Why the Devil Stalks Death

by L. J. Hayward

  Jack trained his sight on the bastard. Just because he wasn’t obviously armed didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. “Not exactly surprised, Constable Toomey. I figured it out ages ago.” What was a little white lie between enemies?

  “Clever. Of course, you didn’t work it out soon enough to help poor Adam Quinn. Don’t feel sad about that, though. He didn’t work it out, either. Until it was too late.”

  Advancing slowly, Jack swept the surrounding area, hoping for a glimpse of Ethan, or at least no more unknown players. “Is Adam still alive?”

  Toomey tilted his head and smirked. “It’s nice that you’re worried about him. You must actually like him, because let’s face it, he’s not that good of a fuck.” The conceited smile faded, and deadly serious, he said, “Not like your other boyfriend. He’s good, isn’t he.”

  Jack went cold. He came to a stop and his finger rubbed against the rifle’s trigger guard. “What did you do to Ethan?”

  “Nothing he didn’t let me do. All to keep you safe.”

  Close enough to see the man lick his lips, Jack shuddered. The bruises. The secret meetings. It all made sense now. “You sick psycho.”

  “That’s not fair. I had a traumatic childhood.” Toomey grinned.

  “You’re about to have a traumatic adulthood,” Jack snarled. “Tell me where they are.”

  Folding his arms across his chest, Toomey asked, “Or what? You’ll shoot me? You’ll never find them then.”

  “I worked out who you were. I can find them.”

  Toomey laughed. A genuinely amused sound. “You’re not that smart. I practically handfed you the clues. Kill me and you’ll never find them. Isn’t that right, Nine?” While he was still talking, he threw himself at the Cenotaph, back pressed to the huge stone slab. A gun appeared in his right hand, and he pointed it ninety degrees off Jack.

  Tracking Toomey’s aim, wondering who else had joined them, Jack found Garrote crouched by one of the post office’s pillars. She had a gun on Toomey, held steady in two hands.

  “Don’t try it, Too,” she said. “You’ve always been a useless shot.”

  Too? Or perhaps Jack hadn’t heard her right. Yet, they seemed to know each other. What the fuck?

  Toomey chuckled. “You’re right. I missed him by a mile today.” He waved the gun in Jack’s direction. “Of course, that was just for fun. I liked seeing him be all butch. Maybe that’s what One-three sees in him. A real man’s man.”

  “You’re just jealous,” Garrote said, a hint of something . . . playful in her words.

  “Probably. I mean, he—” A nod at Jack. “—has something I always wanted but never got.”

  Stomach clenching, Jack settled his sight on Toomey’s chest. “You want Ethan?”

  “Wow.” Toomey turned towards him. “It’s all about sex with you. No wonder—”

  Garrote sprang out of cover and advanced swiftly while talking in a language that may have been German.

  In the same instant, Toomey shifted from smiling rogue to intent deadliness. He lunged to meet her, covering the distance in a few long strides, even though Garrote kept her gun on him. She didn’t fire, and the moment they were close enough, she tossed the weapon and they clashed.

  Toomey had over a foot on Garrote. His arms and legs were longer, giving his punches more reach and his kicks more power. Garrote, however, was fast. Height had some advantages, but it also slowed a fighter down. It took longer for his punches to land, whereas Garrote could dart inside his reach, deliver a short, hard blow, and get away before he could retaliate. It was mesmerising to watch as the assassins battled across the width of Martin Place. Jack tried to follow Toomey with his rifle, but the mix of bodies meant he’d be just as likely to shoot Garrote. If he managed to hit either of them at all.

  Garrote kept up a running commentary in German, sounding at times teasing, pleading, or insulting. Toomey never responded, but he appeared to understand. Mostly, his face was blank—an expression Jack knew from Ethan at his most distant—but occasionally, something Garrote said got to him. He scowled a couple of times and flinched once, after which his face closed right down and his efforts to disable Garrote increased.

  Jack had to do something. The combatants were too evenly matched. He couldn’t risk Toomey getting the upper hand, so he swapped the rifle for his USP and moved in.

  “Richard Toomey,” he called. “You’re under arrest. Cease and desist. If you come quietly—”

  Toomey dodged a kick from Garrote and spun towards Jack. His wrist flicked, and Jack threw himself sideways. The knife struck his arm at the wrong angle, the blade slicing through material, but a sharp sting let Jack know he’d been cut.

  “Toomey!” Jack firmed up his aim, but before he could take the shot, Garrote danced back in and swept her foot up behind Toomey’s knee.

  Leg buckling, Toomey turned the fall into a roll and came up clear of Garrote.

  Jack fired, the sound drowned out by the sudden roar of a familiar engine. As Toomey jerked back from the impact, Victoria charged up Martin Place. Jack scrambled out of the sleek black car’s path, dropping into a roll and coming up on one knee in time to see the Vanquish turn into a tight drift. Her back end skidded around and slammed into Toomey. The tall man tumbled away towards the Cenotaph.

  Trembling amidst the smoke created by her tyres, boot towards Jack, Victoria was as beautiful as an oasis in the desert. Her passenger-side door opening was like the light of Heaven.

  “Jack! Get in.”

  And Ethan’s voice a healing balm on every one of Jack’s hurts. Still . . .

  “We need to secure Toomey.” Jack stood and started around the car, USP at the ready.

  “Jack, leave him. Nine will take care of him. Let’s go.”

  Jack was tempted. Ethan was here, and Jack could be with him in a couple of seconds, but he had a job to do. He moved along the left side of the car, stepping out around the open door.

  “Toomey,” he called. “Drop your weapons and show me your hands.”

  The driver’s-side door opened and Ethan stood up, a Desert Eagle in one hand, aimed beyond the car’s bonnet. “Jack,” he said grimly. “Leave it. Get in the car.”

  “Yes, Jack,” Toomey purred from behind the Cenotaph. “Best you do as the little woman says and get in the car.”

  Jack bit back a snarl. He wasn’t going to let this fucker know how much he was reacting to his taunts. “I’m taking you in, Toomey. You’re going to tell me where Adam is.”

  “No.” Toomey stepped into view. “You’re going to leave, or I break her neck.”

  Garrote was quiet in Toomey’s hold. He had one arm around her neck, his big hand completely covering one side of her face. The other hand gripped her shoulder. All he had to do was pull and twist and she was dead.

  “Nine,” Ethan said, low and steady.

  Flashing a smile, Garrote said, “My fault, One-three. Get out of—”

  Toomey broke her neck.

  Jack told McIntosh he’d run into Adam in a bar and discovered the fate of the strike force that way. He had to talk fast to convince her, but she agreed and Jack was back on the Infinity case. Lewis and Lydia had headed up to Byron Bay, but both came back when they learned what had happened. Leaving the rest of their team to their time off, they made up Jack’s support at the Office.

  Toomey had smuggled out a lot of the information from the LAC, and Jack and Adam spent days in his hotel suite, continuing the search for the Judge. Adam was short with Jack at first, but their old working comradery soon asserted itself, and by the third day, Adam was teasing Jack about his habit of pacing while thinking.

  Each night Jack called Ethan and they chatted for hours. Wanting to be totally upfront, Jack told Ethan he and Adam were working together again. Ethan initially went quiet but made an effort to accept it at face value.

  Six days into the new arrangement, Jack was leaving the Oaks when he saw Toomey on the stairs. They only exchanged grunts in passing. Adam didn’t talk
about his relationship with the tall constable, and Jack didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know, and didn’t really want to explore why he didn’t want to know. It was Adam’s life; he could do what he wanted. Trying to convince himself of that, Jack stepped out onto the footpath and stopped in mid-thought.

  Victoria idled in the drop-off zone.

  Moving slow so he could relish the vision of her low-slung shape just in case she turned out to be a mirage, Jack approached the car. When he was barely a foot away, the passenger door opened.

  “Hurry up, Jack.”

  Hesitation vanishing, Jack folded himself into the car.

  God, he’d missed Ethan. Missed his shy smile and his dark sunglasses. Missed touching his face and smelling his hair and tasting his skin.

  “Hey,” Jack said, unable to stop grinning.

  Ethan shook his head fondly. “Close the door, Jack. We have somewhere to be.”

  Yes, he’d even missed his snotty accent.

  Jack closed the door and buckled up. Ethan put Victoria in gear and palmed the steering wheel, sliding her out into traffic. It was a shame they were in the middle of the city. Jack would have really appreciated watching Ethan unleash the car on the open road, to know that he was happy and peaceful.

  “Where are we going?” Jack rested his hand on Ethan’s thigh.

  Ethan glanced at his hand, then covered it with his own between gear changes. “It’s a surprise.”

  Groaning, Jack muttered, “I don’t like surprises.”

  “I think you’ll like this one.”

  “Did you move back in? I’d love that surprise.”

  For a moment, Ethan’s fingers tightened on Jack’s, then he lifted his hand to the gearstick. “No. I do hope it’s just as good, though.”

  Jack brought Ethan’s hand to his lips and kissed his knuckles. “It will be.”

  Ethan squeezed Jack’s hand warmly.

  Out of the filing cabinet came an old memory.

  Wish you were here?

  Those words, seared into Jack’s mind when he was certain he wasn’t going to survive the torture shack, had tormented him for over a year. For so long he’d battled them, looking for something to anchor him in one place. It still amazed him he’d found a place to stand thanks to Ethan, because it had been Ethan Blade who’d planted those words and their destructive intent in his head. But that Ethan was as distant as that Jack was now. They’d both come so far, on their own and together, that those men were like mirages in the desert.

  Jack drank in Ethan’s profile, loving the purse of his lips and the furrow of his brows as another driver cut in front of them. Such a small thing, and yet the pin was pulled and Jack’s grenade went off.

  Amidst the light and heat, Jack said, “Ethan.”

  Ethan glanced at him, smiling softly. “Yes, Jack?”

  “I—” His throat closed up. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. “I . . . have a surprise for you, too.” Shit. Not what he’d meant to say.

  “You do?” He indicated and went around a corner. “Is it in your pants?”

  Jack snorted. “Idiot. No.” Then after a moment, he admitted, “Actually, it is.”

  Ethan’s grin set off the secondary charge in Jack’s chest. “Hmm, lucky we’ve arrived, then.”

  Startled, Jack took notice of the world outside the car. They were on Bathurst Street, at the Hyde Park end. Ethan slowed Victoria and turned into an underground carpark of a building that had only finished construction a couple of months back. A flash of a card at a reader on the wall had the boom gate rising, and they drove down into the darkness.

  They parked and Ethan led him to a bank of lifts. Two were normal, but the third had a restricted sign on it and a keypad instead of a call button. Ethan showed Jack the code, and the doors opened immediately. Inside the private lift, Jack wrapped his arms around Ethan and simply held him. Buried his face in his neck and breathed in deep. Ethan sighed and leaned on him, hands fisting up the back of Jack’s shirt and holding on like he would never let go.

  “I missed you,” Ethan whispered. “So much.”

  Stupidly pleased, Jack kissed his neck. “You did?”

  Ethan thumped a fist against his back. “Of course I did. I’m sorry I left, but it felt like old times, and the only thing I could do was fight or scramble.”

  “So you scrambled. That’s okay.” Jack ran his hand through Ethan’s hair, smiling when the man pushed into the touch, his eyes drifting closed. “You didn’t go far, and you talked to me. And you weren’t gone for four months this time.”

  Nodding, Ethan murmured, “I’m getting better.”

  Jack pulled him closer. “Yeah, you are.”

  The lift came to a stop and the doors opened onto a small elegant foyer. Ethan strode over the gleaming marble floor and, once again, showed Jack the code to unlock the next door. Made of steel, the door was heavy and solid and thoroughly practical as a security measure, but the metal had been beaten so it looked fancily distressed and sophisticated. Beyond it, the penthouse opened up into a space probably as big as Jack’s entire home.

  Jack wandered in a few steps, speechless. Underfoot, the floor was dark, polished wood, covered here and there with thick earth-toned rugs. The walls at either end were rough red brick. On one, a large TV hung over an electric fireplace. At the far end was a kitchen with shining appliances. The furniture in between was in shades of brown and cream, except for a large L-shaped suede couch in deep, dark red. One side faced the TV, the other looked out through a floor-to-ceiling window with an incredible view of Hyde Park, the cathedral glowing in the sunset light in the distance. Above, the ceiling beams were exposed.

  “Do you like it?” Ethan moved past Jack to put his car keys in a bowl on a long sideboard.

  “It’s amazing. This is your place?”

  “I bought it off the plans nine months ago and paid a bit more to have some extras added to the construction. Since I lost the warehouse in Ingleburn, I needed another safe place here, and this time, I thought I’d try something a bit more . . . normal.”

  “This much space in Sydney is not normal. Bedrooms?”

  “Two, a bathroom, and combined laundry and home gym.”

  “Jesus,” Jack hissed. “Just how rich are you?”

  “Substantially less now that I’m spending all this money and not working.”

  “That settles it. My next career is kept man.”

  “If you wish, Jack,” Ethan tossed over his shoulder with a smile. He headed to the kitchen. “Drink?”

  “Just water.” Jack had plans for how the rest of the night would go and he didn’t want to be inhibited at all. “Did you do the decorating yourself?”

  “Is it all right?”

  “It’s great. And the security? Done by Saint Security Incorporated?” he teased.

  Ethan blushed. “Of course.” He handed Jack a bottle of water.

  Taking it, Jack brushed the knuckles of his other hand over Ethan’s ribs, where he’d had a particularly nasty bruise a couple of weeks back. “Is this what caused the bruises?”

  “It can be hard work sometimes. Do you like my surprise?”

  “A lot.” Jack hugged him. “Do you want your surprise now?”

  “Shall I get it for myself?” Blushing hard, Ethan reached for Jack’s crotch.

  Jack knocked his hand aside. “How about I get it and you behave.” Loving Ethan’s wicked laugh, he retrieved the phone from his back pocket. “Your surprise is on here. I hope you like it.” He really hoped it was a good surprise. When he’d first done it, it had felt right, but now, looking at Ethan’s wary but interested expression, he wondered. “I did some research this week and found this.” He keyed up the song and hit Play.

  Soft, tinkling strains like a child’s music box, then a woman’s sweet voice singing in French. Jack had read the lyrics in English and could pick out chicken, white, and moon, but that was all. Ethan, however, was entranced. He stared at the phone fixedly, hands half-raised as if h
e might snatch it off Jack or dash it to the floor. After the first couple of verses, he whisper-sang along, his voice a little off tune but word perfect. Jack couldn’t read the silence when the lullaby finished. Didn’t know if he’d blundered epically or not.

  “Was it the right one?” he asked cautiously.

  Ethan nodded, still focused on the phone.

  “Was it—oh.” Jack staggered as Ethan crashed into him. Arms tight around his neck, Ethan held on like Jack was his life preserver in stormy waters. “I guess it was good, then.”

  “Very good.”

  “I’m glad. It—”

  Ethan pulled away sharply, grabbed Jack’s shirt, and dragged him over to the couch, where he made Jack sit in the corner.

  “I had planned to do this tonight, regardless. But later. Much later, when I’d worked up the courage,” Ethan said as he took off his sunglasses and dropped to his knees in front of Jack. “That was more than a lullaby. It was something I thought I’d lost so long ago. Thank you, Jack. It means . . . so much.”

  Daring not to hope, Jack’s dick didn’t get the message and hardened. “Ethan, you don’t need—”

  Ethan stopped him with two fingers against his lips. “I want to,” he said, tone firm. “There will be some rules, though. No touching. Put your arms along the back of the couch.”

  Jack obeyed instantly. “Done.”

  “And no talking.”

  Silently, Jack nodded.

  “Legs apart.”

  He spread them as far as they could, knees pushing into the seat of the couch on either side. Ethan took a couple of deep breaths, gaze focusing somewhere around Jack’s belly, looking neither at his face or his crotch. He was clearly psyching himself up for this, and Jack was torn between telling him he didn’t have to and wanting to stay quiet in the hopes that this was actually going to happen. He was tipping towards the former when Ethan’s hands landed on Jack’s thighs, just resting there; then they squeezed gently and, ever so deliciously slow, slid upwards.

  God. Jack wanted to say something. Only if you really want. Or Please. Maybe Let me go first. But he followed Ethan’s rules and didn’t say or do anything. His dick was a little bit unsure as well. Hard but wary. Its doubts disappeared when Ethan’s hands reached his crotch, gliding over him, one after the other, and back again, returning to his thighs. This happened several more times, moving further up Jack’s abdomen with each sweep, until Ethan was reaching up to his pectorals. His palms were warm and firm, rubbing Jack’s peaked nipples against the cotton of his shirt, sending jolts of pleasure through his chest, before they journeyed downwards once more. This time, they didn’t move past the waistband of his jeans. They stopped instead and unbuttoned them. Fly undone, Ethan tugged and, hoping it didn’t violate the rules, Jack lifted his hips enough for his pants to be pulled down to expose his undies and straining dick. Down came his boxer briefs, and Ethan’s calloused hand scooped Jack’s dick and balls into the open.