by T. F. Walsh
Cary tucked the notebook into the back of her jeans and gripped her lasso.
He exchanged a quick glance with her and nodded. She reached for the fabric and ripped it free.
Without another thought, Levi tossed his lasso over the woman’s head. Rune tattoos littered her arms, up her neck, stopping at her hairline. She scratched at the leash, her blue eyes bulging and pinned on Levi. Drooling, she kicked and clawed toward Levi, but she lacked the usual demonic strength. She lacked yellow eyes as well. Must be the spells.
“Cary, get the other one. We’re finishing this now.”
She slipped toward the third cage.
The ringing siren deafened him. Dread flooded his veins. Argos security and cops would arrive in no time.
The first sign of a black tendril floated out from the corner of the woman’s mouth and eyes.
Cary kept checking over her shoulder, her cheeks pale as sheets of paper. She lassoed her possessed victim.
Noose vibrated uncontrollably in his hands, then the woman’s head dipped backward and black smoke burst from every pore in her body. It exploded into moths. Done. Levi lifted the woman over his shoulder. He half staggered with the dead weight against him out of the room and into the corridor and left her there. Then he went in and retrieved the second innocent.
Son of a bitch, Brent.
“I’ve got an idea!” Dashing back into the office, he snatched the unopened bottle of Brent’s expensive scotch and returned to the hallway.
“Go outside.” Levi turned to Cary, his voice direct and loud. “I’ll take the bodies downstairs as proof of what’s going on here. The dead bodies in full view will put the place under inspection, hopefully ending this shit.”
Cary hurried down the corridor without a protest. She must be just as freaked out as him.
Levi ripped the lid off the bottle, took a gulp, and entered the lab. He drenched the area with the booze. He retrieved his lighter and threw it into a puddle. Gold flames sprung up instantly and spread.
Out in the hallway, he spotted Cary dragging a body by a leg toward the staircase.
From outside, sirens wailed.
“Leave the bodies by the stairs,” he yelled. “The police will find them.”
After tonight, he’d never be able to show his face near Argos if he didn’t land in prison first. So, he’d use this last chance to retrieve what Brent stolen from him months ago. He’d hadn’t checked Brent’s desk drawer and couldn’t leave until he searched there.
“Cary, I’ll meet you outside.”
Cary was halfway down the steps when she spun back around. “Levi.” Her voice was strangled. “You’ll get caught.”
“Get out, now.” He sprinted for the office. An orange glow and heat belched from the lab.
Zipping around the desk, he ripped open a drawer. His hand rummaged through the pens, letter openers, and other stationary crap. He yanked on the second one. Locked. No other place for the dog tags to be but in the locked drawer.
A loud thud downstairs could only mean security or cops were in the building. Fuck. Snatching the letter opener from the desk, he ran it along the top of the locked drawer. It refused to open. Enough of this bullshit.
With one foot pressed up against the edge of the table, he gripped the handle with two hands and pulled. Something gave. He flew backward, slamming into the wall. The handle was in his hand, but the drawer remained shut.
“Give me a fuckin’ break.”
He shoved the table forward, turning it on its side, and kicked the heel of his boot into the drawer’s underside. It dented it. Another two kicks and he’d created a massive crater. Ripping the wood away with his bare hands, he saw exactly what he was after: A black metal box with a lock. He grabbed it, leapt over the table, and dashed into the corridor where flames now poured out of the lab and licked along the wall toward the computer room.
The bodies were gone. Where were they? He bolted forward as cop car lights pulsed outside the windows. Motherfucker.
Chapter 22
Cary dumped the second body in reception, next to the first guy she’d rolled down, and stretched her aching back. She swore she’d seen these tattoos before, back when she first met Brent. She had fought a possessed man in an alleyway who had the same rune ink as these two victims, but then Brent’s entourage turned up and rushed the man into the back of a van like some undercover government organization. Obviously, Brent was playing with dark magic. And her thoughts sailed back to his discussion about his other venture. Was this related? Using dead bodies to hold demons? But why? How was this going to reduce possessions?
Blue and red flashes of a cop car lit up the windows outside.
Her spine stiffened. “Fuck!”
The door at the main entrance rattled on its hinges.
Her chin trembled, and she bolted back upstairs to warn Levi, pushing down the notebook sliding out from the back of her jeans. The front door burst open and she could hear several people rush inside. Yep, my night is going real dandy.
Upstairs, smoke filled the narrow hallway. Levi was running toward her, boots thumping on the carpet floor, a panic-stricken expression on his face. He had something black tucked under his arm.
Cary could hear voices from downstairs, and the thudding of footfalls on the staircase.
Please don’t let us get caught, she prayed.
She snatched a handful of his shirt and dragged him into a pitch-black bathroom, closing the door behind them. “Cops are here,” she whispered.
She leaned toward the door, listening.
Footsteps dashed past them and toward the flames.
“Time to escape,” Levi whispered. “Security, police, and firefighters will all be swarming the place in no time.”
Cary pried the door open slightly, then peeked out. Two men in blue uniforms raced into the lab. She crept out into the empty hallway, scanned the area, and bolted toward the stairs, Levi on her heels. They darted down the steps.
Add criminal to her resume because if she got caught, she was going to jail. Dead bodies, break in and entry… it all pointed to a guilty verdict to the cops who’d detain her.
On the ground floor, several officers were across the room, hunched over the bodies. No one was looking their way. Finally, luck threw them a bone. She turned away and hurried toward the back exit, Levi by her side.
Cary struggled for breath. Without glancing back, she dashed along a small corridor and shoved open the exit door. The second alarm barely registered with the other siren already wailing.
Levi pushed the door shut behind them, and they rushed down the alley behind the Argos building. Blinkie stood in front of the car, staring at them.
She unlocked her car with a click. Levi prodded the keys from her hand without asking and jumped into the driver’s seat. She opened the passenger door, and Blinkie leapt into the back. With the notebook in hand, she climbed in.
Levi roared the car to life and slammed it into gear. He barreled down the road, away from Argos’ headquarters.
The primitive instinct to run for her life and never stop charged through her veins. Glancing over her shoulder, no blue, red, and white lights were visible in her rear windshield.
Sirens cried out from ahead of them, and a fire truck zoomed past, going back toward Argos.
“Well, that went exactly the opposite of our carefully laid out plan,” Levi said.
“No, but, look at what we know now,” Cary replied. “If you hadn’t pushed me to check out the mystery room, we never would have found the bodies… And what exactly was Argos doing with them in the first place?” She kept flashing back to Brent and his desperation to find a solution to stop possessions in order to help his daughter. “Using cadavers and dark magic isn’t the solution to anything.”
“Cut ties with Argos and move on,” Levi said. “No regrets.”
“Hopefully, the burning testing lab and the dead corpses would draw unwanted investigations into Argos,” Cary said. “Brent will be forced t
o cover his tracks, giving me plenty of time to leave the state once we’ve found a cure to our marks.” She glanced at Levi, his hands clamped to the steering wheel, focused on the winding road. Would he ever look at her again without thinking demon, enemy, liar? For too long she’d pushed him away, terrified that if he discovered her secret, he’d bail. Yet now that he’d found out, she obsessed for his attention, for his hungry touches, for his company and laugh, to share food, and do what normal couples did.
The word couple rolled over in her head. Her and Levi were never a couple, and with the way her life was spiraling out of control, she doubted that word would ever be used to describe their relationship.
“That’s not important now,” he said. “You find what you’re looking for. I’m going to get us out of town.”
Cary nodded, not knowing what else to say.
After several hours, she’d read through three-quarters of the notebook filled with names she didn’t recognize, and Levi had barely spoken to her. Finally, she spotted a familiar one: Thomas Dale.
“I think this is it!” she exclaimed. Goldmine. “I found him. There’s no number, but we have an address in Missoula. Woo-hoo!”
Blinkie joined in on the celebratory howl. Levi nodded without a word.
She wanted him to say something, anything, but told herself that she had a possible solution to removing their marks, and that was all that mattered.
Half an hour later, Levi parked in an empty rest area by the freeway with the forest at their backs and the occasional truck thundering down the road. Without the headlights on, they were engulfed by blackness, and only a sliver of moon to light up Levi’s broad shoulders as he climbed out of the car.
Cary got out too, welcoming the fresh wind through her hair. Blinkie brushed past her and sat next to her, staring at the sky. She stretched her arms above her head and arched backward.
Levi made a quick call to the local newspaper, putting in an anonymous tip about dead bodies and a cult killing at Argos’s address. Removing the SIM card from his cell, he hurled the phone into the woods and broke the card in two.
Blinkie sprang after the phone. He jumped into the air, the sound of crunching echoing around them. Without stopping, he lunged into the forest, the night swallowing him.
Behind her, Levi was fiddling with the lock on the black box he must have stolen from Argos. He sighed.
“Give it here,” Cary said. “I’m great at locks.”
He shoved it toward her, and Cary plucked out the lock picks from inside her boot. She’d broken into the antique store, so a box would be easy. After a few quick jiggles and turns, the lid of the box snapped open.
“Thanks.” Levi accepted it back and tossed the lock away before ripping open the lid. Raising his arm, a silver chain with two dog tags dangled on his fingers.
“Who do they belong to?” Cary asked. Levi had never mentioned serving in the military.
“Me. Brent held these as ransom so I’d keep working for Argos.” Levi slipped the chain over his head and tucked the tags under his shirt. “Several months ago, when that demon car tore down half of the Argos building, Brent had someone break into my place and steal the dog tags. He said that I had more debt to pay off and only then would I get them back.”
“Shit!”
“That’s why I took the demon stone you deserved all those months ago. I wasn’t being a bastard but Brent said it was the exact stone I needed to cut ties with Argos. Didn’t make a difference it turned out, and I pissed you off for no reason.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? Like, months ago when it happened?”
He lifted the dog tag around his neck and ran a thumb across its surface. “Didn’t want you caught up my troubles. Figured you had enough to deal with.”
“You didn’t want cause me trouble,” she laughed dryly. “Sound familiar?” She could wring his neck, but after the night they’d had, she didn’t have the energy and figured Levi didn’t either. When he didn’t answer, she went on.
“So what’s the big deal about these tags then?”
“My friend, Marcos, was killed by a demon. These we’re his father’s, but after his dad died, he used to wear them.” Levi’s voice lowered, and if they weren’t outside in the dark, she swore she’d see pain in his eyes. “After Marcos died, I took the dog tags. They’re all I have left of him.”
“That’s horrible about your friend. I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged.
“All I have from my dad are his old hunting weapons. I mean, I treasure them,” she added.
“At least you didn’t have them stolen from you,” Levi replied.
An uncomfortable silence fell over them.
Cary’s relationship with Levi had morphed into… Something dark. Something downright wrong, and she had no idea how to climb back out of the black hole she’d fallen into.
“Anyway, I appreciate you helping me get the notebook from Brent.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“It’s for both of us.” His voice was clipped, and he tucked his hands into his pockets.
An ache curled in the pit of her stomach, the kind she recognized all too well as guilt. “Look, I’m sorry I got you involved in my shit, or that you hate what I am, or whatever it is. But I can’t change any of that.”
“I don’t hate you, but…” He cleared his throat and stared into the distance.
“But what?”
With his head dipped forward, he looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. “Don’t want to talk about it.”
Anger fueled her response. “Well, I do. It’s still me, the same Cary. Except—”
“No, you’re not.” His words were strangled.
“Why? Because I’m a cambion? I was born this way. Out of my control, like the color of my eyes or the dimple on your cheek.” Her voice rose, refusing to accept his excuse. Couldn’t he pull his head out of his ass and see her predicament, or at least try?
“Because you kept it from me. The Cary I knew would never have kept such secrets.” His shoulders were squared and stiff, his tone crackly, and she bet that behind his hooded eyes, she’d see his agony. But it didn’t change the fact that Levi was deluding himself, believing she was something he’d fabricated in his mind.
“Because your Cary is a fantasy. She’s not me. And you know nothing about the real me! Did you know that I hate cherries? I always sleep with socks on, even in summer.” A shiver rolled down her back, and she rubbed the goose bumps from her arms. “And, I sponsor seven kids in Bolivia.” She locked her gaze with him and braced herself for his smart-ass response.
“I knew about the socks.” He walked off into the woods, shoulders hunched forward.
Cary kicked a tuft of grass and shook her head. She’d never considered herself anything but human, and to have Levi treat her as if she was toxic was a mortal blow to the person she thought she was. Her eyes burned.
Well, fuck him. She didn’t need him, or his help, or his lips all over her body. The only reason she insisted on staying together was because she got him into this mess and now she needed to help him get out of it. She owed him that much. Who does he think he is, anyway? She paced from the car to the road and back. He got all huffy with her for not telling him she had some demon in her. So what? She didn’t eat souls.
Footsteps closed in from behind. Levi appeared alongside her without a word.
“We should head off to Missoula then,” she stated. “It’s about twenty-three hours away from here.”
“I’d prefer we get my bike from your place. It’ll be quicker.”
Curse him and his monotone voice. Mr. No-Personality tonight.
She lifted her chin to face him. “It’ll be uncomfortable. Plus, Blinkie will be with us, too.”
At the sound of his name, the hellhound bounded out of the woods, licking his nose. Hopefully, the battery was all he’d just eaten.
Levi headed to her car, speaking over his shoulder. “I’m guessing there’s no changing y
our mind?”
“Nope.”
Distaste colored his voice. “Didn’t think so.”
She couldn’t stand the way he tiptoed around her, or his lack of emotion, especially when she’d grown rather fond of his attention. “You coming?” His words lulled her out of her frozen state.
No more kidding herself. Whatever she had with Levi was over—the stolen glances, desperate urges to jump his bones over and over, her constant craving for him. Gone. The only thing that mattered now was their survival.
Chapter 23
Cary tightened her grip on the steering wheel as Blinkie pressed up against her, licking Levi across the face. Levi squirmed in his seat, scowling.
Her lips pinched, blocking the river of insults dying to pour out at Levi. She kept reminding herself that Levi was just a good guy terrified of what he didn’t understand. She couldn’t have told him earlier. Didn’t he see that? He would have tried to kill her.
“Make it stop.” Levi wiped his cheek in the passenger seat, a scowl capturing his brow. “Has Bunky got acid for saliva?”
“It’s Blinkie. And I think he likes you. Though I have no idea why.”
Levi cut her a glance with raised eyebrows.
“Nice boy, Blinkie,” she said. “Lick him to death.”
The clock on the car glowed 4:55. Morning darkness spread across the road. A lack of sleep had her swerving over the pavement, but thankfully no one else was out at this ungodly hour. Coffee. She craved a potful. Up ahead, she spotted a diner with lights on, calling to her like a beacon. Her father had brought her here many times before when they visited a friend who owned a warehouse nearby. Even though she was quite young at the time, she remembered the place well and the huge stack of pancakes she polished off.
Blinkie bumped her shoulder as he shoved himself onto the middle console, half his body sticking out between the front seats, his front paws in Levi’s lap.
Levi snorted as he shoved Blinkie back with a hand, but it wasn’t working. Even with his back pressed up against the door, Levi was pinned down in his seat.
