by Alyssa Day
She flinched and dropped her fork, which clattered on the table. Flynn reached across the table to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, conveniently using that arm to block the sight of the water rippling back into the glass. Sure enough, when he glanced over, Linda's sharp gaze was on them. He didn't need her to see any magical water tricks and come over and start asking questions.
He didn't know why in the nine hells he’d been showing off, either. "So, I'm from Atlantis, and I need your help."
Eva picked up her fork and placed it carefully on the rim of her plate. Then she took a long sip of what might laughingly be referred to as the coffee in her cup, put the cup down, and finally nodded. "I don't know why, but I believe you. Maybe the water trick, but a human magic user could do that, too, I think. Maybe I'm desperate, but I've been desperate for a long time, and this feels different. Of course, trusting my instincts is probably the stupidest thing I could do, since I've proven that my instincts are utter and complete crap. On the other hand – I feel I’m up to the third or fourth hand by now – I need to talk to somebody. I need to decide what to do. At least you'd be objective. I can't bring Mrs. M into this. I don't want her to get hurt."
Flynn sat, still and silent, waiting for Eva to talk herself into trusting him. He knew better than to interrupt, because he could feel that she was leaning his way. Anything he could do at this point would just ruin it.
Finally, she took a deep breath and looked at him. "Okay. Okay. But not here. We need to talk somewhere where no one can hear us."
"We have a house –" Flynn began, but Eva started shaking her head before he even finished the sentence.
"No. No, I don't want to be on your turf… Anyway. I feel safer at my place. Nobody knows where it is. At least not yet," she said bitterly. "He always finds me in the end."
"Who is he?" Flynn's protective instincts were already beating in triple time. Somebody had scared this woman. Somebody had put those dark shadows under her eyes and the haunted expression on her face. Someone had made her afraid and, if he had anything to do with it, that someone was going to pay.
"Not here. Let's go." She started to reach into her purse, but Flynn stopped her with a hand on her arm.
"No, please. I ordered all this food. Let me at least pay for it." He stood up and tossed cash on the table and then held out his hand to Eva. She bit her lip again, but then she took his hand, said goodbye to Linda, and followed him out into the cold, clear night.
Once again, Flynn got on the bike to follow Eva across town. She pulled into the driveway of a surprisingly large and well-tended home. He wouldn’t have expected, from her job and her car, that she owned a house like this.
But after he parked and got off the bike, he realized that she didn't. Instead, she beckoned him up a narrow set of stairs on the side of the two-story garage. At the top of the stairs, on a tiny landing, she unlocked the door and let him inside. He could hear her breathing, which had shortened and sharpened until she was almost panting with distress. As he watched, puzzled, she took a quick sweep through the small living area, into the kitchen and behind the counter, and then into the bedroom, opening her closet door before pausing and then quickly ducking into the bathroom and looking behind the bathroom door. When she came out to the living area again, her breathing had slowed down to almost normal.
"Sorry. It's a routine I started after the first time he found me. He was hiding . . . One of his thugs was hiding in my closet. Only after he'd knocked me down and tied me to a chair… Well. That's when Scott showed up."
Flynn realized he’d clenched his hands into fists while she was talking. Scott. Now he had to get a name to go with this anger.
"Scott's in the Dark Angels?"
"Yes." She laughed, and the bitterness in her laughter sliced through the air between them like a dagger strike. "Go ahead. Tell me what an idiot I am for dating one of them. Tell me I'm a fool. It's not something I haven't already told myself a thousand times. But he wasn't in the gang, or at least I didn't know he was in the gang, when we met. When we started dating. And once he did become active, it was only little things. He wanted to build up his magic, you see?"
Flynn crossed a few paces to the opposite wall and turned and leaned against it, to help him fight his instinct to grab her and shake her. Getting involved with the Dark Angels? On any level at all? It was something only a fool would do. Or someone so greedy for power and magic that he or she was willing to overlook the hideous things that have to do to earn it. And if Oriax, a Grand Marquis demon of hell, really was the leader of the gang, then any humans involved were soon to be dead. One of the leading generals of hell might toy with humans – even magic users – for a while, but he’d soon tire of them and then they’d all be food for his warrior demon clans before long.
It was like the old joke.
You ask any supernatural being: Do you like humans?
And they all say: Sure! Humans are great! They’re crunchy with ketchup.
He figured he’d spare Eva the joke. She didn’t seem like she was in the mood.
"I guess… Do you want some coffee? I have some, but it's really old and probably tastes terrible."
"I hate to pass on such a tempting offer," Flynn said dryly. "A glass of water would be great, though."
She went into the tiny kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and got bottles of water. After she came back out to the living room and handed him one, she set the other on the table and shrugged out of his jacket.
"Thank you. This helped." She put the jacket carefully on a chair and then sat down on the very end of the faded blue couch. He figured getting too close to her wouldn't help oil the conversational wheels any, so he took his jacket and tossed it on the other end of the couch and then sat down in the chair. Facing her was better than side-by-side seating for this discussion anyway. He tried to think of clever ways to tell her what she needed to know, but in the end he just went with the truth.
“I’m going to trust you with something that could get a lot of people hurt or killed if the information gets out." He studied her face, trying to gauge if she really understood the seriousness of what he was saying to her. He didn't know her well enough to decipher the flicker of emotion in her eyes, but she nodded, folding her hands in her lap.
"I understand. Well, I don't understand yet, but I promise I won't say a word of whatever you tell me to anybody. In exchange, I'm hoping you won't say a word about me to anyone, either. I need to get out of town and fast."
Something in Flynn’s chest flinched at the idea. "You're leaving? You’re going to run?"
He’d tried to make his voice as nonjudgmental as possible, but Eva's mouth twisted in a grimace.
"Yes, I'm going to run. That's what I do. I run. I tried to fight back once, and he broke my arm. I tried staying in one place and calling the police, over and over, but--do you know what a restraining order is?"
He shook his head. He had no idea. Sounded important though. He didn't understand anything about human legal systems, but if the king gave an order of restraint, you could bet your ass somebody would be restrained.
From the look on Eva's face, this was not the case Topside.
"It's a piece of paper," she said bitterly. "Nothing but a piece of paper. And Scott laughed at it, and then he snatched it out of my hand and pinned it to my front door with a knife. He drove that knife so far in the door that I couldn't even get it out, even before he smashed my face into the door next to it.”
Flynn’s muscles were trembling with the need to go find this Scott and kill him. Slowly. He forced himself to stay silent and listen—this story was definitely not about him.
“I had to call a repair person and ultimately wind up buying my landlord a whole new door. You can bet he wouldn't renew my lease after that. That was maybe four, no, five towns ago. So yes, I run, because running is the only thing that's going to keep me alive,” she finished, her head held high.
She’d seemed like a mouse back in the bar. A terrifi
ed, trembling little mouse. But she'd shown flashes of defiance even then, and the woman he sat across from now was talking about running even while her body language said that she wanted to fight. He'd known a lot of fighters in his life, and she had many of the hallmarks of one. He just needed to push her along; help her realize that she didn't always have to be prey.
On the other hand, she was one small woman against a black magic user and his buddies in the Dark Angels. What chance had she really had?
He studied her, sitting there curled up on the corner of the couch, and realized a single hard truth. Whatever happened, now or in the future, Eva was never again going to have to face this Scott or his Dark Angel pals alone.
He was going to protect her from them. He was going to succeed this time, even though he never had before.
This time, failure was not an option.
“I need to tell you about me. About us. Atlantis and Poseidon’s Warriors. About how I accidentally wound up being one,” he admitted. “Our sworn duty is to protect humanity, and I need to wrap my head around that. I spent most of my life running, so I do understand you. I spent a lot of time being completely selfish in all ways, too. But that ended when Poseidon himself marked me—when Denal told us about the girls.”
She leaned forward. “Tell me about the girls.”
So he did. He told her everything, honestly, even the truths that made him look bad. He told her about going home to find his brothers, about Denal and the Warriors, and about the mission.
He didn’t tell her about his childhood. Not yet. He figured both of them had made enough painful confessions for one day.
Eva listened intently and asked a few clarifying questions, but mostly just took in everything he had to say. When he finally finished, she jumped up and started pacing.
"I understand, and thank you for trusting me. I think it's admirable, what you’re doing and—hey—it’s still hard to wrap my mind around the ‘you met Poseidon’ part of this.” She flashed a smile at him. “But what I don't understand is what you expect from me. I don't know anything about this chapter of the Dark Angels. I just got in town a couple of months ago. I understand what you're doing, and it's admirable, but I don't see how I can help. So I'm still back at where I was: I need to run, and I need to run now."
Flynn, quite admirably, he thought, resisted the urge to pound his head into the wall in frustration. Instead, he stood and faced her. "I get it. Your situation is terrifying, and the best way you’ve found to cope is to run. I get it, and it even makes sense. I did it for years. But here's the thing: these girls can't run. They’re prisoners. And the things that the Dark Angels will do to them are worse than any torture you can imagine."
She spun around, turning her back to him as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. "I get it,” she cried. “Don't you think I know? But what can I do that the police can't?"
"You can help me figure out a way in. You learned something about the hierarchy of the chapter back in Oregon that Steve was a member of, right?"
"Snake."
He blinked. "What?"
"Snake." She rolled her eyes. "When Scott really got in with the gang, they started calling him Snake. Snake and Monkey: the dynamic duo."
Flynn rolled his eyes. “Poseidon's balls. I don't care if his name is Snake, Worm, or Lizard. You don't understand how bad these guys can get--"
She whirled around and poked him in the chest, her face almost incandescent with anger. "Of course I understand these men –"
"No. You don't." Flynn took a step toward her and caught her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. "You don't understand them, because you're still calling them men. The upper echelon of the Dark Angels – do you know why they call themselves that? Dark Angels? Because they're demons. Actual demons. Oriax, who's rumored to be the head of the entire operation, is one of hell’s most trusted generals.”
She wrenched her face out of his hand and shoved him, or at least she tried to shove him. It would take more effort than she had to actually push Flynn back a step. He caught her hands and held them against his chest.
"Please listen to me. Tell me what you know, as much as you can, and then you can run. Help me find a way in, so we can get these girls before it's too late."
She stared at him for a long moment and then sighed. Ever so briefly, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his chest, giving him the oddest sensation. Almost as if he wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her close for a very long time.
This time, though, he was the one to back away. Tender emotions were vastly more terrifying than demons, and much harder to understand than even the insane sexual attraction between them that was silent now, but pulsing just beneath the surface of his skin. He was afraid of what might happen if he touched her—really touched her—afraid he’d lose all control.
Better to stay away, because he would never, ever take a chance on frightening this woman.
"I'll help. I'll tell you whatever you need to know. We need to save those girls, you're right. I can't live with this on my conscience."
"Thank you." He touched her face gently. “Thank you.”
He started to say more, but then he heard Griffin calling to him on the Atlantean mental communication pathway. A few seconds later, the knock sounded at the window.
Eva gasped. "They found me. No, wait. That was – what was that? That's the window over the garage. There aren't any steps there."
Flynn crossed to the window and jerked the curtains open to reveal Griffin's face on the other side of the glass. He looked down and realized that Griffin was floating in midair outside the window.
Of course he was.
Mages. They were all a bunch of damn showoffs.
Flynn jerked his thumb to the side of the apartment where the door was, and Griffin nodded. He shut the curtains and turned to face Eva, whose face was pale. She was close to cracking, and he needed to tell Jake and Griffin no more weird shit for a while.
Not that “no weirdness” would be easy to pull off with a mage and a mermaid rescuer for teammates.
He sighed.
"It's okay. He's with me. Sort of. He's a mage, before you ask, so he’s odd, and he's got these freaky silver eyes and white hair, but he's definitely on my side. Not only is he sworn to Poseidon, too, but on top of that, mages despise demons."
Eva nodded. "Fine. Sure. Of course he's a mage. You’re an Atlantean, he's a mage, and here we are. If a horse with a long face walks into my apartment next, we're going to have the makings of a really great joke. Or an apocalypse."
Flynn frowned at her. "Don’t all horses have long faces?"
She was still laughing when he opened the door, but wouldn’t tell him why. He made the introductions and was perversely pleased when Eva made a point to stay closer to him than to Griffin.
"I’ve been all over town, but I haven't been able to locate the kind of magic signature that would signify the gathering of a large group of magic users, or demons, or both. I don't know if that means they're blocking it, or if their location is somewhere outside of town."
“Outside of town would make a lot more sense,” Flynn said.
"I don't know where they could be, because I haven't seen any of the Dark Angels in town before tonight," Eva put in. "Are you sure they even have a base here?"
Griffin looked at Flynn, who shrugged and answered her. "I don't know if it's a base or just a one-time deal, but the sources we have definitely traced the girls here. The problem is local law-enforcement and even Nevada's governor are blocking P-Ops from coming in. They're making noise about jurisdiction, but we suspect that either they’ve got somebody in the Dark Angels or they’re being paid off. Either and/or both are likely. The gang controls too much crime, magic, and money."
“The head of the group that just came into town, probably for the human sacrifices, is a seriously bad actor named Narco,” Griffin told them. “The rumor is that he was a mage, too, before he turned to black magic.”
“There have been rumors that the governor has ties to the gang,” Eva told them, before she started to pace again. "I don't know much, but here's what I do know. Every local chapter has a leader. They call him an archangel, which is blasphemous, which seems to make them happy. He reports up the chain to a regional leader they call a demigod, also a bad joke, and the regional leaders report up to one head guy."
She glanced at Flynn, and he hated to see the fear in her eyes. "Or head demon, I guess."
“And how do they take in new members?” Flynn asked, forcing himself not to go to her and scoop her up in his arms. Take her away from here. Never let her be afraid again.
The mission. The girls.
Eva shook her head. "There’s not a chance you or your friend could get in that way. At least not quickly. You impress them by doing something bad, and they might invite you. Isn’t that what your friend is doing? Even so, there's a long apprenticeship. You'd have to have something that they really want in order to get inside quicker than that."
Flynn traded glances with Griffin, who glanced at Eva and then shook his head. "I don't know what we could have that they want. Jake did his part, though. When the cops came in, he took the heat and said he started it all. Kept the Angels out of jail, as far as I could tell. They were already talking about taking up a collection to bail him out."
"That'll help. That's the kind of stupid gesture that impresses them," Eva said, pacing back and forth in the small space.
"Where were you?" Flynn stared at the mage. "I didn't see you inside."
“I was looking for their headquarters, and then I was on the roof of the building when you and Miss –" he inclined his head toward Eva.
"Calandar. Eva Calandar. Please, just call me Eva."
"As I said, I was on the roof of the building when you and Miss Calandar exited. I stayed around long enough to listen to what was going on, and I saw local law enforcement haul Jake off in handcuffs."
"Too bad there wasn’t a mermaid around to rescue him," Flynn said, momentarily amused.