She placed her hand on mine. “Sorry, Zy. I wish I could help.”
“I know.” I cast her a watery smile.
“You know what else?” Quinn asked, “I think you like Eli, and that’s what’s got you so pissed off.”
“I do not like Eli,” I laughed. “Have you been sneaking shots behind my back?”
“No.” She pursed her lips. “But you get insulted all the time. I think you actually enjoy it from most people. But you took it personally this time.”
“Look, Quinn,” I said, pointing at my chest. “In case you forgot, I’m a soul sucker. Eternally damned. Eli, on the other hand, is an angel. A frigging angel. You’ve gone off the deep end.”
She smiled triumphantly. “So you’re saying if it was possible for you to be together you might like him!”
“What? No, goddamn it! That’s not what I’m saying at all. Joel!” I yelled to my closest bartender. “Has Quinn been hittin’ the Patron?”
Joel was used to my rants, so he just grinned and shook his head.
I turned back to Quinn. “I’m simply pointing out another layer of absurdity to your fairy tale romance.”
Riley sloshed over with another round of drinks. “Drink up, ladies.”
I glowered at Quinn. “This little witch has had quite enough for the night.”
“Oh, God, what did I miss?” Riley placed a hand on his hip, eyeing us both.
“Nothing. Never mind,” I grumbled as Quinn burst out laughing.
Both luckily and unluckily, my metabolism is speedier than NASCAR. So, I found myself sobering up a couple hours later in one of the supernatural black markets in the University District, having convinced an inebriated Riley and Quinn to assist me in tracking down an old informant of mine. I needed more information on Alexander’s accomplice, and their plans. And I knew just the weasel that could help me. I meant that in the most literal sense, of course. A lot of informants do tend to conjure the image of a sly yet skittish fellow. But Franklin Johnston was actually a weasel. A wereweasel that is.
I decided to leave the roomies in a witch friend’s tea parlor because they were too drunk to be of any use at all, which I realized now that I was no longer drunk. Once the topic had switched to Celine Dion I knew they were beyond useless. I wandered down a dark alley with some dandelion root in my hand, one of a wereweasel’s favorite snacks. The chaotic light and color of the supe market fell behind me, though the lute song of a centaur street musician still snaked through the shadows.
“Here, weasel-weasel-weasel,” I chanted as if looking for a lost kitten.
I knew Franklin frequented this particular dark alley, and sure enough, it wasn’t long before I picked up the pitter patter of little furry feet over the slimy asphalt underfoot. The gleam of his beetle-black eyes became visible before his lanky body separated from the gloom. I squatted down and offered him the dandelion root, which he greedily gobbled up before scampering off again. “Franklin, you little slime! Get back here!”
I counted to ten, and just before I could get good and furious, I heard scampering feet again, coming from the other direction. A tall, lanky figure sprung up, seemingly from the concrete. Brushing greasy bangs out of his pale face, he said, “I smell dandelion root.”
“Well, I did have some, until some other asshole weasel ate it and ran off. Since when have there been other random weasels roaming about Seattle?” I drummed my fingernails on my upper arm.
“Yeah, that’s my girlfriend,” Franklin said. “She can be a real bitch. But the things she can do with—”
“Eww, Franklin, TMI! Do you mind?”
“Not really.” He smiled lewdly. “Well, what can I do ya for, Zy?”
I took a steadying breath. “One of my exes is in town. But you already knew that, right?”
Franklin rolled his eyes. “I knew that before he even got here.”
“I need to know more about the woman he’s with.”
“Arianna Vega? She’s all over the news every day.” He gave me a look that said I was wasting his time. He sure could be snobby for an informant.
“No,” I hissed. “Not her. The woman he brought with him. That he’s working with.”
Franklin’s eyes got real shifty. “That’s gonna cost you.”
“Fine. Five cases of your favorite gin. Tanqueray, right?” The smell of the alley was really giving me a headache, and I wished he’d just hurry up and tell me what I needed to know.
Franklin licked his lips. “Ten cases.”
“Whatever,” I sighed. “But this better be good info.”
“I’m always good, baby,” Franklin said, his smile returning.
“Don’t call me baby again unless you want to lose your little weasel balls. Got it? Now spill.” I was tapping my foot now, and I saw a flicker of fear in his eyes.
“Okay, okay. She’s one of his vamp offspring. I don’t know when he turned her, but they’ve been traveling together a while, doing different special jobs, you know?”
I felt a stab of surprise. From what I’d heard of Alexander, he always turned ‘em and dumped ‘em. “What’s her name?”
“Anna.”
“Anna what?”
“I don’t know her last name, okay? Vamps are always changing with the times anyways, there’s no telling what her real name is.” He jutted out his pointy chin defensively.
“Is that it? You said this would be good…” My eyes narrowed.
He rubbed his hands together and looked from side to side as is someone could be listening. “The different jobs? They do a lot of high-tech shit, burglaries and stuff. That’s where he gets all his money. Well, and old-school assassination. And Alexander, he’s like a couple millennium old, right, so why does he need this chick? Well,” he lowered his voice now, “She’s got some sort of special powers. It helps them on their jobs.”
“What kind of powers?”
“Don’t know exactly. For real,” he added when I took a step towards him.
“Alright. One more question. What do you know about all these dimensional breaches?” I locked him in my gaze.
“Oh, that’s a crazy mess, that is. I’ll tell you what, Zy. This info’s on the house, if you’re going to do something about that shit.” I nodded and he continued. “Some of the lower level demons and the spawn come up here to buy brimstone liquor from the witches, and sometimes they get wasted and blab about junk. Well, these ones a few days ago, they started talking about how there’s this whole plan for the demons to invade Earth, like a total takeover and everything. And running their traps about how the Devil isn’t satisfied with The Agreement, and so they’re bustin’ out and stuff. Then, this higher demon steps right out of space and burns them all to ash, just like that. Thank God or whoever I was in my weasel body and he didn’t see me. I ran so fast and so long I thought my little feet were going to fall off. Completely wacked, it was.”
Shit and double shit. I would have to tell Eli that. Which meant I was going to have to be the first one to break the silence after the argument, which blew big time.
Oh, and the demonic invasion sucked, too.
“Thanks, Franklin. This is really helpful. I’ll do my best to stop whatever they’re up to.”
Franklin looked doubtful. “I hope you can, Zy. I enjoy my simple weasel existence.”
I didn’t hold it against him. I mean, I’m good, but I was still only one woman against the hordes of Hell. What chance did any of us have? “Alright, well see you later, Franklin,” I said.
Without a word, he spun and scampered off. I thought that was a bit rude, but then I wasn’t exactly Miss Manners. I shrugged. Well, at least a demonic invasion would take the pressure off my whole eternally damned situation. I didn’t have to worry about going to Hell when I died permanently if Hell had already come to Earth. I turned to trudge back down the alley, get some chamomile tea at the witch’s shop, and contemplate the end of life as we know it.
That’s when I saw what had made Franklin depart in su
ch a hurry.
CHAPTER TEN
There were about twenty in all. Vampires, at least one from each of the Seattle covens. So, Arianna was making good on her threat. She sure didn’t waste any time.
“Here to kill me, huh?” I crouched down into a fighting stance and pulled my blade out, extra slow so it hissed like a serpent. The vamps fanned out around me. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
If this were a movie, they’d come at me one or two at a time, so I could easily plow through them. But, being as how it wasn’t, they all charged me at once. I got a couple in the heart with my flying stars as they approached, and then my world became a blur as I spun, cut, whirled, slashed, lunged and punched. I knew it was hopeless from the moment I began, but I wanted to take as many of these motherfuckers to Hell with me as I could.
Adrenaline pumped through my body so strongly I wondered if maybe my blood had turned to pure energy. The sounds of battle faded, and all I could hear was my heartbeat and the haunting melody of the centaur’s song from out on the street. Each chord was so pure and sweet I imagined I could see little golden music notes dancing in the air around me. Time seemed to melt away, and my sense of it ceased. I didn’t know whether I’d been fighting for one minute or ten.
I realized I was losing blood. Or maybe it was someone else’s blood all over my hands. I wasn’t sure. Probably both. I staggered and fell to my knees. My vision blurred. Okay, a good deal of it was apparently mine. Someone grabbed my arm and twisted it until a loud snap broke through the gentle music surrounding me. A moment later a boot connected with my chin and I was on my back. I looked up through the halo of their faces. Only about ten left. Not a bad ratio. Had I ever told Quinn and Riley how I wanted my funeral to be? No, I hadn’t. We didn’t talk about stuff like that. I didn’t talk about stuff like that with anyone.
The moon was huge, shining down on me like a spotlight. Or a gigantic white blinking eye. No, I was the one blinking. My vision faded out. I struggled to open my eyes again. I wanted to be in sight of the moon when I died. There had been a moon like this the night my immortal life began. When my human life ended. It seemed fitting that this second death should be under a nearly full moon, too. It was funny how many things I still hadn’t done even after over two centuries of existence. My eyes closed.
A surge of power hit me from two sides. One surge from the moon, the other from the earth. My back arched off the ground and I gasped. Then I was on my feet, without even thinking about standing. A glow came off my skin, and it was building, building, building. The luminescence caught the eyes of the vamps around me, and for the first time, they actually looked scared. I raised my arms to the sky, and a blinding light flashed all around me.
Then, silence. No more centaur song. No more racing heart.
The remaining vamps had turned to piles of ash. What the hell had just happened? Somehow I’d destroyed them with my powers. I started to shake. I’d only done something like that once before, and that time had brought death, too. But many, many more had died. And not vamps, but innocent humans. I hadn’t tried to use my powers this time, though. They’d come without me calling them, and that terrified me more than dying.
Looking at the ash that coated the grimy sidewalk, I knew I had to get out of the alley. Away from this chaos I’d caused, this complete loss of control. I took one step towards the street, then a second, and then I passed out.
I woke up in my bed, my mouth tasting like soot. Riley sat at the foot of the bed, petting Malakai.
“I feel dead,” I muttered, putting a hand to my head, which throbbed rather dramatically.
“You were,” Riley said, his face serious for once.
“What the hell happened?”
Riley looked alarmed, and so did Quinn, who had just walked in. “We were hoping you could tell us that,” she said breathily.
“It seems so impossible…” I stared at the ceiling until they began to fidget nervously. I was just trying to figure out how to explain it. “There were almost two dozen of them. At Arianna’s behest, no doubt. I fought them for I don’t know how long. But of course, I eventually fell, it was too many vamps even for me. And then—somehow my powers kicked in and blasted the rest of them to dust. I have no idea how I did it.”
Riley’s eyes widened, and Quinn looked truly astonished. “Whoa,” Riley said for the both of them.
“Yeah. Hey, what day is it?” I leaned back on the pillows, not quite ready to move yet. Life hadn’t been kind to my body these last few days. Although, all my bruises and cuts were gone and my bone healed. Huzzah regenerative powers.
“Thursday,” Quinn said. “You’ve been asleep for about twenty-four hours, after we found you passed out in a pile of dead bodies and ashes and brought you home.”
“Donovan sent over a few shifters to guard the apartment, since you’re apparently on Arianna’s hitlist now,” Riley added. “And Eli and the HR sent over a few of their warriors, too.”
“What?” I was stunned. “So, it’s like a regular party over here, huh?”
“Well, other than being worried sick about you, we can’t complain about the scenery.” Quinn giggled and blushed.
A knock on the door. Eli. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” I said warily.
He walked to the end of the bed and cast a glance at Quinn and Riley.
“Um, we’re going to go feed Mal,” Quinn said, patting her thigh so the dog followed her into the kitchen.
Eli had his arms crossed over his chest, and his eyes moved everywhere but to my face. “I’m really sorry about what happened last night between us. And I’m not just saying that because you nearly died,” he said. “You were right, and I was out of line. I just didn’t want to consider that someone I trust absolutely, someone I see every day, someone I’ve known my whole life, could do something like this. But it is possible, and we need to explore all possibilities.”
“Okay.” I looked at him and waited.
“And,” he took a deep breath, finally taking hold of my eyes, “I’m very sorry that I insulted you. It was a low blow, and very unholy of me.”
Well, the boy could be semi-humble. I’d better check that Hell hadn’t just frozen over. “Apology accepted,” I said. “So, you want to hear what I found out about the Devil’s minions invading our dimension?” I proceeded to tell him everything Franklin had told me.
“Oh, crap,” he said when I was done. His mouth hung open rather unattractively. Okay, well, it was kind of impossible for him to be unattractive, but it was not a flattering look.
“Oh, crap? Really? How about holy fucking shit, the world is going to end, what in God’s name are we going to do?” I softened my words with a grin.
“You cuss more than enough for the both of us,” he said with a smile. “But, yeah, I agree. Except about His name, because you shouldn’t say it in a sentence like that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine, whatever.”
“So, are we ready to get back to work?”
Being on a stakeout is boring. Like, super boring. And we’d been outside of Arianna’s building for almost three hours. We were sitting in a boring sedan, looking through boring binoculars, making boring small talk. Quinn, Riley and some of Donovan’s crew were around the corner, some angels were around another corner, and the Non-Human Task Force was hanging around somewhere close, too.
Yeah, apparently they’d gotten involved while I was sleeping off my death match. The NHTF had been created after Evo, and oversaw units such as the Portal Police and the Vampirism Reduction Squad. They had units all over the world, under the jurisdiction of Interpol. I had a general dislike of the NHTF, since they had a general dislike of supes and didn’t like my bounty hunting business. But now that we had Alexander on camera, the HR had gotten the government involved so we could arrest Alexander all legal and tidy. First though, we had to find him.
I groaned. I was so over this waiting and shallow conversation. “What’s it like being an angel? Really?”
“Interesting?” My tone dripped without doubt.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love serving God, and humanity, and the HR, and I wouldn’t choose anything else. But I guess it’s just the principal of the matter. I didn’t have a choice.”
Martinis with the Devil, Part One Page 9
