by Stacy Gail
“Bambi’s roommate was introduced just like that at The Toy Box whenever she hit the stage. Could that have anything to do with whatever it is you’re seeing, Nate?”
Nate opened his eyes to stare at her. “Maybe.”
She was really beginning to hate the word. “Bambi’s roommate, Annie, goes by the stage name of Blu Velvet. That’s the only thing I can think of that falls into the category of blue that has any link to our jump.”
Kyle’s expression sharpened, getting that hungry-lean look she knew so well. “Might as well give her a call, Sparkle, and see if Bambi has turned up.”
She was already reaching for her phone and cursing at her zero-bar signal when she heard Zeke’s bewildered voice. “Sparkle?”
“Sparkle Spanksalot,” Nikita answered absently as she swept the room high and low in an effort to find a signal. When it suddenly went full bars, she hastily searched through her list of contacts. “Probably the best stripper name in the history of stripper names, I know. Try not to be jealous.”
“If pole-dancing were an athletic event, Nikita would medal every time,” Kyle added. “That is, if she’s not hiding her bounty-hunter handcuffs in her spangle-covered bikini bottoms. If she is, then she can’t go upside down in the spinning splits move, for fear of having them fly out.”
There was a beat of silence. “You all live very different lives down here in Miami, don’t you?”
“You don’t know the half of it, baby,” Nikita muttered, then perked up when the line connected. “Annie? Hi, this—”
“I told you, don’t call this goddamn number or drop by before noon!”
I told you? “It’s Nikita Tesoro, Annie. You remember, your favorite punk-ass liar?”
She swore. “Geez, I can’t believe this. Goodbye, punk-ass liar.”
“If you hang up, please understand that I’ll be forced to call you incessantly like the high-octane, don’t-give-a-shit bitch that I am until I get what I want. Or, you could talk to me for three minutes and go back to sleep, never to hear from me again. Choose.”
There was a long hum of silence, so long Nikita began to suspect she’d been hung up on anyway, and she’d have to turn to Dibby at The Toy Box for help. Then she heard an explosive sigh. “Three minutes. Go.”
“Have you seen Bambi since we last spoke?”
“No.”
“Have you heard from her?”
“Yes.”
Nikita’s eyes widened a fraction. “When?”
Kyle was at her side in a flash, putting his ear close to the phone. Automatically she tilted it so they could both hear.
“Um...about half an hour ago, can you believe it? It must be my destiny to be deprived of sleep this morning.”
Nikita didn’t bother to tell the other woman that this was the least of her worries. “What did Bambi want?”
“She wanted to make sure I was home so I could let her in to pick up her stuff. According to her, she tossed her keys into the ocean because where she’s going, inconsequential things like keys are no longer important. She sounded high off her ass.”
“Or crazy beyond all hope,” Nikita muttered, her skin icing over. “Annie, is she coming by?”
“Yeah, though she didn’t specify a time, no matter how I tried to nail her down on that. Time is nothing but numbers, she said, and clocks are speaking the tick-tock language that counts down the last beat of my heart. Seriously, she’s flying high and probably won’t even remember calling me.”
“God.” Nikita pressed a hand against her suddenly thudding chest when the underlying message of Bambi’s words came through loud and clear. “Annie, you need to get out of there.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t think Bambi was calling to see if you were going to be there to let her in. I think she was calling to see if you were there right now, so she could kill you.”
“What. The actual. Fuck.” The statement almost didn’t reach Nikita’s ears, and she could easily picture Annie pulling the phone away from her head to stare at it in disbelief. “Care to run that by me again? I think my ears blinked a little and misheard you.”
“Think about it, Annie.” As Nikita spoke, she headed as fast as she could to the door leading to the garage, only to find Sara and Menlo already there, with Nate and Zeke grabbing keys and kissing their significant others goodbye. For his part, Kyle moved along with her, still listening to the phone as he dug out the car keys. “Bambi throws her keys away because material things are inconsequential to her now, right? Yet in the same breath she claims that she wants to pick up whatever small items she left behind at the apartment. Does that make sense to you?”
“It makes more sense than Bambi coming over to kill me. Where the hell do you get this stuff?”
“Paul Hardy is dead.” She said it baldly, for shock value, just to make sure she had Annie’s undivided attention. “I believe Bambi killed him. I also believe she’s now gunning for you.”
“Why would she be after me?” Annie’s voice carried as clear as a bell, threaded with both annoyance and alarm. “Why the hell is everyone so damn nuts today?”
Little did she know the insanity was going to get a lot worse in the world if she stayed where she was. “Look, I know you don’t like me, and you sure as hell don’t trust me. But you know I’ve been tracking your roommate, and what I’ve found...” She couldn’t begin to explain what she’d found. “She’s not high, Annie. She’s crazy. For safety’s sake you need to get out of there right now. Just go.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Before he died, I interviewed Paul Hardy. At the time he told me that he thought Bambi might have gone out on a whim to ‘annihilate that bitch of a roommate’ of hers.” Or to get ice cream, but she wasn’t about to tell Annie that. “Now you say she’s told you the clock is counting down your last heartbeat. With Paul Hardy’s corpse on a slab in the morgue, and knowing she’s going to be landing on your doorstep any second, do you really want to hang around doubting me?”
There was a short huff of breath. “If this is some kind of trick...”
“I have better ways of getting my kicks than hassling you.” She heard a noise in the background and her heart stopped. “What was that?”
“I slammed the closet door because I’m pissed off I’m getting dressed instead of sleeping. If it’s all right with you, I’m not going to walk out of my frigging apartment naked. Happy?”
“Thrilled.” So relieved she thought she might cry, Nikita put a hand to her thudding chest. “Mind telling me where you live? I’d like to drop the net on our little psycho today and be out of your hair forever.”
“Promises, promises. Before I decide you’re on the level, do you happen to have any suggestions where I can go before nine in the morning? Besides hell, I mean.”
“Head inland and find a nice, safe coffee shop, away from this mess and tropical storm Oscar. I’ll call you when it’s safe.”
“Hurricane Oscar, actually. The National Weather Service just upgraded it, according to what I’m seeing on TV. Just another day in paradise.”
“Address,” Kyle hissed at her from across the top of the car.
She nodded. “Annie, just tell me where you live.”
“No way, not until I’m out of here and well away from both Bambi and you. Once I’m safe and I have a nice cup of coffee in my hand, I will call you with my address, and you can wait there for Bambi all day long, for all I care.” There was a thump of a closing door and a sudden howl of wind. “Oh, my God, this sucks. Nikita, you’d better be right about this, because I can’t believe I’m going out in a fuc—”
The sudden loss of Annie’s voice sent a jolt of alarm through Nikita before she glanced at the phone’s screen.
Call Failed. No Signal.
“No.” With
a growl of frustration she wheeled about the garage, desperate to pick up a signal. “Damn it, I lost her.”
“I think the cell tower for this area finally bit the dust.” Macbeth appeared in the garage doorway, phone in hand and a vexed scowl on his face. “Did you get the address?”
“Annie said she’d call me on this now-useless piece of crap when she felt she was safe.” Though she knew it was pointless, Nikita gave her phone a little shake before reaching for the passenger door of Kyle’s car. “I need to get back into range as fast as possible so I can get that address.”
“Kyle, let Nikita drive your car back to the mainland while you head in with us.” Sara and Menlo were at a dark sedan in the garage, with Zeke and Nate at another car next to them. “Once Nikita’s back into cell-tower range and gets the address, she can feed it to us and park somewhere on the sidelines. Gideon,” she added, looking to her husband who was standing in the doorway ahead of Macbeth, and for a moment her exotic face softened, “you and Ella are our medical staff. I leave it up to your expertise to decide when you want to get our med center ready.”
He held up his phone. “Since we’re now out of range, we’re going to be rolling out of here right behind you, babe. Just be careful and stay in touch, if and when it’s possible.”
Nikita almost dropped the keys that Kyle tossed to her. “Lead the way across MacArthur Causeway, then get the hell out of the way, okay? I love you,” he said in an undertone, then hustled over to Sara’s car without waiting for an answer.
* * *
“Cobalt Apartments. Not too far from MacArthur on the mainland side.” Hanging up on Nikita was one of the hardest things Kyle had ever done. But with the wind and sea spray pummeling the causeway, he wanted both of Nikita’s hands on the wheel and her attention focused on not getting blown off the road. “I hope Gideon and the others get off the island before they close the causeway and they’re stuck out there with nothing but Hurricane Oscar to keep them company.”
“I thought storms were supposed to decrease in power as they hit land, not increase.”
Kyle glanced back at Menlo, who looked like he wanted to grab the wheel from Sara and drive from the backseat. “They do, usually. I’ll admit, the energy I’m feeling from this storm...I can’t describe it. It’s like it’s mushrooming out of nowhere.”
“If I had a paranoid bent of mind, I’d have to wonder if this weather isn’t some kind of reaction to all of us gathering in the same place.” Sara’s voice was flat as a gust of wind pushed their car sideways. Kyle went white-knuckled as he watched his car, driven by Nikita, swerve in front of them before returning to the safety of the lane.
Baby, please be careful. I can’t live without my treasure.
“Three Nephilim in one car is just begging for a good old-fashioned smite from above,” Sara continued, eyes glued to the causeway that seemed to sway in the wind, while the incoming storm surge had Biscayne Bay’s usually calm waters climbing up the bridge’s T-style supports. “I wouldn’t be surprised if all four wheels suddenly flew off the car during a lightning strike, while Godzilla rose up out of the bay to gobble us up in one bite.”
“I’d absorb the lightning, but we’d be shit out of luck regarding Godzilla and bad wheels.” Because he couldn’t stand the ache of separation from Nikita when a multitude of dangers had them in their sights—Godzilla notwithstanding—he tried to distract himself with busywork. “If the signal doesn’t drop, I’m sending Bambi Dominguez’s mug shot to everyone so you all know what she looks like. I couldn’t even guess what face Dantalion’s going to be wearing when we finally catch up to them, so Bambi will have to be our focus.”
“I like that optimism—when we catch up, not if.” With phone in hand, Menlo looked down at the screen when Kyle’s text came through. “I’ve always been a better than average fighter, thanks to my speed, but for the most part my Nephilim-driven skills are more mental than physical. I’m not sure how much help I’m going to be in a battle with a demon who doesn’t have a soul for me to read.”
“Dantalion can’t touch your mind to warp it or feed off your negative energy. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you invaluable in corralling this son of a bitch long enough to send him back to hell.” Sara slowed as the end of the causeway came into view, the rain-soaked traffic offloading into the mainland so heavy it was impossible to see the end of the line through the sheets of rain. “I’m just sorry we can’t use Nikita to do any of the final heavy-lifting.”
That got Kyle’s attention. “Why?”
“This is her collar, technically speaking, yet she doesn’t get to share in the capture. It’s not fair.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know Nikita like I do, so let me assure you—more than any of us, I trust her to do the right thing. She might give me hell afterward, but I know she understands how important it is that we cut off all sources of energy from this demon, including her. For the sake of saving the world, she’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Still, I feel bad about it. She’s somebody I’d love to recruit for LSI. I still might, after all this is over.”
Kyle gaped at her. “Why would you want to headhunt Nikita?”
“Are you kidding? When we didn’t know what to think about Bambi, she had the bright idea to look for Lynette, Bambi’s would-be victim. She’s got such a detail-oriented mind that she heard only one word from Nate and that gave us new direction on where to look for Dantalion. She went from professionally polite to hardcore ball-buster in less than a hot second in order to get information from someone who wanted nothing to do with her. And she doesn’t give a damn about angelic DNA or the supernatural in general, when most people are a nervous wreck when they accidentally stumble into a new reality. I think she’d fit right in at LSI.”
“That’s what I said in my report about her,” Menlo offered, concentrating on his phone’s screen. “If you try to recruit her, Sara, it’s only fair to let you know you’re going to have some stiff competition from me. I’ve already been directed by my superiors to sign Nikita up as a liaison to the Vatican. If the world doesn’t end today, that is.”
“I can see the attraction to Nikita’s many talents and I’m glad she’s being appreciated, but no one’s recruiting her.” Kyle raised his voice to make sure everyone could hear him. “We’re a package deal, and for obvious reasons I can’t go to Dallas where you live, Sara, or to Boston or wherever the hell you do your work, Menlo. After we bag Dantalion, you guys are going to leave here—without Nikita. She’s mine.”
“Touchy, touchy. Oh crap, they’re closing the causeway to Miami Beach-bound traffic,” Sara said, squinting through the wild flailing of the windshield wipers to focus on cops in yellow slickers putting up barriers on the eastbound side of MacArthur. “I hope Gideon and the others got off of Star.”
“They didn’t.” Menlo’s voice was grim as he continued to thumb-type. “Macbeth just sent an email. He says they’ve been forced to turn back, and to expect communications from this point on to come via internet or satellite. They’re going to hunker down at the house and wait things out there. Nate and Zeke are right behind us, though.”
“Damn.” The sound of Sara gripping the leather wheel was loud in the small confines of the sedan, a tightening crunch that could be applied to all their nerves. “I hate to ask this, Kyle, but if we get word that they’re in trouble out there on Star Island, would you be able to control this storm?”
“I’ve never done anything as big as a hurricane, but I could try as a last resort. I’d prefer to have all my wits about me, though, as we go head to head with Dantalion. I can’t guarantee that’d be the case if I sucked up all this energy. While I have Barakiel’s elemental abilities, I’ve got a mostly human brain to deal with it, and the two just don’t mix.”
“Since you and I are basically from the same angelic branch of our weird family tree, I can unders
tand the problem of having abilities that endanger the human body better than most.” She leaned over the steering wheel as if that would help clear her field of vision. “Good. Nikita’s off the bridge and onto the mainland. Now would be a good time to have her fall back and let us go on alone from here. GPS says we’re only five minutes away from Cobalt Apartments.”
Kyle nodded, his gut clenching with the anticipation of at last putting an end to Dantalion. “I’m on it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Oscar, you’re being a dick,” Nikita muttered to the storm. In response, it seemed to take personal offense and pelted rain down on Kyle’s car all the harder. It was the main sound in her world now that the muscle car’s powerful motor was silent, the engine ticking as it cooled while she sat in the empty parking lot of a dry cleaners across the street from the sprawling Cobalt Apartment complex. She tried to shut out the storm’s violence, but since it couldn’t be any wetter than if she’d parked under Niagara Falls, that was pretty much impossible. Logic told her that since she could barely see beyond the windshield, she should abandon the spot and look for cover, like a gas station with a convenient overhang.
Logic could go to hell. She wasn’t about to distance herself any further than necessary. The dry cleaners would have to do. As she maintained her position about a football field’s length away from where Kyle and the others lay in wait to pounce on Bambi and her keeper, Nikita had no doubt it would be a clash that neither heaven nor earth would soon forget. With something that bad going down, she had to be far enough away so that Dantalion couldn’t feed on her, while at the same time be close enough should Kyle need her.
Ha. Now there was a joke if she’d ever heard one. Like Kyle would ever need her help. With a derisive twist to her mouth, she glanced at her phone to reread his last text after she reported her position: “Make sure to stay out of the way. We’ve got it from here.”
Nice. Always the charmer, that Kyle.
With a short huff, Nikita shoved the phone into her pocket so she wouldn’t look at it again. Looking at it only made her feel sorry for herself, because it cut right to the heart of her new reality. For years she’d labored under the illusion that she and Kyle were on equal footing. But surprise, surprise—the man was playing with a genetically stacked deck. There could never be equal footing with a man who had no equal.
