Master Juggler (Untraceable Succubus Book 3)

by Erin R Flynn

  Elijah snorted. “He’d be an idiot if he didn’t.”

  “I really and truly understand why you said never to let another lust demon near me,” Phil whispered, looking a bit shell shocked.

  I winced as Elijah and Natalia gave me annoyed looks. “He’s not our enemy, and he’s actually friends with my, um, boyfriend. I’ve never met a more open book than him. It’s like cheating to not at least warn him. They didn’t even know what it meant to agree to a demon interrogating them.”

  “Even I knew that one,” Aidan snickered.

  I glanced around and saw it was just Kyle in his emergency glamour. Yeah, it was smart to keep everyone else out.

  “I’m gonna change; do not even touch my systems, as it makes me ridiculously cranky. Give Elijah what I asked you to bring and he’ll decide.” I hurried to the master bedroom without giving them a chance to argue or debate. I whipped off the heavy winter dress and went for a sleeveless lounge dress that was a V-neck and had a hoodie, throwing up my hair as I changed back to my Jasmine glamour.

  I gave Elijah a suspicious look when I came back and there was a whole box of my favorite snack. After searching his eyes and seeing nothing but his desire to comfort me, I realized he was being nice knowing my grandfather dying was harder on me than I wanted to admit. Plus, you know, all the other shit going on.

  “Don’t you dare share any of my other favorites with them,” I warned though as I plopped on my chair and pulled my foot up while the other was tucked under me. I instantly grabbed the mango ones since I’d never tried those and I loved trying new things. I opened the package and held out my hand to Elijah. “File?”

  “This one,” he muttered, handing it over. “A vampire who likes the taste of children.”

  I growled and snatched it, hating the fucker instantly. Who could seriously hurt kids like that? Or at all? I read it over and nodded as I flipped through the pages and details.

  “Do you want your iced tea, sweetie?” Dylan asked me.

  “Yes, thanks, that would be awesome.” I turned to Phil. “Do you have the digital file of this? Where these pictures were taken would help me best. I want the data off of them.”

  He nodded, handing me a slim USB drive as he studied me and my setup. I thanked him and plugged it in, opening the right file and getting to work the moment I had the first Pocky stick in my mouth. They were my absolute favorite snack, as they were sweet and crunchy and easy to eat while working and not get anything on my hands that would end up on my keyboard.

  So yeah, perfect snack, and I was seriously addicted to them.

  After a moment I pulled up a YouTube playlist Kiera had made for me with popular new songs she thought I would like. That and I would probably make dances for them, and they liked when I did that too, especially when I shared. I was pretty sure there was an iPod she was constantly trying to slip me, but I was always hopping from case to case and didn’t have much down time.

  The first few songs played and I wasn’t feeling it, but then I loved Martin Garrix’s “Ocean,” replaying it just to make sure. I pulled a notepad and pen out from the drawer, writing the title under ideas for Cyr wheel choreography.

  I kept going, realizing my iced tea was there and muttering a thanks to Dylan without even glancing at him. I set the first search going in the right program after I pulled off the right metadata. Throwing it up on a different monitor so it was out of my way but still visible, I moved onto the other aspects of the case to trace.

  I added Fifth Harmony’s “Don’t Say You Love Me” to the same list, as it would make a perfect song for the mood of the Cyr wheel. Maybe even the silks. A few Ariana Grande songs made the normal list because even if I thought the woman was a bit too much drama and shallow, she had some good songs and they were popular.

  “Top five,” I told Elijah when I finished the package of Pocky.

  “Nothing will ever beat chocolate banana, huh?”

  “Never say never,” I chuckled, reaching over to the box and pulling out a package of chocolate banana and another of strawberry cream. I opened them both and put one of each flavor in my mouth so I could eat them together.

  He just snickered at my antics, and I started wiggling in my chair when Meghan Trainor’s “Let You Be Right” came on as I knew it and her latest album. I sang along when I didn’t have a Pocky in my mouth as I finished the next search parameters and moved onto the third, completely forgetting others were there.

  “I told you she could really sing,” Dylan chuckled, bringing me back to the others around. I tilted my head back to ask what was going on, but he just gave me a soft kiss. “Ignore us and wow everyone. Aidan was just commenting that you sing like an angel.”

  “No, but one was my father,” I drawled, knowing he meant it in the common sense, but it was funny when the demons in the room snorted.

  Three more searches running and another half an hour and I was starting to get annoyed. The trail was too old, and my growing frustration was making me run into the walls coming up in front of me harder and harder. I let out an array of curse words and pushed out of my chair. I went to the corner of the room where the light was coming in on the floor and stretched.

  “Don’t, it’s her process,” Kyle warned someone quietly. “Sunlight gives a different perspective, and it helps her crazy brain along with a bit of yoga to calm down.”

  “I feel like an animal at a zoo,” I grumbled. “This is why I work best alone and feed everyone what they need.” I went through five different poses, not caring I was in a dress or nothing was under it, blocking out who was all there before I locked onto a thought. I flipped to my feet and went back to my system, chugging some of the iced tea before my fingers flew over the keys.

  “How the fuck do you have access to Interpol’s database?” Phil growled.

  “Are you jealous because you guys don’t have it or pissed anyone’s in it?”

  “A bit of both,” he muttered.

  “You guys might want to get comfortable,” I said instead of addressing it or poking at him that I had diplomatic immunity. “This trail is six months cold. It’s going to be a deep dive.”

  “Our people haven’t gotten anything, and they’ve been looking that long,” Phil reminded me. Which yeah, of course if that was when the trail went cold.

  One of my programs beeped, and I pumped my fist and brought it up on the main screen. The search was still running on all the social media photos that had the metadata I wanted for that location, but I’d gotten a bunch of hits for an hour before the time the picture had been taken of the suspect and anytime after. I quickly flipped through a dozen pictures before I found one that had him.

  “How did you do that?” he asked, sighing when I waved him off.

  “Is this the social media metadata thing?” Dylan asked. He waited until I nodded and then quietly explained to Phil what my program did.

  A few more dozen and I got the guy glancing at his cell phone. Good, he had one. That would help. I pulled up my program that could run searches through cell towers, plugging in the address and time to pull a list of every number that had pinged there. That took a bit, but then I ran that list through another program that started checking which numbers were with what carriers.

  That would at least give me a range of options I could go after next once I got more info. More and more images loaded, and I hit the money when I found one of the guy getting into a vehicle… That wasn’t a taxi.

  “Please have been stupid enough to use Uber,” I muttered, pulling up what I needed before chugging the rest of my tea and opening another package of Pocky. I didn’t look first unfortunately, and it was cookies and cream, which tasted like chalky biscuits and too old whip cream. I gagged and spit it out, grumbling that it sullied the name of Pocky being so gross.

  “He hasn’t used any of his credit cards or accessed his bank accounts,” Phil muttered as he leaned in closer.

  “No hovering,” I grumbled, batting him away. “And that you know of. There
’s PayPal and Bitcoin, and that’s not even the dark web stuff.” I checked the detailed records Uber kept to cover their asses and chuckled. “Well, someone went to the airport from that location, and I would bet good money it was your bad guy.” I adjusted my neck. “Okay, let’s see what we find at the airport then.”

  “How is she seriously doing this?” Phil asked Dylan. “Is this like a joke? She’s got backdoors into social media and Uber?”

  “I think our tech guys might be a bit outdated,” Dylan admitted. “The head of the department told me what she’s doing with social media wasn’t even possible. She was shocked that was his answer and disappointed, pointing out she didn’t think it was just her that had that access or ability. I checked with a British agent I’ve worked with, and he wouldn’t tell me what they had, but he ran a few scenarios.”

  “How bad?”

  “They can do a lot more than we can,” Dylan sighed. “But they’re tapped in with their government, and most governments fight us.”

  I snorted. “Because assholes show up to crime scenes and in front of cops announce they can do whatever with suspects or people they want to talk to because they’re ISLE. People close ranks on that kind of shit real fast, plus snake boy was pretty disrespectful to the locals and they spread that shit faster than the fun stories.”

  “She’s right, and I heard both the officers she was working with on different sides say that every time they’ve come into contact with ISLE it’s been like that,” Dylan told him.

  “Not to be the most cynical person in the room, but your previous director could have been stifling your tech department so no one could figure out what he was up to, as this wasn’t a new endeavor of his.” I glanced up at them. “I applied for ISLE after all.”

  What I wouldn’t tell them was it had been part of trying to get eyes inside ISLE and find out how bad things were after we’d found out they weren’t acting on everything we gave them. So yeah, I hadn’t done it with the intentions of being loyal to ISLE.

  I would guess they were smart enough to figure that part out.

  I gasped when I saw a new flavor of Pocky I’d never tried and quickly opened it. Brazilian orange was good, but not great. I muttered it wasn’t as good as tropical and I missed being able to get that.

  Elijah reached into the box and found me a package. “They had a limited run to change up the flavor rotation, and I bought all of the ones I could find.”

  “You are so my favorite,” I chuckled, making kissy faces at him before focusing on work again. Still, I wouldn’t waste Pocky, and I ate all the orange ones.

  “The councils will want all of this,” Aidan muttered.

  “They can suck my big toe,” I drawled as I pulled up airport footage for what I needed. “There’s no way they’ll use it to find bad guys and punish criminals. No, they’ll use it to cover up the ‘misdeeds’ of their people like it was jaywalking, find people who speak out against them that have to hide, and even know how to take out witnesses better instead of keeping control.”

  “She’s not wrong, jaded, but not wrong,” Phil muttered.

  I loaded all the footage onto a large drive and disconnected it, handing it to Kyle. “I need eyes to review that. I started it from two minutes before the Uber arrived at the airport just to be careful until an hour after. That should be more than enough to find him. I also put the best photos we have now.”

  “Got it. What do you want for food as Pocky doesn’t count?” he asked.

  “If you could find another gyro spread from the clubs, that would make me happiest, otherwise Chinese would be awesome.”

  “We’ll handle it.”

  “Thanks.” I got back to work, lost in it and my head, yelping when I was lifted up. Dylan sat down and moved me to his lap. “That’s distracting.”

  “I’ll be good.”

  I snorted, not remotely believing it but giving him a chance at least. Yeah, it took about two minutes for a hand to slide under the dress and the other massaging just under my breast. I bit back a moan and smacked him. “Cut it out. Four people are full of desires for you to fuck me.”

  “Sorry,” Phil, Aidan, and Natalia said together. She shrugged when they gave her questioning looks. “I prefer women, and Jasmine is gorgeous.”

  “And she’s about as close as I’ll ever get to having a child,” Elijah muttered.

  “Yeah, and no dirty anything in front of my demon dad,” I grumbled, elbowing Dylan. I shivered at the idea, totally creeped out, and I was pretty easygoing and open with that sort of thing, so it really should have clued him in that it was a harsh line for me.

  “Your guy said something about Elijah having a good idea and it panned out,” Phil interjected.

  “Right, I forgot about that,” I muttered, getting out of my chair and waving for Dylan to vacate it. He got his shot, but he wasn’t going to behave, and I didn’t want to be distracted when there was someone at large hurting—feeding—from children.

  Dylan sighed, standing and going over by Aidan who seemed amused by the whole thing. Or maybe just me. I never really did know what that man was thinking always.

  “Before we brought Bain back home, I went over him calling Tahnee who he was in contact with through Caden. We agreed him putting some pressure on her would be a good idea. It worked, and she promised you’ll be at the next party this Friday. He was smooth, adding that he wasn’t happy that Caden was bragging you were going to be his and someone told him you were with Aidan.”

  “How did that go? She said she was being quiet about that so that might have poked something in her plans,” I wondered.

  “She was unconcerned,” Elijah replied, his eyes dancing with mirth and the excitement of the hunt. “She said there was more than enough of you to go around and you were ‘friendly’ like that. He couldn’t take care of a woman full time now that he was such a big shot, a whole song and dance that made it clear it wasn’t her first time giving it.”

  “She then immediately called me to extend an invitation for a piece she thought I would undoubtedly want to see,” Aidan added. He bobbed his head when my anger shot up and then I swallowed it down. “I felt the same. And I worry you’re right that there’s someone else on the council involved or at least a member to this club, as brazen doesn’t even begin to describe how they’re acting.”

  “We’re just demons and no one gives a shit what happens to us as long as it doesn’t draw eyes,” I sneered, not at him but just at the attitude in general. “I was thinking that maybe you were just the easiest target as a junior councilmember to get them the protection they want. This could be their one shot to get it all locked in as safe. Brazen like it’s all everything already would be the way to do it.”

  “Yes, that is smart and a possibility as well,” he agreed. “Either way, it puts Bain and I at the party, and even if it’s offsite and they’re using portals, that’s still allies there.”

  “And we can easily sense a portal, so once we confirm she’s either there or taken to another location we can infiltrate,” Elijah added. He shot me a smirk. “You poor, poor kidnapped demon. We’ll come rescue you, I promise.”

  I snorted. “If I leave any alive after I wake up, assuming they manage to knock me out. Playing unconscious is always one of the hardest parts, as I itch to act.”

  “And how do you normally do that?” Phil asked.

  I shrugged. “Depends on what they’re doing. It’s never a selling puppies from puppy mills kind of illegal. Last time it was pretty bad too and they were rather excited to get a lust demon instead of a wrath demon like they thought, as they could play with me in different ways then. Instead, I broke their bodies and let the wrath demons feed from the fight so they had the strength to escape.”

  “And after they did?”

  I met his gaze. “If you’re looking for remorse or a person wanting forgiveness, you will not find it here. I’m a demon. We’re sort of known for taking our pound of flesh when wronged. I took it. I broke their bodi
es and made sure they would stay broken. Those wrath demons now have human covers and work at different clubs because being around shifters can trigger what they went through.”

  He nodded. “There is a lot of racism that stems from something traumatic and dark but spins out.”

  I snorted. “Sure, but a lot of it is just misplaced hate and envy. We feel desires. You wouldn’t believe how often racism—and I mean ‘reverse racism’ in that too, which is a stupid term as racism isn’t defined as a specific race hating another—stems from envy and jealousy. This one’s jealous of the happiness or success or whatever it is, and those feelings snowball into hating a whole fucking race or species.”

  “Sort of like how so many hate us and treat us like bottom of the barrel when we know that’s not true, but it all stems from being jealous we’re more powerful,” Natalia added.

  “You’re not wrong,” Phil agreed. “But sometimes it stems from traumas. A black woman hurt by a white man is triggered by the same features, can only see the color and flinches from it. Others see that, others know the reason, and it snowballs. Sometimes all it would have taken was someone getting help, having a place to turn to that’s safe, and having a real discussion about the root.”

  “You’re not wrong,” I conceded, clearing my throat nervously. “I had a problem with Hispanic men for a while after one hurt me and tried to do worse. I thought I was just angry at that guy, but I kept seeing him in anyone with similar features, basically almost any Hispanic man with the skin and hair and build. It took me a bit to realize they did nothing to me and I was projecting.”

  Phil nodded. “A discussion to find the root is much more effective than accusations or calling you names for what you were feeling. Dividing people does nothing but leave huge divides and make them wider. It’s bridges that makes people see there was no reason to hate.”

  I felt a lot better that was his stance, as he came off as such a rule follower and too uptight, and sometimes those were the most dangerous people because if anything shifted on them they lashed out. Phil was maybe just more disciplined than the rest of us could ever dream of being.