by Alysh Ellis
“That was before Abraham disappeared,” Hopewood said. “If the demons are coming after us everything has changed.”
“You don’t know that, Brian,” she said, keeping her tone as reasonable and as rational as she could. “There are a lot of things that could have happened to Abraham. I really do think you ought to contact the police.”
“This is not a police matter and what I do is not your concern. Get onto the supplier and hurry those parts up,” Hopewood said, then marched back into his office and slammed the door.
Working for Brian had gone from weird to ridiculous. Even though it meant she’d be out of a very well-paying job, even though it meant leaving Venice, as soon as they found out where Abraham was and Brian had time to calm down to his normal level of bat-shit insanity, she would quit.
She let her eyes drift shut just for a minute. Her head sank to the hard surface. She was vaguely aware of Brian’s voice droning on, making phone call after phone call behind the closed door of his office.
“If that’s the best you can do, you might as well leave.”
Brian’s curt voice snapped Judie awake and she lifted her head and looked in disgust at the puddle of dribble on her workbench. She wiped her mouth, sat up and rolled her aching neck and shoulders. It didn’t help. She still hurt. A lot. Afternoon naps at her desk were not a good idea.
Hopewood stood there looking crisp and unwrinkled. It was just possible that she hated him.
She trudged out of the door and up the stairs to her apartment, opened the door and walked to her bed, dropping facedown onto the pillows, fully dressed. She closed her eyes and willed her aching body to rest, but she imagined the soft aroma of Ty or Huon or both rose from the crumpled sheets and pillows. Her groin tightened and her blood pounded. She wrapped her arms around the pillow and rolled over, clutching it to her. Moisture dampened her panties and she writhed on the bed as her muscles twitched in response to the memory of their night together.
Her skin felt tight and itchy and she knew that there would be no rest here.
With a sigh she stood up, grabbed her bag and headed out. If she couldn’t sleep she needed coffee—dark, strong and plentiful—to keep her gritty eyes open, to keep her wits about her.
She slipped into a chair outside a cafe in Piazza San Marco and ordered coffee and cake. She sipped the dark espresso but her appetite had deserted her and she poked at the cake with her fork until it crumbled on the plate.
“If you’d done that before they got rid of the pigeons you’d be swamped in feathers by now.”
She gasped and looked up into Ty Borland’s dark eyes. Beside her, Huon slipped onto one of the wrought metal chairs. He stuck the tip of his index finger in the crumbs and sucked them into his mouth.
“Terrible waste of good food.” He smiled at her around his finger and her heart rate climbed.
Ty pulled out the seat opposite her. “How are you?” His deep voice invested the question with a significance that resonated with far more than the customary query. It took her back to the night they had spent together and the things they had done.
“I’m… I’m fine. How are you?” She looked at him and realized her question was not just a formality. His face seemed gaunt and strained, his lips tight and his color dull and grayish. “Have you been ill?”
He lifted one shoulder. “I had a slight accident. I’m all right now.”
“Another training incident?” she asked.
He shook his head but offered no further explanation.
“You were right about Venice being more than just romantic. Venice is more dangerous than I thought,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “One of the guys I work with has gone missing.”
A look passed between Huon and Ty, then Ty said, “Maybe he just got sick of the job and quit without telling anyone.”
“Well, that would make more sense than the explanation my boss came up with,” she replied, leaning forward. “He’s crazy.”
Although there was no one close she lowered her voice. Both men moved in closer.
“He thinks there are demons in Venice and he imagines he’s a demon hunter and he’s going to take them all out. Sometimes he scares me.”
Instead of laughing as she’d expected, both men looked grave. Obviously neither of them found delusional mental illness a topic for levity.
“Will it help you to talk about it?” Huon asked, his attention focused entirely on her. “If there’s anything we can do to help you, you need only to ask.”
“Huon and I will come with you if you’re afraid to go back to your apartment on your own,” Ty said.
Touched by their concern, she smiled. “You don’t have to do that. I don’t really think he’d hurt me.” She thought for a moment and reassessed. “Maybe he would be dangerous to someone he thought was a demon. I wonder if I ought to notify someone…like a doctor or a family member.”
Once again Ty looked at Huon, who put his hand on hers. “He sounds odd. What exactly does he think is happening and what role does he expect you to play?”
Huon’s concern felt warm and comforting. Hopewood’s behavior had been worrying her and she didn’t know what she felt about continuing to take his money. Maybe if she talked it over with Huon and Ty she would begin to see things more clearly and if that didn’t work, perhaps another perspective on the problem might help.
“Hopewood calls himself a demon hunter. He believes another race dwells on Earth with humans, a race created by and in league with the devil, and who must be destroyed before they destroy us.” Huon’s indrawn gasp interrupted her. She smiled reassuringly at him. “I told you he was crazy. Anyway, Hopewood has set up offices in Venice because he thinks ancient ley lines cross here and that’s why Venice has always been a center for occult wisdom. He wants to use the energy of these ley lines to trap demons and force them to take him to their cities.” She shook her head. “He says he wiped out a whole demon stronghold, women and children and all.” She looked up and instantly forgot about Brian Hopewood’s craziness. “Ty, are you sure you’re okay? You’ve gone very pale. Can I get you a glass of water or something?”
“He’ll be all right. Go on.” Huon had bitten his lip so hard he’d punctured it, and a tiny bead of blood flowered on it. Ty’s wound must be serious.
“Okay. Where was I? Oh yes. He says he used ley lines in China and did the same thing, although there they’re called dragon currents.” She looked at both men. “Have you heard of ley lines? They’re supposed to be areas of psychic or mystical energy.”
Ty nodded. “Yes. We’ve heard of them. The study of them is called geodesy.”
“You mean they’re real? I thought it was just something Brian made up.” She drew a deep breath. “Anyway. He wants to kill all the demons in the world…or under it.” She twisted her lips. “It doesn’t sound very nice and I’m glad none of it is true.”
Ty made a deep, guttural sound, as if he were in pain. Huon looked at him, his jaw set and his eyes the hard, cold blue of ice. She wondered just how close the two of them were if Ty’s injury upset Huon so much. Her consideration of Brian and his bizarre behaviors suddenly gave way to a completely unexpected image of Ty and Huon making love. The accompanying wave of lust made her groin clench. Who would have believed the idea of these two strong males together would be so hot?
“What does he plan to do next?” Huon’s voice, interrupting her lurid fantasy, brought her back to reality.
Judie assumed he was trying to distract both himself and Ty from Ty’s condition, so she continued, “At the moment he’s gathering as much information as he can and trying to expand his hunter group. You wouldn’t believe it but he manages to find other people who believe all this stuff. Once he has everything he needs, he says he’s going to launch the definitive strike. My job is to design and build the gadgets he thinks are weapons. At first I thought it was harmless but it makes me feel uncomfortable and I’ve just about decided to quit.”
Ty’s head snapped up.
“You’re quitting?”
“I think I should. It doesn’t feel right working as hard as I do for a non-existent cause. I feel guilty for taking Brian’s money. He’s clearly delusional and he gives me the creeps. Like I said, I should really get him help.”
“Hopewood is rich enough so you don’t have to worry about taking his cash.” Ty’s smile looked false, but at least his color had come back a little. “If he wants to waste his money on a foolish idea, it might as well be you he pays. At least you’re sane and sensible and won’t take advantage of him.”
Judie nodded. “That’s true.”
Huon squeezed her hand. “And if the lunacy gets to you, you can talk to us about it and know we’ll be happy to listen to you.”
Judie’s pulse rate spiked. “Are you staying in Venice?”
Ty nodded. “For the foreseeable future, yes.”
“If I did quit I wouldn’t be able to get another job in Venice. Where will you go after…? ” She realized what she was about to say and her cheeks heated. “That is…”
Ty’s hand came out and covered hers and Huon’s. “Perhaps you shouldn’t quit your job just yet, Judie.”
“You might just need to take a break,” Huon said. “To get away from your boss and your workplace for a while. Come for a walk with us. We could all use the chance to clear our heads.”
“That would be lovely.” She nodded and stood up.
She linked her arm through Huon’s, but when she did the same to Ty he winced.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You are hurt. Perhaps I’d better just let you go home and rest.”
“Going home is an excellent idea,” Ty said. “But not to rest. Why don’t you come with us? I can think of lots of things we can do to make me feel better.”
He smiled and a jumble of excitement, nervousness, heat and lust tumbled through her.
They led her arm in arm out of the square and along the bustling thoroughfare.
A sharp tug on her shoulder snapped her out of her state of anticipatory bliss. She jerked to a halt just as the pressure lightened.
“My bag,” she cried, spinning around just in time to see a slim figure twisting and turning to disappear into the crowd. “He stole my bag!”
Before she had finished speaking, Huon leapt into the air, executing a graceful 360-degree turn, already running as he hit the ground, but the thief had blended into the mix of people who packed the streets.
“Huon. Leave it,” she called. “You’ll never be able to catch him.”
“Huon will catch him,” Ty asserted. “And he’ll get your bag back.”
“But it could be dangerous,” Judie replied.
“The petty bag snatcher who could hurt Huon doesn’t exist.” Ty sounded absolutely confident.
“I’d rather lose the bag than have Huon get hurt,” Judie insisted. “I read up on travel advice before I left home. You’re not supposed to resist or give chase if something like this happens. You’re just supposed to let it go and report it to the police and insurance.”
“Will the police and insurance get you back your house keys? All the personal things you have in your bag?” Ty stopped and looked up.
Judie followed his gaze to where Huon appeared, Judie’s bag clutched in one hand, the other wrapped firmly around the wrist of a skinny young man clad in dark jeans and a thin, worn T-shirt. Huon, with his shapely lips clamped into a thin line and a frown furrowing his brow, looked powerful and dangerous. Her fear that he could have been hurt seemed suddenly silly.
A shiver raced up Judie’s spine.
“Here’s your bag,” Huon said, passing it to her. “And…” He nudged the boy with his elbow, without letting go of his wrist.
“Scusi, Signora,” the boy muttered.
“Your apology,” Huon said, satisfaction in his voice. He turned to face the culprit. “And now, Ty and I are going to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
A look passed between Ty and Huon that Judie could not interpret, then Ty nodded.
“Come on,” Huon said. “We need to go somewhere a bit less public.” Still maintaining his grip on the boy, he dragged him down the street.
Judie’s shiver turned into a solid lump of dread. The boy was a thief, but one good look at him told her he was hungry and cold and had more need of money than she did. He didn’t deserve to be hurt at the hands of these two strangers. Yes, she’d had sex with these two men—wild, crazy, unbelievable sex—but what did she really know about them? Just because they had not been violent with her didn’t mean they were never violent.
A whimper from the boy drew her attention. His face had paled to a sickly sallow and his hands shook. He dragged his heels, trying to dig them into the cobblestones, but Huon, strong for all his slight build, dragged him into the mouth of a deserted alleyway. Judie, bundled along by Ty’s arm linked with hers, had no choice but to follow.
A few feet into the shadowy street, Ty dropped Judie’s elbow and shrugged out of his jacket.
“No. Don’t.” Judie’s protest, uttered as it was from a mouth gone dry, went unnoticed.
Huon let the boy go and thrust his hands into his pockets. Judie cringed. No matter what the boy had done, two against one, or the use of a weapon, could never be justified.
The rush of blood pounding in her ears made her feel faint and drowned out the meaning of the flood of rapid-fire Italian Ty unleashed.
It took her a moment to pull herself together enough to sort out some kind of sense from the very fluent, very colloquial and very street-oriented language Ty used. So many of the words were new to her, not included in the polite vocabulary of everyday social interaction she was used to, but slowly some of it began to filter through her fear and shock.
“I’m telling you, you little…” she heard. “You can keep…the tourists.” Tybor’s speech was filled with words she might not have recognized, but she got the gist. ”Or you can use this…opportunity to change. Do you understand me?”
The boy’s head bounced up and down in a frantic gesture of agreement. Broad streaks of pink now colored his cheeks and instead of the terror Judie had seen before, he looked…embarrassed?
“And you know what will happen if you try this again?” Tybor asked.
“I won’t. I will do what you say. I promise.” The boy’s voice quivered but his head kept nodding, over and over.
“Good. Because Huon and I, we will know and we won’t be so generous next time.”
And with that, Ty draped his soft black leather jacket over the boy’s shoulders and Huon withdrew his hand from his pocket, bringing with it a fistful of money that he thrust into the boy’s hand.
“Now go and get a decent job and stay out of trouble.”
“Grazie.” The boy backed up, cast a quick look at Huon and fled the alley.
Huon sighed and turned to Judie. “I hope you don’t mind that we didn’t report him to the police. We got your bag back intact.” He shrugged his shoulders. “He’s just a hungry kid. He did the wrong thing but when you’re displaced from your homeland, surrounded by strangers, it’s easy to make poor decisions.”
“Especially when everywhere you look,” Ty added, “you see people who have more than you ever dreamed of having. It seems unfair because it is unfair. No kid should have to steal just to get enough to eat and keep warm.”
“No,” Judie said, relief washing over her in a wave. “I’m glad you let him go. I thought… I was afraid you were going to…” A small hysterical giggle escaped and she put her hand to her mouth to cover it.
“You thought what?” Ty demanded. “That we were going to hurt him? We wouldn’t.”
“It looked… You said ‘someplace less public’…”
“We wanted more than one quiet word with him,” Huon said. “But we didn’t need any onlookers to decide to weigh in against the Gypsy. There’s too much prejudice in the world. I’ll be damned if I add to it,” he snarled.
“It’s over now,” Ty said, repossessing himself o
f her arm. “We’ll go to our apartment and you can have a drink and recover and put it all behind you.”
Judie agreed and Huon took her other arm and once more they walked down the busy Venetian streets. For a few minutes, neither man spoke. Judie assumed that, like herself, they were occupied with their thoughts. Hers had been momentarily diverted from the promise of sexual pleasure to come. Instead she pondered the nature of these enigmatic strangers. The compassion and understanding they had shown added another, richer layer to the most amazing sexual adventure she could ever have dreamed of.
Huon and Ty were unique. She knew now without a doubt that with them she was physically safe. But emotionally she stood in grave danger. She could not imagine ever having enough of them, of being capable of walking away when she left her job and Venice.
“Are you all right?” Huon asked.
“I’m fine now,” Judie reassured him. “I was upset at first of course.”
“Human emotion,” Ty murmured. ”Of course you were upset.”
“But you’re okay now,” Huon said, shooting Ty another of those unreadable glances. “And here we are. A glass of wine and you’ll forget all about the bad stuff.”
Ty stuck a key in the lock of the outer door and led her up a wide staircase to a first-floor apartment, high enough to be safe from flood damage.
Huon punched in a series of numbers on the keypad at the apartment doorway and pushed open the door when the light turned green.
“Oh,” Judie sighed. “It’s beautiful.”
The floor was polished white marble, the walls painted the same creamy white, with large windows overlooking the canal. Soft, buttery lounges flanked an empty fireplace and through an open archway she could see a small galley kitchen.
Ty gestured with his arm. “The bedrooms and bathrooms are through there if you’d like to freshen up. I’ll pour us some wine.”
Judie knew her eyes were wide and awestruck. “This place must have cost you a fortune. You must have a very generous boss if he pays for this.”
Ty stopped on his way into the kitchen and grinned. “We only moved in today. We came into some money unexpectedly.”