by E. A. Copen
“Alexi would like to speak with you,” said one of the bodyguards. “Both of you.”
“Good.” I slid my fingers underneath the collar and tugged until it came free. “Because I want to talk to him.”
Chapter Sixteen
KHALEDA
I leaned against the side of the car and adjusted the compact mirror, pretending to be making one last check on my makeup. The white sedan circling the lot since we pulled in cruised by a third time. I couldn’t see who was driving thanks to the tinted windows, but I was sure the guy wasn’t looking for parking since he’d passed several open slots. Since I’d also seen him on the highway on the way here, and I thought maybe I’d seen the sedan outside Harmony’s place, there was only one logical conclusion to draw. We were being followed.
The compact snapped closed with a click and I tucked it away, tracking the white sedan’s path by watching its reflection in the car windows around me. One, two, three, I waited for it to turn the next corner and crawl on by before pushing off the passenger side door with a hip and stepping into the narrow space to block the car’s path. Red brake lights painted the parking lot ahead while blinding bright headlights settled on my front.
I flexed my fingers into fists. Time for the moment of truth, asshole. Will you run or confront me? I gave him three seconds to decide before I strode up to the passenger door, gripped the handle and ripped it open.
The demon who had carjacked me earlier didn’t look at all surprised to see me. He nodded as if we were about to have a polite conversation and said, “Get in. I need to show you something.”
“Not going to put a gun to my head this time?” I asked
He sighed. “If I’d just tried to talk to you, you would’ve run. It was the only way to make sure you heard me out.”
I glanced around the parking lot. No one else was around to see me, so I slid into the passenger seat. “You’d better not try anything.”
He eased on the gas and directed the car out of the parking lot. “My name is Thoganoth. I worked for your father as an information gatherer here in New York while he was alive.”
I clenched my fists. “If you’re about to tell me what a great leader he was, you can stop the car right now.”
“Not at all. Maybe once, but not for several thousand years now. There was a time when Hell needed someone like him, a wartime king to lay down the law and organize us. We wouldn’t have bowed to anyone else. But after the subjugation of us demons, and after the defeat of the Fallen… Peace makes a tyrant uneasy. What he did to you?” He shook his head. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
“I didn’t see you stepping in to do anything about it.” I folded my arms.
“Hey, I’m just eyes and ears, Highness. I’m not muscle. If Lucifer even suspected I disapproved, he’d have boiled me alive.” He turned, pulling the car onto a busy expressway.
At least he was keeping us in a semi-public place. The minute he veered down an empty alley, I’d be worried. “Where are we going?”
“There’s something that you need to see.”
“Yes, but where? And what is it?” When he didn’t answer me, I put my hand on the door handle. “Tell me, or I’m throwing myself out of this car right now.”
“You really are a headcase, you know that? Fine. You’ve been tracking these sacrifices all around Astoria, right?”
I nodded. “In fact, I’m supposed to be helping Josiah and Niko stop Iosef Badakis right now.”
“Iosef?” The demon made a face. “Why would you need to stop him?”
I suddenly had an awful feeling in my stomach as if I’d swallowed an ice cube whole. “Alexi hired him to perform the ritual, didn’t he? No wizard, no sacrifices, no Remiel.”
“So, you do know what they’re trying to bring through.” He merged into the next lane, cutting off a taxicab who responded by hitting the horn. “Khaleda, you can’t let Remiel manifest here on Earth.”
“I know. Fire, brimstone, apocalypse, and death if he does.”
“What? No. I don’t give two shits about what happens to Earth. The first thing Remiel is going to do if he gets free is take over Hell. And if that happens, he’ll execute us by the thousands. It’ll be a fuckin’ genocide. Khaleda, you need to take over right now. Claim the throne. Call your armies and mount a defensive or we’re all dead.”
I shifted in the seat to face him. “I don’t understand. He can’t come through if the ritual sacrifices are never completed. Stopping Iosef should be just as effective as what you’re suggesting, and with the added bonus that I don’t have to rule Hell, which I’ve already told you I have no interest in doing.”
“Iosef Badakis is just a tool. Kill him, and someone else will just spring up.”
The skin on the back of my neck prickled. Niko, you son of a bitch! I knew we couldn’t trust him. The question was, why had he convinced Josiah Iosef needed to die? Maybe it was an honest mistake, but I doubted it. He was a master manipulator, and he had Josiah wrapped around his little finger.
“Turn the car around,” I demanded. “We have to go back.”
“No.” Thoganoth shook his head and pressed down more on the gas, speeding up. “This is too important. You need to see.”
I slammed a hand down on his shoulder and squeezed until I felt bone creak. “Some Greek bastard just walked my partner into a trap. If Josiah dies, so does the best weapon I have against the Fallen. Now, turn the fucking car around, or I start ripping off parts you’ll miss.”
He glared at me. “If I do this, then you have to give me your word you’ll come with me and meet the person I want to introduce you to. Swear it, and I’ll help you with your partner.”
I didn’t like making deals with demons, but this one seemed harmless. At the very least, it would get him to quit showing up at random and demanding I go with him. Plus, I didn’t want to throw myself out of a moving car and scuff up my leather. “I swear it.”
The demon nodded and jerked the steering wheel to the right, cutting through two lanes of very angry traffic to take the next exit.
Chapter Seventeen
JOSIAH
Alexi’s guards escorted us to a lift. Niko slid into the back, hands crossed over his chest. I took the other corner and spent the ride focusing hard on the back of a guard’s head rather than looking at Niko.
Something about this made me uneasy. Perhaps it was how relaxed Niko was, walking into the dragon’s den, so to speak. The so-called Godfathers of Night, the leaders of each Greek underworld family, were no pushovers, and Alexi had already burned his house to the ground. Yet Niko was cool as ice.
Normally, I made it my business to know everything there was to know about the people I did business with, but I was at a disadvantage where Niko was concerned. I’d thought he was a victim, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Niko had his own agenda, of that I was certain. Question was, what was he after, and what part did I have to play in his little charade?
The lift shuddered and slowed. Bloody thing was junk. Always hated the damn things. Just being in that death box made my throat itch for a cigarette. Only way I’d get one would be to bum one from Niko, which I didn’t want to do. Not again. The bloody menthol taste of the last one still coated my tongue.
The stainless-steel doors opened with a small chime. Both guards stepped into a small, dark room with a large table. Alexi sat at the other end. Behind him loomed a dark shadow of a man. Most of his features were obscured by dark lighting and the way he tilted his head downward, but I caught a flash of ink curling around his thumbs as he crossed his hands.
Alexi stood, adjusting the button on his suit jacket. “Good evening, Mr. Quinn,” he said in English. “We’ve been expecting you for some time.”
“You going to introduce me to your friend then?” I nodded to the shadowy figure behind him.
Alexi turned and gripped the other man’s shoulder. “This is Iosef Badakis.”
Iosef lifted his head to smirk at me as if Alexi had just delivered th
e punchline of a joke.
I moved two fingers, preparing to call my angel fire, but stopped when someone pressed a gun to the back of my head.
“Sorry, Josiah,” Niko said. “Nothing personal.”
“You’ll understand if I take it personal anyway, won’t you, mate? I thought we were friends.”
Alexi gestured to Niko with the flat of his hand. “Niko’s only behaving according to his nature. As we all do.”
“Shut up, Alexi,” Niko ground out between clenched teeth. “I’m not here for you. We had a deal, Iosef. I want that name.”
“A deal?” I turned my head to glance back at Niko, but he pushed the barrel of his gun more insistently into my skull. “Starting to sound like you haven’t been entirely honest with me, Niko.”
“Sit down.” He grabbed my shoulder and pushed me into the nearby chair. Niko was doing his best to project an image of calm and control, but his hands were damp with sweat and trembled ever so slightly. He moved the gun so it was above my head, pointed down at an angle. “You promised to tell me who it was that gutted my sister like a fucking animal if I brought you the wizard. Here he is. Now tell me who the fuck killed my sister, Iosef!”
Iosef’s smirk blossomed into a tight-lipped smile. “I did.”
Niko moved his gun to point it at Iosef instead of me, prompting the guards to draw their weapons and point them at Niko.
Alexi raised his left hand, gesturing for his guards not to fire. “Niko, you don’t know the whole story.”
“I know enough!” Niko shouted. “I know she was feeding fake intel to the pigs. It was the deal she cut to get out of time.”
“It wasn’t fake intel.” Alexi rose from his seat, hands resting on the tabletop.
“Fran wasn’t no fucking rat! She was just trying to survive, and you killed her for it!” Niko didn’t even try to hide his grief. His voice trembled, hovering on the edge of tears. “She was one of us, Alexi. How could you let him do that to her? Fran deserved better.”
A guard stepped in and punched Niko in the gut. Niko folded, all the air going out of him in a desperate wheeze. The guard twisted the gun from Niko’s fingers and ejected the magazine before placing both on the table in front of Alexi.
Alexi looked down at the gun on the table and sighed. “I know you thought you were coming here to kill Iosef, but I’d like to make a counter-offer.”
“Going to trap me in another house and set it on fire, are you?” I asked.
Alexi’s smile was practically glacial. “That was business. I knew you’d make it out. After all, you’re no ordinary man, are you? You’re resourceful. Powerful. You don’t need to hide behind anyone, not anymore.” The table creaked as he folded his hands and leaned forward, putting all his weight on it. “I’ve got a leak in my organization, one that needs plugging, and you’re going to tell me who it is. Now, who hired you to find Stefan?”
I pretended to polish my fingernails against my shirt and then raised a middle finger for him. “Get fucked, you olive-sucking cunt.”
“Maybe you don’t understand the gravity of the situation,” Alexi continued. “You see, I’m not an ordinary man either.”
He stepped out from behind the table and tugged off the tie around his neck. The illusion of Alexi Komnosis the man faded, leaving behind a twisted hybrid creature, a thing half-man and half-goat that stood on two legs. Dark horns curled up from his forehead, filed to a point. When he was done dispelling the glamour, he adjusted his suit jacket once more and rested one hand on the table.
At the same time, the spell lifted from Iosef. He was a head taller, with darker fur and more pronounced horns.
“You’re satyrs,” I said. “Explains a lot.”
Unlike what most animated films and television would have you believe, satyrs were far from friendly. In the old stories, they were nature spirits with horse legs, horns, and human bodies that boasted a permanent hard-on, especially for the innocent nymphs of the forest. Nearly every story in existence was about them chasing virgins around to rape and defile. As time went on, the satyrs put on a good campaign that softened the public image of them from half-horse rapists into drunken goat perverts good for a laugh. People forgot how fucked up the little buggers were and in exchange, the satyrs moved their debauchery behind closed doors. Sometimes, I’d see one make the news because he couldn’t figure out consent was a thing, but they rarely, if ever, saw prison. I’d always figured someone powerful was working behind the scenes to keep things under wraps. The Greek mafia was as good a place as any for a coverup.
I put my hands on the table carefully, palms flat against the polished wooden surface. “So I know what you are, you know what I am. Bring in a hundred satyrs and do a little dance, why don’t ya? I’m still not tellin’ you shit.”
“Josiah, Josiah, Josiah.” Iosef tsked and stepped away from the table. For the first time, I realized he was carrying a gnarled wooden staff. “Such language. What would your mother say?”
My fingers twitched against the table.
Iosef’s grin widened, and he took another step forward. “Maybe I’ll pay her a visit once my work is done and see for myself if she’s as lovely as your father says.”
I raised a fist to punch him but found one of the guards pulling me back. “You don’t know anything,” I spat, struggling against the guard holding me.
“Oh, but I do.” Iosef chuckled. “I know whose blood flows through your veins, Josiah Quinn, and he is at my beck and call.” He grabbed my chin and pinched it between two icy fingers leaning in to whisper, “I have associates standing by in Melbourne as we speak, ready to carry out my command. If you want your dear old mother to stay safe, I’d give up that name if I were you.”
I pulled my arms free and glanced over at Niko where he hung, head down, between two guards. “And what happens to him?” I asked, gesturing with my chin.
Alexi folded his hands. “When our business here has concluded, we will hand Niko over to you and you will deliver him to Manus Dei, claiming he is the perpetrator of the crimes you’ve witnessed. He killed Fran as well as several other bodies we will arrange for them to find.”
Niko raised his head to glare at Alexi, saying nothing.
I didn’t owe him anything, my loyalty least of all. Niko had thrown me to the wolves the first moment he had a chance. Yet if I did the same to him, I’d be no better. Not only that, but I didn’t like bullies, especially bullies who used magic and the supernatural to get their way. That’s all Iosef and Alexi were, bullies on a mafia-sized playground, and they needed to be taught a lesson.
You’d think I’d have known better. All these years and still a sucker for a bastard with a pretty face and a sad story.
“Don’t throw your life away, Mr. Quinn,” Alexi urged. “You don’t like working for Manus Dei. That much is clear from your history. Work with us, and we can help free you from their grasp. Think about it, Josiah. You get your freedom back, and all you have to do is look the other way.”
“Helping you would be trading shackles for a noose. Sorry, not interested.”
“Pity,” said Iosef. “But at least you’ll make a fine sacrifice.”
“Like hell, I will.” I stood up fast, pushing the chair back hard enough that it impacted the guard behind me. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, but then that wasn’t my goal. I just needed room to work.
Everyone in the room drew their weapons at once and shot.
I barked a word of power that sent a concussive wave through the room, pinning the guards against the wall. With a grunt, I flipped up the table and pressed myself against it to take cover. The table kept them from being able to aim, but it didn’t stop any bullets. They flew right through.
I glanced over at Niko, who’d somehow managed to get free. He was wrestling a gun away from the guards. When this was over, I was going to punch him bloody.
Dark chanting suddenly filled the air. Magic flowed into the room as powerful and angry as a lightning storm and made the hair on th
e back of my neck stand on end. Divine magic, summoned by Hellion speech, a spell no one but me should’ve known. Impossible.
The table suddenly moved, exposing us. Iosef stood not three feet away, black smoke pouring from his eyes and surrounding him like a miasma, coalescing into a shadowy form in front of him.
Not today, goatfucker. I barked two words and drew on the well of power boiling in my gut, the one I left untouched, stored behind glass in case of emergency. I’d fed it with the pain of losing Danny, the anger at Niko’s sudden betrayal, and the fear pulsing through my veins. Every negative emotion funneled into my being and transformed itself into raw magic power.
The magic heeded my call and washed over me like a boiling wave. With another shout, I pulled it into my veins where it throbbed and burned, desperate for destructive release. Instead, it leaked out of my pores unbidden, melting away the world against the choir of a thousand buzzing wings, each pair fanning the flame of holy fire I had called.
Iosef screamed in panic, released his spell, grabbed Alexi, and vanished.
I tried to shut the spell down, but it was no use. Once called, the heavenly host had no choice but to answer. And answer they did. The world shook, vibrating, tearing the building apart brick by brick, beam by beam. Voices, both beautiful and terrible cursed my name for calling on them, for wasting their precious time. How dare I reach for them with my unclean blood, my broken promises? My bloody hands? They looked upon me and turned away, letting the darkness swallow me whole.
Chapter Eighteen
KHALEDA
Red and blue flashing lights bounced off the building next to Eìdolo. Thoganoth slammed on the brakes, barely avoiding hitting the car in front of us, and let out a curse. Tight-knit groups of people shivering in their barely-there leather and latex stood around, conversing with police officers or limping toward ambulances.