“Didn’t ask for your life story and still not seeing how this is my problem,” I deadpan.
“I just need a ride,” the dark little pixie urges. “Please. I don’t have any money and I had to sell almost everything I own to pay for that bus ticket. Even if you can’t take me the whole way, I’d be grateful if you got me out of state and to a truck stop, maybe. I’ll hitchhike the rest of the way.”
Sirens sound in the distance, reminding us that we’ve already been out in the open for much too long. All three of us look like extras in a low-budget horror flick. If we don’t leave now, I’ll be forced to murder cops or will have to use my powers to keep them at bay. Either way, I’m not spending a single second in jail. I’d sooner let the entire state burn to the ground.
I huff out an aggravated breath. All I wanted to do was look at some tits and try to forget. Yet, here I am, caught in the midst of human bullshit once again. I fish out my wallet and peel off a few bills.
“Here. Go get another bus ticket,” I say, offering more than enough to get the girl to her desired destination. But instead of accepting the cash with grateful exuberance, she shakes her head.
“This is a small town. There won’t be another bus at least until tomorrow. Butch will have found me by then and I’ll be dead by breakfast.”
I want to remind her: this ain’t my fucking problem. But the look of desperation in her eyes that shines through her stubborn pride and that wretched stain of poverty that covers her from head to toe…she reminds me of a girl that also came from meager means. A girl that scratched and clawed her way through her entire life just to keep her head above water. A girl that was made to feel like a burden since the day the universe spit her out. No one wanted to make her their problem either. And sure enough, she proved that she wasn’t the problem. She was the solution.
“How old are you, kid?” I ask, tiny cracks forming in my resolve. I feel Michael’s gaze on me. I don’t know if it is born of admiration or admonishment.
“Twenty-one,” she answers too quickly.
“I don’t have time for games,” I toss out, opening my car door.
“Wait!” she steps forward, shoulders sagging. “Seventeen. But I’ll be eighteen in a few days.”
“Seventeen? You want me to go across state lines with a minor? Hell no.” I slip off my bloodstained jacket and throw it on the floor of the backseat. Shit. I really liked that jacket.
“I won’t make any trouble. I’ll be quiet. I don’t eat much. You won’t even know I’m around. You want money? I’ll pay you back for everything as soon as I get to Vegas and make some cash, promise!” Her eyes are wide and pleading, her tone equally as pitiful. I think it’s supposed to move me to compassion, but I feel as numb and detached as I did inside the strip club.
“Luc,” Michael says. He doesn’t even have to finish his thought; I know what he’s getting at. He really wants me to take in this stray and drive her across the country.
The sirens grow closer and I know we have less than a minute before this place is flooded with squad cars. I look at my brother, his expression unreadable. I look at the girl, wondering if I’m about to make a grave mistake that will blow our covers. Thirty seconds, and there’s a serious chance that we’ll be forced to.
“Get in,” I growl, my jaw tight.
The little goth wastes no time jumping in the backseat. I’m already speeding out of the lot before her door is fully closed, the flash of blue and red in my rearview.
“So…I’m Darling,” the girl says after we’ve put a good mile between us and the heap of body parts still steaming in the melting snow. It hasn’t even been five minutes, and she’s already breaking her promise to keep quiet. “Who are you guys? What are you guys? Mercs? Special forces? I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit, but I’ve never seen anything like that.”
The whole truth is definitely off the table, but after the night we had, maybe a taste of it won’t hurt. Not like she’d believe us, anyway.
“I’m Luc. That’s Michael. And, apparently, pet…we’re your guardian fucking angels.”
Chapter 2
We drive through the night until the stench of dried blood and guts becomes too much to endure. And since we only make it as far as some tragic town in Indiana, our choices for accommodations and supplies are so pathetic that I’m tempted to just say fuck it and continue on fumes until we hit civilization. I created every realm of Hell with my bare hands. However, nothing in the underworld could have prepared me for the soul-crushing, everlasting torment known as Walmart.
“Grab whatever you need and meet back here in five minutes,” I instruct, literally grimacing at the thought of touching anything in this place. Luckily, Michael and I have clothes in the trunk, but we’ll need toiletries and other incidentals, especially since I’m certain that whatever dump we’ll be staying at will have less than desirable offerings. I’m still not used to having to shower or use the bathroom. Before my faux death, those were always considered human nuisances that enviable creatures like us were exempt from. This experience has just reaffirmed my resentment for mankind. I’ll never understand why my Father insisted on creating such lesser beasts, and furthermore, expecting us to give a fuck about them.
Michael seems oddly buoyant for a billions years old archangel who just stepped into what’s more or less a bargain bin warehouse of utter crap.
“Did you see this?” he beams, picking up some plastic knick-knack that’s probably been handled over a thousand times just tonight.
“Put that down. You don’t know where it’s been.” Note to self: buy antibacterial wipes.
He flits off towards the soap and body wash, cerulean eyes wide with delight. “Oh, wow. You can buy all these for this price?” He cradles a six-pack of bar soap in his arms like a precious babe. “And look! Loofahs!”
I try not to show my annoyance; I get it—he’s been sheltered his entire existence. But this isn’t Bergdorfs. It’s not even a Nordstrom Rack. Not quite what I had in mind when I said I’d give him a taste of humanity.
After Michael has filled his arms with everything from coconut oil shampoo to face masks despite my protests, I’m able to corral him to the checkout, which is virtually empty at this time of night/early morning. It’s a good thing too. While the blood is harder to see on me, it’s truly a shocking sight against his pale hair. That coupled with our young ward that’s dressed like she just left an audition for a new Blade reboot, and the three of us look more than a little suspicious.
However, the cashier doesn’t even blink an eye. It’s as if two stunningly gorgeous men draped in blood-crusted designer suits harboring a female minor who looks straight out of a late 1990s cliché is just a regular night shift occurrence. Makes me wonder what other interesting characters Walmart attracts this late at night.
We purchase our goods without incident, and while annoyed with the entire situation, I say nothing about having to buy Darling new clothes and grooming needs. It’s not like she broke the bank or anything; I can’t even buy a tie with what her new wardrobe cost. Plus she lost everything back in that alley—her phone, her cash, her extra clothes, her ID…
“Shit,” I curse, pulling into the parking lot of what’s considered the fanciest hotel in town: a Best Western. “You didn’t happen to pick up all that shit that spilled out of your bag, did you?”
Darling frowns, but it only takes her a second to realize what I’m getting at. “Shit,” she whispers, mimicking my sentiment. “It wasn’t much, but they have everything. The cops are probably looking for me.”
“Or someone else is looking for you,” Michael chimes in, his tone casual as if he’s merely voicing an afterthought. He’s got a Ring Pop on every finger and alternates each one between sucks. Such a child. “I’m sure Butch has dirty cops on his payroll. Whatever they know, he knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if those cops also stalled their fellow officers so that Butch could send his goons in first. Be a much cleaner resolution for him.”
I can
’t dispute what Michael is saying because it’s the absolute truth. He knows his shit. And there’s no way those backwoods bandits are even remotely more strategically sophisticated than the general of God’s army.
“Let’s just grab a room and get washed up,” I suggest with a weary sigh. “I don’t want to be in this town longer than we have to. We need to keep moving.”
If Michael’s right—and he usually is—we’re about to have company.
Not surprisingly, the deluxe suite I request is little more than a depressing, poorly lit dorm room with a king sized bed, a queen bed, a sofa, and a fabulous view of a barren field. However, Darling seems more than impressed with the mediocre digs despite its overabundance of polyester and rayon. Seeing her so exuberant in light of all that’s happened to her in her short life and the trauma she experienced just hours ago is quite novel for me, so I stow my complaints and manage to only grimace three times.
“Look! They’ve got cable!” she squeals. “And look at this mini bar!”
“I’m going to shower first,” I remark, although no one seems to hear me, considering even Michael appears excessively interested in the overpriced pretzels and cheap wine. I swear, it feels like I’ve been babysitting a toddler for the past seven months and now he’s found himself a playmate.
The hot spray of the shower is luxurious in comparison to the rest of our surroundings, so I stay in for much longer than I expect, letting it wash away the remains of deadened flesh and crusted blood. I look down and watch as pink-tinted water trickles from my chest, over my abs and forms little rivulets down my shaft to drip from the tip of my dick. I run my fingers over my heavy sac before wrapping them around my root. It’s been days since I allowed myself a release but it feels like months. Purging myself of my body’s affliction is done solely out of necessity now. The feel of warm skin against mine, the wetness, the tightness…it’s enough to get me off. But it’s never enough to make me forget.
I squeeze the base of my cock and choke out a broken groan as the pressure builds, causing me to grow harder and thicker. I stroke up and down, twisting my wrist in a slow, sinuous rhythm. Fuck, it feels good, but it’s not the same. Even when I shut my eyes tight and hiss out her name through clenched teeth, I still can’t conjure Eden’s ghost. So I stroke faster, squeeze harder, bringing myself to that space between pleasure and pain. My other hand massages below, adding another layer of self-inflicted sensation that reduces my breath to short pants. My knees go weak, buckling under my weight. My back tenses as fire rips through my spine. And with my tongue pressed against those four letters, two syllables, I release the blackness of my broken soul into my palm.
It washes away easily, as if it never happened. Just as I left Eden in that cemetery on the night of my death. No memory of the weeks prior, as if they never happened. As if she hadn’t become a deity in my bed I worshipped so thoroughly that she cried golden tears of glory.
It seems like a lifetime ago. It seems like just yesterday. If only I could have stolen my own memories with our last kiss.
The bathroom door rattles with an alarming bang, and I’m already two seconds from punching through the cheap wood and ripping out the spleen of whoever’s on the other side.
“Hey, uh, Luc? Just wondering if you’re going to be any longer. I’ve gotta pee like a bitch.”
Shit. How long was I in here? I kill the water, quickly dry off before wrapping a thin, scratchy towel around my waist, then yank open the door. Darling’s eyes are bright and wild. They’re an odd shade of green. Not emerald. Not moss or olive or even hunter. They’re jade. Such a unique color for a human girl, made all the more shocking by her jet-black hair and heavy, smudged eyeliner.
“All yours,” I murmur, just to make her blink. She doesn’t disappoint.
“Um, uh. Thank—thank you.” She tries not to look at my still wet, half-naked body as she brushes past into the bathroom, but she fails. They always fail. Which is what they’re supposed to do.
“You shouldn’t do that to that girl,” Michael remarks with no particular sense of real interest. His blasé attitude drives most people crazy, but I’ve learned that even his afterthoughts hold weight.
“Do what?” I pad across the room to grab clothes from a small suitcase. Gone are the days of flicking a finger and being pristinely dressed and groomed.
“Seduce her.”
I make a face. “I’m not seducing her. She’s basically a child.”
“Oh, but she’s not, nor does she look like one. She made that abundantly clear when we met her. A child solely seeking refuge would feel no need to lie about her age, especially after you made a meal of tearing that human scum apart. Wouldn’t she want to seem younger—a mere innocent mortal—in hopes that we, her dark avenging angels, would pity her poor, pathetic circumstances?”
I look towards the bathroom just as I hear the shower turn on. As much as I want to argue, I know he’s right. I knew it before he even felt the need to explain. So why did Darling, the goth pixie, lie about her age? And furthermore, why does she feel so at ease among two murderous strangers, even going so far as to undress just yards away with only inches of wood and plaster to keep her from us?
“What do you think she is?” I mutter only for his ears.
Michael tears open a bag of thirteen-dollar Skittles and shrugs. “Human, but…other. She isn’t afraid of us, that’s for damn sure. I wouldn’t say Nephilim, either. We would have smelled it on her.”
I frown. “Witch?”
Michael shakes his head. “She wouldn’t have let those punks get that far. Even a human witch is taught self-defense spells as a toddler. And if her magic is true—if it were born of the Divine—she wouldn’t be caught dead with the likes of us. You know the Dark and the Light wouldn’t exactly be on speaking terms with us if they knew you still walked this earth.”
I nod. While I was able to give Nikolai, the Dark warlock prince and the closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend, one last parting gift before my faux demise, he would not be happy to know I’m alive. I’ve done a lot of fucked up shit in my day. I’ve spun lies that led to the fall of entire nations. I’ve spurned wars that left more dead than alive. I’ve tortured and maimed and murdered without an inkling of remorse or regret. But Niko’s friendship actually meant something to me.
After I dress, I pick up the remote control to scroll through the TV channels, something I haven’t done since…The Saint Hotel. New Orleans. A suite decked out in red in honor of the hotel’s owner. A suite I shared with Eden. We watched romantic comedies and ordered room service. She fell asleep on my shoulder, exhausted from days of research and sniffing out her beloved who had gone dark. I was her partner, her friend, her confidant. And for a time that is etched only in my memories, I was her lover.
I turn on the news. I need something bleak, something more depressing than my own bullshit to drown out the noise in my head. Yet while I hope to find nothing more than meaningless drivel, something gives both Michael and me pause.
“What the fuck?”
Michael’s expression goes stony, his sun-kissed skin paling to alabaster. “You see it too.”
“Of course, I see it. But…how? And why?”
To the untrained eye, it looks like we’re watching a typical morning national news broadcast. But at the bottom of the screen, the ticker displays something completely alarming. Not just headlines scrolling by, but…code. Demon code. And it’s not to rally demons. It’s meant for humans.
“That was the best shower I’ve ever had,” Darling says from behind us before we can speculate further. A terrycloth robe conceals her slight frame, and she dries her hair with a towel. Her face is clean, devoid of the war paint that was once smudged around her eyes. She looks younger, sweeter. The way a young lady would look if she hadn’t just witnessed a massacre after nearly being gang raped. She looks…pretty.
Darling glances at the TV and her expression changes to one of disgust. “Ugh, not her again. Her face literally turns my
stomach. I swear, she gets uglier every day.”
I’m not sure if I heard her correctly; the anchorwoman on TV would be considered beautiful by most human standards. With an uncertain frown, I ask, “Who?”
Darling nods towards the screen. “Her. It’s fucking gross. The festering sores, the pus, the rotted teeth. It makes me want to hurl.”
I look to Michael, his expression unreadable save for the slight tick of his jaw. Darling notes my perplexed look.
“What?” She touches a hand to her cheek. “Something on my face?”
The last word is barely free from her tongue before the breath is choked from her throat as I shove her into the wall by her neck, rendering her stunned and defenseless.
“You have seconds before my fingernails are scraping against your esophagus. Tell us…who the fuck are you?” The voice is calm, impassive, yet every syllable is dripping with arsenic. My hold on her neck is firm enough to let her know that I could easily snap it like a twig, yet I take great care in not accidentally crushing her clavicle. Restraint drains more energy than actual effort when dealing with humans, especially those as frail as she.
It takes her a moment to realize what’s happening before Darling has the good sense to be afraid. Unfortunately for her, I’m not leaving her enough oxygen to even explain.
“Language, Lucie,” Michael admonishes in that condescending tone he uses to piss me off. “And how many times do I have to tell you? You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” He taps my arm. “Ease up.”
“She isn’t a fly. But she is something, aren’t you, pet?” I sneer, although I loosen my grip just a touch. Using force and brute strength is so unlike me…so beneath me. However, for the better part of a year, the only thing that made me feel alive was violence. Not the sex. Not the gambling or drinking. It was this—knowing I held someone’s next breath in my hands.
“Now, dear,” Michael begins, leaning against the wall beside where a red-faced, tearful Darling is trying to gather a decent lungful of air. “As you can see, my brother is a tad cranky. So if you value your existence, now would be a good time to tell us who and what you are.” He looks at me pointedly, silently telling me to let go but be ready to take her head off at a moment’s notice.
Such Violent Delights: A Holiday Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 23