Underworld Queen

by Sharon Hamilton

  “Of a pathetic dead angel? Of course not. And I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  Audray was satisfied with his answer and decided not to dwell on it. Jonas continued, “But I know what my Queen loves, and I am confident I am the only one who has ever heard her cry out when she takes her pleasure.”

  His sexy dark eyes warmed her whole body as they claimed her, raking from her face down to her waist and back up again, lingering over her breasts. Her nipples fisted as the urge to have him run his tongue over them made her skin sizzle. Naked or fully clothed, sitting or lying under him, Jonas always brought energy and life force to her, as if it was the only thing in the universe she needed.

  Until now. Now we will be three. Father, if you can, help us be three.

  A rap at the office door interrupted her thoughts. Jonas was up in a flash and allowed Luke and three other dark angels to enter. Luke’s face was somber.

  “We’ve lost Jacob and Timothy.”

  “Lost?” Audray asked.

  The four angels stood with their hands in front of them like a soccer team at a goal kick. Luke answered her after looking to the others as if asking permission to speak.

  “Timothy’s disappeared. Jacob was…was…dismembered. We found what was left of him behind the Pussycat.”

  Audray looked from the four angels to Jonas, who did not meet her gaze. “Who did this?”

  Luke handed Audray a crumpled page from one of her yellow lined pads. “I’ve taken the liberty of creating this list of suspects and troublemakers.”

  “What’s got into you guys?” Audray asked, scanning the paper. It worried her that they were so docile. “We’ve got to roll up our sleeves and get to work. You took on your jobs willingly. Anybody got a change of heart?”

  She could tell they all did, even Luke.

  “Things are different now. We have to stay together all the time. When we get separated, one of us gets, you know, taken, and…”

  “My men will protect you,” Jonas offered.

  “Thanks, Jonas,” Audray said. “His guys aren’t afraid of anything. You’re going to have to buck up, like they do,” she said addressing the dark staffers.

  “No offense, Jonas, but your guys are lying low as well,” Luke offered, hanging his long face.

  “Only because I’ve not been here. They just need direction. You go to my barracks. Take your things and go there until this is over. And any of you that have loved ones, take them too.” Jonas looked to Audray. “I need to see to the men.”

  “Of course. Don’t be long.”

  Jonas came round the desk and gave Audray a kiss on the cheek, fisting her blonde hair. He whispered in her ear, “It’s going to be okay. Don’t worry, love. I’ll be back in an hour at the most.”

  She nodded and Jonas left. The room suddenly felt huge and cold. “You will tell me what has happened in the three days I’ve been gone.”

  “This Rupert guy has been speaking out on the street corners. One of the dark ones who had his wings ripped off, he’s been saying things like you killed Peter and have taken over illegally. Of course, everyone isn’t ready to fight over this. I mean, I see the crowds. I can tell Rupert is frustrated that nobody cares like he does.”

  “So maybe there isn’t a problem after all.”

  “Oh no, there is. You see, angels have been disappearing. I thought maybe Timothy had holed up with one of Helena’s girls for a few days and didn’t worry about it, although we were supposed to meet up. But when we found Jacob, we knew they were both targeted.”

  “And now you feel it.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Luke answered.

  Audray stood up. “Yes. I feel it. And I’m going to fight back, damn it. They can’t just come in here and take over.” She felt suddenly dizzy and leaned onto her fingertips at the desktop, then sat down.

  “Are you well?” Luke asked.

  “I’m very well. But you see, Jonas and I are the real targets, not you four. They are trying to get to us through you. I’ve just spent a few days getting myself adjusted for this fight, cleaning up details of my human life, so to speak. I need to know whom I can count on and who is going to get squishy on me. You clear on that?”

  They all nodded.

  “No hard feelings. Now, and for the last time, if you want out you can have it. But you’re on your own, mind you. Anyone who wants to fight with me can stay at the barracks and Jonas will protect them. Otherwise you’re up to your own devices. Search your conscience.”

  The four angels looked to one another, nodding. Luke was the only one who remained. As the other three exited the doors, Audray called after them, “And don’t think that if I see you defending Rupert or any of his cronies I won’t vaporize you on the spot. I hope that warms you at night, cowards.”

  She got up, slamming the door behind them, and got the satisfaction of a loud boom as the windows rattled.

  “I will retrieve their passes, their things,” Luke offered.

  “No. We need ethereal locks. Jonas has an expert on his way over now. Rupert was able to get in here without anyone to stop him. We will need some security that is not compromised. Let them think they have value, for now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, let’s look at this list.” Audray sat again behind the desk and gripped the paper.

  There were twenty-five names on it.

  Some of these angels were friends of mine.

  Chapter 27

  Carl dismissed his class ten minutes early. It was getting difficult to focus on his teaching. Manuscripts were piling up, mid term grades were a week overdue, causing the administration to send him a reminder notice. The second one.

  Jeremy approached him. Carl had not paid attention to the Goth clothing and dark eye makeup the young student began to wear. This change in appearance surprised Carl. Jeremy didn’t look anything like the youth who used to sit in his front row with the sweater vest and starched white shirt.

  Carl loosened his bow tie, cursing under his breath. He pocketed it and unbuttoned his shirt. The room seemed hotter than normal. The smell of youthful bodies practicing various methods of personal hygiene was present. He’d gotten used to it, but now the cloying perspiration and scent of unwashed bodies annoyed him. He didn’t feel clean.

  I want shower sex with Molly. He had no control over the thought that just popped into his head. His dick responded and his pants tented.

  Jeremy’s smile disarmed Carl. It was like the student knew about the churning inside his stomach, in his brain, and the stirring in his loins.

  “Professor. We need another meeting.” Jeremy looked him directly in the eyes.

  “We? Who are you talking about?”

  “Glenda is my aunt.”

  Fuck me two ways to sundown. Carl ran his fingers through his hair, searching the little crowd of students exiting his classroom. Their light-heartedness and laughter seemed out of place today. He heard their voices echoing down the otherwise vacant hallway.

  Here comes another memo from Admin.

  “Well, Jeremy. I suppose I should thank you for recommending me to your aunt, but, under the circumstances, I would have preferred you never mentioned my name to her.” Carl stacked a pile of class writing assignments together, tapping their ends on the desk. He found an oversized brass binder clip, bundling them. With shaking fingers, he concentrated on stuffing the fistful of papers into his briefcase. He’d been doing this same routine for the last three days, and each morning he brought them back, ungraded, unread.

  “I said I would help you with those, if you need it,” Jeremy stated as he nodded toward the brown alligator briefcase with the brass lock.

  “No thanks, Jeremy. It’s my job. My real job, not chasing after—” He stopped, not wanting to reveal he knew anything further about Jonas and Audray. “That’s what they pay me for, after all.” He wondered how much longer before he’d get called to the dean’s office. He knew the students wouldn’t complain, but their parents, who were paying
nearly thirty thousand dollars a year, always wanted their money’s worth. He had a couple of parents’ messages he’d not returned.

  Carl completed his desk straightening and picked up his briefcase, leaning it on his right hip, addressing his dark student, “So what’s your part in all this, if I may ask?”

  “Well, I happen to know she really wants to get together with this Jonas Starling guy.” Jeremy watched the look of alarm Carl knew his face revealed.

  “Get together?” he asked.

  “You know she’s old. So’s my mom.” Jeremy’s chin rose as he tilted his head back, and smiled back at Carl at an angle.

  “Why, I’ve met your mom, and she’s quite lovely,” Carl offered, walking toward the doorway. “And she certainly doesn’t look old.” He wrinkled his nose and slipped a finger around his collar to give his neck air.

  “You really think so?” Jeremy brightly answered, making Carl wince. “Good. I’ll have to tell her. She thinks you’re pretty cute yourself.”

  This wasn’t going anywhere Carl wanted to go. “No, no. You don’t understand. I was just being polite. Your mom’s a very attractive woman. I didn’t imply anything other than that.” He had the urge to run to his car and take off, never coming back to the college. He didn’t need the jealous husband of a black witch to come after him too. He walked with Jeremy down the creaky wooden floor of the abandoned hallway. He could hear lectures behind windowed classroom doors, the sounds of learning going on, people’s futures being shaped. He felt seriously outside all that now.

  Carl, get a grip.

  “Uh, Jeremy. You were telling me your mother and your aunt are very old. H…how old are you?” Carl wondered if he really wanted to know the answer.

  “Oh.” Jeremy chuckled, books balanced on his hip, his head down. “I’m only twenty.” He leaned over and punched Carl in the arm. “In real years. But thanks for the compliment.”

  Carl let it sink in as they exited the hallway into the afternoon sunlight. He needed to check his box in the lounge, but didn’t want his ridealong when he did so. Just in case there was trouble. He knew there would be trouble very soon. So he stopped. Startling him, several doors in the hallway swung open. A covey of students, flush with ideas, swarmed their way around the pair, jabbering like crows on a telephone line.

  “So your mother isn’t your biological mother, then?” Carl, you idiot!

  Jeremy indicated he knew full well what Carl’s question implied by answering, “My father is human. My mother has outlived many husbands and lovers. I have lots of half brothers and sisters, some of them still living.”

  Thank God for small favors. He’s a human, not a witch. Carl was at a complete loss for words, and rocked back and forth in his wingtips, his Argyle socks damp as he tried to wiggle his constricted toes.

  “That must make for some interesting family reunions.” It was all he could think to say.

  Jeremy shrugged, shook his head and chuckled, “You have no idea.”

  Carl didn’t have to use much imagination to see the picture. He pressed the tips of five fingers to his forehead, which was creased in a scowl. He squinted back at the young student, “Jeremy, can we just get to the point here? I feel like we’re digressing all over your family tree. Frankly, I think this is your business, not mine. So, let’s just finish and be on our separate ways, okay?” He dropped his hand and looked around him as the ocean of students subsided and they were left alone.

  “Like I said,” Jeremy began, “we want another meeting. Glenda wants me there. She needs to talk to you in person.”

  Carl started to object, but Jeremy interrupted him.

  “She wants to meet in an hour at the Café Contada.”

  “I can’t just drop everything and show up at some meeting off campus. I’ve got things to do here, and…and…”

  “At the library? In the stacks?” Jeremy grinned. “You like the stacks,” he said as he wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

  Carl pulled at the unbuttoned collar of his shirt, stretching his neck up and out of it. He rolled his shoulders and transferred the weight of his briefcase to his right hand. He thought of Molly all alone at the library, waiting for him. He would not put her in danger. This was a meeting he would have to do on his own.

  “Agreed. I will meet you two in…” he checked his watch, “…at one-thirty.”

  “Cool. See you then.” Jeremy punched him again in the right arm. It actually hurt this time. The casual attitude of this young student belied something deep and sinister, he thought.

  Carl needed to go to his house and change first. His clothes were soaking wet. He gave Molly a call and told her he’d be delayed.

  Glenda was already seated behind a large frothing cappuccino when Carl arrived. He was glad he had showered and changed, since he figured she probably had a supernatural sense of smell. She would be able to smell his fear.

  Jeremy was over at the counter making an order.

  “Go ahead and tell Jeremy what you want. It’s on me today,” she said with a smile. She was trying to be sweet, he noticed. But it wasn’t working. Something thick, black and oily was bubbling just under the surface.

  He declined and took a seat across from her.

  “Okay. I’m here. I should be at school. I’m way behind on my grades. But I’m here. Can we make this quick?” Carl asked.

  “Well, that depends on you.” She sipped her coffee and peered over the white foam, her black eyes scanning his face and down his neck. Carl saw a splinter of lust shooting towards him and, in spite of himself, he had a vision of hot sex with this vixen plastered against the back of his eyes like it had intentionally been pinned there.

  “Stop it,” Carl said.

  She tilted her head to the side and gave him a smirk. “You’re one attractive professor. Wish I had someone like you when I was doing the University thing. But in those days I loved rogue warriors and mercenaries.”

  Should I be flattered?

  “Anyway, it’s more fun when the male doesn’t know I’ve sent the telepathy. So, you’re safe, for now.”

  “I’d like to get this done so I can get back to school.”

  “To Molly.”

  “And to her.”

  “You know you risk her life by being petulant and a little defiant in your attitude, not that I don’t enjoy defiant men occasionally,” she answered.

  Carl stood. “Look, I’ve told you everything I know. I agreed to take your money and do the research. I’ve agreed to refund the money. In fact, I’ll refund every cent.” He reached for his wallet from his hip pocket and discovered he’d left it in his pants at his cottage. It was a fruitless gesture anyway, since he never carried that amount of cash on him. “I’ll return it and let’s just call it even.”

  “Not acceptable. I’m still in need of your talents.”

  “And if I refuse?” he said with his hands on his hips.

  “You know this won’t go well for Molly.

  “Your henchman on standby?”

  “No, he was too heavy-handed and had to be dealt with.” Glenda studied her red nails. “I was thinking…” she looked over to Jeremy who was on his way to the table with a plate of food. “I was thinking Molly could stay with Jeremy for a bit. They are, after all, closer in age than you and she. And Jeremy here says he rather likes the girl, don’t you, Jeremy?”

  Carl ripped his eyes from Glenda’s face and stabbed a look at Jeremy, who was watching his aunt, blushing. Then he met Carl’s gaze and swallowed.

  “You thought I liked men. Well, I do,” Jeremy said and tried to smile. He sat himself down and looked at his food. Carl leaned forward, gripping the back of his chair, his fingernails digging into the leather until it hurt. He was about to say something he would regret, so kept his mouth shut and listened, but his insides were fuming.

  “He is still experimenting with his sexual identity,” Glenda offered. “I think Molly could help him with that, what do you think, Carl? She immune from glamour, or do you
think she could take to suggestion as well as you?” Glenda smiled up at Carl but her eyes were stone cold.

  “This is pathetic,” he said, sneering down at the witch. “You know I have no power in this evil game you are playing. Leave me out of it. I can’t do anything but make it worse, for all of us,” Carl added, knowing in his heart it was the awful truth.

  “Not so, Professor. Not helping me would certainly make it worse, much worse for you and Molly.” Glenda leaned across the table almost planting her chest in her cappuccino as she pointed to the chair. “Sit down and shut up. I am only going to ask you one more time and then I’m done with you, with both of you.” When Carl didn’t move, she added, “Permanently.”

  Carl deposited his large frame in the brown leather barrel chair across the table from the witch, glancing through the window at the throng of afternoon shoppers streaming along the sidewalk outside. He reviewed options in his head and couldn’t find any. He sat tall and inhaled deeply. He remained silent, head slightly tilted, squinting into Glenda’s dark eyes.

  A faint smile had formed at the ends of her upturned red lips and at the corner of her eyes, as little laugh lines revealed themselves tenderly. He wondered if she knew how much he hated this, and whether or not she liked seeing that.

  “Okay, then.” She sat back, flicking her dark hair behind her shoulder and running a jeweled white hand with red fingernails through the air dismissively. “I want to arrange a private meeting with Mr. Starling.”

  “You know what he is.”

  “Yes, a dark angel.”

  “So I’m not sure how to contact him.”

  “You have his phone number, or at least you have the woman’s.”

  “Audray.”

  “That’s the one,” she said as if she had temporarily forgotten her name.

  “What makes you think he’ll come if I call him?”

  She smiled, as if he’d asked the one question she was looking forward to answering. “Because, you and I both know, Starling is a hero. Heroes will always show up to save the innocent with no thought to themselves.”