by Joey W. Hill
A work colleague she’d met on her college internship in Milan had been an eyewitness to the terrible tsunami in Indonesia. She’d said, “Power of that magnitude makes you rethink what you believe about…everything. There are no certainties anymore.”
Thank God and Goddess and everything in between, light flickered back into the chamber. Elagra was on the floor, on hands and knees, her body cringing as if she wanted to curl into that fetal ball Marcie had imagined. She was whimpering, her fingers digging into the ground. Mikhael hadn’t moved. He still stood at Raina’s side, hands loose at his sides, eyes pinned upon the cowering witch. Eyes so frightening in their endless darkness, some primitive instinct in Marcie told her not to look too closely at them.
“You dare test me,” Mikhael said. A statement.
Holy shit. All that had come from him. Marcie could feel the pounding of Ben’s heart against her back, and his body was rigid as stone.
Elagra’s head came up millimeter by millimeter, pulled up by a force not her own. Her body was still immobilized in that half curl. Her eyes were full blind white. A terrified sound escaped her throat.
“I can leave you like this,” Mikhael said. “Trapped in a box no bigger than yourself, forgotten by everyone. Or you can tell me what I need to know. When will this creation emerge?”
Elagra shuddered. Her sharp teeth had sliced into her bottom lip, so blood was wet on her chin. “She comes ssssooon. The emergence of the new moon. Do not…please…”
“Please.” Mikhael dropped to his heels, a step closer to her. When she tried to draw back, she couldn’t. “The children you’ve tormented said please,” he said. “‘Please do not hurt me.’”
His low voice conjured every nightmare Marcie had ever had and mercifully forgotten. Now they might be permanently branded on her frontal lobe, disturbing her waking moments as well as her slumbering ones.
“You had no trouble inflicting this kind of horror on them,” Mikhael said. “Trapping them with your spells. I hear of it happening again, and I will be back. Your end will not be pleasant, but it will be a joy compared to the redemption that will meet you on the other side. Tell me what I need to know.”
“I have…told you,” Elagra whimpered. “She is chaos. I created a child…of chaos. Nothing can be predicted. Nothing can be foretold…”
She started keening, trying to thrash, but it was as if her limbs were locked against her. Even knowing she would have shot her with little more provocation, Marcie couldn’t help a chill of sympathetic fear at the woman’s plight.
Mikhael sat comfortably on his heels, his gaze probing as he stared at the witch. He looked bored, as the witch struggled against an exercise of his power that was reducing her to a terrified beast, caught in a trap.
Dark Guardian. The title was starting to make sense.
Raina stood at Mikhael’s back, her own face expressionless, but Marcie had a feeling it wasn’t easy for her to watch what was going on. She looked as if she knew how Elagra felt, though if she did, Marcie was certain it hadn’t been at Mikhael’s hands.
Suddenly, Elagra crumpled, body sprawling as if released from a net. The weight of fear and darkness lifted from the chamber. When Mikhael spoke, it was the voice he normally used.
“She’s told us what she knows. Let’s go.”
Chapter Nine
Emerging from that underground place, even into the morbid atmosphere of the St. Louis cemetery, had been like being given free tickets to Disneyland and a Fast Pass to go to the front of the line on every ride. Marcie couldn’t stop drawing in deep breaths of the air.
However, when they first came out of the vault, she’d been startled at the passage of time. She was certain they’d spent no more than a couple hours below ground, but it was nighttime, and not early dark. It was past midnight.
“It was the magic Elagra used to create her little world down there,” Raina explained. “When we crossed from the tunnels into her lair, it created a time lag. You wouldn’t have been conscious of it. If I could have anticipated it, I would have told you to leave your phones at the hotel. They’re likely fried now.”
Marcie was more concerned about other things. While Raina was standing next to her, her mind seemed to be far away. After what she’d seen below, Marcie’s natural inclination to reach out and touch was far more guarded, but she had to ask. “Are you okay?”
Raina blinked, focused on her. Her lips curved in a tight smile. “Yes. Thank you. Some of that, it brought up bad memories.”
That was all she said, but she seemed a little easier, so Marcie was glad she’d asked. Mikhael was sealing up the vault as Ben moved to join the women.
“So,” Ben said. “What’s next on this scintillating adventure down memory lane? We could visit the alley where I spent the night holed up behind the body of a dead crack whore so no one would bother me. Best night’s sleep I’d had in a month.”
Marcie looked at him. Ben shook his head, swore softly. “Yeah, sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”
“No. No it wasn’t.” She would have reached out to take his hand, but his stiff body language told her she would likely be rebuffed right now. She pushed down the pang at that, and squared her shoulders. “Anybody would be messed up over what was happening down there. I don’t like to think something like that is living beneath our city.”
“It will not rank high on my list of favorite memories, either.” Mikhael joined them. Raina’s shoulders eased further as he pressed up behind her, wrapping a large hand over her hip bone. “We need a cleansing,” he added. He looked toward Ben. “I have a thought on that. Let’s go to the cars.”
He took Raina’s hand, led her away, giving Marcie and Ben time to make their decision to follow. The Dark Guardian and the witch walking away hand-in-hand, framed by the maze of silver-grey crypts and grave markers, made a Gothic-style romantic picture, but Marcie was still a little too caught up in things to appreciate it fully.
“She said the time difference fried our phones,” she ventured, glancing at Ben’s brooding features. “Good thing we backed ours up a few days ago, the way Lucas is always telling us to do.”
“Yeah. Though that doesn’t really seem all that important, does it?” He looked back at the now-sealed vault, his jaw tight.
Marcie finally laid her hand on his upper arm. She managed, barely, not to start. The man was built, so she was used to the feel of resilient muscle wherever she touched him. Right now it was so taut and cold, it was as if he were made out of some form of chilled iron.
“Ben…”
He jerked, then looked down at her as if seeing her for the first time. Fortunately, he dwelled there a long moment, giving her that look she knew he did when he was finding his center. At length, he touched her face. “It’s all right, brat. Come here and warm me up.”
Marcie slid her arms around him without having to be asked twice, gratified and relieved when he let out a sigh, and wrapped both his own arms around her. “Look at that,” he said in a low voice. “So soft and alive. All the best things in life, right here in my grasp.”
“You’re just talking about my nine-millimeter.”
“Yeah, forgot about that. Just thought you were happy to see me.”
She snuffled a chuckle against him, held him tighter. She wanted to ask him a million things about what had happened below ground, but keeping his state of mind like this was more important to her. “Where do you think Mikhael is going to take us?” she asked instead.
“Hell if I know. But anywhere’s better than here. Unless he is, in fact, taking us to Hell. Even then, I’m not sure if that wouldn’t be preferable.”
“Me, either.”
He gave her a faint smile and drew back, offering her his hand, much as Mikhael had to Raina. In that way, they made their way out of the silent world of the dead. She trailed her fingers over several of the markers, husbands and wives who had spent their lives together, the journey she and Ben were just beginning. Those couples had moved on
to the next journey together. That thought of the natural way of things helped ease the unnatural feel of what they’d left behind, so when they reached the side gate, she felt a little steadier. The reassuring grip of Ben’s hand, the way he passed his thumb over her palm and wrist pulse in an unconsciously intimate gesture, also helped.
The neighborhood surrounding the cemetery was mostly quiet, though there was a current of noise on the wind coming from the nearby French Quarter. Not too raucous, but there was music. It was the time of night when the musicians weren’t so much performing as jamming with their peers, while entertaining the final stragglers and staff doing clean up and shut down.
Mikhael and Raina were waiting at the side gate. From the way Raina leaned against Mikhael’s side, his hand wrapped in her hair, fingers stroking her collarbone, Marcie thought maybe they’d been doing something not too different from her and Ben’s embrace among the vaults. Touching base with love and the living.
But it was curious and unsettling to Marcie, seeing Mikhael so focused on steadying Raina, all while he could… It had been clear he could have ended Elagra at any moment. But he hadn’t. And here he was, looking calm and unconcerned about Elagra’s existence. The harm she had done. Why didn’t he do something?
She bit back the question for another time. One thing she’d definitely understood from the display of his power was that one didn’t really question him at the wrong time. Or possibly at all. She needed to think. And then maybe ask the far more approachable Raina first.
They proceeded away from the cemetery and up one of the neighborhood side streets. They weren’t in a great area of town, but Ben knew a guy at one of the houses, a toothless black man named Short, and they’d left the car in front of his place. Raina and Mikhael had met them here, so Marcie wasn’t sure how they’d arrived, though they seemed amenable to following them to their vehicle, rather than going a different way.
Short—who was so far over six feet tall Marcie figured he had to have been recruited by all the high school basketball teams when he was in his youth—was a forty-something black man with a cracked prosthetic leg wrapped with duct tape. He sat on his porch with a fifth of vodka sitting on a table next to him and a giant bag of animal crackers in his lap. Periodically, he tossed a couple to the pair of elderly pit bulls lying on the cracked boards in front of him. A white cat was perched on the railing behind him, studying the scenario with a typical air of feline disdain for the canine class.
As Ben stopped in front of the man’s chain link gate, he glanced at Raina and Mikhael. The Dark Guardian leaned against a light post, his arm around Raina. She said something in a low tone, and he shook his head, stroking a piece of her dark hair out of her face. When his fingertips touched her lips, she attempted a smile. He murmured something, and she dipped her head into his hand, a short nod, before closing her eyes. Marcie saw Raina’s hand tighten on his biceps. The Dark Guardian continued to hold her as he lifted his attention to Ben.
“Meet us outside town,” he said. “The place where you liked to take your wife’s car, when it was yours.”
With that, he straightened and began walking away, taking Raina with him. Though her expression was almost as pensive as Ben’s, Raina tossed Marcie a smile. “See you there,” she said.
And then… Marcie blinked. They could have disappeared around the corner of the next intersecting street, hidden by a house, but she wondered if they’d literally disappeared just before that. Ben squeezed her hand, and went through the rusted gate to the porch. He said a quiet word to Short, handing some money to the man over the dogs’ heads while he stroked them with his free set of fingers. There was the obligatory attempt by Short to refuse it, a shake of the head, but Ben insisted. Short had dogs to feed, after all.
Ben had already tried, more than once, to pay for a replacement prosthetic for him. Marcie remembered what he’d said Short’s response was.
The duct tape works just fine, Mr. Fancy Suit. Things last a lot longer when we have faith in them, don’t try to replace them when they get a ding or crack.”
Short tipped his bill cap to her, and she smiled in response, though smiling felt hard. Everything she’d just seen, what they’d learned, and what needed to be discussed, were interfering with those muscles.
But Ben was here, with her, and she had faith in that. As he came to her and opened the McLaren’s passenger door to help her inside, she gripped his hand an extra moment before letting him go. She usually teased him about taking the wheel of “her” car when they were together, but she didn’t. Not right now.
When he got in and pulled away from the curb, she was glad that he reached out and reclaimed her hand briefly before having to turn his attention to the gear shifting. She laid her hand high on his thigh, ignoring the seatbelt in favor of scooting over and laying her head on his shoulder, her favorite position when he was driving, and particularly now. He pressed his cheek to hers, lips grazing her brow, before he accelerated, taking them out of the close, cross-hatched streets of historic New Orleans and moving to the outer areas.
She knew where Mikhael had meant, but she had no idea how he knew about it. But after him using that voice, and speaking in her head as he had, she wasn’t surprised by a casual revelation about their lives.
Once out of the more congested city limits, there was plenty of open land and country roads. At this late hour, nothing stirred but them and the night wildlife. The car lights reflected off the shining eyes of raccoons, coyotes, a few deer. Plenty of other creatures were likely hidden in the long grasses, pine trees and thick foliage on the sides of the blissfully undeveloped roads.
Mikhael hadn’t given them an exact address, but that wasn’t a problem. They went around a curve, and there he was. Leaning against his Ferrari 458 Italia. With Mikhael’s dark clothing and hair color, the car was a good match for its driver. Black, polished and mean-looking. Raina lay on her hip on the hood, her upper torso twisted on her back so she could gaze up at the stars. Her hand was stretched out so her fingertips grazed Mikhael’s upper thigh.
“If we took a picture, I bet Ferrari would pay us a bundle to acquire it for their next advertising campaign,” Marcie said.
“Yeah, but they’d probably have to visit Hell to get Mikhael to sign the paperwork.”
She managed a tight chuckle. “I’m seeing a team of Ferrari lawyers in their nice suits, holding their briefcases, checking their Rolexes with that patented self-important impatience, waiting to get on the boat to cross the River Styx.”
Ben snorted. “Patented self-importance? And I suppose the ferryman would take one look and say, ‘Sorry, we’ve reached our quota of lawyers this month.’”
Marcie shot him a smile. “Glad you said it, so I didn’t have to.”
“When you’re a lawyer, you have to stay ahead of the crowd when it comes to the jokes.” Ben gave her a dry look as he decelerated and rolled up next to Mikhael and Raina. He eased his window down and swept his gaze over them.
“So, what next? Going to use the scary voice to drive crows out of the corn fields? The farmers would thank you.”
Mikhael’s expression didn’t change. “It is time to prove your boast about your overpriced car.”
Ben blinked. Then his lips curved in a feral smile, the hard light in the green eyes becoming something else. “Ready to get your ass kicked, are you?”
Mikhael’s dark gaze flickered. “Actions speak louder than words, human.”
“Yes, they do, Lord of the Underworld.” Ben unbuckled the seat belt and lifted the door. But then he stopped.
Marcie gave him a curious look as he studied her. He raised his attention back to Mikhael. “It’s her car.”
Raina sat up, her braced arms holding her upright. Her dark hair fell forward over one shoulder and part of her eye. If Ferrari even hinted that each car purchased had been blessed by her body stretched out on the hood, they’d triple their sales. “You want shotgun?” Ben asked her. “Girls against boys?”
&nbs
p; “Ben.” Marcie reached out. “What are you doing?”
He leaned across the seat, cupped her jaw and gave her a firm kiss, one that turned deeper and had her stretching halfway over the steering wheel as he slid his other arm around her to hold her close, reach down and palm her buttock, squeeze. It was a kiss that promised serious, intense sex, possibly in the next few moments, so when he pulled back, she was breathless. A glance down showed her he was more than ready to deliver on the message. But he gave her another, unexpected one.
“I’m letting you kick his ass.”
Mikhael was still studying him as if he’d done something unexpected, and he certainly had. When Marcie emerged from the passenger side and paused, hand on the car, she found Raina was totally on board. She slid off the hood of the Ferrari with a grin and passed Mikhael with a playful bump against him. She came to Marcie with a pendulum swing of her hips that couldn’t help but keep both men’s attention—and hell, Marcie’s herself.
“Spoils go to the winners, boys,” Raina purred. She seemed to have recovered her usual aplomb, which helped Marcie feel better. As did her playfulness when the witch hooked Marcie around the neck. Her fingers wrapped over her collarbone, nails caressing her, before she brushed Marcie’s lips with hers. The light hand on Marcie’s waist and hip lingered as Raina tossed the men a teasing look over her shoulder. “Whoever that winner is.”
Ben shook his head at his wife as Marcie shot him a wicked grin and then circled around to take the driver’s side. He gave Raina props for getting his brat to smile after that shit show they’d endured. For his own part, he sauntered over to Mikhael’s side and joined him in watching the women take the front seat of the McLaren. Mikhael cocked his head at him. “I did not say you could ride with me.”
“You didn’t. But I’m not sucking your dick to get a ride, and she’ll get mad if you leave me behind. I recommend you accept the new situation.”
Mikhael’s lips twisted. “Marcie will come back to get you.”