Cry, Nike! (The Judas Curse)

by Angella Graff

  Cry, Nike!

  By Angella Graff

  Book Three of The Judas Curse

  Cry, Nike!

  By Angella Graff

  Amazon Exclusive Contentto a t

  Copyrighted © 2013 by Angella Graff

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and characters portrayed are used fictitiously, or are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual persons living or deceased, business establishments, locales or events are purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be printed, scanned or distributed in print or electronic form without permission of the author.

  Other works by Angella Graff

  The Judas Curse Series:

  Book One: The Awakening

  Book Two: The Judas Kiss

  The Alexandra Fry, Private Eye Series:

  Book One: Curse of the Lion’s Heart

  For more information on future works visit

  http://angellagraffbooks.wordpress.com

  https://www.facebook.com/AngellaGraffAuthor

  For my gorgeous husband, three amazing children, I couldn’t do this without you. Thanks to my fantastic beta-readers, to Tiffery for this amazing book cover, and Delena for your amazing work tidying up what would otherwise be total rubbish. For Alexis, my dearest friend and always confidant, thank you for keeping me sane. I love you all!

  Prologue

  The small house they were renting, just outside of the city limits, was barely big enough for two, let alone the four, sometimes five people they were cramming under the small, brown-thatched roof. The house itself was near the edge of a cliff, overlooking the rocky shores of the San Francisco Bay.

  In the distance, boats moved by all day every day. Sometimes fishing boats heading out to sea, other times giant passenger liners, or a ferry traveling out to Alcatraz Island with tourists ready to voyage out to the haunting prison.

  Jude had no desire to go out there. His life, his immortality, was its own prison, and the last thing he needed to dwell on was being trapped with no hope of escape. He mostly kept to himself in the short time they were there. A home base, Mark called it, and Stella laughed because honestly that just sounded so ridiculous. They’d never really had a home base before, so the notion of trying to create one now, with everything going on, was ludicrous.

  The only real thing Jude liked about the house was the wrap-around porch, covered to block out the gusting winds coming off the water. The wood beneath his bare feet was rough from years of salt air scrubbing off the varnish and paint, and it creaked with almost every step.

  Around the back, a large swing made of wicker hung from hooks attached to the roof with heavy, silver chains, rusted in only a couple of spots. It was sound, covered in water-proof cushions that had a faint odor of sea-weed and salt. He liked it there; he liked the cool air on his face, and watching the fog roll in off the rocks every afternoon like clockwork.

  He liked it because no one else did, so no one bothered to join him in his solitude. He was still hurting physically, and though his body was healing, whatever drug the psychotic goddess had pushed into his veins had likely come close to truly killing him. He didn’t remember much of the events following the moment when she injected the serum through his eye and directly into his brain, but what he did remember was pain. Blinding hot, searing pain. He remembered the taste of blood in his mouth, the coppery smell as the red liquid poured from his nose, the sting in his eyes as it dripped from his tear ducts.

  He remembered the feel of the concrete beneath him as his entire body seized and shook, the foul stench as his bowels and bladder emptied, and the absolute inability to move. When he fully came to in the safe house, another Mark word, he’d been mostly cleaned up, and he had only the pain to keep him company as the rest of the group attempted to come up with some sort of plan.

  Jude was torn. It was true, the pain gave him reason to fight that crazy bitch, reason to try and stop her, if only to prevent another living soul from having to suffer her wrath. However, he was just absolutely and completely done. He was tired, he was weary, and he existed just outside of his ability to truly care.

  He could see the passion in Ben’s eyes, the concern over his safety, which perplexed Jude because Ben didn’t really know him, but he remembered what it was like to care about someone who had no regard for who you were. In truth, that was the story of Jude’s life, his past and very often his future. Ben didn’t care that he was completely apathetic, he merely wanted to ensure that Jude and Mark, and honestly any of the others, never suffered the way they had before. From the violent torture Nike seemed to enjoy inflicting on unsuspecting souls.

  Sometimes, when Jude could divorce himself from the memories of the pain, and memories of his past, it was nice to be around them. The others. He enjoyed knowing the secret of Persephone, and watching the Norse god inside of the young kid experience and find enjoyment in human food, drink, moods and activities.

  He’d never really felt part of a group or family since he was a young, ordinary mortal, and even then he’d always felt apart from them. Now these people were here, protecting him, yes. Protecting the world as well from what his gifts could do to life as they knew it, but also because, for whatever reason, they cared. He could feel it emanating from them, pouring from their unspoken thoughts. They actually cared, and beyond that was a love simply because they were capable of loving.

  These were things Jude had forgotten humanity was capable of, these little things, little gestures and conversations. Moments where Stella would bring him a hot cup of tea, or Ben would prepare a large meal for everyone, reminded Jude of the good in humans. The things in the world that were worth saving.

  So he might not have been ready just yet to give his full attention, full power, and full strength to their cause, but he was getting there. He had no intention of letting Nike carry out her plans, and he was at least ready to align as much as he could with the others.

  With a deep sigh, Jude snuggled deeper into the cotton blanket he’d taken with him earlier that morning. The wind was picking up, the fog heavier than it had been in days, and he could feel something stirring in the air. It wasn’t Nike, not yet, but there had been a shift. Something had happened, and Jude realized that before long, they would need to start gearing up for a war.

  Chapter One

  He’d been in the car for about twenty minutes now, daring himself to open the door and step out onto the pavement. He’d chosen a spot in guest parking, far from the spaces where the veteran detectives he’d known for years would see him and start to ask questions. He needed to do this. It was important. He could feel the sharp edges of his resignation letter in his pocket, digging through the fabric and into his skin.

  It was worded simply, just a thank you for letting me serve for this many years, I’ll never regret a moment, I’m sorry I have to leave, blah, blah, blah. It was Alex, the ad executive human host for the god Thor who’d written it. He had a fairly fantastic way with words, and Ben signed off on the letter after reading it through once. His boss was going to know it wasn’t his writing, but it didn’t really matter.

  With a sigh, Ben reached for the door handle and froze, his hand poised in midair. It was a foggy, rainy day down at the precinct, typical for a San Francisco spring, and he thought briefly about just abandoning ship and heading over to the boardwalk for a bowl of soup and maybe a small bag of those cinnamon doughnut holes.

  He pulled down his mirror and checked his reflection. He didn’t look too bad. His dark hair was longer than he normally wore it, and his eyes were surrounded by dark circles from lack of sleep. It wasn’t really a surprise to Ben that he looked so off. With
being just a week and a half out from rescuing Mark and Judas after Nike’s vicious torture, he hadn’t quite found the time to grab a haircut and get a good night’s sleep.

  They were staying in some house off the coast, north of the city, that Alex had arranged. It would have been fine, too, even with Andrew, or Heimdall as Ben was starting to think of him more often, and his awkward attitude as he tried to adjust being human. Heimdall, who had been a Norse god that had stuck around for the earthly elements, was trying to adjust. He’d learned to fire a gun and navigate the internet, but holding a conversation with him was difficult. Sometimes he was perfectly normal, and others he appeared just not quite sentient.

  Ben rubbed his eyes roughly and blinked against the stars that flared up in his vision. He grabbed his travel mug filled with coffee and gulped it down. It was still painfully hot, but that burn in the back of his throat brought him back to reality. He let his eyes slip closed for a moment and took a deep breath. He had to do this.

  It wasn’t just Mark and Andrew pressing him to cut ties with the department either, though they were the ones who came up with the idea. Alex seemed to think Ben was kidding, even as he’d written the letter for him, but Stella had been full force insisting that Ben go through with that.

  Of course, Stella was an entirely new issue. Despite his feelings for the San Diego detective, now that Ben knew she’d been hiding the secret of harboring a goddess inside of her from time to time, Ben found his patience with her waning. He didn’t trust her, and it was stirring in him a resentment he hadn’t expected.

  It wasn’t really fair, either, because Ben did understand her reasons for keeping it safe. When she’d first met Ben, he was on Jude’s missing persons case, and he was still struggling to wrap his mind around the fact that any of the gods, powers, possessions and healings were actually happening. He had just gotten over nearly dying of a brain tumor, and the spontaneous miracle healing. If Stella had told him the truth, he wouldn’t have believed her, and he would have lost his one ally who gave him reason to keep going.

  Still, it didn’t stop his anger at her and the situation. The search for Mark and Judas likely would have gone a lot differently if she’d just come clean and told him the truth. If he’d known before the funeral, if he’d known that something was off, he might have done something. He might have tried to help Mark when the immortal had asked for it.

  Ben groaned inwardly, recalling the explosion site, recalling the moment he broke into Nike’s hideout and saw the battered, bleeding bodies of Mark and Jude. Stomach churning, Ben recalled the gun going off and his sister falling to the ground. He felt all over again, like it was happening right then, the emotion and raw pain as he watched Abby take her last breath.

  He remembered clearly feeling Jude’s powers coursing through him, bringing breath and life back into his sister’s body, but it was a feeling he didn’t like to dwell on. That moment, taking those powers, awakened something inside of Ben that terrified him. Something that just didn’t belong inside him, though he couldn’t ignore that it felt… organic.

  He finished off the coffee and tossed the empty tumbler onto the seat. His car was a little bit of a mess, considering their little group had been living out of vehicles for a while now, and that didn’t look like it would be coming to an end any time soon. He missed his bed. He missed his apartment and his routine, his shower and his couch where right now nirvana was the idea of laying along the cushions, drinking a beer, having some pizza and forgetting names related to any form of theology.

  God, what he would give to just rewind time.

  Ben reached into his pocket and touched the letter. It was now or never. He’d chosen his side, chosen his path, at least for the time being. Maybe he’d come back to this life some day, but honestly, he wasn’t sure he ever could. Not now, not knowing what was out there. How would it be on murder scenes after this? What would he say, what would he do during an investigation if he saw one of them. He couldn’t tell the force, they wouldn’t believe him and he didn’t need another psych-eval. He didn’t need them thinking he’d cracked because of his sister’s murder.

  No, he was ready for this. He was ready to say goodbye to this life, and turn his back on it for good. After everything he’d been through, and everything he knew, what choice did he have?

  ~*~

  His hand was trembling as he poised his clenched fist above the metal door to his boss’s office. His knuckles were white, and try as he might, Ben couldn’t seem to steady his wrist. He hadn’t wanted to do this in the first place, but the last thing they needed, Mark had insisted, was Ben’s loyal colleagues sending out a search party, or assuming something had gone wrong.

  The moment one of his officer friends noticed Ben’s apartment had been abandoned, they’d come looking. Ben had been with the department for way too long to just go MIA on them. He knew Mark and Andrew were right, but this was the last thing he wanted to do. The police chief, Albert Ole, had been leaving messages for Ben for the last week and a half, but he hadn’t been able to listen to them.

  Ben’s leave of absence had been scheduled for four days, max, and it wasn’t like Ben to just not return to work. Facing the guilt his boss was likely to throw at him wasn’t really something Ben was interested in doing. But more than that, Ben was a little bit concerned. When he escaped the building that Mark and Jude had been trapped in, they’d left behind his sister’s unconscious body, and the corpse of a man who was likely a missing hospital patient that the Greeks had stolen.

  Not only that, but when they ran out onto the street, none of them had bothered to consider the security footage from the cameras lining the street. Those cameras had provided the way to where Nike had taken Mark and Jude to begin with, and once the dead body was found, assuming the Greeks didn’t take it with them, Ben would be identified leaving the scene of the crime.

  Now, as he stood in front of his boss’s door, prepared to knock and turn in his letter of resignation, he realized it was likely he wouldn’t be leaving the station a free man. But, he thought to himself with a wry, almost sarcastic grin, maybe prison would be better than traipsing around the country with an awkward god hiding in a drug addict, and a couple of borderline psychopaths from Biblical history.

  Ben had to suppress a laugh, though it was due more to stress than the actual humor of the situation. It was now or never. The other detectives and officers had already seen him, waved hello, and expressed concern for his absence. None of them looked like they were about to book him, but in truth, cops were good actors, they had to be, and he honestly had no idea what was coming.

  He clenched the letter in his left hand, crushing the paper a bit, and he knocked. The sound was loud, a sort of hollowed metal sound rushing through the station floor. He paused, and after a moment he heard, “Come in!”

  With a deep breath, Ben pushed down on the silver hook-shaped handle and walked inside. Albert’s office, which was always kept at tropical temperatures which Ben could never tolerate for long, was small but comfortable with a micro-suede couch, and several shelves lined with crime-novels; something almost all of the employees at the precinct mocked him for.

  Albert, who was at his desk bent over a stack of papers, did a double take when Ben walked through the door. He looked tired, his dark skin almost stretched over his bones, clearly having dropped weight from stress. His salt-and-pepper hair had gone even whiter, and his eyes were surrounded by almost blue-black circles.

  “My god, you’re alive,” he said after a tense moment of silence.

  Ben let out a breath, shrugged in an almost helpless way and gave a nervous chuckle. “Yeah I uh… well some stuff came up.”

  Albert was immediately on his feet, crossing around his desk, he approached Ben with an angry look on his face. “I thought you were dead.”

  “What exactly made you think that?”

  Frowning, the captain took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest. “You disappeared, Stanford. You just dropped
off the face of the earth.”

  Ben gave a tense, embarrassed laugh and scratched the back of his head. “I swear, boss, it was unintentional. Things got out of hand.”

  “You’ve never done anything like this before, Stanford. Ever, and you’ve been in some pretty terrible situations. Even deep under cover I could always count on you to check in with me.”

  There it was, that guilt, and Ben was immediately regretting setting foot in the station. He wondered if he could just…go. If he could turn tail and run, and hope they just forgot he’d come in. Hope that they’d just assume he was dead and that would be that. It was a ridiculous thought, of course, and Ben knew he had to face his boss. Mark was right on that count, they could not afford having police on their tail. It would not end well, for them or for the officers getting involved.

  “Was it your sister?” Albert asked.

  Ben’s face lit up red and his hands gave an involuntary tremble. “Look, I realize you all think I need to spend more time mourning her—” Ben started, but the look on Albert’s face stopped him mid-sentence. He frowned and asked, “What?”

  Albert swallowed thickly. “You haven’t uh… you haven’t gotten any strange phone calls? Any sort of contact related to your sister, have you?”

  Ben pursed his lips, determined not to let the emotions display so readily on his face. There was no way, no way Albert could possibly know. Unless… “Why?” he asked, and he was terrified of the answer.

  “You might want to sit down for this.” Albert’s eyes were shifty, a sign he was keeping something important from Ben. But it was different. It wasn’t accusatory at all. Albert looked almost, sad. Like he was about to rip out Ben’s heart and stomp on it. “I have something to show you,” he said quietly. He took Ben’s arm, the way Ben had seen him do with the families of vics, and he led him across the room.