Dirty Angels

by May Dawson

  Angel. Human. Demon. It didn’t matter to me, apparently.

  I wanted every one of these boys. Their strong arms, their kissable lips, their low sexy voices, and most of all, their wild, inscrutable hearts.

  38

  Night fell, and the creepy house around us seemed to come alive. Ryker sharpened a blade, scraping the shiny edge over a stone, throwing sparks in the dim night of the living room. He held it up to examine it and then slid it into its leather sheath before stowing it in the bag. He murmured beneath his breath, "Benedicat nobis opus." Bless our work.

  In the distance, I heard a faint, steady wail that might be the wind. It might be.

  Levi checked his watch. "Go time."

  "And thank God for that," I said fervently. The longer we waited, the more on edge I felt.

  We had run through the plan several times. Dani, Jacob and I were going to keep Nimshi's parents busy while Ryker, Levi and Nimshi went in the back. A warning alarm chimed in the house when a door was unlocked—a sure sign of a completely normal, healthy household—so Dani was going to turn off the front and rear locks in the house, under the cover of her new school friends visiting. Once everyone was in, we were supposed to rendezvous at the basement. And that would be where things got interesting.

  "I've got to tell you one important thing," Nimshi said, stopping on the porch.

  Levi turned to face him, the expression on his face wary, as if his suspicions were being confirmed.

  "My parents renamed me," he said. "They thought Nimshi wouldn't blend in Connecticut. So you might hear another name tonight."

  "Let it be something good," Ryker said. "Todd! I bet you're a Todd."

  "Titan," Nimshi said. "They named me Titan."

  Ryker grinned.

  "Don't," Nimshi said. "It's just one of the many horrible things they did to me."

  We drove to Nimshi's house through a neighborhood of sprawling McMansions set on rolling acreages. Everyone seemed to have a pool.

  "You were popular in high school, weren't you?" I asked.

  "If you can call it popular when people just can't resist you," Nimshi said.

  "Lucky you," Ryker said. "You must find it such a relief to be around us."

  Jacob stopped the car at the edge of Nimshi's property. Nimshi, Ryker and Levi would make their way to the back door.

  "It's going to take us a while," Levi warned as he threw his duffel bag over his shoulder. "There's some fun magical booby traps between us and the back door."

  "Good luck." I threw my door open, leaning out to hug him. He squeezed me tight against his powerful body, dropping a kiss in my hair.

  "I've got all the luck I need," he murmured, his lips meeting mine briefly.

  Ryker rolled his eyes behind Levi. "Can we get a move on?"

  "You want a hug, too, don't you?" I asked.

  I slipped out of the car and threw my arms around him as he rolled his eyes again, but sure enough, he hugged me back, so tight that my toes lifted off the road.

  "Good luck, Firestarter," he said, his voice gruff the way it was sometimes when he was worried. "Take care of Jacob. Like you always do."

  "Get a move on." From the driver’s seat, Jacob shooed him away.

  Ryker put me down on the ground, my knees wobbly for a second with his hard forearm tight against my lower back, and then his lips met mine. He kissed me hard, his hand cupping my cheek. I kissed him back before he broke away.

  He turned and threw his duffel bag over his shoulder, walking away without looking back as he headed toward the dark shadows of the fence around Nimshi's house.

  Nimshi stared at me, his lips quirked slightly. "One day, you're going to hug me like that, Ellis Landon."

  "One day, you're not going to be a soulless monster, Nimshi," I promised him. I waved goodbye and hopped back into the car as he, too, turned and melted into the shadows.

  We reached the gate in front of Nimshi's house. Jacob rolled his window down and leaned out confidently, flashing his gorgeous smile at the camera. "Hi. I'm Jake Carter, I'm here to see Dani."

  The gate swung open slowly. Jacob eased off the gas, and we drove slowly down their long driveway.

  "Jake?" I asked.

  "Yeah?"

  "I just thought you preferred Jacob."

  "You can call me whatever you want, Princess." He winked at me. "I'll let you know if I don't like it."

  He turned around in the drive, as if we were preparing for a quick get-away for some reason, and parked in front of the four-car garage. He jangled the keys in his hand once, getting my attention, and then stowed them under his seat. I nodded, even though the implication made my heart pound. Just in case we got separated. Just in case we couldn't all make it out of the house.

  I slipped out of the passenger seat and slammed the door shut behind me. It was evening, cooler than any evening in Virginia. The air smelled like lilacs and rain. I drew a deep breath, trying to calm my rapidly beating heart. I was just a high school girl, going over to visit with a friend.

  As we walked across the green lawn, Jacob wiggled his broad shoulders, just slightly. I knew it was a habit, easing the weight of the sword he normally wore between his shoulder blades. It must itch for him to be weaponless. Ryker and the other guys were carrying the weapons, as well as his tools.

  "Nothing but our wits," I murmured, bumping into his shoulder.

  He bumped back into me. "Never needed anything else. A sword, a spell, they're just details."

  We nodded to each other, agreeing to fall silent as we neared the house. We bounced quickly up the stairs. The front door was yanked open just before we reached it.

  "Hi, guys!" Dani said brightly. She wore pink yoga pants and a gray tank top, her long hair piled loosely on top of her head. She hugged me, and I breathed in a cloud of Victoria Secret perfume. Then she hugged Jacob, bobbing up to grab him around the neck. He bent down, wrapping his arms around her, acting along. She hugged him a little bit longer than she hugged me.

  I reached out and yanked on Jacob's sleeve. "Break it up. Thanks for inviting us over."

  "No problem," she said, finally releasing Jacob. "I'm so glad you could come over. Finally, some friends who share my love of musicals."

  Jacob straightened, his grin abashed and his dark curls slightly askew.

  "They're barbarians at your school," a man said from the doorway to the living room. Nimshi's father. Stephen.

  He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest in a fitted gray shirt. His dark hair looked expensively styled and was streaked with salt-and-pepper.

  "They definitely are," Jacob said. He crossed over to the man, holding out his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

  "Same." Stephen shook his hand briskly. "What's your favorite musical?"

  "It would have to be Les Mis," Jacob said without missing a beat. "That song, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, always kills me. I'm hoping to get to Hamilton one of these days."

  "We've been twice," Stephen said.

  "And we're going for a third soon," Dani said. "It's my fave."

  She took Jacob's other hand. "I'm going to steal these guys away."

  "Already?" Her mother walked up behind Stephen, carrying a glass of wine in her hand. She smiled as she shook our hands. Her beautiful brown hair curled perfectly around her shoulders, and she was so petite and skinny that her head made me think of a bobble-head doll. "I'm Cindy."

  "Nice to meet you."

  "I know you don't want to watch TV with your parents, but you could at least let us feed you," Cindy teased Dani.

  "I ordered a pizza," Dani said.

  At that, Stephen glanced behind her. "Is that why you left the alarm system off?"

  Dani rolled her eyes. "He thinks we're living in a horror movie. There are no zombies coming, Dad."

  "I'm just a fan of good habits," her father chided. "You can't be too careful."

  "You're absolutely right." Jacob said. "It's a dangerous world out there. I just read a
great long-form piece about home invasions—"

  Jacob got Stephen talking, and the two of them walked ahead of the rest of us into the kitchen, Stephen with his hand on Jacob's shoulder.

  "Humor me," Dani's mom said, "And I'll pretend I don't notice wine coolers missing from the pool house fridge."

  "Your parents are cool," I mouthed to Dani, more-or-less behind her mother's back; I wanted her mother to think she had won me over.

  Frankly, it was hard to imagine running away from all this.

  "So very cool." Dani deadpanned.

  The three of us walked behind Jacob and Stephen down the hallway, which was decorated with canvas prints of Nimshi and Dani. It startled me to see the same young, wide-eyed Nimshi I'd seen in the Far, posed in a bow-tie and suspenders with his adoptive family.

  Dani's mom noticed me noticing, and I glanced away quickly. Hopefully my discomfort seemed like it came from having heard their oldest had run away.

  "Our Titan," she said, resting her hand briefly on the portrait. "I hope he'll come back to us one day."

  "I'm sure he will, Mom," Dani said. "What with the zombies and all."

  "You look like you're old enough to drink," Stephen was teasing Jacob when we walked into the kitchen. He pulled two bottles of Michelob out of the fridge.

  "Lucky genes," Jacob said. "My dad's disappointed I'm a total klutz. Seems like a waste."

  "You must go to the gym though," Stephen said.

  "Everyone needs a hobby." Jacob took the bottle he offered. He patted his jeans pocket, where he'd usually have a knife and a bottle opener, but his pockets were empty for this mission. He slid his hand into his pocket instead, pretending nonchalance, as Stephen took the bottle back to pop the top off for him with a can opener. "What's yours, sir?"

  Stephen dropped the can opener into a kitchen drawer beneath the long white granite countertop. "Embarrassing my daughter, mostly. Just entertain us until your pizza comes and then we'll let you go. I like getting to know Dani's friends. She hardly ever brings them home."

  "Well, if you'd stop using them as human sacrifices, I might bring friends home more often," Dani said lightly.

  I stared at her, not sure if she was joking or not. Jacob laughed and I followed suit.

  Stephen grinned belatedly.

  "What are you watching tonight?" Dani's mom asked.

  "I think we're going old school," Dani said. "Classic. A little Fred Astaire."

  "Yes!" Jacob said. He pretended to tap dance across the kitchen. Somehow even when he was being a dork, his tall, lean body was so graceful that it was damn sexy. I giggled along with everyone else, but part of me wanted to wrap my arms around him and dance with him.

  You know. Some other day when I wasn't quietly terrified of evil witches and demon magic.

  A chiming sound rang through the house. "There's the pizza guy," Stephen said, taking a long swing of his drink. "I'll get your pizza. Tell me you got pepperoni?"

  "Get your own pizza, Dad," Dani chided lightly.

  Stephen headed back to the foyer. As Dani's mom glanced into the fridge, Jacob, Dani and I exchanged a look. Stephen would lock the system down once he'd collected the pizza; I hoped the others were already in the house.

  Dani's mom turned back from the refrigerator with a pitcher of lemonade. "What did you say your name was?" Her eyes met mine evenly.

  "Ellie," I said. People misread my name as Ellie all the time. It was an easy one for me to answer to.

  "Ellie," she repeated. "Short for anything?"

  "Just Ellie. My parents hate nicknames, they decided to skip the middle-man and just give me a name that would double as nickname, too." I crinkled my nose as I smiled. I was doing a pretty good job of channeling one of my friends from high school, Rosie, someone who had disappeared out of my life after Ash died.

  "It's pretty," she said. "If you kids want to head out to the pool house, I can have Dad bring out the pizza."

  "It's okay," Dani said. "I think we're just going to hang out in my room."

  "The pool house is so much nicer," Mom said. "Your room smells like a boys' dormitory."

  "Mom." Dani cut her eyes at Jacob exaggeratedly.

  Jacob shifted uncomfortably. I wasn't sure just how much acting was going on now.

  "Oh," Mom said. "You know I don't like you having opposite-sex friends in your room."

  "There's three of us," Dani said. "What are we going to do?"

  "Now I feel like a third wheel," I giggled, crinkling my nose.

  Jacob, behind the mom's back, raised an eyebrow at me. I was channeling Rosie, okay? Did he know nothing about method acting?

  "It's fine," Stephen said from the doorway. He set a greasy white pizza box on the island. "They're good kids. They're going to watch Fred Astaire, for crying out loud."

  Cindy sniffed. Stephen hugged her around her waist, grinning. "You are such a mom," he teased her.

  Dani rolled her eyes and picked up the pizza box. "Ellis, get the lemonade. Please."

  I caught the flicker of Stephen's eyes up to us. Ellis. Fuck.

  Dani didn't seem to notice. She went ahead of us toward the attached living room and a set of back stairs up to the second floor. Only when we were out of their sight, headed up the stairs, did Jacob glance back at me. His eyes were worried. So it wasn't just me who feared that our cover was blown.

  In the hallway, there were more enormous family portraits. But Nimshi wasn't in any of these. In some of the photos, there seemed to be a strange shadow, or Dani seemed to stand too far distant from her parents, as if someone had erased him from these photos.

  I stopped for a second to stare at one, a photo of Dani and her parents in swim suits, standing on a white beach in front of a strip of bright ocean. Dani wore a red bikini, and she leaned over slightly, her hand over her mouth as she laughed. She was glancing up and to one side, as if her eyes were on the person who had just made her laugh, but there was no one there.

  "You coming?" Dani asked, stopping in the door to her room.

  "Yeah. Sorry." I followed her across the plush white carpet and into her room. It was very rose-gold, right down to the hot-pink-and-gilt couch.

  "I feel acutely uncomfortable in this room," Jacob muttered.

  "Did your parents crop...Titan...out of all those photos?" I asked, closing the door behind me.

  "Yeah," Dani said. She threw herself onto the couch. "They used a spell so they can't see him in the downstairs pics, they don't like to look at his face. But it's time-consuming magic. So upstairs, where other people won't see how they really feel, they just cut him out of the pics."

  Someone touched my waist, materializing from behind me. I froze, biting back a scream, before I recognized the low, smooth voice in my ear.

  "If we have time," Nimshi said, "I'm going to magic myself back into all those photos just to spite them."

  39

  Jacob touched his finger to his lips, moving to the door. He cracked it open slightly, listening for any noise in the hall. Ryker and Levi stood next to Nimshi, the three of them having been hidden against the wall when we first walked in.

  Dani moved next to him, closing the door softly. Jacob looked up at her in surprise.

  "If you use magic on them, they'll know." Her words were a whisper. "Give them a few minutes to get bored, if they are snooping."

  "You gave us away." Jacob said, so softly I could barely hear him. "You called her Ellis."

  Dani's eyes widened. She swallowed her horror and said, "Maybe they didn't notice."

  She locked her bedroom door and moved quickly to the big-screen television mounted on the wall, saying loudly, "Let's get our movie started."

  "Our luck's never that good." They had noticed. I was sure of it.

  Ryker rested his hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. For a few minutes, we all stood around tensely as Fred Astaire tap-danced through the opening credits.

  Levi cocked his head to one side, and then strode across the room to the window. Kneeling
on Dani's window seat, which was littered with paperbacks and stuffed animals, he looked out the blinds. He gestured the rest of us over.

  A car pulled into the driveway, stopping in the roundabout just in front of the door. Stephen headed down the stairs, crossing the driveway to shake the driver's hand as he opened the door. The two of them hugged quickly, and when they turned to head back to the house, we saw the face of the second man.

  Mr. Joseph.

  "What's he doing here?" I hissed.

  "He couldn't have gotten here that quickly," Jacob said, glancing between Dani and me. "They must have planned this before they knew we would be here."

  "Do you think they know?"

  "Well, having Ellis here is a pretty dead giveaway if that comes up in conversation," Jacob muttered.

  "They know Ellis is here?" Levi demanded in a whisper.

  "I slipped up, okay?" Dani said. "I got you a Hawaiian pizza to make up for it."

  Despite her breezy words, she seemed shaken.

  "That's a travesty," Ryker told her sternly. "Pineapple on pizza. All right, let's move. Whether they know we're here or not, we still have to get Nim's soul back."

  "You're calling me Nim now," Nimshi noted. "It's like we bonded fighting those hell-hounds."

  "I'm calling you Nim because every time I say Nimshi, I think of you as the patron demon of fermented cabbage," Ryker said. "Let's go."

  Nimshi turned around, waving his hand across the empty room behind us. Now Jacob, Dani and I sat cross-legged on the bed, eating pizza. It was so realistic that it was jarring for a second. Man, my hair looked frizzy as I took a big bite of Hawaiian pizza. I smoothed my hair with my hand, hoping I didn't really look like that.

  Nim shrugged. "Might help."

  "Worth a try," Levi said.

  Jacob opened the door and stepped out. He held himself very still, as if he were listening intently. He turned around. "I think she went down to greet our old friend."

  "Good," Dani said.

  The six of us quickly followed Dani down the hall to an elevator at the end of the hall. She pulled open a fancy silver gate, rolling her eyes. "Dad and his flair for the dramatic. He got this from a condemned movie theater."