by Elise Marion
“Well, what are you waitin’ for?” Micah muttered, tramping toward a small shed on the edge of the mowed grass. “I got gutters to clean, and you got trainin’ to be about.”
Chapter Five: The Change-Up
Addison limped into the apartment, her every muscle protesting movement. She wanted nothing more than to sink to the floor, curl up into a ball, and sleep for days. However, Micah, Elian, and Alice looked on—and once she entered the apartment, so did Reniel, Derek, and Antoine. To preserve her dignity, she could at least make it to the bedroom.
Meeting Derek’s eyes, she found the glint of determination there, as well as a hard set to his jaw. She groaned aloud as she remembered he was supposed to be teaching her about demons.
So far today, her education had been exhausting. Elian had proved to be a serious instructor, belying his young, boyish appearance. With him and Alice throwing everything in their arsenal at her, she’d been forced to fight as if her life depended on it. Defending herself proved easy. The hard part became honing her instincts toward light instead of darkness. For a half-demon Naphil who had only just recently discovered light by becoming a Guardian, this could be difficult.
Because of her dark past and the overwhelming anger and sadness Jack’s death had brought on, reaching for the darkness felt easy. The surge of adrenaline she experienced by releasing all the hurt came as a natural high. Yet, the battle against Mammon had taught her a very important lesson.
Darkness could never prevail against darkness. In order to beat Lilith, the rest of the ten, and ultimately, Eligos, she needed to use the light. The Seal of Solomon had responded to it, destroying Mammon. According to Elian, she needed constant practice until reaching for the light inside of her became instinctual.
“Not tonight, please,” she groaned, turning away from Derek and his stack of books. “I feel like I’m going to die, and I can barely think straight.”
Stumbling toward the couch, she collapsed there, burying her face in the cushion.
“This information is important,” Derek insisted. “You need to know what you’re up against.”
“We also need to go over the intel I gathered,” Antoine chimed in, appearing from the kitchen.
“Micah, get her up,” Alice snapped, an edge of annoyance to her voice. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Back off,” Micah grumbled. “Can’t you see she’s exhausted? If you want to have demon class, come back in the morning, after eleven. She’s got class at eight-thirty and she needs to sleep off the ass whoopin’ you all gave her out in the swamp. Leave the gal be.”
Reniel’s booming voice smothered the protests of the others.
“He’s right,” the angel said. “We’ll return in the morning.”
Not daring to argue with him, the others trailed him from the apartment. Addison lifted her head from the sofa just in time to watch them disappear through the kitchen. A moment later, the door closed noisily behind them. Micah emerged from there, eyes glassy from a day’s worth of drinking himself into oblivion.
Sitting up on the couch, she reached for the backpack she’d discarded there the day before. Supernatural war aside, she still had classes to pass. Real life could not stop just because she’d gotten wrapped up in this fight against Evil. She couldn’t afford to let it.
Micah’s booted footsteps sounded noisily against the wooden floor as he lumbered toward his chair, swaying precariously.
She shook her head, snorting in disgust. “You’re drunk.”
He chuckled, managing to find his chair and flop onto it. “Yup,” he drawled. “Join me, won’t you?”
Rolling her eyes, she turned her attention to the reading material for her American Literature class. The words swam on the page and her eyes began to water from fatigue, but she blinked it away and forced herself to focus. As tired as she felt, she couldn’t bring herself to go to bed just yet. Not when the silence in the apartment had become a tangible, crushing force threatening to steal her sanity. Not when the only thing waiting for her in that bedroom was pain and loneliness.
A few minutes of silence passed, during which Micah tuned his guitar, plucking strings and tightening them. She tried to read while taking notes—a feat that became increasingly impossible the more she attempted it.
“Oh, screw it,” she mumbled, tossing the book aside. Tomorrow in class, she would just keep her head down and avoid raising her hand during the lecture. The reading could be caught up when she found a better state of mind.
“Givin’ up on book learnin’?” he mumbled, a guitar pick clenched between his teeth. “Don’t worry. You could still get at least another ten years out of that ass of yours.”
Scowling at him, she stood and shoved her things back into her bag. “For someone who acts like he hates me, you sure spend a lot of time talking about my ass.”
He shrugged, working the pick back and forth in his mouth, his jaw jutting back and forth. “I got eyes, gal. Annoying demon or not, you’ve got a nice one. I can see why—”
“Don’t!” she interjected, hands clenching into fists at her sides. “Don’t you dare talk about me and Jack that way. You have no idea what we had.”
Micah shook his head. “Don’t need to. Don’t care. Don’t matter, anyhow … he’s gone.”
Shaking her head, she stomped toward the bedroom. “I liked you better when we were in the swamp. But I guess you can’t treat me like shit in front of your grandma, can you?”
“Hell, no,” he replied. “She’d tan my hide. The old lady likes you.”
“At least someone around here does,” she muttered.
A beat of silence passed as she jerked her bedroom door open. She flicked on the light and crossed the threshold. Turning to slam the door, she started, finding Micah standing just on the other side. She hadn’t even heard him move.
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and he sighed, the mask of a drunken asshole slipping away for a fraction of a second.
“I don’t hate you, cher,” he murmured, leaning against the doorframe. “I just …”
She sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “You just miss him.”
He nodded, avoiding her gaze. “Yeah.”
“Well, I miss him, too. I know he was yours first, and you knew him better than me. That’s why I haven’t turned you into a char mark on the ground for the way you’ve been treating me lately. He meant something to me, too, Micah. I … I loved him. I’m trying to figure out how to move on, just like you.”
He glanced up at her, his face hard and inscrutable once again. The harshness around his mouth melted away and he sighed.
“I suppose we got that in common … lovin’ Jack. I’ll try to stop bein’ such a rascal.”
She gave him a small smile. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
He groaned as if in pain. “Felt about as good as a root canal.”
“Serves you right, you big bully.” Stepping back from the door, she made to close it once more. “Good night, Micah.”
“Sleep tight, cher. I won’t be able to stop them from havin’ full reign with you tomorrow. Better get some shuteye.”
Leaving him on the other side of the door, Addison prepared to do just that. This time, when her head hit the pillow, she felt just a little less lonely and a little less sad.
Micah surprised himself by snapping awake at seven a.m. Blinking and shaking his head, he studied the screen of his cell phone to ensure he’d read the time right—that it was actually seven in the morning, not the evening. Glancing at his nightstand, he found his nightly jar of moonshine more than half full. He hadn’t drunk as much as usual, thus the absence of dry-mouth and the muddle-headed feeling of waking up the night after a good bender.
He reached for the jar and brought it to his lips, pausing before taking a sip. Staring down into its clear depths, he frowned.
This was the first morning he’d awakened so early since Jack’s death. Usually, the searing ache stabbed him in the chest the second
he opened his eyes and remembered that his best friend had died. This morning, the pain felt a little less sharp; because it didn’t come with a hangover, he could push the feeling back.
Foregoing his morning drink, he screwed the cap back on the jar and set it aside. Rising from the bed, he stretched, groaning as his muscles came awake. He still had some time before Addison woke up and the gang arrived—a few hours to kill.
Stumbling toward the closet, he rifled through it before finding his beat-up running shoes. He and Jack used to run together every morning to keep up their endurance. Weeks of drinking even more than usual and very little activity had left him sluggish and slow. Addison had been right—if she hadn’t interfered, that succubus might have taken him out, or at least, done him serious bodily harm.
Changing quickly into a pair of sweat shorts and a tank top, he left the apartment. The sun had risen in a cloudless sky, and the day promised to be a scorcher. Sweat trickled over his forehead and down his back as he navigated the city sidewalks, already coming alive for the day. He passed several other runners and dodged the walkers, breathing in the muggy air and the scent of beignets and coffee coming from several shops along the way.
He took their usual route, circling a few blocks until he’d clocked three miles. Trudging back up to the apartment, his legs screamed in protest. He grinned, reveling in the feeling. It had been a while since he’d felt the soreness of a good workout. Once indoors, he shoved the coffee table aside and dropped to the floor, crushing fifty pushups as fast as he could. Rolling onto his back, he did fifty sit-ups. Going until he couldn’t take anymore, he flipped back and forth between pushups and sit-ups, working up even more of a sweat.
Peeling himself off the carpet, he retreated to the bathroom, where he spent twenty minutes under the hot spray of the shower, letting the water soothe his sore muscles.
By the time he emerged from the bathroom, it was eight o’clock and Addison had begun stirring in her room. He could hear her moving around as he passed her closed door on his way to the kitchen. Thinking of her gripe yesterday about him slacking off on the cooking, he strode to the refrigerator and began rummaging.
He didn’t find much, as he’d neglected to buy groceries. Food had always been his area, as the one who enjoyed cooking.
He found just enough buttermilk, eggs, and flour for pancakes, and by the time Addison emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed with blow-dried hair, breakfast was ready.
Her eyebrows shot up toward her hairline when she approached the kitchen to find him filling a plate with pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” he drawled, extending the plate toward her.
Taking the offering, she eyed him dubiously. “Who are you, and what have you done with Micah?”
Chuckling, he shrugged. “It’s just pancakes, cher. Better hurry if you wanna make class.”
Snapping out of her shocked daze, she carried her plate to the table and sat down.
Grabbing a pancake from the stack, he filled it with bacon and eggs like a taco, drizzled syrup in it, and handed the bottle off to Addison before devouring it in a few bites. Addison, only a few bites in, stared at him from the corner of her eye as he repeated the ritual before turning to start washing the dishes.
“Seriously,” she mumbled between bites. “It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You’re freaking me out.”
“I got to thinkin’,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over banging pots and pans. “Jack was my podna. Helping you finish this mission is what he would have wanted. So it’s what I’m gonna do.”
“Making pancakes helps me with that how?”
He shot her a grin over his shoulder. “If you’re going to let that kid kick your ass all day, you can’t do it on an empty stomach.”
She groaned, lowering her head. “I’d forgotten about that. I have to dance tonight, too.”
“See? Them pancakes’ll fill your tank. You can bet lunch at mamère’s house will do the same.”
“That’s if Elian doesn’t kill me first.”
“You just need practice,” he encouraged, surprising himself with the words. Being sober did weird things to his personality. It made him nice, almost likeable. “The kid will have you whipped into shape in no time.”
They fell silent as she finished eating and washed the dishes. By the time she left the apartment for class, he’d taken out the trash and wiped down the counters. He’d started running a broom across the floor as she set off, promising to return in a few hours.
With nothing left to do, he went about setting the rest of the apartment to rights. He’d let a lot of things slide since Jack’s death. While the place had never been a palace, it had never been this bad. In the two hours it took for Addison to come back from class and the rest of their team to arrive, he had cleaned the living room and his room and washed three loads of dirty clothes.
When Addison, Reniel, and the others entered the living room, he was seated in his chair, folding the last of his laundry. Ignoring their shocked stares, he stacked a pair of jeans with the others resting on the coffee table and stood.
“’Bout time you guys got here,” he quipped. “I done more in a few hours than you lazybones probably have all day. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Reniel smirked in amusement. “Very well. Addison, Derek is ready to go over the information he gathered for you. While you two do that, Micah, Alice, Antoine, and I will talk over the recon we’ve gathered.”
Micah sat back in his chair and the others joined him in the living room, minus Addison and Derek, who settled at the kitchen table with books and stacks of paper scrawled with notes.
“So, what do we know?” he asked once everyone had found a seat.
“I sank into a trance last night while I was here,” Antoine spoke up. “I performed a locator ritual that allowed me to pinpoint Lilith’s location and spy on her. She’s at the Ritz, just like you said. She’s not alone.”
“I take it she’s got dumb, dumber, and dumbest with her?” Micah asked.
He nodded. “You know she’s never without those three. But Semangelaf, Sanvi, and Sansanvi are the least of your worries. She’s got two of the others with her. Two of the ten.”
“Which two?” he asked.
It mattered. While the ten included the most powerful demons, some proved more so than others. Lilith definitely ranked in the top tier—even higher than Mammon, who had killed Jack and almost taken Addison.
“Nybbas, and Astaroth.”
“Thank God,” Micah muttered. “For a minute there, I thought you would name someone important.”
“Astaroth is a Prince of Hell,” Alice interjected. Annoyance tinged her voice, as it always did when she addressed him.
“And I’m the freakin’ prince of the bayou,” he snapped. “Who cares? Neither of them is as powerful as Lilith.”
“No,” Reniel agreed. “But together, along with Semangelaf, Sanvi, and Sansanvi …”
“I get the drift,” he replied. “As a unit, they’re too much for her to handle.”
“Addison stands a better chance facing each of them individually,” Antoine said. “We need to pick them off from each other, one by one.”
“The triplets can be treated as one,” Alice interjected. “The three of them hardly possess a brain between them.”
“For true,” Micah agreed. “Let’s start with them. It’ll be easier for Addison to get her feet wet battlin’ them, and we can have them out of the way and done with. Then we go after the other two.”
“Does Addison have a shift tonight?” Reniel asked.
Micah always found it odd that the angel never seemed to bat an eyelash when discussing Addison’s job. He’d have thought an angel would cringe at God’s Chosen One shaking her moneymaker and swinging around a pole. Apparently, God and the angel had other priorities.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Good,” Antoine said. “Because the trio will be headed to
the club tonight, acting as guards for a few succubi. They want revenge for the sister you killed.”
He shook his head. “Why is it every girl I mess around with turns crazy on me?” Facing Alice, he grinned. “Got any ideas?”
Scowling, she stood, reaching into the back pocket of her shorts for her cigarettes. “Cute, Micah. Real cute.”
Ignoring her as she stomped from the apartment, he turned back to his other companions. “Welp, looks like we got some succubi to wrangle.” He turned to Antoine. “You can be the bait.”
He frowned. “Bait?”
“Succubi can’t resist a hunk of beef served up on a platter. In this case, the beef is you, podna. I’d volunteer, but one of ’em already got a taste of me.”
Reniel nodded. “An excellent plan. When they try to seduce you, their guards will be lowered. We’ll close in on them and set the trap.”
Antoine frowned, but nodded his agreement. “Fine. But if any of them molests me, I’m kicking your ass, Micah.”
Chapter Six: Strategy
Addison studied Derek, who sat across the table from her, eyes moving behind his glasses as he scanned the pages of the book laid in front of him. He seemed different from the other Guardians she’d met so far—quiet, almost shy. He had hardly an ounce of muscle on him, and she saw no evidence of any skill as a fighter. She tried to picture him firing a gun like Jack, or wielding knives like Micah, and couldn’t. He didn’t seem the type.
“If you have a question, you should just ask,” he murmured, not even bothering to look up from his book.
Her forehead wrinkled as she leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the table. “Well, I was just wondering …”
“You want to know what my gift is,” he said, his sharp blue eyes snapping up to meet hers. “I get it all the time, so don’t feel bad. I hardly look like a Guardian.”
Thank goodness he’d been the one to point that out. He’d told her not to feel bad, but she didn’t want to insult the guy.
