Jake stared at Shelly’s father. She must have gotten her looks from her mother, because it sure as hell wasn’t from him. The demon inside was enormous, with black skin and horns made of ebony that curled back from his head. His eyes were black as night and his hands were not hands at all, but talons. He had the torso of a man, but the body of a horse. A centaur?
“I thought those only existed in myths,” Ash said aloud.
“Myths are based on truths,” Shelly told him. Then she turned her attention to her father. “Have any visitors lately?” she asked with a smile.
Balthazar moved like lightning toward the bars that separated them, but the silver chains that bound him to the wall stopped him just short of his destination.
“Man, that silver bites, doesn’t it?” she asked him.
“Silver?” Jake whispered.
“Yeah, demons are allergic to pure silver,” Ash explained. “It keeps them from escaping.”
Jake nodded but kept his eyes on the interaction between his woman and what was the equivalent of his father in law. He shuddered. Talk about your in-laws from hell.
“Do I want to know what he did to get in there?” Jake whispered.
“I think,” Antonio whispered back, “back in the day, he was responsible for letting loose the Black Plague.”
“Ew,” Jake said. Antonio nodded in agreement.
“So, as I asked before, any new visitors?” she asked again.
“I should have killed you when you were born,” the demon snarled at her.
“Oh, Dad, you always know just what to say,” Shelly cooed at him, clutching her hands to her chest. Jake smothered a laugh. He loved that woman.
“No one sees me,” Balthazar growled. “What has happened?”
“Can’t I just drop by to see dear old Dad?” Shelly asked him.
“No,” he grunted. “Not with an audience. Go away.”
“I’m afraid that is not possible,” Ash said, stepping forward and pushing Shelly behind him. “Has anyone come to your cell?”
“Fuck you,” the demon said.
Ash called on his powers. He knew the instant his eyes went red because so did his vision. He allowed the black fire to light all over his skin and stared at the prisoner.
The demon’s head jerked up when he saw the display of power. “You,” he breathed. “Things have been changing.” The demon dutifully arranged his body so that his front legs were bent at the knee and he lowered his head. “What can I do for you, my Liege?”
Ash rolled his eyes but said nothing about the bowing. He hated it when they bowed, but in this case, he was going to let it slide. “I want to know about your visitors.”
The demon stood. “None,” he replied. “Not until you. Is it possible that you are looking for a new second in command? I would be pleased to be at your service.”
Ash shook his head. “No, sorry. You’re in here for a reason and here you will stay.”
They walked away from the demon and the cell door closed behind them. They all walked in silence back to Ash’s office.
“How long are you going to keep him in there?” Jake asked Ash.
“Eternity,” Ash replied. “We don’t need the likes of him running around.” Then, he picked up his phone. “Mali, yes. I need you to double, no triple the security in the prison, especially on Balthazar.” There was a pause, “No, don’t give any reasons. I’m in charge here and I say more security. Thanks.” He hung up the phone and turned to his friends. Funny how they had just been souls he worked with a few days earlier.
“That’s wonderful and all,” Jake said, “but I was referring to him.” He pointed over to the corner of the room where Liam, the soul who got out of Greed, was still sitting in his cage.
“Hell, I don’t know,” Ash said. “He really is on the bottom of my priority list.”
Jake stole a glance at the soul, who was sitting quietly and watching everything that was going on. He felt sorry for the bastard, to be honest.
“Did you find anything on the laptop?” Ash asked Antonio.
“Yeah I got my brother to crack it for you,” Antonio answered. He pulled the computer out of its case and opened it for Ash. The screen was unlocked and Ash immediately went to work sorting through the files. “I had him restore as much as he could,” Antonio continued. “They tried to wipe the hard drive, but they didn’t do a very good job. I don’t know the particulars, but I know it took my guy a minute to crack it.”
“You have a guy for everything, don’t you?” Ash asked him as he clicked his way around the operating system.
Antonio shrugged.
“What do we do now?” Shelly asked.
“We find those fuckers who took you and get your blood back,” Jake told her.
“I hate to admit it but...” Shelly started, but she didn’t have to finish the thought. Jake grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him.
“Don’t you worry,” he told her, cutting her off. “I am going to be right by your side from now until we find them.”
“What about my realm?” Shelly asked. “I don’t want you to get trapped in there. I have to be there sometimes.”
Jake furrowed his brow. “That room full of rocks?” he asked. “I think I can handle it.”
Her face lit up. “You see rocks?”
He nodded. “Yeah. At first I saw gold and riches, but when you went missing, all I saw was rocks.”
“Do you know what that means?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“What?”
“It means you have beaten your sin!” she grinned.
“I don’t know about all that,” he said to her. “Just maybe I found something I want more.”
Jake knew that Ash and Antonio were watching them and he didn’t care as Shelly crushed her lips to his. He held her tight and kissed her back, conveying what he felt in his heart for her. When he had made the transition from caring to love, he didn’t know, but it was there, just the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Two Earth years later…
Jake and Shelly stood silently in the open doorway of the classroom where his charge was now teaching a class full of high school students. Lucy had picked up the shambles of her life and moved to Texas. She had even changed her name. Now, she was Lacy and she was doing what she had always wanted to do with her life. Teaching.
He hated that so much time had passed, but time moved differently in Hell than it did on Earth. Jake had to keep reminding himself that he did his part, albeit forbidden, to help Lacy when she wrecked her car. The rest was her time to grow and change. Now Jake could see the spunk and the fire in her eyes that could only come from soul deep. It was what drew Ash to her and it was what was going to land her in front of Ash one day, just like he had been.
Jake had done a complete background check on the woman and discovered that she had a master’s degree in teaching. She had also been learning to defend herself. Lacy had been taking Karate classes for months and was getting better at it every day. He could see the difference in her. It was obvious in the way she moved and in the way she carried herself.
She was a whole new person. Jake felt a foreign emotion well in his chest. Pride. Not for himself, but for this woman who had beaten the odds and came back stronger than before. She pulled herself out of her abusive relationship and instead of hiding, she molded herself into a warrior.
He watched as she scribbled something on the chalkboard and then turned to ask questions of her students. It was obvious that they respected her. Jake felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips. It didn’t matter whether the kids liked their teacher or not when it came to high school. What mattered was that the kids respected their teacher. Lacy had that in spades. She was no longer the timid, introverted woman he had first seen in her small house months ago. She was confident and strong.
Jake was happy. For the first time in his life, he truly understood what it meant to be whole. He had been reluctant to welcome Shelly into his he
art, but her forceful nature and her possessive streak had awakened something inside of him that he didn’t know existed. For the first time, he wanted something more. More than riches and fame, more than notoriety and infamy. He wanted life. Not just his own, but hers, because without her he was nothing.
He had been selfish and greedy in life. He thought when Ash offered him a job that he would get a chance to make things right. He had been right and he had been wrong. The job had brought him to his place in life, or afterlife, as it was, but it was Shelly who had truly been his redemption.
She had inadvertently pulled Jake out of himself and taught him what it was like to love. She was his perfect other half, meant to be his for all eternity. It was the stuff romance novels were made of and instead of cringing at the thought, Jake grinned.
He still worried about the humans who had managed to hold her captive. True to his word, he had not left Shelly’s side while the humans were on the lamb. The fact that they had Shelly’s blood irked him to no end. Not only could they use it to summon Balthazar, but it could be dangerous to his woman as well. They could summon her again and she would be powerless to fight it. They could destroy her if they so desired, and they could use it to control her, putting everyone at risk. It was a risk he wasn’t ready to take.
Jake took some measure of comfort in knowing that because of her bullheadedness, because she insisted on marking him, he could always find her. He smiled as he remembered that her initial marking had been to be an ass, to prove to the world that when Shelly claimed something or someone as her own, that she meant business. Now, the mating was mutual. If they did summon her, and lord better help them if they did, they wouldn’t hold her for long.
Those humans had disappeared without a trace. Jake and Ash had searched the world over for them, but they were nowhere to be found. That laptop they retrieved was full of coded emails and files that made no sense whatsoever. Ash had put Mali to work on them, but it was slow coming. It was obvious that they had help from someone, but who? There were still so many questions left unanswered and Jake vowed to find those answers.
He would protect his woman. His demon. His soul mate. His redemption.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Lacy had engaged her class for the entire period. She looked at her clock and realized that the hour and a half had flown by. She couldn’t help but feel a little proud of herself for getting her students interested and involved. She tapped her laptop to open the homework screen and said, “I will email everyone tonight’s assignment. Please remember to check it.” And that was when it happened.
The intercom on her phone started playing a jingle. The students looked up in confusion, but Lacy knew exactly what it was. She looked at her intercom like it just stood up and did a little dance. What the hell? She wasn’t aware of any drills today, but they didn’t always tell anyone. But that jingle, it was specific. It was non-threatening, but it was the worst of them all as far as Lacy was concerned. It was the one that meant the school was under attack.
Her heart stopped for a second and then thundered in her chest. Her cell phone beeped and Lacy knew without looking that it was the same warning, a backup for any teachers that were not in their classrooms. A part of her realized that this was probably a drill, but a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach told her it was not.
“Class,” she said, snapping into action. She had been through this drill two dozen times, she knew what to do, “When the bell rings, I do not want you to leave your seats. In fact, I would like for everyone to please move to the back of the room. We’re having a drill, I think.” The class didn’t argue. They too had been through the drill. Lacy moved quickly to the door of her class and gently pushed it closed. Then, she locked it. She didn’t know why, but something told her that this was not a drill and to keep her students safe. She looked back at her desk and thought of her nine millimeter that was tucked safely away in the locked drawer. She fingered the key that hung around her neck for only a moment before making her decision.
She chose the largest kid in her class. “Jamie,” she said to him softly, “I need your help, please.”
The boy stood and at his full height at well over six feet tall. He was a football player and built like a mac truck. “What ya need, Ms. B?” he asked her.
Lacy stood behind her desk, facing Jamie on the other side. “I don’t like this,” she whispered. “I can’t explain it, but I just know this is not a drill.” The boy’s eyes widened but he remained silent. “I need you to block me from the camera’s view. Don’t look at it.”
There was a camera in each classroom, at the back, so that the entire room was easily visible. Jamie nodded, knowing his back was to it.
“What are we going to do?” he asked her. Lacy felt her heart swell with pride. This seventeen year old boy was showing more courage than most men.
“I need to get something, and I don’t want you to say anything about it,” she said. “Just stand there and take the book I hand you, and then go back to the back of the room. Try to quietly gather as many students as you can and get them out of sight of the camera. I need you to act as if this is just a drill. A little annoyance would even be good.”
Jamie nodded and put one hand on her desk, shifting his weight to appear more casual. Lacy smiled and then took the key off her necklace. She opened her drawer and carefully slipped her hand inside. She felt the cool butt of the gun glide into her palm and she took it out of the drawer without lifting it too high. No one but she and Jamie could see it. “Ms. B?” he whispered, fear clouding his eyes.
Lacy shook her head. “I hope I am wrong. Never speak of this, please.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said too quietly for anyone but her to hear. All of the students had heard the rumors that a select few of their teachers had conceal and carry permits, they just never knew which ones. From the looks of things, Ms. B was one of them.
She handed Jamie the folder that contained her great, great grandfather’s letters. “You keep that safe for me,” she said with a smile. He nodded once and held the folder to his chest as if they were a shield from the world. Lacy hated that she had put this on him, that she had let him in on her secret, but it was the only way she could retrieve her gun without anyone else seeing.
“Good afternoon teachers and students,” a strange voice said over the PA. “By now you have probably figured out that this school is on lockdown, and if you have not, let me clear it up for you. No one leaves. Anyone who tries to leave will be killed. My team and I do not wish to cause harm to any of the students, but we will not hesitate to shoot if necessary.”
Lacy pressed her lips together in a thin line. Then she heard the whispers and the sniffles of her students. Twenty-five children, all her responsibility. She looked knowingly at Jamie, who was still holding her folder tight to his chest.
“Your principle is already dead, as is the rent-a-cop at the door. Anyone else who tries to alert any outside assistance will also be shot. When your government complies with our demands, we will be on our way, with no one else hurt.”
Terrorists, Lacy thought. But why a school? The US Government does not negotiate with terrorists. She could tell by the faint accent the man speaking had that he was not a citizen. She didn’t know where he was from and she didn’t care. She was just handed a new mission in life and it was to get those students out of there alive.
***
Jake watched as his charge shoved her fears aside and took action. He knew he wasn’t supposed to interfere, but there were five hundred kids in that school! So when the group of six men with assault rifles entered the building, he had warned her. He whispered in her ear that things were about to go to shit and fast. Shelly was at his side, and she made no move to stop him. She had even gone to the office to see what the men were up to while he kept watch on Lacy.
“They’re going to blow it up,” Shelly said, appearing out of thin air. “They got one in the basement, setting it up. I don’t know much about expl
osives, but it looks pretty freaking big.”
“We need Antonio,” Jake said. “Let’s go. Quickly.”
The pair flashed to Ash’s office, hoping Antonio was there, and that he could get there in time to stop this from happening.
***
Lacy couldn’t explain how she knew it, but she knew. Those terrorists had no intention of letting anyone go. She peered out of the small window in her door and saw that one man, dressed in black and holding an assault weapon, was walking the hallway, preventing anyone from escaping that route.
“Shit,” she muttered under her breath. She walked quickly to the back of her classroom where her students waited for her. “We can’t stay here,” she said to them quietly.
“We can’t leave!” one of the girls cried out. “They’ll kill us!”
Lacy took the girls hand in her own and squeezed it. “If we stay here, we’re dead.” Lacy could feel the cold metal of her gun pressed into the back of her jeans and it gave her some measure of comfort. If anyone came into her classroom, they better be firing when they entered. She was fast and she was accurate, and she wouldn’t hesitate to protect her students. “I have a plan, but you all have to remain calm and do exactly what I say.”
It took some convincing, but her students were finally on board with her. “They can access our video feed from the office,” she told them. “That’s why we are standing below the camera, where it can’t see. As far as they know, this is an empty classroom save for the teacher.” She waited to make sure they were following her. “They don’t know we’re in here.” She looked at the ceiling and something told her that her way out was up there. The vent! “I need someone tall and strong,” she said.
Jamie stood. “What can I do?” he asked.
“Lift me up by the wall to that vent up there,” she said.
Jamie held his hands together in front of him and Lacy stepped into them. He hefted her up and she finagled herself so that she was sitting on his shoulders. She reached up and popped the grate off the air vent. She lowered it carefully and one of her students took it from her.
Redemption (The Keepers of Hell Book 3) Page 11
