loch are grown, and I was fucking raised up in the Veil at the tender and loving hands of a woman who, ironically, you bastard, smells like rose blossoms and dust, after slicing up a man who smells like rose blossoms and talc!”

  Eire felt Nicky’s tension increase behind her as he stepped forward. Hell, everyone’s tension had increased, but Nicky was the only person she could feel. And she hated that. God, she hated everything about this case, this town, this situation.

  “Your grandmother and father?” Nicky asked sharply, and it was Zeke who answered.

  “Eire’s right,” Zeke said, standing and putting down his notepad as he looked at Damon. “You should have told us. Damn it all to the Veil, Damon, how could you not tell us that we were walking into a case that involved Lochlan and Nessa, especially since we all thought she was dead?” Zeke wasn’t pleading for an answer. He was pissed. Eire saw the anger there, yes, but she also thought she saw his golden brown eyes take on a strange black sheen. However, when she blinked it was gone. A mystery for another time.

  Everyone waited for Damon to answer, for him to defend himself, but he didn’t. He just sat in his king’s chair, a weary sigh that said he didn’t have any excuses. His eyes met theirs and she saw the burden he took on for them, a burden he didn’t need to take on, but that he had anyhow. Shit. She would not be swayed.

  He didn’t need any more encouragement, though.

  “I knew the first week the murders happened—”

  “Because of your contacts.” No one was really surprised that he’d known. Just angry. And now she was going to get all her answers. “How do you know everything the Other Enforcers know, Damon?” She’d always wondered.

  “Because I created them.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. But when she looked around to Loch and Zeke, their faces didn’t show surprise at all. They’d known. Figures.

  “You created the Enforcers?” Then it clicked. “When you cleanse the scenes…whenever Gimp gets his calls, not just when you called him in on this case specifically…” Her voice trailed off and she grabbed onto the edge of the desk as her head fell. She took a deep breath and her bright, green gaze met Damon’s, almost afraid to speak it. “Gimp.” Just one word, but her brother understood. He nodded, his gaze unwavering. Finally, he was being honest, but she wasn’t liking all the answers. Gimp had known. Gimp had—

  She felt the betrayal much more deeply than she’d thought she would have.

  She knew Gimp and Damon talked, but she’d thought it was just casual. That goddamned lowlife. Her brother and Gimp. Goddamned. Shitty. Conniving.

  “What the fuck, Damon?” Eire breathed out, the cold taking over as she straightened slowly, letting her claws that had torn into his desk recede. “You put me with Gimp.” She shook her head, finally realizing just how much her brothers had played a role in her life this past decade. She turned to Loch. “You were the one who said, ‘Hey, there’s a gig I think you’d be good at’.” She turned back to Damon. “And I fucking fell for it all hook, line and sinker, didn’t I? Joined up as an Enforcer. Then took Gimp on as a partner. Trusted him—” Her voice cut off and she pushed Nicky’s hand away. He’d reached for her, but damn it. She didn’t need anyone’s fucking comfort. “I’m done,” she said in a steely voice. “I’m done with your games, with your shit, with your lies—”

  “Eirey—”

  Zeke tried to cut in, but she gave him a scathing look.

  “Done,” she said with finality. She was. So done.

  She started to walk out of the room, but she felt a shift.

  Nicky, his hands almost exactly where hers had been on the desk, stood towering over her brother. He wasn’t as imposing as Damon, no, but he was bigger and his shadow fell over the room.

  “Damon, I want you to remember the last two years,” Nicky said as he looked first to Damon and then back to Eire. She felt her heart skip a beat at the look in his eyes.

  He was standing up for her.

  Her.

  Eire Donovan.

  He turned back to her brother, and she was grateful for the reprieve. “I want you to remember that everything we’ve experienced is only made worse by more secrets. Get us information on where Lochlan and Nessa Trappe are and then find us a way to put them down for good. I’m done with these secrets, too.” Nicky turned back to Eire.

  She wasn’t going to tell him that she had no plans of talking to Damon in the near future. It wasn’t petulance. It was survival.

  Damon didn’t love her.

  He didn’t care.

  He wanted to keep her under his thumb.

  So, Damon was the man behind the Enforcers. She felt duped. And she hated feeling duped. Being an Enforcer was the only thing that was hers…

  Except it wasn’t really hers, was it?

  For Damon to have hidden so much from her…

  Fuck.

  Nicky walked toward her, ignoring her other brothers as well. They’d known, had a hand in Damon’s lies even if they hadn’t known Lochlan and Nessa were behind the murders. They’d known about the Enforcers. About Gimp.

  The wolf’s presence at her back as they walked out of the office was warm, too warm. She wanted to lean into him. She also wanted to tell him to back off. She did neither. This was a show of solidarity. She’d take what she could get.

  She’d come into this town thinking she’d sail right back out. Solve the case. Go back to her trailer on the outskirts of Syracuse. Take on another case, until she finally met her end, probably in some run down back alley.

  But it seemed this case was the end of the road.

  No matter how long she’d spent in the Veil, she would never forget the strong scent of her father’s rose blossom sweetness mixed with the unmistakable taint of talc as he came into being again, not even one day after she’d sliced him to bits and pieces seventeen years ago. A thousand years in her reality, but still no less traumatic.

  Lochlan Trappe couldn’t be killed by her Swords. But there were other more powerful ways to kill a Fae, and she had plans for him. Eire liked to pr
etend. Liked to think about the night she killed her father as the end of it all. But the truth was she’d only been able to endure the tortures of the Veil for one reason.

  She’d known her grandmother could teach her the control she needed to kill her father for good.

  She’d just have two Fae to kill now. But two Fae meant she definitely wouldn’t be making it out alive.

  She used her anger with her brother to bolster her resolve and to tamp down the slither of apprehension that had tried to make its way into her mind.

  Now, she’d finally get that vengeance. Vengeance for her mother. Vengeance for her best friend, Ina, who’d had to move away and hide from a dangerous Fae. And vengeance for herself. Her father had sent her to live with one of the most vicious women ever to have lived, and now he would see what that training had wrought. And her grandmother would experience a mirror image of herself that Eire hoped would terrify the Fae to her very withered soul.

  Cold. Hard. Bitch.

  Yeah. Eire Donovan was good with that. Forged in Fire and cooled to perfection. She was ready destroy the Fae who had taken everything from her.

  Eire and Nicky walked out of a closed up Trappe’s. Her watch read 2:00 am, and she started to yawn. She was used to odd hours. It was the nature of her work, but she’d also been put in a new place without her bed; she’d met up with her brothers; she’d met Ginny, which was a stressor in and of itself; and she had only sporadically been eating enough to sustain her Fae appetites recently. Blood and other things. Shit. She needed to refuel – without grossing everyone out.

  “I need to feed,” she said as they walked toward the area where the bikes were parked.

  “Blood?” he asked looking over at her from where he’d sat on his bike. The winter was chilly, but the roads were clear and whatever snow had hit recently had melted over the last week. So, it was still safe enough to hop on his bike. Not to mention, their safe was different than a human’s safe.