Storm of Sin

by Patricia D. Eddy

  Sin inclines his head. “Likely. The Bureau does not take chances. Not after the massacre two hundred years ago.”

  “Massacre?” He’s hazing me. Trying to get a rise out of the newbie. He has to be.

  “Computer, display images from the Registration Riots on Screen Two,” he says, and oh my God. Calling it a blood bath is an understatement.

  “Wh-what happened?” I push to my feet, equal parts horrified and curious. The bodies are torn apart, so little remaining that most aren’t even identifiable as people any longer. “Are those...claw marks?”

  “That is the result of the human government’s attempt to control the Other. For a brief time, all members of the Bureau were required to register with the World Oversight Council. Not long after the law passed, several Council members with prejudices against our world decided we were not fit to remain free.”

  “Were you there?” If he had any part in this... I don’t know how to feel about the images I see on the screen. But I need to know if my partner’s capable of this level of violence.

  “No. Most of the deaths came at the hands of two bear shifters with anger management issues. Hence our very extensive screening process. The humans may have been in violation of every Other rights law in existence, but they did not deserve...that.” His sigh is only inches from my ear, and I spin around in shock as he adds, “The vampires wanted to glamour them all. But that is not our way. Nor should it be.”

  We’re so close, I can smell his soap. Or cologne. Or maybe that’s just him. Whatever it is, it’s intoxicating. Like leather and fine scotch, along with a hint of smoke, and I breathe deeply. He lifts his hand, as if he’s about to touch my cheek, but then blinks hard and takes a step back.

  “You weren’t about to try to glamour me, were you?” I ask.

  With his fingers splayed over his heart, he focuses his stare on me, and the ring of red around his irises deepens. “I swear to you, Zoe, I will not feed from you without your permission, and I will never influence you. Your mind is your own and always will be.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you?” His tone and his body language tell me he’s being truthful—or they would if he were human. I’m just so out of my element with a demon as a partner I don’t know if I can trust my own senses.

  “Believe what you want.” Sin drops his hand and returns to his seat at the table. “It is time for us to get to work.”

  Eight

  Sin

  Two hours later, Zoe is on her third cup of coffee and she has filled two entire screens of the conference room wall with notes.

  “So, across nine cities, the timeline stays almost exactly the same?” Zoe shakes her head. “Three men, then nine women. Four days between the abductions of the men, three between the women. But there’s no pattern to when the bodies are discovered. Why not?”

  I rub the growing ache in my forearm, screams overwhelming my memories. A pretty young wolf begging me to kill her. I can still see the rune Thorn carved into her forehead to stop her from shifting. I had my hands around her throat, ready to end her suffering when Thorn found me and compelled me to release her.

  I still bear scars from that day. One of the few memories from my time as his prisoner that has always been clear in my mind.

  “Sin?”

  Another voice, another time. So faint I can barely hear it. “Sin. Help me. I can fight him. I know I can.”

  “Hey. Partner. Sinclair. Did you hear me?” Zoe asks.

  I dig my fingers into the burned remains of my tattoo, using the pain to keep me focused. “Some of them resist longer than others. I cannot say for certain, but from the bits and pieces I remember, the women are not taken until all of the men are mindless slaves. Those of the Other are strong, Zoe. Stronger than humans, and Thorn takes no chances. He insists the men be the ones to secure the women. To beat them. To arrange for their transport.” A violent shudder causes my chair to scrape along the floor, and I push up and start to pace.

  “Transport? To…where?” Zoe asks.

  I pause and take a deep breath. I do not want to tell her the rest, but from the look on her face, she is starting to put the pieces together on her own. “Somewhere other demons, sometimes even humans, pay for the opportunity to do…whatever they please to these women.”

  Her shoulders hunch inward, and she shivers. “Wh-whatever they please. Like he sells them for sex?”

  How I wish it were only that. “Often. Sex is profitable. That has not changed throughout all of history. Every culture and every creature has a dark side. Most never give in to their basest desires, but there are enough who do. Thorn feeds off of terror, misery, and pain. He delves into his victims’ minds, into the deepest, darkest recesses where we hide all of our fears. And he uses them, consumes them. Until the women—and the men—can no longer muster the will to live.”

  Across the table, Zoe shrinks further inward and covers her mouth with her hand. A choked sound might be a sob, but she swallows hard and straightens, though when she speaks, her voice is not steady. “So that’s why he doesn’t just stay in one place and keep the women…for as long as they’re marketable.” She grimaces. “That’s a horrible way of putting it, but, most sex trafficking rings are in it for the long haul. Until the women—or girls, really—age out or are so damaged no one wants them, they’re sold over and over again.”

  “The mind is beautiful, complex, and resilient,” I say, staring at a photo of another dead shifter, this one from Washington D.C. “To a point. What do you fear most, Zoe? You do not need to tell me, but do you know?”

  Her answer is only a whisper, so faint I must strain to hear her. “Losing who I am. Like…Temple did.”

  I stop pacing. The urge to comfort her, to touch her, is so strong, I almost reach out and lay a hand on her shoulder. “The women are killed—either by Thorn or by their own hands—when they have lost so much of themselves, they go insane.”

  Zoe’s emotions infuse the room. Compassion. Understanding. The scent…it is both familiar and strange, comforting and disconcerting. She tips her face up to meet my gaze. “Sin, did you...?”

  “Yes. I tried. More than once. And I failed at every turn.”

  I need air. To move of my own free will. To feel the wind, the sun on my face. To be surrounded by nothing but silence rather than the horrors in my head. And to figure out how the fuck Thorn escaped from Hell. Before Zoe can stop me, I am out the door, taking off at a run for the stairs.

  I can move faster than most humans, and I draw on a bit of my glamour to hide me from my partner’s sight as I speed through the bullpen.

  By the time she slips through the Bureau’s doors, the Audi’s purring like a kitten, and I slam my foot down on the gas pedal and speed away as Zoe calls my name.

  From high on the hill overlooking the Golden Gate, the San Francisco Bay appears as if it is full of glittering diamonds. A stiff breeze stings my cheeks, reminding me I am alive and free.

  I should not have run out on Zoe, but if I had stayed in that stale, windowless room for another minute, the darkness inside me would have taken over.

  Pulling out my phone, I call my brother. In London, it is close to midnight, but I need information, and Maddox is the only one who might be able to get it for me.

  “Sin?” His deep voice is rough, yet it soothes the cracks in my armor and allows me to take an easier breath. “What’s wrong?”

  “He has returned.”

  “Who?”

  In the background, Mad’s lover, Killian, tells him to come to bed, but Mad hushes him. When the distinctive sound of kissing carries over the line, I roll my eyes. “Maddox.”

  “Hang on, brother. It’s late. We were...”

  “I do not need to know what you were doing,” I snap, then regret my ire. “My apologies. It has been a trying day, and I need information from Gabriel.”

  A door shuts wherever Maddox is, and he clears his throat. “I haven’t spoken to Gabriel since I chose Killian over returning to t
he celestial realm.”

  “Mad, the demon…the one who… Fuck. Thorn is back.”

  “Killian!” Maddox shouts for his witch and switches the call to video. The two of them huddle close together in front of the camera. “There’s a demon after Sin.”

  Killian frowns, then runs a hand through his mussed hair. “I thought Sin was part demon.”

  “I am half-incubus, witch. And I do not know if Thorn is after me. But he is after men and women of the Other and has been for eighteen months now.”

  “Shit,” Mad says. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am sure! Do you think I would make something like this up?” I want to throw the phone off the cliff, but that would solve nothing.

  Maddox sighs and shakes his head. “Of course not. Does he know you survived?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. He is aware I brought him and Regina to the Underworld. That I struck a bargain that trapped me in Hell right along with them. But we were not tortured together. For the past eighteen months, he has been moving from city to city across the United States, and now, he is in San Francisco. Two bodies have already been found. If I do not stop him, he will continue his reign of terror across the world. I did not spend centuries in Hell to damn thousands more to my fate. I need to speak to Gabriel.”

  A hand claps me on the shoulder, and I whirl around.

  “Well, if that is all you wanted, you could have simply asked.”

  The archangel stands before me, his long white robes and flowing hair billowing in the breeze. I stagger back a few steps, his presence almost painful, and meet Mad’s gaze on the screen. “I have to go.” Ending the call, I swallow hard. “Hello, Gabriel.”

  Nine

  Sin

  “You called?” Gabriel says with an air of superiority to his tone I have not missed in my centuries of banishment. “I do not enjoy this realm, Sinclair. Get on with it.”

  I grab the archangel by his robes and shove him against my car. “The incubus piece of shit calling himself Thorn. Why is he no longer in Hell?”

  With a roar, Gabriel knocks me back ten feet, and I land on my ass in the dirt at the edge of the cliff. Fuck. Any closer and I would have gone over. “You forget your place, half-breed.”

  “And you forget that the Almighty welcomed my father into the celestial realm. If you are going to insult me, do so for my choices, not my parentage.” I brush off my black pants as I give Gabriel a wide berth lest he decide to teach me yet another lesson. “I went to Hell for almost two centuries so that abomination would never be free again. Yet he has returned to the mortal realm and has been terrorizing and murdering for over a year now. Care to explain?”

  Even with his wings hidden, Gabriel carries himself like the Almighty’s chosen one. Shoulders straight, chest puffed out, and somehow staring down his nose at me, even though I am a full two inches taller. But as he processes my words, his countenance shifts and his brow furrows. “I was not aware. Are you certain it is the demon? Humans are quite often horrible creatures, Sinclair. One or more of them could simply be abducting those of the other for sport.

  Pulling out my phone, I bring up the photo of the dead police officer’s arm with Thorn's signature tattoo. “If this is not his work, someone is doing a bang-up job of impersonating him. No human alive should be aware of this mark or its symbolism.”

  With a sharp breath—breath he technically does not need to take—Gabriel narrows his eyes at the image. Anger makes his alabaster skin glow, and the rumble in his chest is not a sound I have ever heard him make before. Not even when he banished me to this realm until I had atoned for my misdeeds.

  “This should not be possible,” he says, almost to himself. When he returns his gaze to mine, disdain and disgust twist his normally perfect features. “I will have to pay Lucifer a visit. I hate the trip to the Underworld. If this is all some human playing at demonology, I will be very pissed off.”

  Before I can reply, he vanishes, leaving only a stirring of dust in his wake.

  I have been gone too long, and the litany of text messages does nothing to assuage my guilt. Six from Maddox and four from Zoe. Maddox will forgive me. Zoe? That is doubtful.

  Tracked down your phone number, finally. Don’t suppose you’re coming back anytime today?

  Leaving all the research to someone who’s never used the Bureau’s computer system before is bullshit, Sin.

  Found Other Resources. No thanks to you.

  Her final message sends a storm of guilt washing over me.

  The last time a partner went dark on me, he died. If you’re not dead, you better have a damn good explanation.

  On my way back to headquarters, I ring Maddox.

  “Sin? What the bloody fuck?”

  “Do not lecture me, Mad. I certainly did not expect Gabriel to hear me.” Taking a corner on two wheels, I floor it up one of San Francisco’s more challenging hills. “He knows nothing. Yet. But he is on his way to see Lucifer as we speak. Or so he says.”

  “He’s an archangel,” Mad replies, as if I’ve forgotten. “He does not lie.”

  “I would not be certain of that. Gabriel can twist the truth to his liking with ease.”

  “When will you know? I’m worried about you.” As I stop at a red light, I laugh off his concern, but he’s having none of it, and his frustration carries over the transatlantic connection. “Fine. Do things all on your own. Like you have always done. It’s not like we’re family or anything.”

  The car’s display flashes Call Disconnected, and I stare at it for so long, someone behind me honks. When did the light turn green?

  Maddox hung up on me.

  I cannot pry that thought from my head until I pull into the Bureau’s parking lot and search for Zoe’s old coupe. Fuck. She is not here. I do not know why I am surprised. It is well after 5:00 p.m.

  “I will apologize to her in the morning,” I say to no one. Tonight, I have some investigating of my own to do.

  Zoe

  My apartment feels smaller than usual. Probably because as little as a few hours ago, I thought I could find a place at the Bureau. Somewhere I’d belong. Until Sin ran out on me and didn’t respond to any of my messages.

  Kunchin showed me down to Other Resources, also known as the Bureau’s Personnel Department. The Yeti’s a cool guy. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get up the courage to ask him how he blends in with the rest of the human world when he investigates Otherworldly crime. Because I know I’d remember seeing him walking around the city.

  Oh shit. Have I been Mem-Cleared?

  The couple at the park this morning weren’t allowed to leave until they’d spent time with the crime scene techs. Before Sin arrived, one of them—a mage—had explained that they take brain scans of any human witnesses, then wipe their memories of all existence of the other. I couldn’t watch them do it, and now I wish I had.

  After I lock the door and strip out of my jacket, I head for the kitchen, wondering if I’ll ever forget the things I saw today. So many photos. Most of them showing women brutalized so badly, they were unrecognizable. Some were only identifiable by dental records or a lingering bit of magic near their final resting places.

  The half-empty bottle of whiskey beckons me, but now that I know what this Thorn asshole is capable of, I need to be clear-headed, so I start a fresh pot of coffee instead.

  Kunchin didn’t just show me Other Resources. He taught me the Bureau’s computer system. Even got me set up with my own secure cloud storage drive. So after I change into a pair of sleep shorts and my favorite SFPD t-shirt, I pour myself a large mug of my favorite brew—a Peruvian single-origin—and curl up in bed with my laptop.

  From what I’ve gathered, both from talking to Kunchin and scanning the news articles in the weekly shifter newspaper—the existence of which nearly had me falling out of my chair earlier today—the shifter community in San Francisco keeps to themselves. And they hate the handful of shifters who work for the Bureau. Some dust up with a tiger shifter agent who
hassled one of the leopards working the sex trade in the Tenderloin.

  “You’ll have more success without a shifter on your investigative team,” Commander Eve says when I petition her for a new partner who’s at least fifty percent less asshole and a hundred percent more shifter. “This is a delicate case, Agent Dawes. Sinclair knows that. But from what he has told me of his history—which is not much, by the way—it is also deeply personal for him. He will come around.” The corner of her mouth curves slightly. “He is, despite all evidence to the contrary, a good man. Plus, he knows better than to cross me.”

  I hope she’s right.

  As I search for the case notes from New York, a hint of nausea crawls up the back of my throat.

  Calm down, Zoe. You haven’t even opened the file yet. Get it together.

  But suddenly, I feel trapped. My muscles lock, my breath catches in my chest, and I can’t even blink. Panic takes over, and every cell in my body screams with a pain more intense than anything I’ve ever felt before.

  Struggling against my own mind, I fight my way free of the blankets and hit the floor, my fingers digging into the well-worn carpet. The rough sensation helps me focus, and my heart rate slows, my thoughts clear, and I’m left with a hollow ache deep inside my soul that I fear will never fade away.

  Ten

  Sin

  Loup Noir is one of the more reputable shifter hangouts in the city. Catering to a high-end crowd, the bar sells twenty-dollar drinks and appetizers on tiny plates that would barely feed a child, let alone any of the patrons who burn calories at twice a human’s rate.

  Steps from the bar, two female panthers, who look entirely human save for their sleek black fur and golden eyes, stop me. “You don’t belong here, demon,” one of them purrs as the other bares her sharp teeth.