It wasn’t any better there, and it pissed me off that whoever was here had dared to tear my demonic books apart. The pieces of paper were spread over my bed, and there was blood too, but I refused to touch it. I started looking for valuable potions instead. I had no idea what Rodriguez was hoping to find in here. Any correspondence, things that Arthur had given to me I hadn’t kept in the flat. Sometimes being paranoid paid off.
I started picking out whatever I needed to take with me up north. Luckily no one had found my old stash of cash in the floorboard. The money itself wasn’t important, but the business wasn’t generating me anymore income at the moment, so every penny counted. I found the old rucksack that still hung on the door, packed whatever I could, and ten minutes later I was walking back to the tube station. Mrs. Patel was going to go mental when she discovered the mess. I suspected that she had already seen the flat and was waiting to evict me. I could say goodbye to my deposit, but I couldn’t worry about it now. My housing situation was always complicated, but soon hell would take care of this problem.
It took me another half hour to get to Victoria station. I arrived ten minutes late, but managed to locate Zach quickly enough. My pulse sped up when I saw him standing alone with that stoic expression on his face. Things like that worried me; my hormones were willing to have a party at my expense. No, no, no. I couldn’t keep thinking that this was perfectly okay. Our relationship had gotten very complicated; he wanted to take things further where I was holding on thinking that my future was too uncertain to commit to no-strings-attached sex.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” I said, hushing down whatever emotions were crawling up my spine. “Are you ready?”
“Pretty much. Where are we going?”
“Up north, to the small fishing village called Langston. The name is insignificant, but it’s the place where I gave birth to Summer,” I explained, feeling odd talking to him about something so personal.
“All right, Flower, let’s get on with this,” he agreed, already thinking about sleeping arrangements. I rolled my eyes behind his back. This was going to be difficult, keeping my hormones on a leash and Zach away from me.
We bought the tickets in the most human way possible and headed to the platform. I sensed demons nearby; it was obvious that there were going to be a few of them in such a busy place.
“What’s wrong?” Zach asked when I turned around the third time, scanning the surroundings.
“Nothing. I think I’m paranoid,” I muttered, certain that we were being watched. “My flat was vandalised, and I bet that my landlady is going to evict me. I saw it coming a long time ago.”
“You have to report it, Flower. Maybe the station will give the case to a good- looking detective that will find the bastard that did it,” Zachary said, winking at me. Only Zach could find something positive in the fact that I was homeless. There was no way that Mrs. Patel would let me back after I had been late with my rent a few times. On top of that the place was trashed.
“Forget it, besides, I know it was Rodriguez and his people. The old bastard wants to bring me down for questioning,” I said, wishing that Rodriguez would stay in hell once and for all.
“I never asked, but now I’m kind of curious. What is hell like? What happens to humans when they die?”
I blinked a few times, wondering if Zach was serious. There was nothing attractive about hell, and I wished that I hadn’t experienced my last trip with Morpheus. It was better that he stuck to things that he knew.
“I have never been truly inside, so I don’t know. Most of the mongrels that are summoned are treated like dogs downstairs,” I explained. Even the new election wouldn’t change a thing. Mongrels were always going to be second-class citizens.
“That sucks,” he muttered.
He didn’t dwell on the subject and I was glad that we didn’t have to carry on with that conversation. We squeezed ourselves into the train seats and I was suddenly aware of that familiar heat that flooded ever inch of me when he was close. For a short period of time I kept telling myself that I had to stay focused—Alexis had my daughter—but Zach’s advances were getting challenging.
Eventually I fell asleep somewhere in York. Lately I hadn’t been sleeping well, so it was a bliss finally getting two hours of kip. The dreams were conflicted and I woke up when it was dark outside. The train was just approaching the station. Zach was snoozing too. I thought about Ronan. I hadn’t heard from him since he left the letter in Ricky’s apartment. He left Nameless behind. Their relationship had been complicated from the start, but Ronan must have left some kind of instructions to Nameless. I should have questioned him in the hospital.
I woke Zach and then we departed the train on a small platform in the middle of the English countryside.
“I hope that you know where we’re going?” Zachary asked, as we found ourselves outside the station on a pitch-black road. I failed to see any taxis around and instantly regretted that we didn’t take the car. We were several miles from the coast and Ronan’s place.
“We have to walk for a few miles. There is a B&B in the village or we could sleep in Ronan’s cottage,” I said, feeling silly that I hadn’t actually thought this through. Ronan had abandoned me, but I was certain that he could help us out by giving us a bed for a night. There was part of me that believed that Ronan wanted to reunite with his son, but after years of living alone he wasn’t sure how to resume the dialog.
“So Ronan helped you when you left the job in the palace?”
“Yes, he did,” I replied, and explained what happened to me once I was done with Arthur. My story was difficult to tell, but Zach was willing to listen. He didn’t judge me straight away like others had.
Zach opted for us to head straight to Ronan’s place. We started walking through the gloomy country road that eventually would lead us to the village where I spent nine months of my life.
In the distance I smelled the salty air. We were near the coast and I remembered how uncertain I was when I showed up here for the first time two years ago. Nostalgic feelings came back, and now I was returning to the place where everything began.
The temperature was dropping slightly, but we kept going. After at least a mile, I was certain that someone was following us. I hadn’t sensed any demons in the train. There were masses of them in Victoria station, but not in such a remote village like Langston. Sometimes I thought that I was too paranoid, but my instinct felt another half human approximately a hundred meters away from us. Energy shifted around me, changing the consistency of the air and my fingertips inflamed. We were passing a forest on our right, so I grabbed Zach’s elbow and started dragging him towards the bushes. Whoever was tailing us couldn’t have had any professional training.
“I really enjoy having sex in wild places, Flower, but I’m kind of knackered,” Zach said, with a flirtatious tone of voice. I had to roll my eyes this time, looking out at the empty road.
“I haven’t dragged you here to have sex. Someone is following us. It’s probably another mongrel,” I hissed, and took a potion from my bag and quickly spread it around us. “This should mislead whoever it is a little.”
Ten minutes passed and I started getting agitated, knowing that my demonic senses had never let me down. The magic vibrated through me, linking itself to the soil. I was just about to tell Zach to start moving again when a demon appeared on the road. He looked towards us, then glanced around with confusion. Zach had noticed him, but he couldn’t see as well as me in the pitch-black darkness.
The male demon was short with shaggy dark hair and beard. He wasn’t anyone that I knew or even recognised. He could have been one of Rodriguez’s men, but he didn’t fit to anyone from the palace.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back,” I whispered to the detective. He grabbed my hand, sending a jolt of heat wave down my spine.
“You’re not going anywhere alone,” he hissed.
“Chill, I’m not a baby. Let me take care of him with magic and don’t stress. I’ll
be all right,” I replied. It seemed that Zach wanted to argue, but I was already walking away, holding a potion in my hand. The energy flew down my arms, as I sneaked right behind him. Obviously he wasn’t trained. My potions were weak and any other demon would have used his protective wards. He was just standing in the middle of the road, waiting to be attacked.
I reached out for my small knife, licked my lips and jumped on him before my charm faded away.
“Hello, darling. What ya doing here following me around? You have one chance to tell me who sent you or I’ll cut your fat throat,” I snarled, locking my arm around his head, and using my left leg to get him on the ground. The knife was in front of his eyes. He tried to conjure some energy to defend himself, but he was too clumsy and ended up burning his jacket with flames.
“Let me go and I’ll tell you who I am, Maxine Brodeur,” he hissed, trying to push me away.
“I had a hell of a day and really want to go to bed,” I snapped, sitting on him and balancing a fire ball on my hand, ready to give him a taste of my power. I didn’t give a fuck anymore about demonic rules. We were far away from any city and the faction could kiss my arse. “Tell me who sent you or I’ll fucking kill you.”
His eyes gleamed with green light and I flinched, shocked at seeing this kind of ability. I was a hundred percent sure that I hadn’t met him before. His boring, plain clothes and inability to defend himself would have made Mammon very angry. I was cold, tired and pissed off that he was hiding shit from me.
A second later Zachary joined me, holding a gun in his hand.
“I’ll just blow out his head, Maxine. It will save us some trouble.” He grinned, pointing straight at the stranger’s head. All right, I had to give it to him, he wanted to act tough too.
“The dark lord, he’s part of all this. You have to tell him that I have done nothing wrong,” the demon mumbled making no sense whatsoever.
“Who the fuck are you?” I roared, grabbing his chubby face. I was on the verge of losing my shit with him. I was fed up with lies, deceit, and the fact that people were keeping stuff from me.
“My name is Dimitri. I’ve escaped hell. They are after me. You’re the only person that can help me,” he hissed and widened his eyes further. I noticed tiny blood vessels in his irises.
Okay, maybe my anger was unnecessary, but still, the past few days weren’t particularly relaxing. Zach glanced at me in confusion and lowered his gun.
“Help you? How? Start making sense, Dimitri, and stop wasting my time,” I ordered, loosening my grip.
“The dark lord values your opinion. There is a connection between you two. The demon that guides you—he knows, he always knew,” the demon continued his mumbling and I was itching to kick his arse.
“Listen, I think you’ve made a mistake. I have nothing to do with hell. I’m a mongrel girl. There is nothing special about me,” I insisted.
“Please, I’m begging you. My family is still there, my children. The city was busy and I couldn’t approach you. Other demons would have noticed. Please tell your father that I have done nothing wrong!”
I pulled away from him like his skin suddenly burned me. The demon was talking about my father, but how? And why?
“I don’t know who my father is.”
Then, there was a large snapping sound and the demon froze. In one split second he was staring at me, and the next, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He was dead before I took a second breath.
Chapter 20
“The flesh of mortals runs to yielding flab. So good beginnings aren’t enough to last to acorn time from when the oak is born. ―Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
“Max, what the hell? What’s wrong with him?” Zach asked, putting his gun away. I stood there, my hands suddenly shaking, as questions mounted inside my head. Was it me? Did I kill him?
No, it was impossible. His energy went dark and it began hurting him. Dread filled my lungs.
“He’s dead,” I rasped, feeling suddenly numb. I heard him correctly—he said that my father could save him and then he dropped dead. Did he mean Lucifer or someone that stood beneath him? There were so many possibilities.
Flames started covering the body and Zachary cursed a few times, backing away. I stared at the demon’s body, paralysed, wondering what was happening. The flames burned the corpse for a good minute, before the demon vanished completely. Someone could see us in the darkness, but we were literally in the middle of nowhere, still a good mile away from the village.
I tapped into my source, considering calling Morpheus. Maybe he was the one that sent the demon to give me this odd message, but he was with me only yesterday. No, I discounted that.
“Did I mishear him or did he really say something about your father?” Zach asked me, finally calming down.
“Come on, we have to keep moving before any human notices us,” I said, kind of limp, not knowing what to say. That demon must have followed us all the way here from London Victoria. I had years to find the demon that got my mother pregnant. Talking about a man that had never even tried to find me made me uneasy.
“What? Are you serious? There must be a demon in hell that can answer for what’s happened here. This guy was perfectly fine just a second ago, then he started burning. What the fuck is going on here?” Zach was throwing questions at me, but I had no answers. I was green just like him.
“I have no idea. I have never seen or spoken to him before,” I said, again thinking of getting in touch with Morpheus. He showed up in my life out of the blue, and he expected me to get on with things without any questions. I just couldn’t do this anymore.
“Seriously? Is that all you have to say?”
“I’m in shock, exactly like you are. I have no answers. We should be going before we both freeze to death,” I said, thinking that I was too exhausted to speculate on why this demon had followed us all the way here. The answers were in hell, and it seemed to me that my father was a high-ranking demon. Whatever, that didn’t matter right now. Summer was waiting for me, and I couldn’t get distracted by stuff that I couldn’t control. Two months ago, someone had hinted that I should have looked into the death of my mother. I had and I found nothing.
Zach only shook his head, secured his gun and went ahead of me convinced that I was hiding stuff from him. He had no idea what was really going on, and maybe it was better that way. My primary concern was Alexis.
By the time we reached the village it was midnight. The local pub was still open, but we didn’t go inside. There were hardly any humans around, so we decided to head straight to Ronan’s cottage. We stood outside for a while. All the lights were off and I suspected that he wasn’t home. I walked around and got inside through the back door. It turned out that Ronan hadn’t been in his home for months. Dust covered the old furniture and I could hardly sense his energy.
“He didn’t come back,” I said, standing in the room where I’d revealed to him that I was pregnant.
“Come back from where?” Zach questioned.
“From London. I thought he left the capital after Gjöll and came straight here, but it looks like I was wrong.” I scratched my head in confusion. I could only hope that he was all right and safe. “There is a guest room on the first floor. I’ll be in my old room. We can talk about strategy tomorrow.”
Zach looked around slightly apprehensive about staying here, but we had nowhere else to go. My heartbeat was unsteady when I went upstairs to my old bedroom. Nothing had changed in there; Ronan hadn’t removed any of my stuff. Everything remained as it was two years ago. My connection with Alexis allowed me to sense her if she was nearby. I would have a pretty good idea when she would decide to make her appearance.
Tears welled in my eyes as memories about my time in the cottage resurfaced. Zach was moving around in his room, still confused about the demon that died in front of me without a reason. I took off all my clothes, covered the bed with a blanket and fell asleep instantly, not even realising when.
I wo
ke up earlier than planned. It was around eight o’clock in the morning. After tossing and turning for some time I went down to the kitchen, searching for coffee. My head was banging and I hadn’t even drunk the night before. For a minute I stood in the window contemplating everything that happened. How long was Morpheus planning to hide stuff from me? A deal was a deal, but I deserved to know the truth.
The fridge stunk, and the food in the cupboards was outdated by months, although I managed to find the coffee that smelled all right. Matilda lived a few miles away from here, and I had to let Zach know that we needed to be ready anytime.
After my coffee I went to Ronan’s storage to see if he had left any useful elixirs behind or at least ingredients to brew them. In the basement, I quickly realised that someone else had been in here. Most of the shelves were empty. The flasks and small bottles were on the floor. I went down on my knees, seeing a tiny blue liquid in a small bottle that someone must have missed. Maybe it was time to call Nameless and find out what the hell happened to his father. When he left me a letter he didn’t mention anything about leaving Langston.
“That’s a view I could wake up to every morning,” said the familiar voice behind me. I turned around, seeing Zach in the door. From that angle he had a perfect view of my arse. I was wearing a short sleeve top and black knickers. I only just noticed him, but I bet he stood here watching me bending over for a while now.
“You shouldn’t be focusing on me. Someone has broken in here a few weeks back. Half of his elixirs and potions are gone,” I pointed out, smoothing the long shirt. Heat rushed into my veins, converting my energy into a raw lust. It happened instantly, and the soaring heat that I’d always felt in his presence turned on full force. And then that moment when we stared at each other felt like hours. Hell, I had no idea why, but I just couldn’t turn around this time and pretend that I didn’t want him. Maybe it was the stupidest decision that I ever made, but after so many disappointments I was done overthinking this.
Doomed Cases Series Box Set Page 60
