by Misty Evans
I stepped around him, heading in Maddy’s direction. Arman’s werecat scent tickled my nose, indicating he wasn’t far behind.
Before I took three steps, Moreno slid into step with me, jostling human blockades out of his way. “Who is the suspect? What do you want him for?”
Seriously? This was how it was going to go? “I must insist you don’t interfere.”
We parted to get around some dancers. “And I insist you produce your credentials and a valid reason for being here.”
Sometimes the good guys were a pain in my ass. With a nod from me, Maddy came to the rescue. She grabbed Moreno, said, “Hello, arm candy,” and swung him away, dragging him into the crowd with her lovely face and superior vamp strength.
Toward the back of the warehouse, I spotted my target half carrying, half dragging a drunken girl toward the rear of the building. The strobe lights didn’t reach that far, but I could feel the various human and supernatural energies of couples making out in the dark as I fought through the crowd. Arman raised his hand and pointed at a side door. I gave him the go ahead and watched him slip outside. Lamir was headed for a rear garage door we’d scoped out earlier. I’d follow him out that way and Arman would come at him from the west side. My blood tingled, telling me Maddy had already lost Moreno and was covering my six.
Sensing my approach, Lamir glanced up, his gaze meeting mine across the dark expanse. He froze.
My nerves shifted into overdrive. Volante, my whip, vibrated against my hips. I’d used her as a belt around my skirt since in such tight quarters she was useless as a weapon.
Beelining for Lamir, I hustled several kids out of the way, pushing for the rear of the building. In those few seconds, understanding dawned and Lamir’s fight or flight instinct kicked in.
Lucky me, he decided to try both.
Chapter Two
As I cleared the crowd and dived into the darkness at the back of the building, Lamir held the girl like a shield in front of him. Her long, blonde hair swung over her shoulders as she laughed, high and loose, seeming to think he was playing a game. Grinding her hips against his groin, she kept her head down and ran her hands over his body.
His unblinking bug-eyes stayed locked on me. I’d made it within twenty feet when he picked up the girl, raised her over his head, and threw her like a Frisbee.
Her high-pitched laughter turned into a scream. Reflexively, I dropped my protection shields so she wouldn’t ricochet off them and hit the concrete walls or floor. I raised my hands to catch her, not missing the fact Lamir used that moment to run outside.
The girl’s dead weight hit me hard, but I stayed standing. I righted her, ignoring her continuing screams, and took off after Lamir.
Behind me, I heard a familiar voice yelling at Red Riding Hood to stop. I kept running.
Bursting through the garage door and into the night, the January air chilled my overheated skin. I drank in several deep breaths to clear my lungs and nose as I scanned the area. My sensitive ears locked onto Lamir’s retreating footsteps and after a few steps in that direction, my nose picked up his demon scent—a combination of mold and sulfur. Arman came around the building, his nostrils flaring as he, too, fastened onto Lamir’s scent.
Maddy dropped down from the roof. I didn’t need to say anything to my team. I motioned for one to go right, the other left. I would take the middle. Between the three of us, we’d sandwich the sucker.
Five minutes later, the demon bully groveled at my feet, held down by Maddy. Damon and the other Bridge Council members had already determined that past demands Lamir stop feeding on humans had been disregarded. Three times. The old three-strike-rule was in play. Hence, my job as enforcer was to send him back where he belonged—hell. Placing my ring fingers and thumbs together, I raised my magic. Cool blue light encircled me and a powerful energy charged my blood. Goose flesh rippled over my skin.
From a hidden cape pocket, I withdrew a silver blade. Maddy forced Lamir’s head up so I could look him in the eye.
“Please, don’t kill me,” he pleaded. “I’ll start over. Live human-free.”
Right. Like I hadn’t heard that before. “Vengeance is mine,” I said and plunged the knife deep into his heart.
When it comes to revenge, I dole it out like candy. Demons like Lamir are the worst of the worst. If I ran the Bridge Council, they wouldn’t even get one warning, much less three.
As his physical form shriveled and turned to watery mold, Maddy made vomiting noises in the back of her throat. “So gross. I need a drink.”
With nothing much left of the demon, Arman sidled up next to her. The poor kid had it bad, his werecat eyes jumping to her face and away, back to her face. Needy. “We could go back to the party. You know, if you want to hang out.”
Maddy, oblivious to his crush, turned to me. “Can we go back to your place?”
My place was akin to O’Hare Airport these days with five new roommates, each of them a combination of one of the deadly sins and its opposite virtue. Like me, each vitium was a hybrid of good and evil. I found their virtues as annoying as their vices. “Might as well. You can’t go back to the rave.”
“Why not?”
“That undercover cop questioned me and he’ll be looking for answers to Lamir’s dramatic exit.”
“I mind-melded him.” Maddy made some kind of Vulcan whirling motion with her fingers around her temples. “The guy won’t remember a thing.”
“Fancy.” That was a skill I wish I had. No such luck even with the vampire blood running in my system. “Still, I better ditch my cape for a while. He’ll remember that.”
Arman raised the hood of his sweatshirt and shivered. “Who’s up for some hot chocolate and a bad action flick?”
My phone rang the beginning notes of Whisper in the Dark, a haunting ballad a certain half-Chaos demon posing as a rock star had written for me. Earlier that evening, I’d left him in my bed playing his favorite guitar and prepping for his upcoming Super Bowl half-time performance he and the guys were doing. The short winter days and long nights provided substantial working time, but were hell on my love life.
Me with a love life? The thought made me chuckle. Here I was, an uptight vengeance demon who’d been stood up at the altar and sworn off the very notion of love, knee-deep in it.
I held up my phone. “Gotta take this. You guys need a ride?”
Maddy shook her head no at the same time Arman nodded yes. Poor kid. Being a vamp, Maddy preferred leaping from rooftop to rooftop and running at high speeds even in the dead of winter over riding in a warm car. She grabbed his hand and took off running.
I walked east through the deserted neighborhood toward the vehicle I’d left a block away. If the South Side vandals hadn’t stolen the tires, I’d be back at the Institute shy of fifteen minutes. “What’s up?” I said into the phone.
Radison Beaumont’s voice was dark, sexy and all male. “Me. How soon can you get here?”
Potent heat surged in my body. “My night doesn’t end until sun up. I’ll bring breakfast and see you in a couple of hours.”
“Make it twenty minutes.”
Il pistolino was too demanding for his own good. I bristled at being ordered around, but the female side of me couldn’t help teasing him. “Or what?”
He chuckled low and soft. Dangerous. “Or I’ll show up at the Institute wearing nothing but my Fender, and I’ll give your boss something to remember when I take you on his desk.”
Rad in his birthday suit was drool worthy and I enjoyed the image. There was no love lost between him and Damon and I was the reason for their ongoing pissing match, but I wasn’t impressed with the threat that he was going to mark his territory.
“Yeah, yeah, promises, promises. The ugly truth is, Radison, I’m not a rock star. I don’t get to make my own hours, and I have two more items on my enforcer list and a dozen Sweet Investigations cases waiting at my office. So keep your clothes on, write a new song, and I’ll see you in a couple of hours. For
breakfast,” I emphasized.
Before I made an idiot of myself and gave into his demands, I hung up. Thinking about Rad made my blood boil—in a good way—and it always, always, got me into trouble.
I jogged the last half block to my car. Things were eerily quiet just past midnight. It was only nine degrees out. The human population in this part of town was rough, tough, and mean, but not stupid. Even the independent and mentally unstable homeless folks found shelter when it was this cold.
I raised my protective shields anyway. A few minutes later, I was glad I did.
Chapter Three
My car still had tires, windows and headlights. Bonus. I blessed the locals for leaving it alone and punched the key fob. The driver’s side door unlocked, but before I got in, I stopped and scanned the shadows of a nearby abandoned house. Someone’s aura tickled over my exposed skin.
The yard was covered in snow. A leafless tree stood wearily in the corner of the lot, limbs sinking toward the ground. A chain link fence, now ripped open in spots and rusting, lined the property.
Scanning…scanning…
There. Along the north side of the building. A presence.
Human or supernatural? I sniffed the air, reached out with my other senses.
Human. Female.
“Hello,” I called. “Do you need help?”
No answer. No movement. Her aura was clear, no distress. Maybe a touch of excitement, but nothing negative. No drugs or alcohol impairing her body.
Okay, then. She didn’t need help. Maybe she was on her way to the rave or meeting someone in secret. None of my business. “Do you need a ride somewhere? Do you want me to call you a cab?”
Again no answer, but I would have sworn I heard a breathless chuckle, saw a small white plume of breath freezing in the bitter cold air where she stood.
My hackles went up. The hard scent of metal drifted past my nose, followed by the ominous stench of the Catholic Church.
Noctifector.
Merde.
Shifting slowly, I withdrew Volante from my waist and palmed her handle. She coiled around my arm, vibrating at the adrenaline and dark intent flowing through me. She loved the taste of blood and was hoping for a snack.
The problem with Noctifectors—a demon-slaying group of highly-trained humans—is that they travel in packs. It’s the only way they can overcome their supernatural targets, and they consider all supes an abomination to God. Doesn’t matter that I protect humans, I’m still number one on their Most Wanted demon list.
I scanned the area more intently, searching for more humans. Except for the ravers behind me, there were none in a three block spread. What was a Noctifector doing in this section of Chicago in the middle of the night without backup?
As if reading my mind, she stepped away from the house. There was no moon, only dirty snow and shadows playing tag. Her boots made soft crunching noises; the hood on her coat hid her face. “He can’t leave the Order, you know.”
That voice. Cultured, soft around the consonants. A whiff of peppermint on the night air.
“Parker?” My blood ran hot and vengeful. Human or not, I wanted her dead. “Rad can do whatever he wants. He owes you nothing. You forced him into servitude. Forced him to hunt down his own kind. If that’s not sinful, I don’t know what is.”
“I didn’t come to argue semantics, Kali Sweet. I came to warn you. The Church is pressing for an all-out manhunt—or should I say, demon hunt—to bring him back to Rome. You know what will happen to him if my group succeeds, right?”
She let the threat hang on the cold night air. “He’ll be tortured and burned at the stake. His heart will be cut out and he’ll be damned to Hell for all eternity.”
I blanched, gripping Volante’s handle tighter. Of her own volition, she slid off my arm and cracked her tip against the street. “I won’t let you get anywhere near him.”
Her voice was purposely light. Her aura growing more excited. “Can you protect him twenty-four, seven?”
Rad could protect himself. If Parker thought her silly mind games would work on me, it was time to give her a dose of her own medicine. “You love him, Parker. Why would you allow the Church to hurt him?”
“He deserves to be hurt.”
“You’re sick.”
She cocked her head under the hood. “I’m a vessel of the Divine and Radison Beaumont is the antichrist. It’s my job to hunt him down and make him pay for his sins against humanity.”
“The antichrist?” I laughed loud and hard. “You really need to see someone about these delusions.”
She stepped closer, adjusted her hood so I could see her face. A weird sort of pleasure shown on it. There was a manic gleam in her eyes. “You don’t know, do you?”
More games. “Know what?”
Giggling, she paced in a small circle. “How is that possible? Or perhaps you do know, but you’re protecting him…” She stopped, met my eyes again. “Is that it? You think you can protect the White Horseman from us?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. You broke the first seal of the apocalypse, you and the other deadly sins, and now you’re harboring the antichrist.”
I reached for the car door handle. “Go get your meds checked, Parker. You’re losing your grip on reality.”
“Wait.” She advanced so she stood on the other side of the car, looking at me across the roof. “You want to protect Rad? Let’s make a deal.”
I hate deals. Negotiating is one of my strong points. “I’m listening.”
The manic light was still present in her eyes as she smiled. “Let me arrest you and turn you over to the Pope. In return, I’ll derail the Church’s mission to crucify Rad.”
This would be why I hate deals. “You could do that? Get the Church off Rad’s back?”
“Could I do it? Of course, but would I do it? That’s the real question. I’m offering you a once in a lifetime deal here. Think about it.” Her voice exuded confidence, but she walked backwards until she reached the house’s shadow, keeping an eye on me. “I’ll be in touch.”
Snow crunched under her boots as she drifted away. I stood, waiting. Thinking.
Planning.
“Before the moon is full,” I murmured to her presence still lingering on the edges of my supernatural radar, “I will grind your bones to dust and sprinkle them in my morning coffee.”
Chapter Four
To the casual human observer, The Bridge Institute looks like an oversized warehouse surrounded by a couple of similar but smaller buildings and multiple parking lots along Lake Michigan. Glamours hide the true façade of an elegant modern building encased in enough magical protection spells to scare the devil himself away.
Although it was after midnight, the interior was lit like the middle of the day. We work at night when supernaturals are most powerful and most active. Damon and his counterparts, Kirill and Yasmin, live at the Institute and work pretty much nonstop. At least Damon does.
So when I climbed the stairs to the second floor offices and found his empty, I was surprised. He refused to have an assistant or secretary to track his whereabouts and keep him organized. Mostly, I suspect, because his previous six secretaries had all fallen hard for him, creating more drama and turmoil than he cared to deal with. Besides, no one in the Institute was more organized than Damon.
My bloodhound nose tracked his smoky wood scent to the basement training center where I stopped and stared in shock. He was wearing nothing but black drawstring pants and sparring with Cole, our resident War demon. Cole regularly trained me and the other supernatural soldiers working for the Council with regimented glee.
But I’d never seen Damon, or any of the Council members, in the training center working out with him.
I’d also never seen Damon in anything but three-thousand dollar Italian silk suits. I kept blinking, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me.
Holy cow, my boss is…hot.
The shock on my face
drew Damon’s attention. As he noticed my gaping jaw and wide eyes, he smiled, and then proceeded to land a solid blow to Cole’s right kidney.
Showoff.
“Impressive,” I called over the smacking and thudding of their gloved fists as they continued to spar. “Do I get to go next?”
“I’m next,” a diminutive voice said from the bleachers.
In my shock, I hadn’t noticed there was an audience. Three of my fellow vitiums watched the show from the sidelines.
“Kali, luv, join us,” Shane, also known as Leviathan and owner of gluttony, patted the bench next to him. He was the size of a Viking and had an accent I associated with the Australian outback although I was sure he’d never been there.
Seraphina, our female Amazon warrior and owner of envy, watched the show with stern attention, her turquoise eyes like neon lights against her dark skin. Her complete opposite, Akimo, the owner of the tiny voice, even tinier frame and a boat load of greed, nodded her head at me. She was going to take on Damon? That I had to see.
Parker’s proposal couldn’t be ignored, however. “I hate to interrupt the show, but I need to speak to you,” I said to Damon. “It’s important.”
Shane stood and spread his hands. “Speak freely. What is important to you is important to all of us.”
“It’s…” Admitting the truth seemed weak, but there it was. “Personal.”
Damon and Cole continued their sparring, but hearing the tone of my voice, Damon stepped back from the fight and slitted his eyes at me. “Did you not dispatch Lamir?”
His voice was chastising, stabbing at my pride. His assumption, however, was warranted, given that I’d hunted Lamir over multiple nights and every time the bugger had gotten away.
Didn’t stop the reprimand from stinging.
“I dispatched—” what the hell kind of word was that for killing a demon? “Lamir just fine, thank you very much, and my report will be on your desk before sunrise. This matter has to do with a certain…Noctifector.”