He looked like he was either about to cry from happiness or fly off in a rage. Sarah pulled him back from me, and they held each other while they waited for my answer. “He was fine when I left. He should be back by now. We need to get to camp and find out what is going on.”
John turned to the woman who had brokered the deal. “Send someone down with us to open the dome.”
She tossed him another stone and turned back toward the large portal they were building. I had a bad feeling about what would happen when they completed it. If Jackson was back, then we needed to strike now. There was no way the demons would give up this easily. Whatever they were building was bad, really bad.
When we were far enough away that I was sure none of them would overhear us, I asked, “Did you find out anything about what they are building?”
John frowned and looked at Sarah. “Sarah heard a few things.”
“More than a few,” she said with a smile that quickly faded. “None of them were good. We need to get to Adam and quickly.”
Sarah and John broke into a run, and I followed. Was it really that bad? What could the demons possibly be planning that would have them this nervous? Whatever it was, we couldn’t let it happen. We reached the barrier, and John used the stone. After Sarah and I slipped through, he followed. The stone broke as we exited.
Adam and Henry ran up. Adam looked over at me. “Where is he?”
“The demon said we had to travel separately. He should have been back by now.”
Adam shook his head and looked pissed off. Henry's eyes fell to the ground. I needed to reassure them. “He isn’t dead. Jackson had that demon dead to rights. The demon would probably be dead now if I hadn’t been there.”
“What do you mean if you hadn’t been there?” Adam asked.
“He has a way of getting inside your head.” I tapped my temple with a finger. “Controlling what you do, what you think.”
John's hands tightened into fists as he tried to repress some memory from his time in hell. “What April is saying is true, every single word of it. That is why he is so dangerous.”
Sarah put a calming hand on his shoulder. His fists stayed bunched, but the color returned to his knuckles.
“If I hadn’t experienced it myself, I would have said it wasn’t possible, but he took control of my body with ease. I would have pulled my knife and stabbed Jackson if that is what he asked me to do.” I looked around at all of them. “And I would have done it with zero hesitation.”
This time, it was John who reached out to comfort me. Marcus ran up to the group and pulled me into a hug.
“Welcome back. Where’s our boy?”
“We were just discussing that,” Adam said with a hint of impatience.
Sarah looked up into the sky, and a few moments later, we all heard it. We all turned our heads to see just what it was. I could feel Adam gathering his power. Adam reached out and was about to strike when Sarah shouted, “It’s him.”
None of us questioned who him was. He fell from the sky like a stone and hit the desert ground hard. A cloud of dust rose from the impact site, and he walked out of it, brushing himself off. Jackson flashed a smile at everyone.
“I’m going to have to work on the landing.”
I rushed forward and pulled him into my arms. I didn’t care that he was covered in dust or that he smelled like he hadn’t showered in a month. All I wanted was him. I jumped, and he caught me, pulling me in tightly against him. I could feel the beat of his heart through his shirt. He spun me around like we were in the movies as I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him. Finally he was back, and I couldn’t be happier. I lost myself in him until Adam loudly cleared his throat from behind us. I wanted to scream at him to stop ruining our moment, but in the end, I knew he was right. Jackson lowered me to the ground, and I kept him in my arms. Adam looked over at everyone and smiled. We were all here together, part of the same team once again.
Adam looked almost embarrassed to have ruined our moment, but when he spoke, his voice was clear and strong. “Why don’t you get cleaned up, and then you can tell us all about what happened while you were gone. Then I think we are going to have some work to do.”
“So you know the demons will never leave this place willingly?”
“It’s worse than that.” Adam frowned. “They might be able to make a portal that we can never close.”
“I think a shower can wait,” Jackson said.
“No,” Henry and Sarah cried out almost at the same time.
Jackson started to laugh. “I knew it. I’ll try and be quick.”
I pulled him along to the RV that I had been using. When we were inside, he kissed me again, and his hands roved over my body. They settled in a few places that I had longed for him to touch since he left. As much as I wanted to fall into those touches and never come up for air, we just didn’t have time right now. I broke our kiss. “If we start that, your shower won’t be quick.” When I saw the disappointment in his eyes, I almost cracked.
“Fine, kill demons first, sex later.” He smiled and started to strip off the rags he was wearing. “While I’m in here, see if you can find me some new clothes.”
He said it with enough of his normal snark that I knew he wasn’t completely disappointed. There was one thing that I would make sure of. Those demons would die, and die quickly. No one was going to stand between this woman and her man for long.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jackson
Damned if it didn’t feel good to be clean again. Being caked in dried sweat wasn’t exactly something to aspire to. Sure, I guess if you were doing hot yoga, maybe it was, but it wasn’t something I aspired to. When I was mostly clean, I could smell the stench from my clothes on the floor. Damn, they really needed deodorant in hell. It was kind of funny; once you were only around other people who hadn’t bathed in awhile, you really didn’t notice the smell.
All of that was over for me now. Getting dirty had its perks, though. After tonight, I’d be taking my next shower with a certain redheaded lady in my arms. It was going to be great. In fact, epic was the word that came to mind. All we had to do now was stop a demon army, its commander, and the leader of hell. No big deal, right? All in a day’s work, others might say. I truly hoped it would be that easy. I didn’t want to lose any friends tonight.
I stepped out of the shower and started to dry off. April came back into the RV with a bundle of clothes. She smiled at me until she saw the bruises on my body. I know, right? It was as if people thought tangling with a dragon without taking any lasting damage was easy. She walked up and put her hands on me, and I felt her power flowing through me. Every second that passed made my body feel just a little bit better. It felt so good, that I was starting to think about how much time we actually had before we needed to meet with Adam.
“This kind of reminds me of the first time we took a shower together,” April said as she moved her hands lower to remove another bruise.
“Maybe you remember that a little more fondly than I do.” She frowned. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved the view, but I was an awkward mess.”
“You still are sometimes.”
“Hey now, you better be nice to me. I could die out there tonight.”
She hit me. “Don’t you ever say something like that.”
“I love you too, April.”
“Say that again.” She beamed up at me.
“You better be nice to me.”
She swatted my arm again. “No, the other thing.”
“I love you.”
“I just can’t hear that enough. I love you too, Jackson.”
A knock sounded at the door, breaking us out of our moment. I finished drying off and slipped into the pants April had brought for me. “Come in,” I shouted while pulling on my shirt. Before I could reach down to grab my harness, Britta slammed into me. Her hug was fierce and just as full of concern as April’s had been. I was very aware that my girlfriend was standing a mere few feet away
from me when I returned the hug.
Britta backed up when I let her go, creating some space between us. She gave April a smile, and to my astonished eyes, April returned it warmly. Had I been gone so long that they had worked out their differences?
“So he’s alive, huh?” Britta asked April. “And my God, what is that awful smell?”
“Looks like it. And that smell would be his clothes.”
Britta looked at the pile on the floor, and they burst into flames. The smell got worse for a moment, and then it was over. Well, so much for saving any of my hell clothes for a memento. Oh man, this wasn’t going to be good. The two of them were talking about me like I wasn’t even here. If they were friends, life was going to be a little bit more interesting than I wanted it to be. I tried to ignore them while I finished dressing. They were still chatting about me when I finished lacing my shoes.
“Hey, do you two know if Marcus is out there?”
“He was right outside when I came in,” Britta said.
“Mind asking him to come in here?”
She shot me a questioning look. “Sure thing, Jackson.”
Britta gave April a look that said what’s going on, and my lady just shrugged her shoulders. None of them knew what this was about, but this was going to be my chance to make amends. To tell them how sorry I was about what I had done. I owed each of them an apology, and each one was for a different reason.
Marcus walked in, and I pulled him into a quick bro hug. “It’s good to see you, man.”
“Well, it is now that you’re smelling better. Before, I was looking at these ladies and saying send him back to hell, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I get it, buddy. Maybe next time I end up in hell, I’ll take you with me, and we will see how good you smell when you get back.”
He laughed. “I think I’ll pass. So what’s up?”
I motioned for everyone to take a seat. This wasn’t going to be easy. I was dreading it, to tell you the truth. It was never fun to admit when you were wrong. It was even worse when the people you cared about got hurt. I had hurt my closest friends dearly, and I never wanted to do that again. The only way to move forward was if I told them how I felt.
“He has that look on his face,” Marcus said.
“Which one?” Britta asked.
“I can’t tell yet,” April said while meeting my eyes. “He either has to shit, or he has something important to tell us and he really doesn’t want to say it.”
As far as I knew, April had never seen my shit face, and I planned on keeping it that way. Damn them, they were all trying to make this easier on me. I didn’t deserve that, and I didn’t want it to be easy. They deserved a better friend. I looked down at the ground and could hear my heart beating. It thumped in time with my thoughts. Every second that passed made the tension more unbearable for me.
Marcus finally took pity on me. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Jackson, it’s ok, man. We know how you feel.”
I pushed his hand away. I really needed to do this. Not just for me, but for them. “Just give me a minute. It will mean more if I can say it out loud.” I could feel the tears forming. I tried to brush them away, but my hands were shaking. If I didn’t start talking soon, they would all be hugging me, trying to cheer me up, and that wasn’t what this was about. My voice cracked when I started to speak. I closed my mouth and looked up at their expectant faces and tried again.
“I’m sorry.” As I said it, I felt as if a weight had rolled off of my chest. “I lied to you, I put you in harm’s way, and I played on your fears. It was selfish of me, and I’ll never do it again.”
“Damn right you won’t,” April said.
I turned to my best friend. “Marcus, I lied to you, and you almost died because of it. I don’t expect you to be able to forgive me, but I want you to know I love you like a brother. I hope in time I can make it up to you.”
“Jackson, you’ve saved my life more times than I can count. We’re all square, bro.”
I turned my gaze on Britta. I almost felt like what I had done to her was the worst. Sure, she had been spying on me, but after I promised her that I wouldn’t do the same, I used that and her fears of being alone as leverage to get what I wanted. “Britta.” I had to stop because a sob shook my entire body. “What I did to you was wrong. I should have never put you in a position to have to choose between your life with us and your friendship. What I forced you to do could have gotten you killed, and I’m sorry.”
“In the end, it brought all of us closer together.” She looked at April and Marcus. “But if you ever do something like that again, I’ll shoot you myself.” One of her guns jumped into her hand. She pointed it at me and then spun it around and holstered it.
Finally, it was my turn to address the love of my life. “April, I lied to you. I did it every day for weeks. I know how terrible that must have been for you, trying to figure out exactly what I was hiding. It couldn’t have been easy, especially while you were dealing with your injury. I should have been there for you. Instead, I did what I wanted, and shut you out.”
She came forward and kissed me on the lips. “All you had to do was ask, and all of us would have done anything for you. We’re stronger together.”
“I know that now. I was selfish and stupid. It doesn’t matter that it all worked out. None of it should have happened in the first place.”
“But it did work out, bro.”
“All of us are here now, together,” Britta said.
“And tonight we are going to put a hell of a hurt on those demons,” April said.
“Fucking A,” I said with a smile. They all repeated me like that was our new catch phrase. Just like that, it was over. We were a family again. I loved my friends. I couldn’t imagine doing this without them. It felt good knowing that if something happened tonight, that I had made amends with them.
“Now let’s go see what kind of batshit crazy plan Adam has drawn up for us,” Marcus said.
We filed out of the RV and started to head toward the meeting. I wrapped my arm around April’s waist and pulled her tight against me. It was going to be hard letting her go tonight. Letting her fight. I knew that she would resent me forever if I asked her to stay back, so I never would. I just hoped that all of us came out of this in one piece.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jackson
“Nice of you to finally show up,” Adam said as we walked over to the command tent. He fixed me with his steely gaze. “Before we get started, I was wondering if you could make a call to Alby and see if she can lend us any assistance.”
“Do we even have time to wait if she can offer it?” I had to ask. It wouldn’t hurt to make the call either way, but if we were attacking before they got here, then it seemed like a waste of time.
“I’ve already dispatched someone to her location. If she agrees, our agent will open a portal for her men.”
“Who did you send?”
“Inspector Lapointe.”
“I’ll tell her to be on the lookout for him.”
Adam had turned to Henry as I walked away from the tent. They had a few more kinks to work out. He was probably already incorporating the fey warriors he expected into the plans. I had an old number for Alby. I hoped it still worked. Now that she was the guardian of her grove, she might be too important to take my calls.
She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Albalicious, what’s up?”
“I’ve just been kicking back and waiting for your call, Firestarter.”
“Oh yeah, and why would you be waiting for my call?”
“Well, if the rumors are true, something big is going down in Vegas.”
Damn, did news really travel that fast? I had heard we had managed a media blackout to this point, but it wouldn’t hold forever. I guess rumors moved through the supernatural community faster than the news now. “I’m not sure what the rumors are, but the demons have amassed a sizable force here, and we could use some hel
p sending them all back to hell.”
“And by sizable force, how many do you mean?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s damn near all of them, at least the ones on earth, anyway. Listen, Alby, I know it’s asking a lot, especially when some of your warriors might not make it back. You don’t have to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”
“Are you kidding? After what the demons did to us, to Shalana. They killed her and replaced her with that thing to destroy us from the inside. Fuck, if anything, my warriors are itching for some payback.”
“Awesome. Everyone you send makes it more likely that more of us will survive.”
“I’ll be coming along with one hundred of my warriors. When is this fight going down?”
“Right now, or within the hour. Can you be ready?”
“We’re ready now, but it’s going to take us a few hours to get there.”
I slapped a hand on my forehead. “Alby, I forgot to mention we sent a friend of mine to open a portal for you.”
“Before I even said yes?”
I heard a little bit of agitation in her voice, and rightly so. It was hard not to feel like you were being manipulated when the pieces fit into place before you even made a decision. “You know Adam, he prepares for any eventuality.”
“Just tell me who to expect.”
“His name is Lapointe. He’s a good man.”
“Thanks for the heads-up and the chance to avenge someone we all cared about.”
“See you soon, Albalicious.”
I hung up the phone before she could call me Firestarter. I hated that damn name. It reminded me of a time that I’d like to forget. It also reminded me of my parents, and how they were gone now. There was so much about them that I missed. Now that I finally had both of my biological parents back, I wondered what it would be like. Not the same surely, but maybe something close.
Before I even finished stepping into the command tent, Adam turned to me. “So?”
“She’s coming, and with one hundred warriors.”
Redemption (Ascendancy Legacy 6) Page 18
