Knock Em Dead (Supernatural Security Force Book 2)

by Heather Hildenbrand

  I froze.

  An inter-agency-anything sounded like bad news.

  Had the Nephilim heard about my little double-homicide from the night of that stupid party?

  “What did it say?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

  “According to the memo, you’re to be placed here at division thirteen and remain under our jurisdiction until further notice,” he said. “Funny part is you’re not reporting to me. Don’t make no sense, but it’s not like I have the clearance—or the interest—in talking back to the assholes upstairs.”

  I stared at him, my eyes narrowing as a pit of dread curled in my stomach. The “assholes upstairs” meant—

  “The alert came directly from headquarters?”

  My stomach was doing weird flips, and my panic level was inching fast toward day-drinking status. Despite the lingering hangover from my weekend bender.

  “You got somebody’s attention,” Harvey said, shaking his head. “Can’t say that’s a good thing either. At any rate, your handler is one Adrik Romanov. You’ll report to him and only to him for all of your cases, effective immediately.”

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “Damned if I know.”

  “How can he be my boss if you’ve never heard of him? I thought division thirteen was your department.”

  His eyes narrowed, and I knew I’d struck a nerve. “This is my department, darlin’, and don’t you forget it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, failing to keep all of the sarcasm out of my voice.

  Harvey continued to glare.

  I sighed. “How do I find this Adrik guy?”

  “Here’s the address.” He grabbed a slip of paper from the pile in front of him and handed it over. “That’s all I know.”

  I glanced at the address. What the hell?

  “Are you sure this is right?” I asked.

  “I’m following orders,” Harvey said, leaning back in his rolling chair.

  It was all I’d get from him.

  I rose, cradling my thermos. If SSF wanted to confront me for murder, they wouldn’t send me to the sketchiest neighborhood in the city to do it.

  Right?

  When I reached the door, Harvey stopped me. “Listen,” he said, and I turned to see his scowl now included a layer of uncertainty—and maybe the tiniest hint of sincerity. “If you get into trouble out there, come see me. I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thanks, Harvey,” I said, and this time, there was no sarcasm to be found.

  If Harvey was the one ally I was afforded in this entire system, I’d take it.

  He snapped his fingers. “Oh, almost forgot.”

  Harvey chucked something, and I caught it mid-air, frowning down at the badge labeled ‘Cleaner.’

  “Your credentials.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I probably wouldn’t.

  Exiting the office, I shut the door behind me and headed back the way I’d come from.

  It was time to meet my new boss. Adrik Romanov. Whoever the hell that was. With any luck, I’d win him over in a week and be right back on track for detective once again. Then again, luck had never been my friend. My last mission was pretty clear evidence of that.

  But I refused to be stuck here as a cleaner forever.

  I’d joined the SSF to do one thing, and that was to track down a killer. As long as I kept my head down and stayed out of any trouble—or any more trouble—I had a shot. With that one goal in mind, I clutched my thermos tight in my hands and walked out the front door. It was time to get to work.

  Chapter Two

  The scrawled address sent me straight into the worst part of the city. Beyond the French Quarter and its touristy dive bars sat the Ninth Ward. Destroyed by Hurricane Katrina only to be forgotten and left to rot, the Ninth Ward was a death trap in daylight and much, much worse at night. Demons had been a real problem here, especially since a lot of human deaths in these neighborhoods went unreported. Even worse, the kind of supes who hung out in this part of the city weren’t the upstanding, law-abiding kind.

  I’d trained at the academy for trips into the sketchier areas and fully expected that was where many of my missions would take me as detective. As a cleaner, it was probably even more likely. But I’d never expected to actually report here on a daily basis.

  What kind of department kept business offices in the slums?

  Thankfully, the drizzle had stopped, but I felt the prickly awareness of eyes on me as I made my way down the final block.

  The last time I’d felt this kind of internal warning, I’d been assaulted by some goon who’d tried threatening me away from joining the SSF in the first place. I wasn’t in the mood for a round two.

  When a figure stepped out from around a blind corner, I was already half-shifted into my griffin.

  The sight of Starla had me pulling up short—and quickly returning to my human-like fae form. To a human, my ears were glamoured to look normal. To another supe, their pointed tips gave me away.

  But Starla wasn’t looking at my ears. And she didn’t look impressed by the fact that I’d just nearly shifted into something that could kill her with a single swipe of claw either.

  “Gem, we need to talk.”

  “I’m on my way to work,” I said, hedging.

  For a secret spy, she was being awfully obvious tracking me down in public like this.

  “It’ll only take a moment.”

  I crossed my arms and waited, brow arched in impatience. Since becoming Starla’s spy at the training academy, not a single bit of information I’d fed her had seemed to make an inch of difference.

  The worst kick in the teeth? Rigo was still employed.

  “You seem frustrated,” she said.

  “I just don’t see how I’ve helped anything with the work I’ve done for you.”

  “Your work has proven your loyalty,” she said.

  My eyes narrowed. “So, you’ve been giving me meaningless assignments just to see if I can prove myself?”

  “It’s the way we’re all vetted,” she said with a shrug. “And if you ask me, you aced that final mission.”

  “Great. Get me promoted to detective.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. I can’t pull strings for you and tip people off that we have a connection.”

  I sighed.

  “I see. I spy for you, and I get nothing in return?”

  “Not necessarily.” She tossed me a manila envelope.

  “What’s this?”

  “Consider your training period officially over. This is payment in full. Everything I have on your father’s death.”

  I looked up at her sharply. “Seriously?”

  “Look for yourself.”

  I tucked the envelope away, knowing better than to open it out here.

  Starla nodded approvingly.

  “Is that all?” I asked warily.

  “For now. I’d like to hear how your new assignment goes, though. I’ll come by later for an update.”

  “Okay.”

  She started to retreat in the direction she’d come from.

  “Starla?” She turned back. “Thanks for the information.”

  “Our relationship is built on mutual exchange,” she said simply and then melted seamlessly into the shadows and was gone.

  The envelope seared itself into my fingertips, and the moment Starla vanished, I ripped it open.

  Scanning quickly, I read the incident report followed immediately by the coroner’s report.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  I’d expected documents redacted within an inch of their life. I’d expected scraps that led nowhere.

  But this was so much more.

  This was real.

  And according to the very real, very classified document I was reading, my dad’s death was nothing like what the agency had led us to believe.

  “Why were you in the Quarter?” I murmured, scanning the address wh
ere he was found and tucking away that piece of information for later.

  All I wanted to do was turn around and rush to the spot marked on the report, but duty and common sense had me rooted here.

  Later, I promised myself. I’d read the reports more thoroughly and check out the address where his body had been found. When I had more time. And hopefully, a badge that said something more official than “Cleaner” to help me get past any red tape.

  With a silent curse, I zipped the envelope into the hidden pocket of my jacket and set out again. Not much farther ahead, my destination loomed: a dilapidated two-story house with more boards than glass where windows used to be. Between here and there, I could see a homeless man sitting in the alcove of an aging warehouse that looked deserted but was probably infested with rata demons from the smell of things.

  His human form huddled underneath a threadbare woolen blanket, and he looked up at me with blank, glazed eyes as I passed. I almost stopped to help him—a human in a neighborhood like this one wouldn’t last more than one night—but then I noted the slant to his gold irises, and a ripple of awareness shot through me. Not human.

  A shifter.

  Banished pack member?

  I didn’t have the time or the inclination to find out. Not with my fae senses now screaming at me to get the hell off the street.

  Eyes. So many eyes.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, prickling and tickling until my senses were on overload. When I spotted the crumbling number marker on the house, I leaped up the five steps and pushed through the front door with more relief than I wanted to admit.

  Inside, the air immediately changed from the creepy, foreboding chill of the street to a warm stuffiness that made me feel both safe and completely outmatched at the same time. Whatever this energy belonged to, I knew instinctively that nothing from out there was getting in here, not without permission. I wasn’t so sure that fact was going to benefit me in any way.

  I walked slowly from the foyer, which was a mess of peeling paint and what looked like blood—actually, I was going to assume it was ketchup since it felt safer—staining the floorboards in the far corner.

  On my right was an empty living room with a window that faced the street. The missing glass had been boarded over, sending tiny pinpricks of daylight streaming in through the cracks between the wooden planks.

  The floor was a rough hardwood, warped and rotting from old water damage. From there, a short hallway led into a bathroom that was too disgusting to linger near and what looked like a bedroom—all of it also rotting, thanks to flooding once upon a time.

  This place wasn’t a business office at all but one of thousands of condemned and abandoned homes. Aside from the weighted energy hanging over the space, there wasn’t a trace of SSF.

  My day just kept getting better and better.

  My patience thinned, and I found myself in the foyer, weighing my options. If Harvey was punking me—or worse, Rigo—I was going to smash their heads together.

  Time to get the hell out of here.

  My hand had just landed on the brass knob when I heard the ceiling overhead creak with movement followed by the unmistakable sound of footsteps above me.

  I frowned and made my way to the second floor, my steps silent as I moved. My breath evened out, and my heart rate calmed—all traits I’d inherited from my mother. Fae were notoriously stealthy, which meant my tendency to panic was all thanks to my dad’s genes. He would always tell me it was animal instinct, but anxiety was anxiety. And until I knew whether the thing above me was friend or foe, I was going in quietly on the outside and screaming like a horror film virgin on the inside.

  My foot hit the landing at the top, and the wood creaked loudly. I cursed my half-blood for that and held my breath, listening.

  The footsteps stopped.

  My palms turned clammy, but I fought back against the urge to flee, reminding myself I’d held my own in plenty of street fights over the years. You didn’t grow up as a half-fae girl in a neighborhood of mostly shifter pups and not learn to defend yourself. But this felt different.

  This felt . . . big. And old. And substantial enough that I decided to take a non-threatening approach. Instead of trying to sneak up on whatever lay on the other side of the wall—which I had a feeling I’d already failed at—I took a deep breath, and very, very delicately, I cleared my throat.

  “Excuse me,” I said quietly.

  Almost too quietly. Even a supe would have trouble with the whisper I’d offered. But not even a second later, a figure stepped out of the room ahead.

  I jumped, mostly because he’d emerged without so much as a creaky footstep, but also because I’d been right.

  The power hanging in the air wasn’t a product of some everyday supe. The black wings being tucked out of sight then vanishing completely were undeniable proof of that. They were also the last things I expected to see in a place like this. Anything winged should have had more sense than to hang out in a slum-dump like this one. Yet, here we both were.

  “Holy shit, you’re an angel,” I blurted.

  The man blinked, and I watched his perfectly sculpted mouth turn immediately into a frown. Or, a deeper frown. Honestly, the one he’d worn a moment ago was more than enough to send a message. But at my dumbass greeting—hello, Captain Obvious—it deepened into something that changed his entire expression from brooding to downright pissy.

  Even so, he was drop-dead gorgeous with broad shoulders, a hard chest, and toned arms—or at least, that’s what I could gather through the gray thermal shirt he wore over black pants that were tactical and sexy without being hipster. His hair and eye colors nearly matched, both black as midnight, and only added to the broody set of his cheekbones and chiseled jaw.

  He was breathtaking—and a little panty-wetting if I was being completely honest. He was also clearly not as thrilled with me as I was with him.

  “Sorry,” I hurried to add. “I mean, about the ‘holy shit’ comment. I probably shouldn’t curse in front of an angel.”

  He responded by lifting one arched brow, and something warm knotted in my stomach. Any man that could lift only one brow at a time had skills. And I really wanted to see more of his specialized abilities where those kinds of skills were concerned.

  “You’re Gemini Hawkins,” he said in a deep voice, totally ignoring my blathering in favor of stating a fact. At least we were both doing the same thing here.

  “Gem,” I said, finally having the sense to be wary even through the haze of attraction and shock. “And you’re . . .?”

  “Adrik Romanov.”

  My eyes widened as his name registered. “Wait. You’re my new boss?” He didn’t answer. “But you’re an angel.” There it was again. The most obvious elephant in the room.

  “Nephilim,” he corrected.

  “Right. Sorry, Nephilim.” I shook my head because I honestly did know better than to call an angel an angel. They hated that sort of thing. Or at least, that’s what my dad had always said. They preferred Nephilim since it set them apart from their heavenly brothers and sisters who’d cast them out and sent them here to keep Hell from taking over our world while on its way to taking over theirs.

  Angels and Nephilim didn’t get along. Also, angels didn’t come to Earth, and if they did, they wouldn’t hang out in the slums of New Orleans. Then again, neither did Nephilim.

  “Since when do Nephilim oversee division thirteen?” I asked. Or any division for that matter. Even the council—basically the bosses of the SSF—stayed out of daily affairs at the agency and rarely made appearances even at the top levels.

  I thought of Raphziel and how he’d shown up at dad’s funeral. He’d wanted our gratitude simply for deigning us with his presence.

  Asshole.

  Nephilim were above the measly supernaturals of this planet, and they let us know it every chance they got. In their minds, the only thing worse than supes were demons—creatures both our kinds hated with equal passion—so
at least we had that to unite us.

  “Since I was assigned,” he said sharply, and I knew I’d been shut down from whatever questions I wanted to ask.

  Unfortunately, my brain didn’t get the message or have the ability to filter. So I continued.

  “Right.” I couldn’t help drawing out the word a little to highlight my suspicion. “Are you trying to say you screwed up so badly that you were sentenced to look after all the screw-up cleaners at division thirteen?”

  “Not all of them,” he said, managing to look down his nose as he said it. “Just you.”

  I glared at him, crossing my arms over my chest. “Gee. You’re so free with your compliments I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t think we need to rehash what brought us here. What’s done is done. We should focus on the task at hand and how we can best complete it.”

  He turned and disappeared inside the little room, and I had no choice but to follow, shaking my head. Were all Nephilim this clueless about sarcasm? Or this one-dimensional about work? I thought I was hyper-focused. . .

  Turning the corner, I was surprised to find the little bedroom actually furnished. A desk and chair sat against one wall, and a couple of light gray cushioned chairs that looked brand new sat against the other wall beside a grimy window.

  My new Nephilim boss picked up a brown file folder and held it out to me.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Your first case.”

  “My. . .” I looked down at the file and then back at my new boss. This time, it was my turn to frown. “Okay, hold up. I realize you’re all about the task at hand,” I said, using two fingers to air quote the phrase he’d used. “But I have questions before we get into all this.”

  “What would you like to know?” he asked stiffly.

  “For starters, why am I here?”

  “Because you failed your graduation mission and—”

  “I didn’t fail.” My temper flared, strong and fierce and sudden enough to blot out the fact that this guy was Nephilim and perfectly capable of killing me. Probably with his pinky finger if he chose. But I wasn’t going to let him stand here and tell me what I had or hadn’t done when he didn’t know shit about me.