He set the boxes down on the bar top, not looking the least bit strained by the weight he had just been carrying.
“The last week here has been insane,” he said. “I have been double stocking the speed bars for the last three nights. The bar alone has been raking in about five grand a night.”
“Not that I am complaining, but why?” The sudden spike in business was good for her bank account, but their usual take in a night was between two and three thousand dollars.
“I started asking around and it turns out that two shifter joints here in town got shut down last week, for, get this, 'health code violations.' Apparently the places were really nasty. I guess the other clubs in town don't exactly welcome shifters with open arms.”
“Any problems with security?” she asked.
“Nope,” he replied. “I asked Maxwell to double the staff he's sending here. We have plenty of muscle to go around but we haven't really needed it. Everyone has done really well at keeping their cool.”
"Good. Well, I'm heading up to take care of a few things. Pop in if you need something," she said. He cordially saluted her with two fingers and continued stocking the bars. She climbed the stairs to her office.
Deziree sat down at her desk and pulled out her phone. She'd texted Charlie just to see how he'd been doing but had received no reply. Finding it odd that he hadn't answered her message, she decided to call him. It didn't ring. She immediately got an automated message.
The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please check your number and dial again.
She had three numbers for him in her contact list and tried the second one. She received the same result. She looked at her phone's screen skeptically, then swiped to the third number. She had only ever dialed the third number in his contact file once before. That number was reserved for extreme emergencies. The one time she had used it, she and Charlie had a close call at a job and had gotten separated.
This time, although it wasn't an extreme emergency, worry escalated her need to speak with him.
“Screw it.” She tapped the number in the contact file and hit dial.
The line rang twice before it clicked and a gruff man's voice answered. She'd spoken with this same man the last and only other time she'd called the number.
“Yeah?” he said with his long, southern drawl.
“Hi, I am looking for Charlie. Have you seen him?”
“No Charlie here,” he replied abruptly before he ended the call.
Deziree stared at her phone in disbelief. The son of a bitch hung up on me! She hit redial and waited.
The gruff voice answered again. “Yeah?”
“Don't hang up!” she snapped into the phone. “I am looking for Charlie and you helped me locate him once before. Can you please tell me how to get a hold of him or pass a message on to him for me?”
There was a long pause and then he sighed.
“Look,” the man let out a sigh, “Charlie is gone and he don't wanna be found. Whatever business you got with him, just let it go, you hear?”
“I've been a friend of his for a long time.”
“Miss,” he said, “if you been a friend of his for a long time, then you should know when Charlie sets his mind to somethin’, ain't nothin' gonna change it. All I knows is he told me if anyone called lookin' for him, then to tell them I ain't never heard of him. He's off the grid. Now, I got my own business to attend to. You take care now.”
The line went dead and Deziree sat at her desk, completely dumbfounded.
“He really did it,” she said to herself.
Charlie had really sworn off his old life to be with the mystery woman he was so smitten with. He had committed himself to spending the rest of his life living under the radar all for the sake of love. She couldn't help but admire him for it. There was no reason she couldn't be with Vegas if Charlie could be with his lady.
Vegas. Even though so much had changed in her life since the demon business had started, he remained the only loyal constant. She'd never thought being in anyone's arms could feel so right. Kissing him felt warm and familiar. Being with him was where she belonged and she knew it. She wondered why and how they'd spent so long without each other. Why had she ever chosen loneliness over what she felt with him? We’ll never have to feel that again. She smiled to herself and then something dawned on her.
“Great,” she muttered. “Now I have to find a new explosives guy.”
On her way home, Deziree took a detour to a nearby synagogue. Earlier that afternoon, Vegas and Lucas had left to track down something of the liquid variety to eat and she had taken the opportunity to do a little digging on the computer. When she ran her search, she had been amazed at the sheer number of websites regarding demons. A great many of them were directly related to video games, but buried in the search results, she had found some information she thought might be helpful.
Demonic possession, Dez knew, was real. However, the media had sensationalized possession. The general population either didn’t believe in it or believed it to be something far more theatrical than it really was. All around the world there were priests and rabbis who legitimately performed exorcisms, quiet ritualized ceremonies in which they would force the demon out of the victim’s body and back through the veil into Hell. The victims’ families almost always held vigil, waiting with bated breath to hear whether or not their loved one survived the cleansing. Exorcisms were somber events which often resulted in the victim leaving the room in a body bag.
There were also a great many men and women in the world masquerading as healers, with their traveling tent revivals, taking the money of people who could not afford to give. Those men and women were frauds, preying on people who had very real problems, problems having nothing at all to do with demons. Alcoholics, adulterers, and drug addicts would all gather around in hopes the preacher would expel the demon from their bodies, enabling them to lead a good and wholesome life again. Gambling addicts were dragged in to be "cured," only to throw their money away in another gamble by financing those false organizations. Those people were crooks and deserved to be kicked in the teeth.
Rabbi Sachs did not sound like one of those people.
The man had become somewhat of an underground legend. Several pages into her search results, she had found a number of websites all claiming to contain real images and videos of exorcisms. Among those pages were many articles about a mysterious Rabbi Sachs in Manhattan, who many claimed was the real thing. She had read through the articles one by one, and in the end, found the account of a man who had been at the exorcism of his little sister.
After being told by several doctors their daughter suffered from nothing more than mental illness, his parents had finally turned to their rabbi. The man writing the article explained that upon hearing the story of his sister, the rabbi didn’t hesitate for one moment and insisted they bring him to the girl. Once there, he confirmed she was in fact possessed by a demon, but stated that judging by the rotten smell saturating their home, the girl was dead already and nothing could be done to help her. The family begged him to do something. They told him they could not bear to continue seeing their daughter in that condition. He obliged and for fourteen hours, he performed the prayers and rituals to rid her body of the demonic entity. The man stated he had sat beside the rabbi the entire time and saw many things that convinced him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the thing sitting in front of him was no longer his sister. He said her eyes had even turned black as night at one point.
When he finally gave up, the rabbi told the family he would be unable to rid the body of the demon as there was no soul present to save. Their daughter was nothing more than an empty shell and they needed to look at other options. He explained to them there was a way to finally put their daughter to rest. His solution to their situation was what brought Dez to his synagogue.
She walked up to the visitor door on the side of the building and knocked. The viewing hatch opened and quickly closed again. She heard the release of two locks and the
n the door slid open. He was a small, olive skinned man. He was shorter than she was and dressed conservatively in a white, button-down shirt and a pair of black dress pants. His yarmulke rested on a thin swaths of dark brown curls.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his raspy voice betraying the cigarette habit Dez could smell on him.
“Yes,” she responded, “I’m looking for Rabbi Sachs. Is he here?”
“May I ask who's looking for him?”
“Oh, of course. My name is Deziree Davanzati. I'm here to ask him some questions about his exorcism practices.”
He eyed her suspiciously for a moment and then spoke. “And what exactly would a demon want with that particular piece of information?”
Deziree quirked a brow.
“I could smell it on you the minute I opened the door. Although, I must admit, you don't smell like all the other demons I've encountered.” He looked at her expectantly, an eyebrow raised.
“I'm half. My father was a demon.”
“Ah,” he said. “Interesting.”
“What are you?” she asked.
“Very good at my job,” he fired back without hesitation.
“Well, you smell different from most holy men I've encountered, so I assume you're Rabbi Sachs," she said sarcastically, chuckling.
“I am. But I have to wonder what you're doing here. You know what I do. What could you possibly want with me?”
“I have a bit of a situation. Is there a place we can speak in private?”
"Experience has taught me what to do with your kind, even if you are only half. I suggest you don't try anything with me,” he said, wiping his forehead.
“We're on the same side,” she said, holding up her hands as if to surrender to his demand.
“Very well,” he said, “follow me please.” He stood back, motioning for her to come in. Deziree took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Michael
Michael and Lucas returned to Deziree's apartment and found her sitting on the couch, cradling a box of bullets. She was loading her black and silver Heckler and Koch USP 45.
“Most girls spend their time doing girly things like painting their toenails,” Lucas said. “Yours cuddles with ammunition and firearms.”
Deziree smiled wide and said, “I have presents for you boys.”
“Presents?” Michael asked.
“Yes,” she said excitedly as she slipped the last bullet into the magazine, “presents.” She pushed the mag into the handle of the gun and released the slide. She double checked to make sure the safety was on, then set aside her effects. She grabbed her dark green messenger bag off of the floor. She produced two boxes of bullets, giving each vampire his own. She grinned as if she were a five year old again and had just made them each a macaroni picture.
“Bullets. You shouldn't have," Michael said monotonically.
“Not just any bullets!” she exclaimed. “Special bullets. Compliments of my new friend, Rabbi Jacob Sachs.”
“You made a friend?” Michael asked.
Deziree told them the story of the exorcism she read about. “He's not exactly a traditional rabbi. His solution for getting rid of the demon was to pump it full of bullets wiped down with a cloth soaked in holy water. He said one bullet won’t do it. A single shot will certainly slow it down, but he had to shoot the girl nine times to kill the demon.”
“He shot an innocent girl?” Lucas asked, obviously shocked by the rabbi's choice of action.
“He shot a girl's body,” Deziree clarified. “The girl was already dead. The demon had killed her long before he got to her. It set up shop in her body. He thinks this could help us. It may not kill Asmodeus, but it may buy us the time we need to stop him. If we can get enough rounds into him before he can begin performing the ritual, we may actually be able to stop this thing.” Deziree was back to grinning at the two of them.
“This could actually work,” Michael said. “I'll have to get my guns from my place.”
“No need,” Deziree said as she ran down the hallway. When she returned from her bedroom, she was carrying two more guns identical to her own. They eyed the .45s when handed them.
“Geez, Dez,” Lucas said, examining the hand gun. “How many of these do you have?”
“Four,” she replied. “I had two here, one at the club, and one in the glove box of the Merc. I also have plenty of spare mags and a few belts that hold three each. We will have more than enough fire power on us.”
“And how do you suppose we are going to get all of this through airport security?” Lucas asked. “Am I right to assume these weapons are not legally registered?”
Michael smiled, kissed Deziree on the cheek and said, “Let's call Kade.”
“In a minute,” Dez replied with a wry smile, then draped herself over Michael's shoulders. She pressed her lips against his, smiling throughout the engrossing kiss. For a moment, they forgot about everything in the world around them. He surrendered, allowing himself to get lost in the moment. When she ended the kiss, it took him a moment to clear the daze from his mind.
"Gross," Lucas said, averting his eyes. "I'm just gonna go."
“What was that for?” he asked, searching her beautiful blue eyes for what had changed.
“I found out today that Charlie is gone,” she explained. “He is an immortal and yet he chose to be with a mortal. He’s doomed. He’s going to suffer through watching her grow old and he knows full well he’s going to lose her, but he loved her enough to put himself through it anyway. Finding out he went underground to live with her made me realize how lucky I am. The news about Charlie got me thinking about Lucas and Natalia. He had her in his life so briefly and yet he wouldn’t trade the time he had with her for anything.” She gently wiped the lip gloss off his lips, then looked him in the eyes. “I want you to know I am in this. I want that kind of love. I want a love that makes you willing to give up the world to have it for as long as you can. No more walls. No more emotional barricades. I am in this and I am not going anywhere.”
Michael had no idea how to answer, so he kissed her sweetly and briefly instead. Deziree had always been so reserved when it came to expressing any kind of emotion. She was just like him in that regard.
“I’m in this too,” he replied. They both had some learning to do, that was for sure.
“Good,” she said, squeezing him tighter. Then she released her grip. “Now call Kade and get the ball rolling.”
Kade arrived at Deziree's apartment a few hours later with the news they had been hoping for.
“I have arranged for a private plane to fly us in to Paramaribo, Suriname,” he explained. “We will be landing on the private estate of a friend. He's out of the country on business, but he has instructed his people to provide us with transport from the estate to Cayenne, French Guiana. His estate is not far from the border. Once we’re there, it's up to us to get to Devil's Island, but it shouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, this means our schedule is bumped up. The extra days we had to get down there will be spent traveling.”
“When do we leave?” Michael asked.
Kade looked at his watch and replied, “In approximately two hours.”
“You managed to get a private plane arranged at this hour?” Michael asked. It was the middle of the night and, vampire dealings or not, arranging a private plane in the darkest hours of night on a whim was quite the feat.
“It took me pulling some strings and calling in some favors but yes, we are all set to go.”
“Alright,” Michael said, turning to Lucas and Deziree, “pack your bags.” They each headed for their rooms and Michael turned back to Kade. “Will any of your people be joining us for this trip?”
“They are going to meet us in French Guiana,” Kade replied. “They’re all flying out tomorrow.”
“How many?”
“Six. I decided not to call together the coven after all and ended up hand-picking a select team instead. From the
sound of things, we may not even need them. We just need to get close enough to the demon to put him down.”
“That's true,” Michael said, “but I would rather have some back up and not need them than have no one and end up in way over our heads. Thank you. It really means the world to us that you and your people are doing this.”
“Think nothing of it,” Kade replied. “In cases like this, we're not covens, races, countries, or species. We're citizens of the realm. We're all each other's people. We all have to fight this. Now, let's go take care of this demon," he said with a smirk, patting Vegas's shoulder emphatically.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Dez
Half a day later, the three vampires and half demon arrived in Cayenne, French Guiana. They checked into the Novotel Cayenne hotel and went to their rooms to get settled. Kade's six men were due to arrive later in the night.
Deziree set her suitcases by the door and stripped off her clothes, piece by piece, leaving a trail from the door to the bed. She pulled back the covers and crawled into the comfort of the sheets. She had left Vegas, Lucas, and Kade talking in the hallway. She was so tired, the only thing she could concentrate on was how good the pillow waiting for her was going to feel. The minute she pulled the covers up to her chin, she felt the pull of sleep stealing her consciousness. As the darkness took her, she allowed her mind to drift. The last thought she remembered having was one of anxiety over the task ahead of them.
Deziree stood in a black void. There was no sky above her. There was no ground below her. Just a black space of nothingness. The lack of reference point in the space was very disorientating. She knew in the back of her mind she was dreaming, but she had never experienced a dream like this before.
She turned around, spinning in a slow circle, expecting something to appear — a memory, an illusion, something — but nothing happened. The silence of the space was deafening. Her ears began to ring from the startling lack of noise.
The Devil You Know Page 12