by Susan Illene
He opened the food containers and transferred the lasagna and bread over to his plate, digging into his meal right away while it remained fresh. It was no surprise to him that it tasted wonderful. Cori might not behave like a proper woman, but she certainly knew her way around a kitchen. It had only taken eating her food one time before he couldn’t get enough. No matter how much he might wish to ignore her frequent visits, he could hardly turn away anything she prepared. He suspected she knew that, the damn woman.
As Bartol finished the lasagna and began to dig into the salad, a knock sounded at the door. Who in the hell could be bothering him now? Cori never came back twice in the same evening, so he doubted it was her.
He ignored the firm knock and continued to shove forkfuls of salad into his mouth. Whoever had come to bother him could stand out there all night if they wished. Nothing would come between him and his food.
He was chewing on a tomato when a bright flash of light appeared inside his living room.
A moment later, a man stood next to his black leather couch, frowning at him. The nephilim was a long-time friend that Bartol had known since his youth. Lucas had found him when he was a gladiator and only twenty years old—before he’d gained his full powers and strength. The older immortal convinced Bartol to travel the world with him. They’d fought in numerous wars, honing their fighting skills until they were unbeatable to all except the most powerful supernaturals. That was before Bartol got bored with battles and turned to seducing women for amusement instead. Once in a while, he’d met up with Lucas again for a few weeks if there was a human conflict he found interesting enough to take a side, but even that became risky. The angels started enforcing the rules on nephilim more strictly than ever about five centuries ago, which made it harder to kill humans even when the mortals were going to kill each other anyway. Those were the good old days before life became more complicated for them both.
Lucas stood more than six feet tall, had broad shoulders, golden skin, and short blond hair. The man was powerful and had certainly become one of the greatest warriors of their kind. Bartol had even seen him defeat an archangel a couple of years ago.
He finished chewing his tomato. “What are you doing here, Lucas?”
“Did Cori give that to you?” the nephilim asked, nodding toward the bowl.
“Yes.” Bartol set his fork down. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
Lucas strode across the room and took a seat on the other side of the table. “There was a time when you would exchange pleasantries before getting to business.”
“And here I was just thinking how well you and your wife have done at staying away like I asked.” Bartol gazed at the remainder of his salad mournfully. “But I should have known it wouldn’t last for much longer.”
“Finish your meal. I will do the talking,” Lucas said, resting his arms on the table. He was almost always dressed impeccably and today was no different. A navy-blue suit, tailored to fit his large frame, hugged his body and gave him an imposing appearance.
Bartol picked up his fork again. “Very well, but this better not take long.”
“Yes, I would hate to interrupt your busy schedule.”
“Save your sarcasm for your wife or that insolent teenager you two are raising.” Bartol filled his mouth with lettuce and chewed while glaring at Lucas.
“I have a job proposal for you.” He paused and held up a hand when Bartol began to choke on his lettuce. “Wait and hear me out first. I believe this could solve both our problems.”
Bartol got up to fill himself a glass of water, gulping it down before returning to Lucas. “I sincerely doubt it.”
The older nephilim went on undaunted. “As you are probably aware, we are in the final months of training the nerou, and we’ve begun to work on their individual skills.”
The nerou were a hybrid race who were half nephilim and half sensor. Normally, a nephilim could never hope to have children because they were cursed with infertility. The exception to the rule was with sensors because that race was immune to magic and therefore nullified the curse. The product of the two races merging made for very powerful offspring. For thousands of years, the archangels had taken the children away shortly after birth to be hidden in Purgatory, claiming the progeny of such unions were too dangerous to be allowed to roam free. Most couldn’t remember their parents, and they spent their entire lives in that wretched place.
Earlier in the year, Lucas and Melena, along with a couple of others, staged a rescue to get the nerou out and bring them back to Earth. Everyone involved had been punished, but after much arguing on Melena’s part, the archangels allowed the nerou to stay on the condition that they were trained to become enforcers. They would eventually take over various regions of the planet, punishing any supernaturals who harmed humans. Bartol suspected the angels had seen the day coming when they wouldn’t be able to hide the vampires, nephilim, werewolves, witches, and other races any longer. They’d been hoarding the nerou for all that time, brainwashing them into their way of thinking so that when the nephilim-sensor hybrids did get free, they would do what Heaven’s dictators wanted. Lucas was one of their trainers, helping to orient them to Earth and teach them fighting skills, but he was watched closely to ensure he followed a strict program.
Bartol pushed his empty salad bowl away. “You know I won’t step foot in that compound even for the nerou. Not with him there.”
He referred to Kerbasi—the guardian from Purgatory who’d tortured Bartol for nearly a century and scarred his face. Kerbasi had been relieved of his duties last year and sent to Alaska where he’d been learning to find his “humanity,” and more recently, help train the nerou. Too bad they couldn’t have sent the evil man to Antarctica instead.
“You won’t need to go to the facility.” Lucas clasped his hands together, resting them on the table. “There is only one nerou I want you to help, and Remiel has approved him coming to you for training instead.”
Remiel was the archangel who oversaw the Alaska training compound. He didn’t make many physical appearances, but he was almost always watching from a distance to ensure the program went as he dictated. There were several other facilities around the world with different archangels and nephilim running them. It was all designed so that the nerou could acclimate themselves to the regions where they would be assigned after their adjustment period was over.
“It sounds like too much trouble to me.” Bartol grabbed his empty dishes and carried them over to the sink.
“You would be well compensated for your time.”
He stiffened. “I’m not looking for charity.”
“I assure you that this is not charity,” Lucas replied.
Bartol began rinsing the dishes. He’d gone without a proper home for so long that he was obsessed with keeping the cabin clean and couldn’t leave anything dirty. It likely had to do with living in his own filth—rarely able to bathe—while he was in Purgatory. Nothing about his stay there had been comfortable, and he wanted to distance himself from that lifestyle as much as possible.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Who is it you wish me to train?”
“Tormod—Yerik’s son.”
Bartol cursed. “The one who is part demon?”
“Yes. I admit he is a handful, but he needs more individual attention than we can give.” Lucas sighed and gave Bartol a plaintive look. “Yerik does what he can, but he’s only allowed to visit his son once a month, and that’s not enough.”
Tormod’s father had committed numerous crimes to upset the archangels, the first of which was simply being born. Yerik was a daimoun—a product of an angel and demon union. He’d been separated from his parents when he was young and forced to go into hiding after that.
It took a few thousand years, but eventually an archangel tracked him down. They fought, and Yerik won, killing his opponent and proving he was even more powerful than anyone could have imagined. Not that the daimoun took down the angel because he was a bad guy, but
because it was the only way he could survive. Then he fell in love with a sensor about fifty years ago and had a child with her—Tormod. While the daimoun was away from home, the archangels came for the baby and took it to Purgatory. Yerik made a vow to his mate that he would get their son back before she died. The sensor, like most of her kind, was mortal. If she wanted to see her child again, they had a limited number of years to recover their son.
It had taken a massive coming out party with supernaturals across the world revealing themselves to humans to provide a major distraction. Once it was well underway and the angels were scrambling to handle the chaos breaking out on Earth, Yerik, Lucas, Melena, and Lucas’ brother Micah—who also had a daughter there—broke into Purgatory and freed the nerou. All of them were half sensor and half nephilim except Tormod. He was both of those plus a quarter demon, which made him quite the troublemaker. It didn’t help that he was the youngest of the entire group as well.
“Surely someone else would be better qualified than me,” Bartol said, drying his hands and turning to face Lucas. “I do not see how I can be of much assistance with that boy.”
Lucas gave him a plaintive look. “Tormod is developing a talent for fire, and he is able to flash.”
Flashing was usually something only nephilim and angels could do, which was somewhat like teleporting from one place to another. From what Bartol understood, none of the nerou had developed the ability, but Tormod had more potent blood running through his veins than the others.
“Tell me.” Bartol crossed his arms. “What was the last prank he pulled?”
Lucas worked his jaw. “He burned a phallic shape onto our training field. It was surprisingly…detailed.”
“So he’s also an artist with a penchant for destroying property.” Bartol ran his hand through his loose hair. “It does not sound like he will be easy to handle.”
Because the nerou were very long-lived, though not immortal, they tended to mature at a much slower rate than humans. Tormod might be fifty years old, but he behaved more like a seventeen or eighteen-year-old with his hormones running high and the requisite need to rebel. While Bartol agreed the boy needed special attention, he did not think he’d have the patience for such a job.
“It would be better if you found someone else.”
Lucas stared at him. “We both know the funds you have are limited from what I was able to save for you. Remiel has agreed to not only pay you a monthly salary for training Tormod, but also a sizable bonus if you get him under control. We only ask that you spend at least a few hours a day with him doing whatever it takes to help him learn discipline. You can even have the weekends off if you wish.”
Bartol paced the kitchen, considering it. He’d once owned valuable properties and had a small fortune saved, but when he was sent to Purgatory his investments were left for his solicitor to handle. The man had done a poor job, made worse by the Great Depression in the 1930s. Once Lucas had found out about the problem, he’d saved what he could, but most of Bartol’s funds and possessions had been lost by then. And by the time Bartol got out of Purgatory, he barely had enough left to purchase his cabin and support himself for the next couple of years—if he was careful. Lucas was well aware of that fact.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, stopping his pacing. “But you must guarantee I will not run into him.”
Lucas nodded. “I see no reason why Kerbasi needs to be involved, or why you would even need to go to the training compound, but I will tell you he isn’t as bad as you remember. Melena has performed a miracle in that regard.”
Lucas’ wife had spent over fifteen months helping to humanize the guardian before the archangels assigned him to work with the nerou. And though everyone swore Melena had changed Kerbasi for the better, he was still evil in Bartol’s eyes. He could not and would not go anywhere near the guardian, not even for revenge.
“I will let you know of my decision soon,” Bartol said.
“Fair enough.” Lucas stood. “But do not take too long.”
Chapter 3
Cori
A young college guy, who was probably in his freshman year if his baby face was anything to go by, admired the new tattoo Cori had put on his arm. He’d asked for a tribal band around his bicep, so she’d spent a couple of hours inking it on there. It was his first. He’d handled it fairly well, but she could tell near the end he was ready for it to be over.
“This looks kickass,” he said, flashing his arm at her like she hadn’t been the one to put it there. It was always amusing to see the reactions of first timers once she finished.
She gave him a professional smile. “Glad you like it.”
The kid was wide-eyed without a hint of the jadedness she saw in her own gaze or even that of her friends. He still looked at the world through rose-colored lenses, full of hope and curiosity. Cori couldn’t remember if she’d ever been that way. An image of Bartol came to mind, and she wondered what he’d been like at nineteen years old. Whatever youthfulness he might have had was likely knocked away a long time ago, leaving no trace of the boy he’d once been. Did nephilim come out of the womb as young and innocent as humans? Or were they programmed from the start to be rebellious and total jackasses? She didn’t even know if he’d had a parent to raise him, or if someone else had taken up the job.
Cori wrapped a bandage around the tattoo and taped it in place. She’d already cleaned and put ointment on it. “Don’t take this off for a few hours.”
“Yeah, okay.” He climbed out of the chair.
She led him out of her private room in the back and up front to the cash register. Cori’s only other employee, Asher, was still working on his customer at his front booth. A woman had commissioned him to do a full sleeve on her right arm, which was going to take a few sessions with this evening being the first. His tattoo machine buzzed away as he worked on the area around her shoulder. The young woman—probably in her mid-twenties—stared up at the ceiling. She didn’t show any obvious signs of pain, but she’d had a few other tattoos done before and had likely gotten used to it.
Cori gave her own customer a small aftercare kit with instructions in it. “Wash the tattoo with non-scented, anti-bacterial soap several times a day until it’s fully healed.” She pointed at the bottle in the baggie. “Also put a thin layer of this A&D ointment on there each time you clean it.”
“When can I take the bandage off?” he asked.
“An hour or two should be enough. You should clean it again when you do.”
The college guy asked her a few more questions, then left. She checked the waiting area but didn’t find any more people milling about. This was the slowest it had been all day. Cori had appreciated staying busy because it took her mind off the note she’d found at her house. She kept expecting to run into the person who wrote it, but as of yet they hadn’t made an appearance or tried to contact her in any way. Could it have been some sort of prank?
She glanced at her watch and realized it was almost eight o’clock already. Her shop didn’t officially close for another hour, but even if someone came in now, she wouldn’t start anything new. “Hey, Asher,” she called. “Think you can close up for me?”
“No problem!” he yelled from the back.
Since she usually arrived at the shop around eleven in the morning to get ready to open at noon, and he didn’t come in until two in the afternoon, she didn’t feel too bad when she left a little early. Asher was a reliable guy, and he’d never failed to close the place up properly when he left. Still, she took the time to clean up and sanitize her work area before going. He’d handle the rest of the place.
Cori grabbed her purse and keys, then ducked her head into his booth. “See you tomorrow.”
He glanced up, looking at her through shaggy blond hair. “Don’t forget I won’t be in until around four. I’ve got that thing I told you about.”
She’d almost forgotten. Asher had a girlfriend who’d recently discovered she was pregnant, and they were going to her fir
st OBGYN appointment. So far, they both seemed very excited. When Cori had found out about it, she’d considered giving Asher a lecture since he was only twenty-four and hadn’t really settled down yet, but then she realized she couldn’t judge. She had been twenty when she got pregnant and had thought it was the greatest thing in the world. She’d dropped out of college soon after that and married the father of her child just before her daughter was born. It had been a major mistake, but not everyone’s relationships ended in disaster the way hers did. She had to remember that.
“Let me know how it goes,” she said.
“Sure thing.” Asher leaned forward and got back to work on his customer.
Cori headed outside, going toward her truck. She’d recently traded her old, beat-up car that broke down more often than it ran for a somewhat newer Dodge Ram. It was about ten years old, but the previous owner had taken good care of it, so it didn’t give her any troubles. Some of her friends gave her a hard time because she changed vehicles so often. It couldn’t be helped, though. She would have to wait for a while before investing in a brand new vehicle since she had other priorities for now—such as paying her home off early. Business at the tattoo shop was going well enough she just might manage it in a few more years. It would have taken longer than that, but when her father passed away a couple of years ago, he’d left her some money. The inheritance had been just enough to start her shop and put a sizable down payment on her cabin, as well as fix it up.
