Secret Lives (Secret McQueen Book 9)

by Sierra Dean

  She could also, as the name suggested, see your future.

  She’d seen my death.

  Now that I was human, I didn’t see Cal at all. Her realm was only accessible to those of the supernatural persuasion. If I tried to get in, I would be torn to pieces in a pink oblivion between realities. Not a pretty way to go.

  When I was in New York, though, I made a point of going to the Starbucks that served as the entrance to her otherworldly home. I liked to imagine some day I might walk through the door and see her again.

  “You’re alive today, aren’t you? Because of her.”

  How I was brought back to life was an interesting thing since I was dead for most of it and didn’t really know what the whole process had entailed. Even after the fact, neither Calliope or Holden had told me much.

  I was guessing something had gone down I might not approve of.

  Which probably meant someone had to die so I could live, and they didn’t want to put that on me. I tried not to think about it too much, because the more effort I made to fill in the blanks the more everyone seemed to balk at helping me do just that.

  Desmond hadn’t been there at the time—werewolves couldn’t control their urge to shift when they were in Calliope’s realm—so he didn’t have any answers for me. I hoped he would be honest with me if he knew. That whole being-my-husband thing meant he should be able to tell me everything, right?

  I liked to think so.

  Anyway, it was weird to know that demons had some insider awareness on all of that. That either meant the event itself was pretty famous, or that someone in the demon realm had something to do with it, and man I wasn’t sure I was prepared to think about the repercussions of it being the latter.

  “Are people scared of me?” I changed the topic.

  “Scared might be a stretch. Wary?”

  “I’ll take it, I guess. You know, you sounded like a bad old timey horror movie villain back at the hotel, but now you’ve stopped using the throwback language. What’s up with that?”

  “Would you find a demon as scary if it said hey bro, I’m here to snack on your soul or if it said I have come from the depths of Hell to consume that which gives you your mortal vigor?”

  “Touché.” I sat back in my seat in time to see two figures in long black robes slink into the shadows and vanish into the alley. A moment later, three more followed.

  Bingo.

  I sank lower behind the steering wheel out of instinct, which was absurd because we were parked out of sight in the shadows, and if anyone did look over here, there would be no way to hide the presence of a certain hulking demon riding shotgun.

  Still, habit was habit, and it wasn’t going to change just because of individual circumstances.

  We watched and waited to see if there would be more arrivals, and a full five minutes later a sixth person headed down the alley.

  “That’ll be all of them,” Harold said.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Six. Five points of a pentagram, and then an anchor outside. The whole circle is represented.” He made a circle in the air with a claw to illustrate his explanation.

  “Then I guess we go,” I said.

  It was hard to read his expression, seeing as he didn’t have a human face, but I got the sense he wasn’t really psyched about the prospect of us interrupting the ceremony. I couldn’t tell if that was because he wanted it to happen or he didn’t want to be around when it did.

  I mean, I didn’t want to be close when it happened, either, but we were here to do a job, and this had sort of been his idea. Telling us about it had, anyway. Which meant we couldn’t exactly change our minds now.

  Oops, you know, I have a bikini wax appointment, so I need to go.

  Nope.

  I slipped the remote detonator into the front pocket of my button-down flannel shirt. The trigger itself had a cover I would need to lift in order to engage the switch, so I wasn’t at risk of it going off accidentally. I didn’t make a big show of the process, but I wanted him to know that his attendance wasn’t really optional.

  He caught my drift and opened his car door, contorting himself awkwardly to get out. I followed along, and we shut the doors quietly behind us. There was an FBI van around here somewhere, filled with agents ready to jump in at a moment’s notice if things went wrong.

  I was hoping not to see them.

  It was actually probably for the best I didn’t know where they were because I’d only be self-conscious, worrying Tyler was judging my every move. He and I had developed a thoroughly complicated relationship over the years, in which I wanted very badly to impress him, but also to give him no indication whatsoever that his opinion mattered to me.

  Harold and I moved through the darkness in silence. For such a big guy he was light on his feet, making no sound as he trailed behind me like a grisly-looking guardian angel.

  Of course, it didn’t escape my attention that this all might very well be a trap and he was leading me to my death. But if that was the case, I would make damn sure to pull the kill switch before I went down.

  You want to trick me? Fine. But I’m going to blow your goddamn head off in the process.

  That’s how I hoped I would go down. Blaze of glory, taking as many monsters with me as possible.

  Or, at least, that’s how I imagined it. In reality my ultimate demise would probably end up being unromantic and deeply uncool. I’d likely get drowned in a sewer somewhere.

  Ashes to ashes. Shit to shit.

  With that profoundly cheerful thought in mind, I held up my hand, signaling Harold to stop. His hulking figure at my back didn’t make me uneasy. Surprisingly it gave me a sense of comfort and protection. I was weird like that.

  The six figures we’d seen come down the alley were gathered in a circle, and each was taking time drawing intricate markings on the ground in charcoal. Candles were lit all around them, making me wonder what kind of candles demon-summoning vampires would use. Did they wait for sales at Bath & Body Works and then stock up on Marshmallow Fireside? Or did they buy bulk tealights from Ikea?

  Demon ritual work seemed like the sort of thing that demanded some conscientious candle budgeting.

  I was known to spend about three hundred bucks a year on candles, and the only thing I summoned with them was some relaxation in the bathtub.

  These looked like some run-of-the-mill dollar-store pillar candles.

  If I were a demon, I’d be offended.

  But maybe demons were like werewolves in that they didn’t like powerful scents, in which case it probably didn’t matter.

  “Secret?”

  Oh, shit, right. I was on a mission.

  I shushed him and continued to scan the area. In addition to the six hooded figures—I honestly couldn’t tell if they were male or female—a big lump was bundled on the ground nearby in roughly the shape of a human body.

  Sacrifice?

  Given the wrapped state of the body, the person inside it wasn’t having a great day and most likely hadn’t come here of their choosing.

  And kidnapping? Totally a felony.

  Which meant, as an officer of the law—sort of—this was something I had every legal right to intervene on.

  First things first though, I wanted to catch them in the act of trying to open the gate. If we could show that this ritual was apocalyptic in scale, then my scope of work went from arresting them to immediately killing them.

  Yup, as gross as it sounded, after the events in New York, new laws had been made providing certain people with carte blanche to execute anyone demonstrating intent to end the world.

  I had to be able to prove that intent before I could do anything, which meant waiting until they were at least partway into their ritual. If I could stop things right before they got to their sacrifice, I’d be able to save the would-be victim and put an end to their shenanigans in one fell swoop.

  If everything went right.

  Which was asking a lot.

  Seemi
ngly satisfied with their charcoal line work, the figures all found their locations on the exterior of the circle, each standing at a point of the pentagram just as Harold had said they would.

  They clasped hands and began to chant in unison. I should have taken the time to learn some Latin, since I’d heard so much of it in my line of work. But whatever they were saying didn’t sound like any Latin I had ever heard, so it was all gibberish to me.

  Harold must have realized I was perplexed because he said, “It’s Enochian.”

  “Huh?”

  “They’re speaking Enochian.”

  “Good Lord, another stupid, archaic language I don’t know how to speak? Can’t everyone just be considerate and learn English?”

  “Enochian is older. Perhaps you humans should learn that instead of expecting us to learn your idiotic mutt language.”

  Burn.

  We settled back into silence as the chanting grew louder. The flames of the candles guttered then got impossibly tall, easily a foot or more high. The charcoal lines in the ground began to smoke. I pulled out my phone and started recording everything. This should be plenty of evidence to show the figures had been up to no good.

  Their voices were a mix of masculine and feminine, so I had a sense that this was a gender-diverse group. How progressive. Two of them dropped hands with the rest of the circle and moved to collect the bundled sacrifice.

  If they were speaking a language I understood, I might have been better able to guess what they were up to, or what part of the ceremony they were at, but frankly I was at a total loss.

  I had to hope a dead-languages scholar could back me up by figuring out what they were saying in the clip.

  I could ask Harold for a translation now, but it seemed like neither the time nor the place.

  The charcoal lines smoked more, filling the alley with a faint white cloud. The two figures had dragged the bundle into the center of the circle and were cutting the bindings free. When they were done, they unwrapped the body of a small man, who was unconscious, and left him in the middle of their ceremonial space. After they put the cloth and ropes outside the circle, the two cloaked figures rejoined the group, and all six resumed chanting.

  It was hard to make out precisely what was going on, with the smoke getting thicker and the light from the moon overhead making it opaque enough to create a natural curtain. I put my phone back in my pocket as there wasn’t much benefit in filming anything anymore, since it was just white and muddled.

  I pulled my gun out of its shoulder holster and checked the magazine. Loaded full up with silver bullets.

  If all six of these cloaked figures were vampires, they wouldn’t be killed by silver, but it would certainly slow them down. At the point this turned to violence, I’d have to call in my backup. I could take on six full-blooded vamps on my own, but the last time I did it, I ended up with my arm broken in several places.

  I was supposed to fly back to New York next week for a long-awaited reunion with my hubby, so I’d much rather not have any broken limbs at the time. If you know what I mean.

  “Echo to Alpha,” I said.

  “Alpha reading, go ahead, Echo,” came the voice in my earpiece.

  “Shit’s getting real out here. Wait for my word, but be at the ready. Copy?”

  “Copy.” Tyler sounded tired, and I couldn’t blame him. Ever since we’d started this unit it had been one disaster after the other, literally. We almost never had an opportunity to come up for breath.

  At least I had a husband to go home to, though spending time with Desmond meant I had to put on a whole different hat: that of pack queen, wife of the werewolf King of the East. Which honestly was almost more work than being with the FBI.

  But I had another life outside work, and I think perhaps Tyler needed a little side drama to keep all the supernatural stuff from getting him too bogged down.

  I had previously hoped Lily was single, until I realized the two of them together would be about as wise as mixing bleach and ammonia. They’d kill each other, and then I’d have no super-genius lab specialist and no one to do all the boring paperwork.

  No thanks.

  Moot point anyway, since Lily was engaged.

  Finding Tyler a girlfriend would need to wait until we stopped this whole end-of-the-world thing, anyway. No sense in thinking about dating if the apocalypse was mere minutes away, right?

  So cheerful inside my brain.

  “Let’s move in,” I whispered to Harold, though the team in my earpiece would be able to catch all of it as well. Hence why let’s move in was not my signal to call in the cavalry.

  The demon took a few steps forward then stopped, as if frozen on the spot.

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  “What’s to like?”

  The chanting inside the circle was louder than ever, the voices practically bellowing. I couldn’t see any of the hooded figures, but a fire-like glow flickered amid the white smoke, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the candles or something else. It sure was bright, though.

  I didn’t much like this, either, if I was being totally honest.

  “Let’s go,” I seethed, jerking my head towards the gathering. It was now or never, and if we didn’t break up their little light show, we were going to be too late to save their captive sacrifice. I didn’t want any unnecessary deaths on my track record, human, vampire, werewolf, or otherwise.

  Harold took two halting steps, then stopped again, shaking his head. It was bizarre to see someone that looked like him, basically a drawing out of a Biblical textbook about Hell, acting so afraid of something.

  When the big bads are spooked, it’s time to worry.

  “We need to leave,” he announced.

  I didn’t want to threaten him with the collar bomb, but when he started slowly backing away from me, I pulled it out of my pocket and held it in my hand so he could see it. “We have to stop them. That’s the deal.”

  He was staring at something behind me, and his expression changed to one of pure terror.

  Have you ever seen a demon terrified?

  No, you haven’t, because it’s simply not something that ever happens, and I’m here to tell you it will sober you up right quick. There is nothing as scary as seeing a demon look that scared.

  “It’s too late,” he said.

  I glanced over my shoulder and immediately knew I’d been wrong.

  There was something more terrifying than a spooked demon.

  And that was seeing the thing that scared him.

  Chapter Seven

  “Oh. Holy. Fuck.” I totally forgot about the bomb trigger in one hand, or the gun in the other. I numbly stood dead center in the middle of the alley staring way up at the thing that had emerged from the smoke.

  It was easily twelve feet tall, with thick, corded muscles and skin the color of tar. His eyes—and it was definitely a him based on the enormous cock dangling between his legs—looked milky blue in the dark. His ears were long and pointed, and paired with the huge elk antlers on his head made him appear incredibly imposing. His legs were like normal human legs, but he had long fingerlike digits on his feet and hands, similar to Harold’s grotesque fingers.

  A goat’s tail whipped around the demon’s back end, and as he caught sight of us, two massive batlike wings unfurled at his shoulders. He wasn’t able to extend them completely thanks to the narrow width of the alley.

  “Echo, this is Alpha, come in.”

  Before I could reply to Tyler’s entreaty, another figure emerged from the smoke.

  Not quite as imposing in height as the first demon, this one was about nine or ten feet tall, but broader across the chest and shoulders, his long arms hanging down nearly to the sidewalk, curving his massive back into a hunch. His skin was red, as if someone had told a child to draw the devil. He had no horns, but his chin and ears were pointed, and his nose was snubbed like that of a pug, pulling his lip up to expose razor sharp teeth in a menacing smile. Where the first demon�
�s eyes had been solid white, this one had deep inky black ones, so dark and empty they were like voids into which I worried I might fall and never stop falling.

  “Echo to Alpha,” sounded in my ear again.

  I knew this was the part where I was supposed to bring in my backup, except the van full of agents had been to help me deal with five or six vampires. This? I didn’t even know what this was, but I didn’t think humans were going to be able to provide the necessary assistance.

  What other option did I have?

  I couldn’t take these guys down by myself, no way, no how. I was a big-enough woman to admit my limitations, and besting two enormous demons was pretty much number one on the list of things I couldn’t handle on my own.

  “Shit has hit the fan, Alpha,” I replied finally.

  “Secret?” Harold tapped my shoulder, but I was too entranced by the two demons looming over us to look back at him. “Secret, I can help.”

  I darted a glance in his direction. “What?”

  “I can help, but I need this off.” He indicated the collar he was wearing.

  “Oh, sure, let me just take that right off, and then suddenly I’m facing three demons instead of two. Top-notch plan.”

  He gave me a stern look that one almost might categorize as paternal disappointment. It was so absurd, given the situation, I nearly laughed. I turned my attention back to the demons, who seemed amused by our presence.

  “I have heard,” one boomed, “that a little demonling has been using my name.” The black-skinned one’s voice filled the entire alley, making my skin buzz as if his words were made of bees. Every syllable off his tongue tipped me one step closer to the cusp of insanity, and I wanted him to never say anything else.

  Had this guy just admitted to being the real Belphegor?

  “Secret, take off the collar,” Harold insisted.

  I stared up at the two demons and noticed the six cloaked figures had emerged from the fog as well to stand at the feet of their masters.

  Fuck, the gate was open, and this was just the welcoming committee. I needed to get that thing shut immediately. I could use all the help available to me, and if I had to break protocol by letting Harold off his leash, so be it.