by Michele Hauf
“Her bark is much worse than her bite.”
“What does that mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that she had a thing for your hero. I saw her looking him over when she could have ordered her gargoyle to stomp him. She didn’t. The Cadre doesn’t, as a rule, exterminate people, you know that. We’re a peaceable crew, if not a bit pretentious at times.”
“Then what?”
“Memory wipe, of course.”
Suddenly hope renewed. Jack wasn’t dead? How could she have believed the Cadre would even allow such a thing!
Mersey looked to Squire. “You think he’s still alive?”
The dungeon master shrugged. “It’s likely. But I wouldn’t expect the man’s brain to be in order. Most assuredly he’s lost all memory of the past week. Including you.”
“You think so? Squire, you wouldn’t be saying this to get my hopes up?”
“Mersey, don’t tell me you’d actually go looking for the man. You can’t!
The Cadre and P-Cell—And if you look beyond that, he doesn’t know who you are now.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She leaped up and tugged the blanket around herself to cover her naked body.
“It will matter if you want to stay at the Cadre.”
“He’s the one, Squire! The only one.”
“He may be the one,” a woman said from the doorway. “But he isn’t right for a Cadre initiate.”
Mersey turned to Lady Aurora.
“Full moon,” Aurora said with a nod of her head toward the full white moon in the velvet sky. “We should head to London to close the tear.”
“Yes.” In fact, Mersey could think of no other place she’d rather be.
“The drive will give us a chance to talk.”
“Oh?”
“There’s the matter of your sneaking P-Cell into the Cadre.”
“But Jack’s forgotten all that now.”
“He may have, but I have not.”
Chapter 33
Two weeks later…
H e stood alone looking over the land. The London Eye capsule had reached an apex and he floated at the top of the world. Not sure why, Jack had simply followed a compulsion to ride the Eye. He had never liked the thing. Today though, he pressed his palms to the clear Plexiglas wall and looked as far as he could. Beyond the city. West. There, where his attention fell upon a forest, gorgeous and enchanted. Weird that he even cared about the landscape. Or used such words to describe it. Since a few weeks ago, Jack had been taking things slower. Appreciating things.
He felt as though he’d come back into this world after being, well…
disemworlded. An odd word, but it appropriately described the feeling. And last night, when he’d been on stakeout, instead of blasting straight away, he’d paused and asked the demon what its business was in this realm. Turned out the thing had been called by a familiar and wasn’t sure what it was doing in the mortal realm itself. Jack had directed it to Lawrence Prentice. He’d looked up the man in the phone book—of all places—and now kept his number handy. The freelance familiar offered wayward demons a return to the dark realm. It was his job to redirect the confused.
The idea that he’d not blasted away had sat well with Jack. But it did not sit with P-Cell. He’d been asked to leave for reasons that remained a blur to him. Belladonna told him he’d had his memory tampered with, and it was best for all. He’d received a severance, and hadn’t heard from P-Cell since.
But he couldn’t stop hunting. It was in his blood. The world needed protection from the big bads, and Jack was the man for the job. The capsule neared the landing, though Jack thought to go another round. He could ride this thing all day. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. He heard one person board, but kept his head tucked down. Whoever it was sat in his row, two seats down. A woman, he guessed, since the chairs shifted little with her weight. She smelled nice, like fruit. Made him smile and he tapped his ring finger against the white plastic seat.
He’d once loved a gorgeous woman who smelled like this. Hadn’t he? Hadn’t been Monica Price. A tragedy, but he had moved on. Monica wouldn’t have wanted him to carry guilt or remorse around with him. He’d been told she’d died during a shootout. He couldn’t recall that evening. Weird. But—knowing his memory wasn’t up to par—he accepted it. Sometimes bad things happened to good people. It was the way of the world.
So who had he loved? Had he lost someone recently? Someone tangled in the stolen bits of his memory? He felt the sense of loss so strongly, but he could not begin to touch a single clue.
Jack stretched his arms across the backs of the plastic chairs and accidentally touched the woman’s hair. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” He heard her twist on the seat and guessed she must be looking over at him. “That’s an interesting ring. Where did you get it?”
Jack toggled the hematite ring on his littlest finger. He wouldn’t take it off. Never. But he wasn’t sure why. “Truth? I got it from a cat.”
That was one day he’d never forget. Thank God he still retained the wonders of his childhood.
“I believe you.”
Jack turned on the seat. A gorgeous set of green eyes smiled at him. She wore an aviator cap, which hid most of her hair, and her face was delicate, yet strong, as if she was ready to take on the world and woe to any man who thought to stand in her way.
Instant affection emerged. A bit kooky, what with the goggles and cap, but very appealing. He could feel her in his heart, like a pulse beat. And he knew.
Tapping the ring against the back of the chair, he said, “I thought I’d lost it years ago. Now here it is. Isn’t it strange how things find their way back to where they really belong?”
She leaned closer and her perfume surrounded Jack’s senses. “It’s called destiny.”
“Maybe. Sort of like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You seem…familiar.”
“I do?”
Jack laid his hand before hers, slipping his fingertips in between hers so they just touched. “Are you…this will sound odd, but…” He instinctually knew. “Do you like cats?”
“You…know me?”
“We know each other, right?”
She nodded.
He blew out a breath. “Good, didn’t want to freak you out. I recognize you, but I don’t know you. Does that make sense? I’ve lost some bits of memory, but I’d never forget lemons.”
“My perfume.”
“And your kiss?”
“Yes? We’ve kissed,” she encouraged.
“It tasted like…wintergreen, I think.”
“Oh, Jack.”
“You know me?”
“I love you, Jack.” She came around and stood before him. Jack rose and tentatively touched her, wanting to embrace and anticipating that it would be like holding a piece of his heart. He held out a palm, flat and parallel to her chest. She put up her palm. Their rings clicked together, as if magnetically attracted.
“What’s your name?”
“Mersey Bane. Sounds like the disposition—”
“Spelled like the river,” he finished, tickled that he knew such a thing. But again, he simply knew. “Mersey, can I…Can I kiss you?”
“Allow me.” She kissed him.
There, in the gorgeous whirl of wintergreen and lemons, Jack fell into the wondrous moment of knowing. He still didn’t know exactly what it was he should know about Mersey Bane, but he felt, without doubt, that he did know her.
And he also knew that she had changed his world.
“So, er, how did we meet?”
“Demon hunting,” she said.
“You know what I am?”
“P-Cell,” she offered.
“I was ousted from P-Cell. I’m not keen on the details but I think I might have failed a mission for them. It’s better this way. I’m freelancing now.” He dug into his pocket and handed her a card. It read Jack Harris, Pest Control.
“I knew that,”
she said and tucked the card away. Hooking her thumbs in her trousers pockets, she swayed side to side. A bashful tint colored her cheeks and she peered up at him through hopeful eyes. “Need a partner? I can help you determine the good demons from the bad ones.”
“Brilliant.” He kissed her, sliding his hands down her long coat, and from her pocket, he pulled out a crystal pyramid. “Why do I know that this thing will hold a demon in it?”
She shrugged. “There’s a lot of things you know, Jack.”
“I know you,” he said, initially just saying it because it felt right, but then as the words were spoken, he knew it. “I love you?”
“Let’s take it slow, hotshot. I hear there’s been an incident in Knightsbridge involving a vengeance demon.”
“Right then. Let’s find us some demons.”
