Martinis with the Devil

by A. A. Chamberlynn

  When I walked back out, Quinn had emerged from her room and was complaining about the smell. “There’s plenty to go around,” Donovan joked.

  “Oh, yes, because frying meat is a vegetarian’s dream.” She glared and went to make her usual breakfast granola.

  I took a seat next to Donovan. “Well, I’ve got another couple hours before I’m meeting up with Eli. What’s your plan?”

  Donovan turned and gave me an appraising look. “I never thought I’d see the day when Zyan Star was working for God. And the government.”

  “Well, for once we’re trying to accomplish the same thing—stop Alexander.”

  “Stop? Or kill? Somehow I don’t think the HR has given you permission to off your ex.” His voice held a tone of amusement.

  I shrugged. “Okay, so we’re trying to accomplish almost the same thing.”

  “What’s your plan, then? Are you going to go rogue at the last second and somehow get away with murder?”

  His line of questioning was starting to give me a headache. I raised my hands in exasperation. “I don’t know, okay? Maybe I’ll “accidentally” kill him. It’s not like he’s going to just come quietly. It’ll pretty much be self-defense.” When Donovan tossed me an infuriating smirk, I resisted the urge to throw all his papers in the air. “I’m not into this whole planning thing. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

  “Your boyfriend’s not going to be too happy about that.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Quinn pause on her way back from the kitchen, gauging my reaction. “My what? Who are you referring to?”

  Donovan just smiled. “That angel. Eli or whatever his name is.”

  “You’re joking, right? Me and him?” I sighed dramatically to emphasize the absurdity of the statement.

  “You two seemed awfully cozy the other night.”

  Some of the other shifters hid grins. “I already told you, he was healing my wounds from the demon attack. Why do you care anyways?”

  “I don’t. Just curious who you’re shacking up with these days.” He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head in a gesture of nonchalance.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Because a girl couldn’t possibly be perfectly content on her own. Without a man. What a crazy concept.”

  “Are you two done with your banter?” Riley swept into the room with platters of meat. “It’s exhausting just listening to you.”

  Everyone but me and Quinn clustered around the coffee table, and for a couple minutes only the sound of chewing and contented sighs filled the air. Even Riley the health nut was wolfing it down. Pun totally intended.

  “So, Dan,” I said. His brown eyes popped up to meet mine. “You run in a pack, or are you a loner like Riley?”

  “I’ve got a pack,” he answered.

  “They must think we’ve abducted you or something these last few days.” I smiled as he blushed in response.

  “Riley’s not a loner. He’s an honorary member of my pack,” Donovan said.

  “That’s sweet. But these two bitches are plenty of pack for me,” Riley said with a nod in me and Quinn’s direction.

  Donovan busted out laughing. I grinned and looked over at Quinn, who had already sidled up next to one of the cute shifter boys named Patrick, pretending to help him with his quadrant. “Takes one to know one,” she retorted.

  “Touché.” He dipped his head toward her.

  “Not to change the subject to a shitty one,” I began, “But something’s come up that you need to know about Alexander.” I filled Donovan and his pack members in on the appearance of my sister.

  “Man, that’s tough, Zy.” Donovan laid his hand on mine. His warmth rushed up my arm and for a second I wondered what his life force would taste like. My hunger was putting me on edge again. Big time. With all the injuries I’d sustained the last couple days, I was going to need to feed again soon.

  “Yeah. I’m hoping I can get her to work with us so she won’t get locked up by the NHTF. Until then though, keep an eye out for her when you’re out looking for Alexander.”

  We went over various plans for the next few minutes, then Donovan announced they were going to hit the town and start looking. “I guess we’ll meet up with you later?” he asked.

  “Probably. Not sure what Eli’s plans are, so I’ll let you know.”

  Donovan and his crew filed out of the apartment. “He was always my favorite one of your boyfriends,” Quinn said wistfully. “I wish you two could work it out.”

  “There’s just that pesky cheating habit of his,” I said, propping my feet up on the coffee table.

  “He seems a lot more together than he used to be, though,” Riley added.

  “Quit ganging up on me,” I groaned. And for once they actually let it go.

  Dan announced he had to leave for a pack thing, which left me, Riley and Quinn to talk about the bar schedule for the week. After a few more minutes of lounging around, I got up to get dressed. A bit later as I walked back out into the living room, I heard Riley announce, “I smell smoke.”

  Me and Quinn stared at him. “I don’t smell anything,” I said.

  “I’m telling you, something is burning.”

  “In here?” Quinn asked, glancing around.

  “No. Somewhere out in the city.”

  “I’m sure your sense of smell is good and all, but how could you possibly—” I cut off as he whipped open the blinds in the living room to reveal the glow of a large fire off to the northeast. He gave me a smug smile. “Impressive. I stand corrected.”

  “That’s pretty major,” Quinn said, peering anxiously through the glass.

  Riley flipped on the TV. An anchorwoman from one of the local channels appeared, looking rather panicked. “I’ve just appeared at the scene of a large fire south of the Needle, around the area of 5th and Wall Street. It seems that some sort of protest is going on, led by factions of the supernatural community.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said, my jaw dropping open.

  “The fire, initially thought to be caused by a gas leak, is now believed to have been caused by some of the witches marching in the protest.” Beside me, Quinn stiffened as the camera zoomed in on a man and woman strolling down the street, hurling blue fireballs at the surrounding buildings. “However, other supernatural races have joined in the riot. Members of the vampire and werewolf community have also been seen.”

  “What the hell are they doing?” Riley gasped. “They’re going to get us all thrown into prison. The government’s not going to put up with this.”

  “And since when have witches, vamps and weres all hung out together?” I added, narrowing my eyes. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

  “A coincidence with what?” asked Quinn, though she didn’t unglue her eyes from the TV.

  “With the attempts on the HR’s life. With Alexander coming to town. With the portal openings. Everything. He’s trying to create total societal upheaval.” I clenched my fingers into fists.

  “But why would he do that?” Riley asked. “It seems he’d have nothing to gain. In fact, it’s a huge risk, when everything has been going fine since the Evolution.”

  “You may think so. But many of the supes are not at all happy with the DNA sensors and such,” Quinn said.

  “And Alexander thinks he’s vastly superior to humans, so I’ll bet he wants any semblance of government control crushed,” I added.

  Screams came from the TV as the camera did another close up of a group of werewolves chasing a couple humans down the street. “The Holy Representative’s angelic warriors are on site,” the anchorwoman said, her hands trembling on the microphone. “God help us all.” The video feed cut off ominously.

  I walked into my room and emerged with my sword. “Where are you going?” Quinn asked, wide-eyed.

  “You heard the report. The HR’s team is down there. That means Eli. He could use my help.” I pulled on my leather jacket and headed for the door.

  “Are you joking?” she scre
eched.

  “Hardly.”

  “I’m coming with you.” Riley said.

  Quinn looked like her head would explode. “What’s your reason?”

  Riley’s eyes flashed. “Because someone needs to know that not all the supes are trying to overturn society. I’ll have to represent the sane majority of the community.”

  Quinn bit her lip. “You two are nuts,” she said, following us out the door.

  I turned back to her with a grin. “And that’s why you love us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Things had declined significantly in the few minutes it took us to arrive at the outskirts of the chaos. The fire had spread from a couple buildings to a couple blocks. People were still trying to escape the area, fleeing through the streets in panic. Of course, some of the humans had decided this was the perfect time to loot the stores, and so most of the storefronts we passed had smashed-in windows and were being emptied out. As we walked deeper into the melee, people cast us strange and terrified glances, wondering no doubt why we were heading this way when everyone else was running their asses off in the opposite direction.

  The usual human disaster management teams were on site—ambulances, city policemen, firefighters. They were no match for this type of emergency. The policemen seemed to know they were ineffectual against the supes, what with the witches casting spells, and the vamps and weres being too fast for human eyes. They seemed to have taken a strictly defensive position, simply trying to protect the paramedics and firefighters. Where the hell was the NHTF?

  A block deeper into hell, I finally spotted them. “There’s Eli, with the task force.” I pointed, and we headed toward them.

  Something whistled past my cheek. “Duck!” I yelled as a volley of darts flew toward us. We flattened ourselves to the pavement. “Supe tranquilizers,” I groaned.

  “Stop!” Eli called. “They’re with me.”

  I peeled myself off the pavement and ran to where he stood, jumping over the bodies of a couple supes who were either dead or tranquilized. “What are you doing here?” Eli yelled through the noise.

  “We figured you could use some supes that hadn’t lost their freaking heads.” I put my hands on my hips. “Am I wrong?”

  “No,” Eli said. “I’m glad you came. But you didn’t have to.”

  “I know. What do you want us to do?”

  “Quinn, can you put out these fires?” Eli asked, all business.

  “Yeah,” she answered, looking around at the burning city. Without waiting for further instructions, she ran to the nearest fire and began blasting it with a pale icy shimmer of power from her fingertips.

  “Riley and Zy, I need you two to arm yourselves with some darts and start taking down these rogue supes. With your speed, you should be able to tag more than the NHTF.” He led us over to a black van, where a woman was dispensing sleek black rifles. “You remember Commander Hunter?”

  “Of course,” I said, nodding at the woman.

  “I’m helping with the weapons since no portals have opened up yet,” Hunter said, seeming to feel a need to explain herself.

  “Groovy. Load me up.” Was it my imagination, or did she cast a questioning look at Eli before handing me a rifle? Well shit, if that’s how it was going to be… “I’ll try not to kill too many civilians,” I said, turning back to catch her look of horror as I charged off into the crowd.

  Riley caught up with me a moment later. “I’ve got your back,” he said.

  “Cool, thanks.” I pointed to a spot in the middle of the street where we had a good vantage point in the thick of the riot. “Over there?”

  “Yeah, looks good.”

  We ran in a low crouch to the middle of the street and stood back to back. I fired off a couple shots and watched as a witch and a vamp hit the ground in convulsions. “Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine you’d be shooting down supes in the street, with government tranq darts?”

  “Definitely not,” Riley responded after taking down a werewolf that was charging a news reporter.

  “This totally blows,” I added a moment later.

  “That it does.”

  It didn’t take long for the supes to realize we weren’t on their side. At first we’d just get charged one at a time, and could pick off the assailant easily. But apparently they decided to form a group and take care of us traitors together, because a pack of a couple dozen supes started moving in our direction. “Uh, bad news,” I called to Riley, who faced the other direction.

  He cast a glance over his shoulder. “Understatement, Zy. We’d better move.”

  We started to fall back toward the NHTF vehicles, since we needed to reload anyways, but it looked like another group was swarming in that direction. I heard a scream behind me and saw a vamp dragging Commander Hunter away from the van that held the guns. “Damn it! They’re getting our guns!”

  We were still a ways off, and it seemed half the riot had suddenly moved between us and the van. I could see only flashes of what was happening—Eli racing in the direction they’d taken Hunter—what looked like a couple weres passing out rifles to their buddies—bringing down a couple angels with the darts. So the darts worked on Heaven’s creatures, too. Interesting.

  Somehow we cut our way to the van, at the cost of the last of our darts. Time to get our hands dirty. I pulled out my sword, and Riley just used his brute strength. I cut down the weres passing out darts, trying to deal blows that weren’t fatal unless I had to. I had no doubt lies and coercion had led them to act in this way, and I didn’t think they deserved to die. Whoever was behind this did.

  I grabbed a new gun and started spraying the crowd. Supes were falling left and right, but more just sprang up to replace them. It seemed they were seeping up out of the sewers, materializing from the shadows. The angels and NHTF members seemed to have gotten swept away in the surge of bodies, leaving me and Riley as the sole defenders of the weapons. Somehow this wasn’t how I’d imagined everything playing out.

  Beside me, Riley let out a groan and grabbed his shoulder. “Zy,” he gasped, before sinking to the ground, where he began to shake like a dying fish. Then his body went limp and I saw the dart protruding from his shirt. With my foot, I rolled his body under the van the best I could while continuing to fire darts into the wave of supernaturals descending on me. There were too many of them. And they looked pretty pissed that I’d taken down so many of their friends. A miracle would be good right about now.

  I felt the van rock behind me. Great. They were coming at me from both sides. I looked up in time to see a shadow fall over my face as a large figure jumped down at me. I fired off a shot, but the gun was knocked from my hand and the dart spun off harmlessly. My fist didn’t miss though. I slammed it into the jawbone of my attacker, and as his head whipped back I reached for my sword.

  “Damn, Zy, is that any way to treat your knight in shining armor?” The familiar Irish brogue was honey to my ears.

  “Donovan! What are you doing?” I retrieved my gun from the ground and began to fire again.

  “I figured you’d be out here in the thick of the trouble. Mass chaos meets Zyan Star.” Donovan grabbed a rifle and tossed it to one of his pack members, who was coming around from the front of the van.

  “Am I really that predictable?” I grinned up at him.

  “Afraid so, my sweet.” He kept tossing out rifles. It looked like he’d brought his whole crew, about thirty in total.

  “Well, you were right on time. I was about to bite the dust.” I shot off a couple rounds.

  “You know I like to be fashionably late.” He picked up his own gun and began to fire. “We need to try to get these guys pushed back.” Donovan waved over a couple of his shifters. “Gather up five or so pack members to guard the weapons,” he told them. “We’re going to try to push forward and break the wave.”

  “And watch Riley.” I pointed to his limp body under the van.

  They nodded and quickly began to implement their instructions
. We began to move forward, and now that I was no longer holed in, I could take stock of my surroundings. I could see the angels and the NHTF over to our right, trying to push through a large knot of supes like we were. The fires closest to us had died down, no doubt due to Quinn’s counteractive spells, but further down the street they raged steadily. Bodies littered the ground, most of them simply sedated, or so I hoped. Lying there slack-faced, it was hard to tell the humans from the vamps, witches and weres.

  “That way,” Donovan said, pointing toward the NHTF. “If we can meet up with their line, we can form a net and round these guys up.”

  I nodded and we began to shift our way over, taking down any rogue in our path. At the rate this was going, the bodies would be carpeting the entire street in the next few minutes. Somehow, even in the midst of all the sirens and flame and smoke and screams and gunfire, I felt a wave of sadness. Just for a moment. This shouldn’t be happening. We’d all coexisted with the humans for so long. And now everything was ruined. The media would run wild with the story, and more new laws would get implemented. We would carry this scar for a very long time.

  We finally made it over to the NHTF. I caught sight of Eli again, and he met my eyes for a moment. Realizing what we were trying to do, the angels and NHTF agents formed a semi-circle with us and began to swing around the crowd, blocking in the majority of the rioters. Then, below my feet I felt something rumbling. Through the smoke, I could see more NHTF trucks headed toward us. Reinforcements had finally arrived. Seeing the cavalry roll in, some of the protestors raised their hands in surrender. Others at the back of the crowd darted off, blending into the smoke and shadows.

  That’s when I spotted Quinn. On the far side of the intersection, taking rapid fire from two of the rogue witches. Not gunfire, but a witch’s ammunition. Spells. They must have spotted her cleaning up their arson. Sparks and glowing lights and colored swirls flew back and forth between them like fireworks on the Fourth of July. I watched in horror as a blast of red light hit Quinn full in the chest. She fell back onto the pavement, her head rolling to the side.