by Tes Hilaire
“It’s called grieving,” Logan said, his tone deadly serious.
Jessica stilled, her breath catching as she looked at her…what was it she’d called him? Her mate?
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She reached over, laying her hand on his cheek. “I forget how long it seemed for you.”
Logan leaned into her hand, his own coming up to link through her fingers before bringing them down for a kiss. “A fucking eternity.”
Mike rubbed his eyes, shaking his head. “Okay, no more lifetime movies for me before bed.”
Logan scowled at him, but Jessica smiled, her lip quirking in an expression that was so damn much like the one his partner had used when amused.
Could all this BS be true? Superpowers, mates, angels and heavenly warriors? Hadn’t this been exactly what Katrina had been trying to allude to?
Thinking of Katrina made him shift uneasily in his chair. He needed to wrap this up. Get the information he needed. And then get out here and find her. The thought of her trying to take on her ex and his goons on her own had the beast clawing at its chains. Especially if even a quarter of this was true.
A throat cleared. In the door stood Warren. “Hate to interrupt, but one of the blades has been spotted.”
Logan stood, his chair scraping on the floor. “Where? What was carrying it?”
“Merker. Outskirts of Central Park, but it was moving fast.” Warren gave a little jerk of his chin towards the ceiling. “Alex went to try and get our blades, but he might need someone with a little more authority if someone sees him pilfering them.”
Logan glanced at Jessica, again Mike felt that tickle across the back of his neck. Jeeze.
Jessica nodded. “Still got mine. Your daddy doesn’t dare try and take it from me.”
Logan’s mouth quirked up. “Maybe you’re the bad-ass.”
“Thank you.” She stood, leaning in for a quick kiss. “Go cover Alex’s lovely backside. I’ll be ready when you are.”
Logan left, grumbling all the while that his mate shouldn’t be checking out others backsides.
“Ready for what?” Mike asked when he was sure Logan was out of earshot. And okay, maybe, just maybe, he could buy the cock and bull story they’d been weaving. Kind of. Okay, not really. But he was willing to think on it. He also wanted to talk with Jessica alone, make sure there wasn’t some crazy, bat-shit Stockholm syndrome going on here. And having Logan breathing down his neck when he so much looked at his “mate” was not going to convince him otherwise.
“We’re going to try and get ahold of that knife,” Jessica said, moving across the room to one of the cabinets. She did something with the lock, a quick click, and it popped open.
“Why?” he asked, watching her dig into the contents of the cabinet, coming out with what looked like a Kevlar vest, a holster of some sort, some wide bracelet like things and…a knife?
“Because those black blades are dangerous. Anyone who touches it seems to come down with a serious case of evil. And if you get nicked?” She shook her head, laying her treasures on the table. Definitely a Kevlar vest, though the material over it looked odd. And besides that some strange looking arm bands and, yup, a knife.
“What happens if you get nicked?” he asked, watching her efficiently strap on the Kevlar first, and then the odd looking holster over it.
“We don’t really know yet. But one Paladin is infected with its darkness. It keeps spreading. Without the blade to study in order to find a countermeasure…”
He could only imagine what would happen. No, scratch that, he couldn’t. Evil? Darkness? It was like he’d stepped into a Sci-Fi original.
“And you plan to go after this thing?” He didn’t mean to stress the you in that statement. He knew better. If this really was the Jessica he’d known, the implication that this job might be too dangerous for her would send her running towards, not away, from trouble. Yet for some asinine reason he did.
Sure enough, her lips thinned. “This is what Paladin do.” She reached for the blade she’d laid on the table, slipping it into the holster. “Is it really so different than what we did as cops?”
Hell yeah it was. Laws and protocol and all kinds of other bullshit. And the really nice thing? They used fucking firearms, not knives to apprehend the baddies.
“Still not buying in?” Warren asked from where he was strapping on another set of these bracelet things…what were those things? Bracers?
“Oh, I’m bought in.”
Warren’s brow winged up in question.
“To the idea that you’re all fucking nuts.”
“Huh.” Warren turned his gaze to Jessica. “Maybe the best thing for belief would be a little introduction.”
Jessica’s mouth thinned at that, an imperceptible shake of her head.
“An introduction to what?”
Warren smiled, the leather snapping as he cinched down the bracer. “Why, the creatures that go bump in the night, of course.”
Chapter Eight
This was fucking crazy. There were no other words to describe what they were doing. Hunting for evil in the city park at night. Like some group of vigilante warriors. They even had the prerequisite set of useless weaponry—Knives. Really? Though the prey they had picked looked far from evil to him.
“He looks like a banker.”
“What did you expect? Horns, fangs and large black wings like the devil?”
Mike glared at the warrior beside him. Warren, he was finding, had a sense of humor, albeit a bad one. The sad thing was, he could appreciate it. It was the type of humor he would have expected from one of his brothers in blue. The kind of dry, morbid humor that they all pulled on with the donning of their Kevlar and wore as a kind of emotional shield to the crap that was just part of the job.
“Is that what the devil looks like?”
Warren shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. Never had to face him.”
“Has anyone?”
“And lived to tell the tale?” He glanced over to where Logan and Jessica were crouched behind a boulder.
“They seen him?”
“No. But rumor is his sister did.”
Mike’s blood chilled. Karissa Donovan. The sister that Logan didn’t actually have. At least not on paper. Though they both claimed otherwise.
Mike had looked into Karissa Donovan while investigating the Thomas Rhodes case with Jessica. According to the records, Karissa was an orphan, her only living grandparent having died right before Thomas Rhodes had died. And wasn’t it interesting that of all that happened during that time frame that her husband—also not on paper—had been seen threatening Rhodes, and she’d subsequently gone missing for a rather long period of time. More funny? None of her tales of the attack or her subsequent terror driven flight had mentioned anything about meeting the devil. Not that he would expect a somewhat sane person to include that in their report, but still…
Oh what a tangled web these Paladin’s lives seemed to be. He wondered, if he pulled on one thread just right, if he’d be able to get to the bottom of it all. Probably not.
He’d managed to get a little bit more information out of Jessica on the way here, but not exactly the information he’d been looking for. They’d been talking as they were walking. Or stalking their prey as the case might be. Only this wasn’t some rabbit chase, but a chase for a creature which, according to the four warriors boxing him in—wouldn’t want him to run, right?—was all but impossible to kill.
She’d also told him why that was. It seems these merker creatures were half demon, and the other half? Well every single one of them had the same daddy. A daddy that once, a very, very long time ago, was one of the original Paladin. Until his human mate died. And he’d gone insane, turning to the dark side.
“I’m in a damn George Lucas film,” he muttered.
Alex, who boxed in his other side, frowned, raising his finger to his mouth, then pointed back to the path. The merker had stopped on the curve a hundred feet away and was scanning t
he shadows around him.
Mike settled deeper into the shrubbery. The merker’s gaze dragged over them, moving on, then came back. Mike flinched under the penetrating gaze. It was like something squeezed on his mind, at the same time the back of his neck skipped the normal tingling, this time blooming in a full fledge itch. The merker smiled, drawing out a black blade from somewhere beneath his suit jacket as his gaze zeroed in on the thicket that Warren, Alex and Mike crouched in.
Warren leaned over. “Still think he’s a banker?”
“Bankers. Lawyers. Politicians. They’re all pretty much the scum of the earth, right?”
“Good one. Now let’s go see if we can wipe this one off it.” Warren pushed out of the thicket, his hand dropping to his blade as he stood on the path, facing off against the merker as if this was some sort of old western shot-out, but with knifes instead of guns.
Mike sighed and started to push his own way out of the brush when Alex caught his arm.
“What?”
“Watch that blade.”
That’s right. Their prey was actually not so much the “creature” but the new weapon he was said to be sporting. A black blade that was supposedly responsible for one warrior’s fight for his life and the death of over a half dozen humans that they knew of.
“I don’t tend towards suicidal.”
“Good.”
***
This was not how this was supposed to go down. Suicidal he was not, but this creature was definitely homicidal and he, yup, Lucky Mike, was its victim of choice.
Mike crouched, eyes narrowed as he watched the merker charge down the sidewalk, it’s feet flying above the pavement far more than on. He was getting really tired of this game. Yet this seemed to be the only move it knew. Disengage from the Paladin trying to kill it, sight down its preferred dinner, and charge at Mike with inhuman speed.
Thankfully Mike had an Ace up his sleeve. And two buddies who despite the newness of their relationship—or perhaps because of—seemed to not be quite ready to see him dead.
“Hey, fucker!” Warren called, charging from the other side, but the merker didn’t alter its target at all. Mike gave over a bit more control to the beast, sliding aside at the last possible second, though even with the added advantage he felt the singe of the blade as it barely cleared the side of his face.
Warren had managed to engage it again, which was really good as Mike didn’t think he had it in him to avoid another close call just now.
Shit. Why had he not insisted on some firearms? And okay, Jessica’s insistence that it wouldn’t kill the merker might have been true, but a good, high-powered bullet should slow it down.
And alert anyone in the area to the fight. Huh. Good point.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mike watched Alex try and sneak in. For a large man, the warrior was remarkably good at using shadow and stealth. Conversely, his companion was in the fight of his life, his blade flashing with the merker’s at speeds that seemed impossible, and still the merker was trying to disengage. Why?
It want us, snarled the beast.
The beast snapped and snarled at the chains that held it tight. It wasn’t happy with this situation. At all. Every nerve in Mike’s body was on fire. His skin felt like it was going to split. The beast wanted out. It wanted free reign to eliminate the threat as it saw it.
Mike was not going to let it out. Who knew if the beast would discern between friend and foe?
So you’re all chummy, chummy friends now?
Mike shook the thought off. He needed to concentrate on the fight. The merker seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with him. And yeah, he was supposed to be playing the bait, but the damn thing seemed beyond fixated, to the point that it had taken a few strikes from both Alex and Warren’s blade that it shouldn’t have if it had been thinking clearly. The all but black blood dripping from those multiple wounds was testament to that.
Not that the wounds appeared to slow it down.
The merker managed to break away again, doing one of its crazy demon jumps up onto a nearby boulder. The ground all but shook with the impact as it landed. The creature’s black gaze immediately fixated on Mike. Mike swore.
Here they went again. Damn if this wouldn’t be easier with a couple more able bodies to play tag with.
Logan and Jessica were out there somewhere. Amongst all the talk about the blade and what it could do, there had been some mention of shielding the fight so some innocent human didn’t stumble upon it by accident. Mike didn’t quite get what this shielding was, but his impression was it took a fair amount out of you as Jessica had said she would stay with Logan and offer her energy if need be.
The merker smiled, and charged. And here they went again. Only they didn’t. This time Alex intercepted it before it was half way there, his knife slicing across the creature’s exposed throat, its momentum carrying it right through the blade.
Hoo-yah! And that was one for their team. Only it wasn’t because, crap, what was that about a person being able to live up to 13 seconds after being decapitated? Because even missing its head, the merker still came, doing the headless horseman trick. Only there was no horse, yet its evil essence still seemed to be able to scent out Mike as if he were its mama’s own home-cooked special. Which was just wrong because it was the brain that lived, not the body, and that body had absolutely no nose for scenting.
Off to the side there was a flash of light. The thing staggered, and Mike thought it might go down, its body finally catching up with the fact that it was missing its head, but then it straightened.
No fucking way.
He hardly had time to think, much less react, and the thing was moving, lunging at him with amazing accuracy, its black blade singing through the air before it.
Only Warren was there, shouldering Mike aside as he caught the merker’s blade on his own, his other hand grabbing the merker’s wrist and not letting go despite the fact that the merker immediately began clawing at his throat with his free hand. And then Alex was there too, his knife plunging into the creature’s back, the blade sizzling as it carved through bone, muscle, and organ alike. There was a sick sucking sound and then he was yanking something out. No, not something, the heart.
“Burn it already!” yelled Warren.
Alex began chanting. Mike watched wide-eyed as Alex skewered the heart on his blade. The blade pulsed, blinding white pulsing down it. Flesh smoldered, eventually falling from the blade to the body below.
Mike stared down at the body that had finally stopped fucking moving. The back yawed open, the heart, still sizzling, nestled among the shredded cavity. His nose wrinkled against the rank smell of smoldered flesh.
Definitely not a banker. Though would anyone who hadn’t been here to witness its relentless attack believe that?
I am so fucked.
He twisted his head from side to side, trying to alleviate the pressure that had started in his shoulders and was trying to spike into his brain. His gaze caught on Warren who was panting, hands on his knees.
“You okay?” he asked, though even to him his voice sounded hollow. Shock. Must be shock. That or his efforts to control the beast. He still felt like he was about to split in two. The beast had not settled with the death of the merker. In fact, if anything it was even more agitated now.
Probably because life as you know it is completely screwed.
“Yeah.” Warren straightened, popping his back. “But do me a favor. Don’t quit your day job.”
Tension rolled through his body. A dull ache throbbing in his skull. Who the hell was Warren to talk? It wasn’t him the creature had fixated on. It wasn’t he who had never had to deal with this shit before. Fuck, if it wasn’t for him and his other blade happy brothers, Mike wouldn’t be out here in this mess to have ever needed saving from. And now he was an accomplice to murder. His DNA all over another fucking crime scene.
Their fault. They dragged you into this nightmare.
“My day job? You mean the one I’ve p
robably already lost thanks to all this bullshit?”
Warren frowned, shaking his head. “What are you babbling on about? It was just a joke.”
“I’m talking about all this.” He waved his hands expansively. “You and your buddies and your pretty knives and divine purpose. All it is, is a front. An excuse to pound your chest, play at vigilante, and kill at your leisure.”
“You have truly lost it, man.” Warren shouldered him aside, bending down to pick up the dropped blade. As soon as his hand closed over it he screamed, jerking back, the blade clattering back to the pavement as his hand flexed open and the warrior tumbled to the ground.
Didn’t deserve me. Not strong enough, but you… you…
“What happened?” A voice, feminine in nature, and rich with worry cried out.
Dimly, Mike was aware of Jessica and Logan racing down the path towards their fallen companion. His focus was not on them though, but on the second warrior who had come up across from him.
Alexander Hastings. The red-haired giant hadn’t batted an eye at his companion’s fall. His attention was caught somewhere else. On the black blade that now rested on the ground at Mike’s feet.
“Mike, I want you to back up,” Alex said, his voice seemingly calm, though Mike could all but feel the tension radiating off him. Mike followed his gaze, cocking his head to look at the object that had stolen the large warrior’s entire focus.
Yes. Look closer. Closer…
As if in a haze, Mike squatted down, his neck itching as he studied the black blade. For a second he swore he saw etchings along the flat of the blade, but when he twisted his head, they disappeared, the light seeming to be sucked up into black metal.
Pick me up. Use me. We can end this nightmare.
He rubbed his temples, trying to alleviate the pressure building inside his skull. Deep in his core the beast snarled, its voice whispering from within: Falsehood. This reality. No change.
The beast snapped and snarled at that. The itch that had bloomed across the back of Mike’s neck spread, fire dancing across his every nerve. At the same time his head felt like it was going to explode. His ears buzzed, had to listen…
