While the two said their abbreviated good-byes, my gaze wandered to the upcoming band.
“Son of a …” I spat through my teeth. Diving into the grinding masses, I tossed a quick, “Gotta hit the restroom,” over my shoulder.
Dodging and weaving through the crowd, instead of breaking right to the bathrooms, I banked left toward the stage.
“Hey, Celeste, how about a fun night out?” Grumbling to myself, I skirted around a randy couple with wandering hands and no inhabitations. “It’ll be a scarring reunion with every demon you’ve ever met, and could potentially ruin this peaceful little existence you’ve been enjoying by plunging you headlong into a world of war and chaos. But, hey, we had a good run, right?”
“What?” a buxom blonde asked as I bumped past her.
“Not you, miss. Nice use of fish-net, by the way.”
Shrugging off my random rant, she went back to shimmying her fun bags.
Breaking through the sweat swarm, I grabbed the scrawny fella pulling his guitar from its case by the shoulder and forced him to face me. “Hi, pal, it’s been a while.”
Any questions I may have had about Eddie remembering me were answered by his eyes bulging to goose eggs.
“Wha … hi?” he stammered.
Behind him, his three cohorts snapped to attention. I never took the time to learn the names of the members of the Dark Army Glee Club. They were lackeys, why bother? It had been easier to adopt Celeste’s monikers for them: Red, Lone Twin—his brother had been lost in the battle at Gainesboro—Boil Face, and …
“Eddie, it’s been a long time.” Pulling the Eddie Munster look-alike in tight to my side, I prevented the fidgety little twerp from bolting. “How ya been?”
The portion of Eddie’s face that wasn’t covered by a big, bushy beard visibly blanched. Letting his hair grow out and sweeping it to the side masked his extreme widow’s peak. Further distraction came from his revealing skinny jeans and James Dean T-shirt—which he wore ironically, of course.
“I … uh … think you have me confused with someone else,” he stammered.
“Oh yeah?” I pondered, squeezing his shoulder hard enough to make him whimper. “Let’s get acquainted then. What’s your name?”
“Ed-Edward,” he squawked, swallowing hard.
“A whole new start, and that’s the best you could come up with? Brilliant.” Shaking my head at his vast nincompoopary, I spun him to face me. “Now for the bonus round; who am I?”
Eddie’s mouth opened and shut like a swinging screen door. Nothing seeped out except a high-pitched squeak. In my peripheral vision I caught sight of his friends shaking their heads and making slicing motions across their throats.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t steal answers from your friends.” Sucking air through my teeth, I faked concern. “They might not have your best interests at heart.”
“Rowan! Your name is Rowan Wade!” Eddie exclaimed in one long-winded ramble.
“Dude, that was totally an Eddie move,” crossing his arms over his chest, the demon formerly known as Boil Face scoffed. “Edward would never have wussed out like that.”
My mouth opened to argue in favor of Eddie’s wise act of self-preservation when Boil Face’s updated appearance gave me pause. The long, scraggly beard he’d grown covered more than half his demonic skin condition. Wide, cat-framed glasses took up another quarter. Add to that his knit beanie cap, neatly buttoned flannel shirt, and crocheted infinity scarf, and he was actually passable as human.
Wagging a finger at him, I then pressed it to my lips in contemplation. “This is a good look for you. It makes me want to spoon out my own eyes marginally less.”
“That’s really all anyone can hope for.” Boil Face, hence-forth known as Beard Face, chuckled and let one shoulder rise and fall in a nonchalant shrug.
“The question remains,” gripping Eddie’s collar, I held him where he was, “the Counsel did a big ole memory wipe. Yet, here I find you, memories intact and swarming Caleb. You boys wouldn’t be trying to awaken his inner Titon would you?”
“Not at all!” Eddie squirmed for his freedom, but gained no ground. Adorable little troll. “As far as we can tell, we didn’t matter enough for the memory wipe. We’re like the R2-D2 of this saga.”
“We ran into Caleb a while back and he didn’t immediately pummel us, which was a nice change of pace,” Lone Twin explained, straightening his bowtie and smoothing his blue blazer. “It didn’t take long to figure out he didn’t remember us. In fact, he thought we were kinda … cool. He even asked us to hang and got us a gig performing here three nights a week.”
“Plus,” Red, dubbed that for his fiery strands, added, “this hipster thing is really working for us!”
Lips pressed into a thin white line, I nodded. “Yes, I’m certain it’s the hipster thing and not you hanging around with the likes of Caleb that has upped your social standing. What, do you scoop up his broken-hearted cast-offs?”
“I wish!” Eddie snorted, stumbling to regain his footing after I finally released my hold. “There are none.”
Pulling back, I stared up at my former bloke with a newfound appreciation. “None! Blimey! The lad’s a machine!”
“No,” Lone Twin corrected with a laugh, “there are no heartbroken cast-offs. He tells all the girls up front that he’s done with casual encounters and wants the real thing or nothing—which sounds way cooler with his accent. Anyway, they all love him for it and hang around hoping for the chance to be his real thing.”
Silently fuming, my teeth ground to the point of pain. Call me selfish, but I would much rather learn that Cal was getting an entire fleet’s worth of trim than to hear the brooding Irishman was pining for his one true love. Especially since her taste still lingered on my lips.
Rubbing a hand over the back of my neck, I feigned indifference. “As happy as I am for Caleb and his steadfast resolve, they aren’t my primary concern at the moment.”
“Whatever your drama is, why should we care?” Red snarled, puffed up on his own measly bravado.
Taking my time, I fixed my icy stare on each of them, dragging it slowly from one to the next. “In a word? Hellhound.”
For a beat, none of them spoke.
Not one expelled the breath lodged in their throats.
They simply stared, blinking in disbelief.
It was Lone Twin that shattered the hush by spinning on Beard Face. “They aren’t real! You swore they weren’t real!”
Pursing his lips, Beard Face scowled in my direction. “Fantastic. Now I’ll never get him to sleep tonight.”
Swinging my arms out wide, I clapped my hands in front of me. “Sorry about that, but at least I know all of you understand the severity of the situation. That’ll be a fantastic time saver.”
Gnawing on his lower lip, the twin’s nervous gaze lobbed from me to the door and back again. “I’m actually frozen in fear. I didn’t know that was a real thing. But here I am, rooted to this spot while my body tries to decide if I’m going to bolt for the door or evacuate my bowels right here.”
Without a word, I took a precautionary step back.
In a sudden rush of panic Eddie seized the sleeve of my shirt in a white-knuckled grasp. “Do you know this for a fact?” he gasped. “That there is actually a Hellhound prowling around? Do you have any idea what a claim like that means? For starters, we are in the exact worst place possible. Hellhounds love crowds! We might as well be standing at the door ringing the dinner bell. And let me tell ya, pal, if one bursts in here none of us would make it out alive!”
Wrapping my hands over his closed fists, I eased them from the now rumpled fabric. “I’m going to need you to breathe, and never, ever grab me like that again.”
Glancing toward the bar, I found Celeste tipping a fresh long-neck to her lips. Brow furrowed, she watched our little spectacle with growing interest. Offering her a forced smile, I held up one finger to let her know I would be right there.
“That is the Co
nduit!” Beard Face stabbed one hand in the air in recognition, then let it fall to his side with a slap. “I thought so, but it was hard to tell without her scowling and threatening us.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Red stuffed his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunching inward, “but if there’s a nasty monster on the loose, isn’t she exactly the person we want the hound to run into it? I mean, she’s got that nifty super strength—even if she doesn’t know it. In this type of situation she seems the girl to hide behind.”
“No!” I snapped more harshly than I intended. “We handle this alone. None of this gets anywhere near Celeste.”
“But we need to make it our problem?” Red pulled back as if questioning my sanity. “Why would we stick around at all instead of running to the farthest reaches of the planet without looking back?”
“I do like the sound of that option.” Eddie pointed at Red and nodded his agreement.
Frustration bubbled through my veins, churning and writhing into a steady boil. Raising my hands in front of me, I curled them into tight fists. My thread of self-control hovered a strand from snapping.
“Normally, this is where I would threaten violence with the disclaimer that I don’t have to lift a finger for all holy hell to be unleashed,” I stated in an eerily calm tone, each word measured and clipped. “I would adopt my most villainous leer and remind you that at my whim I can turn you on each other in a blood bath of epic proportions. Lucky for you, I’m not that guy anymore.”
Shooting a smug glance to his fellow glee clubbers, Red’s paper-thin lips screwed to the side. “No, you’re the guy that took advantage of a situation by swooping in and stealing his buddy’s girlfriend the first chance you got. Now you live in constant fear that one day she’ll snap out of this little spell and hand you your ass … after she kicks it up and down the length of the campus a few times.”
The others had the good sense not to laugh. They each made the wise decision to shift uncomfortably and look anywhere but at us.
One hand falling to my side, the other ran over the stubble of my chin. To stifle the simmering rage clouding my vision, I took a mental five count. Stepping in close enough to chest bump the musically inclined demon, I shrank him under the weight of my stare. “Maybe I have selfish motives. I won’t deny that. But who here doesn’t? You’ve all admitted to liking these little lives you’ve carved out for yourselves. Well—newsflash, ginger—if Celeste comes in contact with that Hellhound, her memory could come rushing back. If that happens, all of this,” I flicked a finger at their hipster get-ups, “goes away. No longer will you be able to pass as tortured artists that sorority girls shag because it’s easier than actually becoming cultured themselves. Demons and beasties of all walks of life will flock here intent on killing her and becoming the new big bad in the demonic hierarchy. We will be thrust right back into a war with our only options being to fight, or retreat back to the Underworld.”
Lone Twin squelched a whimper behind his fist. “I hate the Underworld. It smells like feet and stale Fritos, and there’s no Wi-Fi!”
His cocky façade faltering, a tremor of nerves quaked through Red’s tone. “Don’t you understand? What’s coming … it’s the thing the darkness fears, and it will kill us all.”
“It’s that bad, and worse,” I admitted. “Even so, there’s no outrunning it. If this beast decides to make itself some pups, it’ll start a plague that will swallow the world whole. The only options left are to lay down and die, jockey for position as a minion—again—or take a chance and help me protect what’s turned out to be a pretty damned sweet existence. What do you say? Wanna try on the symbolic white hero hat and see how it fits?”
Red shifted his gaze to his friends. One by one they set their bushy, bearded jaws and nodded.
Squaring his bony shoulders, he ventured, “What do we need to do?”
“I promise not to make you handle any of the scary monster parts,” I clarified, stepping back to a less threatening distance. “All you have to do is help me find the sodding thing. Then, you can hang out at a safe distance, pop some popcorn, and watch me kill it—or vice versa if I’m having an off day. Either way, should be a great show. So, how about it? Shall we pat each other’s bums and declare us a team?”
Before any of them could respond, I felt a fluttering tap on my upper arm. Turning, I fell into the warm molasses pools of Celeste’s concerned gaze.
“Everything okay?” she asked, glancing from the Glee Clubbers to me and back again.
Unsure of that answer myself, I followed her gaze to my new potential mates with my eyebrows raised in expectant arches. “The lady asks an intriguing question.”
A silent beat, then …
“Absolutely.” Red walked to meet Celeste, hand outstretched. “Hi, I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure. We’re friends of Rowan’s. We were just discussing a … uh … history project we’re teaming up on.”
“Rowan actually caring about his classes?” Celeste marveled, glancing at me as if I had suddenly sprouted a unicorn horn. One pace forward and she accepted Red’s offered hand. “You all may be wizards to make such a wonder transpire, but I’m okay with it. I’m his girlfriend, Celeste, and you are my new best frien—”
The words lodged in her throat, pinned there by a pair of scuffed motorcycle boots clomping down the narrow stage stairs.
“Pardon me, brothas,” Caleb drawled in his nonchalant brogue. “Oh, an’ the lovely miss.”
He pulled up short at the bottom of the stairs, as if slamming into an impervious wall the moment he saw her.
I watched their eyes meet for one agonizing beat. The primal sparks that flew between them clawed my heart from my chest and crushed it in the vicious talons of jealousy.
“Sorrah …” Dropping his chin, Caleb shook his head, as if to free himself of their magnetic pull, “I din’t mean tah interrupt.”
Celeste had yet to blink—or exhale.
“It’s … okay,” she mumbled, not in the breathless moan I feared but abject confusion. Her eyes narrowed, head tilting like she was trying to place him.
Her heart-shaped lips parted. I knew the line of questions forming there before she could utter a syllable. Go ahead and insert whatever vile and profane names for me that you will, because I did what I felt I had to do. Concentrating on the nearest blonde strumpet, I lured her to Cal like a Hizolovsk demon to tree sap. Whirling around, she twitched his way with the sashay of a cat in heat. Only then did I recognize her as the lass in the bathrobe I slammed into back at the dorms. In an odd way, I was proud to help bolster her dream of visiting his Emerald Isle.
“Caleb,” she purred with a seductive pout, lacing her arm with his, “you promised to teach me a couple cords on your guitar.”
“Aye, that I did.” A little encouragement from me and Caleb flung his arm around the lass and pulled her to him, much to her tittering delight. “No time like the present, yeah?”
One last mind bump, and I willed the pair toward the door and out of my hair. To my teeth-grinding, nostril-flaring regret, that infuriating mick fought against my influence.
Hesitating, he glanced back at Celeste as if the act alone pained him. “I … hope tah see ya here again sometime.”
An aggravated tsk and the bathrobe beauty dragged him out the pub’s back exit.
The awkward moment that followed was shattered by Lone Twin’s giddy giggle. “Oh, my gawwwsh, you guys! That was like a scene right out of Pretty Little Liars!”
Chapter 6
“Say it again.”
“I love you, only you, and no one but you.”
“Now, with a Jamaican accent.”
“I love you, onlah you, an’ no one but you.”
“That was dreadful. It sounded like an Australian after extensive dental work.”
“I don’t know how else I can convince you!” Celeste laughed, bumping my ribs with her elbow. Hand-in-hand we walked back to her dorm room. “Seriously, I thought I knew the guy f
rom somewhere. That is all.”
“You know,” I ventured, glancing her way out of the corner of my eye, “nothing says I’m sorry like a little Fifty Shades of Wade.”
Face falling blank, Celeste stared off in the distance. “What would that freak show even look like?”
“A steel-boned corset and ass-less chaps. Oh, and you can wear a costume, too.”
Halting mid-step, her eyes crinkled at the corners. “I am both aroused and horrified by that mental image.”
Turning on the ball of my foot, I tugged her to me. “It’s the cheekbones and wavy hair. Much like Orlando Bloom, I could pass as a stunning woman.”
Rising up on tiptoe, her lips teased over mine. “I’ll take you just the way you are … often and regularly.”
My hand traced down the small of her back to the rise of one cheek. There, it lingered. “Can I request these takings be plentiful enough to require protein bars and Gatorade?”
“Play your cards right, sailor,” she murmured, nipping at my lower lip.
As a throaty growl tore from my throat, we were forced apart by a rampaging female, both of us stumbling back to regain our footing.
“Ugh. Friggin’ couples!” the perturbed lass grumbled, stomping between us in full huff. “Get a room! Or, in your case, a utility closet.”
“Friend of yours?” Celeste watched the girl shrink into the distance with bemused interest.
Brow pinched, and jaw slack, I finally placed the irritable vixen as bathrobe girl’s bestie. “Groupie of that Celtic band. She’s cranky her mate won a trip to the back of the lead singer’s Shaggin’ Wagon and she didn’t.”
My gaze flicked to her face, searching for some flare of jealousy that another woman might be in Caleb’s toned and rippling arms tonight.
Mouth curling into a downward C, her shoulders rose and fell in a noncommittal shrug. “She should probably thank her BFF. I’ve heard some of those STD treatments are a real bitch.”
“Ah, to hear sonnets from your sharp tongue,” I wistfully mused.
Wearing the blissful blinders of contentment, we continued our stroll. Her hand twined effortlessly with mine. The cool night breeze tossed our hair from our faces. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted his greeting.
Descent (Gryphon Series Book 5) Page 6
