Araton

by Brenda Trim

  “That’s actually brilliant. I guarantee everyone here was wondering what spell they could use to get more information. We often think in terms of magic means that we forget the mundane,” Izzy interjected.

  Lia shrugged. “I haven’t been part of this world long enough for it to come to mind. I don’t want the devil running around on Earth, but I also don’t want his demons here. Even if we don’t find a clue leading us to Lucifer, we might find something to tell us where we can find this fucking nest of demons and get rid of them.”

  “We will find and destroy every demon in this city,” Araton promised.

  “I will destroy them,” Izzy interjected with a snarl. Lia glanced at her then at her father. Surely, he wouldn’t allow her to face demons. He seemed like he was overprotective of her. Always standing close and watching the area around them.

  “Isobel was born with certain powers from their Goddess,” Araton explained. “One of them is the ability to kill an archdemon with a touch. And when she kills them, their souls are destroyed. There is no getting back in line for another body and another chance like usual.”

  “You’re telling me these beasts will come back even if we kill them? And, this woman makes sure they don’t get that chance?” That was nearly impossible for her to wrap her mind around.

  “Aye,” Zander answered as he stood a bit closer to his daughter. “She is the only weapon capable of delivering true death to a demon.”

  Aison and several other of the Dark Warriors she met arrived at that second which was good. Lia couldn’t wrap her mind around what she’d discovered in the past hour. From arriving to find the abattoir in the warehouse to the fact that Izzy could kill archdemons with a touch. And, none of that was as important as them finding out if Lucifer was walking around inside someone else’s body. Time to get to work.

  Chapter 11

  Dante’s skin crawled as he walked into The Underground. Not the most unique name, but then again neither was his favorite haunt. That being Zakara’s old place, Seven Lively Sinz. That joint had character, and she’d done a good job of keeping the violence to a minimum.

  Dante rarely frequented places like this because he didn’t want to associate with full demons like his father. Unfortunately, incubus and succubus were often found at the demon run clubs because they liked violent sex. The kind that created a scene and left bodies for human law enforcement to be called to deal with.

  Not many supes that Dante knew of wanted the humans to learn of their existence. Hayden, the Omega of the shifters was the exception to that rule. And, that had to do with him being tired of keeping the demons at bay and protecting innocents that did nothing to help their cases.

  The scent of Brimstone filling the air made Dante’s heart race and sweat bead on his brow. His worst fucking nightmares came from his time in Hell. Rhys was a lucky sonofabitch to have such an outstanding memory from the Underworld after finding his angelic mate during a mission there. But, Dante didn’t need the physical punch in the gut today. Shit was hitting the fan in the city and Zander was freaking out about the lack of demons hunting his daughter.

  Dante understood. Before she returned from Khoth they couldn’t take their daughter out to get an ice cream without being attacked. Hell, they couldn’t even keep her at home safely which is why they took her to the dragon realm.

  No one told him specifically what happened to the Princess, but Dante knew the reason for the trauma in her eyes. He’d worn it himself countless times when he lived in the Underworld. And, he’d seen it countless times on victims throughout his life. He’d made it his mission to help victims recover from sexual assault and had been doing it for centuries. He was tempted to offer Isobel an ear but didn’t think it would help much. There was more to her story and he wasn’t about to push her to talk about it.

  Watching a Daeva demon flirt with an incubus at a table in the corner, Dante sucked it up and headed to the black bar in the middle of the room. Just like Kara’s old bar, the Underground had too many years of blood, booze, and slimy green goo covering the tabletops and floors to be wiped clean.

  “What’ll it be?” The grizzled barkeep asked. The male was likely a Melcom demon. He was tall which only highlighted his slim stature. Like most of his kind, he had a weasel-like face.

  The demon made a good bartender. He was able to intimidate with a look and a scent. The pheromones he was throwing off had an edge to it that had Dante’s teeth on edge. His scowl said he was more likely to poison you than anything else. It almost made Dante hesitate to ask for a drink.

  But Dante knew better than to judge a demon based on its appearance. The most attractive could kill you while they fucked you, and the ugliest could give you the shirt off their back. For a price, of course. Dante had always judged others based on their actions. Rarely did he find a demon’s actions spoke to a compassionate personality.

  “Vodka rocks. I need a drink after the latest rumors,” Dante replied.

  “What rumors would that be? There’s always bullshit being said by someone somewhere. If it’s about demons being responsible for that human virus going around that’s total bullshit.”

  Dante chuckled and gave the male some cash for his drink. “That’s too tame for us. We like to get up close and personal. I don’t think the four horsemen have escaped the seventh circle. It’s that Lucifer is finally on Earth.”

  It seemed as if silence descended on the bar at his announcement, making him regret coming here. “What the fuck do you know?” A male growled at his back.

  Years of training had Dante on his feet and slamming the males head into the bar in the blink of an eye. Never leave an enemy at your back and never show weakness. The incubus struggled under his hold, but Dante kept him pinned by the shoulders.

  The glass of vodka he hadn’t even sipped had been spilled and the glass clattered to the floor where it shattered. Stepping on the shards, Dante got in the male’s face. “I know a lot more than you, asshole. You got a problem?”

  “No,” the incubus replied after studying Dante’s face for several tense minutes. “We’ve all been waiting to see if it’s true.”

  Dante let the male go and signaled for another drink. “I’d like to know who started the bullshit to begin with. Humans can’t contain his power. It would destroy them within minutes.”

  “You’re right about that,” the incubus agreed. “Can I get a beer, Dion. We all assumed Lucifer would be inside a supernatural or a half-breed like yourself. But no one believed the supes would give their bodies up for possession.”

  Dante paid for his second drink and took a sip then shook his head. “You’re right about that. Those fuckers are pretentious fucks. It’s a bullshit lie.”

  The Daeva demon that had been flirting with the incubus leaned against the bar in front of Dante. “It’s not a lie. We’ve been performing rituals all over town the past few nights. Many were killed by those Dark Warriors, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once. One of them was bound to work.”

  “You smell like blood, fear and death. So, your ritual failed then?” Dante threw out at her to get a reaction. All of it was true. She reeked and if her efforts paid off then she wouldn’t be in a bar without Lucifer.

  “Fuck you, half-breed. It wasn’t my fault the angels showed up and ruined everything. He will know that,” she professed, but he could see the doubt in her eyes. Lucifer wasn’t very forgiving. He’d kill her if he thought she didn’t try hard enough.

  “He sure will,” the incubus agreed and ran a hand over her shoulder while releasing some pheromones of his own. Bile churned in Dante’s gut with the scent from his nightmares. “Let’s go back to our booth.” The female nodded and the pair walked away leaving Dante alone at the bar.

  Once the tension had dissipated the rest of the patrons returned to their drinking and whatever else they were doing. Dante refused to look too closely. He had no desire to get that familiar with anyone in the joint.

  He hadn’t gotten confirmation of Lucife
r’s return, but he knew where they needed to focus now. Killian could help send out an alert on T-Rex asking for anyone to report a missing friend or relative.

  Life had become decidedly not fun. Ever since Nikko had been killed Dante had taken on more responsibilities within the Alliance. He didn’t mind. He actually enjoyed it, but it left little time for sex which was necessary for him to continue living.

  Not that he could blame his diminished activity on his duties. Dante was tired of unfulfilling sexual encounters. For years he watched those around him find their Fated Mates.

  He’d never before considered how much that impacted someone’s life until he watched his friends’ lives transform to something beyond happy. Complete was the word that came to mind. Something he was not.

  Lia groaned as she rolled over. Her head was pounding and her back ached. What the hell did she drink last night? She didn’t recall drinking at all, but there was no denying the killer hang over beating her down at the moment.

  She threw an arm over her closed eyes to shield them from the bright sun that seemed to find its way through her closed curtains. Of course, it was intent on blinding her. That’s what happened when you were hung over.

  Wait. What the fuck was that? She sat up and had to catch herself as she nearly fell back down. Her hand landing on a sharp rock confirmed what her eyes told her in that brief blurry second. She wasn’t in her bedroom.

  Her heart raced and her mind scrambled to make sense of what she was seeing as she jumped to her feet. Bile churned in her stomach and she doubled over as she looked around.

  How the hell did she get outside? In the middle of the bayou. Grassy fields surrounded her, and in the distance there was a swampy shore. Blood and dead animals surrounded her.

  Her hand flew to her mouth as she noticed the symbols and pentagram. She turned her head and lost the battle with her stomach. Her last snack of carrots right before her shift ended the night before made a return trip as she threw up.

  When she went to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, she forced her arm out to the side. The blood on her skin was what made her lose the contents of her stomach in the first place.

  She tiptoed to the swamp and plunged her hands into the murky water. It wasn’t the cleanest location to wash up, but no way was she leaving the substance on her hands. She didn’t even care if an alligator surged from the water and grabbed hold of her. She deserved the death roll.

  A glance over her shoulder confirmed that thought. The mess of bodies was bigger than she could believe. Had she done all of this? She had no recollection but was covered in the evidence.

  The water smelled foul as she splashed it on her face. No matter. She had no idea what her face looked like but given the smears all across her dark grey t-shirt and sweats that she wore to bed last night she’d guess she was a bloody mess.

  She even tugged off her shirt and tried to wash it in the swamp. Giving up on that she scanned further out from the mess she’d woken up in the middle of and tried to determine where exactly she was at.

  There were countless swamps within a couple hours of the city. And she wasn’t familiar with many of them. All she heard were birds and insects for miles. With no other choice, she searched the site where the ritual had very obviously taken place for her cell phone.

  She didn’t recall driving out here and couldn’t see her car. And, she sure as hell didn’t remember killing and cutting up all the animals. There was no weapon nearby either. None of this made any sense. She had no shoes or socks on and yet her feet weren’t cut up or blistered as if she had walked there from her house in the city.

  It was impossible that she traveled so far unless she somehow developed wings and flew there. Who knew what the angel blood had done to her? Reaching over one shoulder she patted around but didn’t find any signs of shit coming out of her back. Araton’s words came back to her about the dark stuff surging into her body at the LaLaurie Mansion.

  “Gabriel said we need to keep an eye on you to make sure the darkness doesn’t take hold in you and turn you.”

  Is that what happened? Was she now evil? The answer to that was a resounding yes if she had killed all of these animals. Her head throbbed and her chest twisted with regret.

  She wasn’t going to get answers standing here. There was a possibility she would find a home and a phone, so she started walking away from the water. Rocks and sticks cut up her feet within minutes confirming she was right about the fact that she hadn’t walked all the way out there.

  The sun rose as she walked, and the day quickly heated to boiling. She continued for so long she doubted she was going in the right direction. Who would she call if she found a house? Her dad or one of her brothers?

  No fucking way. She was not going to involve them in this nightmare. She had no idea how to reach Aison or Dante and wouldn’t want to if she could. The only one she trusted was Araton.

  Making her way through a patch of trees while trying to avoid the branches on the ground, Lia tried to recall her angel’s phone number. Her angel? Since when had he become hers? From the moment they met, she realized. She’d been thinking of him as hers since the beginning but hadn’t realized it until now.

  It wasn’t all that surprising given how sexy he was. Not that she would ever know what it would be like to be with him. No way would he touch her with a ten-foot pole after what she had done. Something so pure shouldn’t be with someone tainted by evil.

  If she had another choice, she wouldn’t even call him, but there wasn’t anyone else she trusted. She was glad she’d tried to wash her shirt since the damp material cooled her off as she the day got hotter and sweat poured from her body.

  She’d put the top on inside out to hide the blood stains. Thankfully, she got dirty and that managed to mask much of the blood from her pants. The last thing she wanted was to walk up to a random house covered in gore. It was animal blood, but it didn’t make her feel any better about waking up the way she had.

  The sun was high in the sky before she saw a house in the distance. Picking up speed, she ran the rest of the way, not caring that her feet got cut up in the process. Knocking on the door, she pushed her black hair from her face.

  An older man answered the door. His eyes widened and he pushed through the screen door right away. “Why, you look like you’ve had quite the day. Where’s you come from, cher?” His Cajun accent was thick, but his demeanor reminded her of home and for the first time in hours her body relaxed.

  “I was left in the bayou a ways back and need to call a friend for help,” she told him with as much honesty as she could.

  “I’m going to call the Sherriff so he can investigate whoever hurt you. I won’t bother asking questions. He’ll want the information anyway.”

  Lia lifted her left foot to check the sharp pain in the bottom while shaking her head. “No. I’m a police officer in New Orleans. I need to get back to my Chief. He will take care of matters,” she told the man.

  “I can’t imagine what kind of trouble your job brought you, but since you’re a cop I will leave it to your department to handle. But you have to promise to let me know if I’m in danger out here. I lost my Maggie last year and it’s just me now. My son worries about me.”

  “You’re safe. Don’t worry. This was because of a case I have been investigating. But I promise to make sure there are no suspects out here to cause problems.”

  “Thank you,” he told her and went into his house. She waited on the porch for him to return.

  “I figured you could use some sweet tea. And here’s the phone.”

  “You’re a true hero. Thank you,” she told him and accepted both. She took a long drink then dialed what she hoped was Araton’s number. If she was wrong she would call her dad.

  “This is Araton,” her angel growled into the phone.

  A sob escaped her before she could stop herself. Very aware of the man watching her, she stopped the tears from falling. “It’s Lia. I need your help. I woke up in the ba
you with no knowledge of how I got there. I think it has something to do with that case I was investigating at LaLaurie Mansion. Can you come get me?”

  “Lia? What the fuck? Where are you?” He demanded.

  She asked the gentleman helping her where she was then told Araton who said he would be there soon with help. A second later he started walking up the driveway with his brothers.

  All three of them wore black leather pants and a black top. Their wings were hidden, and she almost wished they’d left them out. She felt like there was a dark presence in her. Every time she tried to pinpoint the origin it eluded her. It might just be because of what Araton told her before. The only thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t feel like she would be overrun by evil when he was with her.

  “Natalia,” Araton murmured when he saw her.

  “Damn. You arrived fast. Were you nearby?” The guy asked.

  “We are able to travel faster than most,” Araton started, but Lia cut him off and said, “Privileges of being a cop, you know. Thank you so much for your help. We will patrol and make sure no one is in the area. You will be safe here.”

  Abraxos and Ayil nodded with Araton. “We will make sure of it.”

  The four of them turned and headed down the gravel driveway. She hadn’t taken three steps before strong arms wrapped around her and she was lifted into Araton’s hold.

  “You have injuries on your feet,” he explained.

  Emotion overwhelmed her that second and tears filled her eyes. Lowering her head she admitted, “I think I might be evil.”

  One of Araton’s fingers touched her chin and he encouraged her to lift her head. When she looked up, she saw heat in his. “You are not evil. I have no idea what happened, but under the dirt and grime I can see blood. If you got out here without memories of how there are demonic forces at work. That doesn’t mean it is you, though.”

  She briefly told them everything that had happened since she opened her eyes including every detail from the blood to the animals to the symbols.