Red Rain: Book 4, Night Series

by RS Black

  Nodding, I started at the beginning. “I asked her about the killings, asked her if she could give me any clues.”

  Cash shook his head. “And did she? Because I gotta say, there’s nothing left, man.” He scrubbed his jaw with slender fingers, sounding both disgusted and exhausted all at the same time.

  I felt one of the plugs in the lifeboat loosen as I said, “I don’t think so.” The words came out thick and gruff. I had to clear my throat twice before I could continue. “From what I could gather they are still pumping her full of demons.”

  “Oh, Dora.” Vyx turned her face to the side and if there was a wet sheen glistening in her emerald eyes, none of us pointed it out.

  “So she came to you? No tricks? No guns or death tight on her heels?” Bubba bit out, and I could see from the way he said it that he was trying desperately to make sense of what I was saying.

  But even I couldn’t be sure what to believe anymore.

  “No tricks. She warned me away. Us”—I glanced at them meaningfully—“away. She doesn’t want us to follow her, help her.”

  “That bitch,” Vyxen said, but there was no heat behind the word. “She would. That princess always did think she could do it all alone.” She slapped her hand on the table. “We’re right back to nothing, then.”

  “Not entirely.” I kicked out my leg, mimicking Bubba’s movements, and began tapping nervously on the table.

  Cash leaned forward eagerly. “If you’ve got another clue, man, now’s a great time for sharing.” The golden flare of Pride shone like a flame through his eyes. Where once he’d looked on the verge of a mental breakdown, now he seemed alert and ready to get back at it.

  I released a heavy breath. “I don’t think any of you are going to like it.”

  “Can’t be any worse than where we’re at right now,” Bubba growled.

  “Oh, I think it can.” I gave a half-hearted chuckle. “The second I mentioned Dean, Pandora came unhinged. My gut tells me that’s who we should have been tailing all along.”

  “Fuck that!” Cash jumped to his feet, pacing back and forth like a caged lion and glaring at me, his wild mane of red hair poking up around his head so that he almost resembled the feline beast in truth.

  Cash had never forgiven himself that night for not detecting Dean before it’d been too late. His Pride had been injured and he flogged himself each night, even still, as restitution for it.

  “Fuck me,” Bubba drawled, “You scented out that lying scum, Cash. Stop your caterwauling about it already.”

  “Already?” Cash twirled on his heel, eyes going full on gold now. “Already! You’d say that to me? I should have sensed that trap.” He thumped his chest. “Me, that I knew there were two souls around.”

  “He’s Death, for cripes sake,” Vyx sighed, “he’s a friggin’ ninja. You were never gonna sense him, Cash, so just get over yourself already.”

  Vyxen had suffered the loss of two very valuable Ming vases recently to one of Pride’s meltdowns.

  Cash took several deep, bellow-like breaths, before dropping back into his seat and glowering at all us, bristling like a cat that’d just been bathed.

  “You were saying?” Vyxen turned to me.

  I shrugged. “That was basically it. I asked her about genesis too. That and Dean, both hot-button topics—she went batshit, snapped my wing in half—”

  All three of them cringed at that.

  “—and left.”

  “So our only lead is to call for the undertaker?” Vyxen rolled her eyes. “Leave it to Dora to make this thing ten times harder than it has to be. Should just leave her ass to rot there.”

  She wrapped her lacquered fire-engine-red nails around her bicep and tapped out a silent melody. Vyxen voted at least once a night to leave Pandora to rot.

  I no longer had the energy to chastise her for it.

  Bubba scooted his chair back. “Too many nights with no sleep. I’m no good to any of you. But I’ll just say this: if Dean is our only lead, then we don’t have a choice.” He pinned Cash with a hard stare. “Not like we have any other options left to us.”

  “We could go find the Zombie Queen,” Cash suggested.

  Something I myself had considered many times, as she had the ability to hide her people in plain sight.

  “Only two problems with that idea.” Vyxen held up a hand. “One. The Queen made the deal with Dora, not us, so there’s nothing saying she needs to honor it now. Two. She’s useless to us at least until we know what this genesis thing is. We can’t have bodies behind us until we friggin’ know what we’re up against.”

  “I agree,” I nodded, “there’s nothing she can do for us in a situation like this. Though I don’t doubt that she’ll talk to me, since I was present when the deal was struck.”

  “Thank God for small miracles.” Bubba shook his head as he rubbed his chin rhythmically. “At least there’s some hope we won’t be fighting a war against Hell all by our lonesome.” He twirled his finger in the air as if to say “goodie.”

  “We have the berserkers too. Adam’s boys are in,” Vyxen added.

  “Might not be much,” I growled, “but I’d rather know we have something on our side. Our allies are few and far between.”

  Bubba shrugged. “Whatever. Talk to the death god, make him see that it’s in his best interest to get back on our good side, and meanwhile, I’m off to hit the hay.”

  “Go away.” Vyxen shooed him off. “I don’t like dealing with Grumpy McGrumpsters in my house, ’specially when I have to deal with that crap all day long in the carnival.”

  Bubba gave her an affectionate cuff to her ear before tracing off, leaving a scent of sulfur behind.

  Seeing the exchange between the two of them, I’m sure Pandora would have had some witty comment to make. Either the two of them were sleeping together, or...yeah, something like that. I wasn’t nearly as good at relational intercourse as she was.

  Swinging her crossed leg agitatedly, Vyxen raised a dark brow back at me.

  I lifted one of mine in return, waiting for a snappy, stupid comeback from her. Vyxen was known for the inappropriate. But she surprised me this time.

  “Don’t give up hope, Priest. The fact that she sought you out at all—there’s hope in that.”

  Flummoxed by her unexpected show of kindness, all I could do was stare at her with a tight frown.

  “What?” She shrugged, sounding slightly offended. “I would think by now you know there’s more in this brain than the shallow you see on the outside.” She waved a finger in front of her face.

  Over the last two years Vyxen had gone through a chrysalis type of metamorphosis, changing from something wild and eccentric to a Nephilim whose beauty could almost rival that of a Lust demon.

  Her hair hung in soft pink waves down her slender alabaster neck. Between that and her electric green eyes, sharp pixie-like face, and statuesque body, she often attracted hordes of mortal and immortal men to her booth.

  But no matter how beautiful the outer package, there was only one Neph in the entire world that could have ever tempted my fall into disgrace.

  “It’s not often you let your walls down.”

  “Well.” She brushed at imaginary crumbs on the tabletop. “Every once in a while honesty’s good for the soul. Pandora and I will probably never see eye to eye on everything, but she’s family. Hell, she’s more of a sister to me than my own flesh-and-blood one. Most days I want to stab her through the heart, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her either. You’ve always made her happy.” Her eyes traveled up and down my chest, and she snorted. “Why, I’m sure I’ll never know.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And I almost fell for it for a second. God, I’m getting soft.”

  Her lips twitched into half a smile. “She loves you. She must have fought like hell to come find you the way she did. We all saw what they did to her that night, what they’ve turned her into. Without you, Asher, I don’t think we stand a chance in hell of bringing her ba
ck. So I guess what I’m saying is, please don’t...” She paused, biting her full lower lip and glancing off to the side before saying, “Just don’t give up on her, okay. No matter what it takes.”

  “And what if it takes killing her body to make sure the Triad can’t force this abomination on her?”

  Her gaze snapped back to mine in an instant and her green eyes glittered with jeweled bands. “If anyone else had just said that to me”—she said it low—“I would have gutted them like a rotten fish, but I have a feeling that offing her would be just as painful for you.” She shook her head hard.

  I didn’t like talking about Pandora’s possible murder like it was nothing. Because it wasn’t nothing. It was everything to me. The thought of living in a world without her in it—it made ice burn through my veins. Made me feel hollow and cold. But I also knew that sometimes...there was no coming back, and I’d never put Pandora through the agony of that.

  Demon she might be. But she had a heart, had compassion, a soul for the less fortunate. Even if Ya-El fully took control of the body, Pandora was still inside there, still seeing what she was doing. I could never leave her to suffer that torment for an eternity.

  “If it comes to that,” I said softly, but with steely determination, “I’ll do what I have to, but just know I’d never make the decision lightly.”

  “No,” she said when I got to my feet, giving me a sad, slightly vacant look, “no, I don’t guess you would.”

  ~*~

  I knew trying to summon Dean within the carnival grounds would be asking for trouble. So I’d flown a fair distance away. Louisiana offered many isolated swamps to choose from.

  The night was misty and humid—the damp heat rising up from the marsh-soaked earth coated my body in a thick sheen of sweat. Fog swirled in sensuous white curls around my ankles as I stepped onto a small patch of semi-dry land. The thick shelter of trees and the constant snap and hiss of predators about meant there was very little chance of me stumbling upon a mortal.

  Nephilim would have followed my every movement once, would have set guards on me to keep a constant eye on my whereabouts. I snorted. Ironic how much I’d become one of them.

  Shaking my head, I shoved a dead tree limb aside and walked into a small clearing. I glanced at the silver-dusted navy sky and took a deep breath, every nerve in my body not wanting to do what I was about to do.

  “Dean, you rotten bastard, show yourself!”

  I yelled it, knowing full well it was possible to summon a being of his power with much less force, but not being much in the mood to be cordial.

  A bullfrog croaked.

  I squinted as a stiff breeze rolled through, rattling dead leaves.

  A minute. Two minutes. Three minutes went by.

  “C’mon, you sick pervert,” I muttered, rolling my sleeves up, “you gonna make me do this the old-fashioned way, then?” With a snarl, I reached into my pocket and yanked out a dirk, missing the convenience of Pandora’s claws as I swiped the sharpened blade across the section of burnt and withered flesh on my wrist.

  Pandora had once wondered if I could love her still with all her scars. I had my own, and sometimes—like now—I wondered what she’d think of these new ones.

  Grinding my molars and ignoring the flare of fire arcing across my bloody wrist, I tipped it over, allowing several drops to fall to the ground.

  The blood hissed as it struck the earth.

  “Asher, son of Greed, summons you, Dean, horseman of the Apocalypse, also known as—”

  “Little formal, aren’t we?”

  The moment I heard the lazy drawl I twirled on my heel, adrenaline flooding my body, making me angry, furious. I clenched my fists, biting into my tongue as I stared at the Italian-loafer-wearing Death.

  He looked exactly as he had the last time I’d seen him. Dressed in dove-gray slacks, with a black button-down shirt and a white silk tie. His tricolored eyes—red around the edge, light blue in between, and then a startling pinprick of jeweled green at their center—stared back at me with laughter gleaming in them.

  “Well, well, well,” Dean, who leaned casually against the base of a large white oak tree, said. “Look what the cat’s dragged in.”

  “You fucking prick!” I snapped, unable to bite my tongue another minute.

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “I get that sometimes. Anyway, you’ve summoned me. Though why, I’m sure I don’t know.”

  Suddenly this idea seemed worse than bad. It was a pride-swallowing siege to have to stare my mortal enemy straight in the face and not try to rip his head from his neck.

  My hands flexed by my sides as his lips twitched with suppressed laughter.

  “So?” Dean licked his front teeth. “A swamp.” He glanced around. “Would have expected something a little more classy from you, Ash.”

  I jerked at the sound of that name. “Don’t call me that. You can never call me that.”

  Holding his hands palm up, he shrugged. “Got it. Now can we get on with business? Because if you don’t know, I’m a rather busy man.”

  “Man.” I snorted. “You’re one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse; I don’t think man really applies to you.”

  “Semantics.” He straightened up. “And you’re stalling. I’m gonna give you one more minute before I decide you’ve wasted my time.”

  Pandora. I closed my eyes, for Pandora.

  “She told me to stay away from you.” I forced the words past my numb lips. “Which means you know something and...” I bit down on my tongue hard enough to bleed, filling my throat with the metallic waft of my own blood. “I need to know whatever that is.”

  “Hm. By she, I’m assuming you mean the little lusty demon we both know and love.”

  I took a step forward. And then another, until now only a mere few yards separated us. Holding up a finger, I gave him a hard, glacial stare down.

  That look might have quelled many, but not Death. Never Death. There were very few immortals in this life; he, however, was definitely one of them.

  Laughing, Dean rolled his eyes. “Do the pissing matches ever end? Seriously, because I’m so over them. Never fear, Priest, your little demon”—he stressed the name, taunting me with his delivery of it—“is untouched.” His eyes gleamed, almost glowing in the darkness.

  My nostrils flared.

  “Oh, lighten up, Priest.” Dean rolled his eyes. “Look, when I said I’m busy, I meant it. Pandora is fighting like hell to hang on to who she is, but she knows, as do I, that unless she kills off that part of her humanity she will shatter.”

  “So why didn’t you stop her? You wanted to stop Armageddon once before; what’s changed?”

  His nose curled. “I’m not her bodyguard. In fact, the woman is free to pretty much do whatever she wants.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I’m not here to convince you of that. Apart from the fact that Pan-Ya—as I sometimes think of her, that woman is seriously conflicted—anyway, she’s dedicated in service to her master—”

  “Who happens to be?”

  His mouth snapped shut, and then he gave a soft, almost exasperated chuckle. “You met him. Dr. Dick in a white lab coat. Really swell guy.”

  Thoroughly confused not only by Dean’s willingness to share, but also the antipathy laced through his words, I cocked my head.

  “You almost sound like you don’t like him.”

  “I fucking loathe him.” He leaned back against the tree again and crossed his ankles. “When the time comes I’m planning a very special surprise for him.” He rubbed his hands together with a gleeful glint in his colorful eyes.

  I shook my head. “So you really are that mercenary? Feelings be damned?”

  Dark brown eyebrows lifting almost to his hairline, Dean nodded. “I rarely lie. Unlike most everyone else in this world, lying gets tedious for me after a while. Try remembering an eternity worth of lies and see how you like it. Nah, much easier to just tell the truth.”

  “Why are yo
u talking to me now? Why haven’t you called my lien due?”

  “’Cause I’m not done with you yet. You’ve still got a job to do.”

  “A job to do?” I scrubbed a hard fist down my jaw and then flung my arm out. “What job? What?” My voice raised in pitch. I was sick and tired of all the games, all the lies, all the half-clues. I just wanted some answers, something concrete that I could cling to.

  Dean frowned. “Really? You really haven’t figured it out yet?” Sighing, he closed his eyes as if in exasperation, which only pissed me off worse.

  “Well, how about you share some of your omniscience with me, then?”

  “Omniscience.” He laughed. “I wish. But then again, maybe I don’t. I already know way too much. Think, Priest, what did I tell you back at the Twilight House?”

  Trying to force my angry, muddied mind back to those days wasn’t easy, but I managed. “I remember you wanted her to read that book.”

  He waved his hand. “Before that.”

  “That I was the King.”

  He held up a finger. “Ahh, so the little Jedi does remember.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well, that’s been entirely screwed, hasn’t it? You screwed us all over.”

  “Pft.” He gave me an amused look. “I never promised you or her fealty. If you recall I did say that if either one of you screwed me I’d put an end to you. That’s about the only promise I made.”

  “So why am I still around? You have her. I’m a fallen King. You’ve switched sides.”

  His gaze never wavered from my face as he picked at his nails with a lackadaisical air.

  “Have I?” He grinned. “Are you? Do I?”

  “What?” I glowered, in no mood to try and play nice.

  Dean shook his head. “Stop thinking with this thing.” He tapped his chest. “And start thinking with your damn brain for a minute. What do you know is true?”

  “I know she’s gone. I know Dr. Dick has her marking. I know Ya-El is in control.”

  To each one of my statements he nodded. “Right. But there’s more, right? Because there’s always more, isn’t there? It’s not about the mark. Or having Ya-El—you saw for yourself tonight, Pandora is still inside there.”