She snorted a laugh. “Not surprised. That pretty much always happens when you're dealing with demons. It definitely happens if you’re dealing with a demon who’s been out of Hell for this long. Especially since I'm the only expert in the area.”
“Wanna tell me about the party—and the horseshoes?” I pointed at the huge horseshoe hanging from her neck.
“Demon-repellent.” She gave a little smile at that. “I was just going to offer some to you three, actually. I’m trying to invent a version that will work when a werewolf shifts. The giant horseshoe seems the best fit, but Zeezee says it’s hard to deal with in wolf form.”
“How did you know to give my sister and Zane these demon-repellent charms before the party?”
“I’m hungry. Want to buy me lunch?” Nancy asked. “There’s a taco truck down the road, and I’ve secured the road from here to the lot where the truck parks.”
“You demon proofed the road between your house and a taco truck?” I asked.
“I’ll buy you a few tacos,” Jane said, speaking up for what I was pretty sure was the first time since Nancy stepped out of her house. “If it’ll get you to talk.”
Nancy grinned at Jane, and I could see a bit of heat enter her eyes. “I think you could get me to loosen my lips.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Scarlet
Five minutes later, we were seated at one of the faded picnic tables in the dusty courtyard in front of the brightly painted food truck, Delicioso.
Mack sat beside me, dripping holy water. Nancy had no qualms about emptying a bottle on the guy the moment he stepped out of the van. Clearly, she hadn’t trusted my assurances or her anti-demon defenses around the picnic benches. I didn’t think it was an accident that the rest of us got splashed with the water at the same time. Maybe no precaution was too much when it came to demons.
Zeezee glowered in the front seat of the van, our untrustworthy getaway driver if things went south fast. Getaway driver was perhaps too strong a description. More like I’d put her on “shut up, and don’t bother me” duty. Maybe Nancy was right, and my sister was acting selflessly for the first time in Zeezee history. And maybe pigs really could fly.
She’d still gone around my authority and put our pack in danger by keeping the incubus a secret. It wasn’t her intentions that had me angry. It was the results of her actions.
And yet, when Aaron had volunteered to bring her tacos, I’d bought her some of her favorites and sent over a soda as well.
We waited as Nancy sipped her bottled beer and finished yet another taco. The woman had to be on her fifteenth.
Jane passed over a napkin, her gaze studying the gray-haired demon fighter. “Do you need me to get you some more tacos, or have I earned a couple of questions?”
The demon-fighter leaned back and basically eye-fucked the lawyer. With the glances these two were shooting between them, I was beginning to feel like a voyeur. “Hit me with it.”
Jane swallowed hard and reached down to her briefcase. I thought that her mouth might be fighting a smile, but I didn’t know the woman all that well. “Alright, let’s start with the hard questions.” She poised her pen over a pad of paper. “First off, how did you know that the demon was going to be conjured at the party?”
“Didn’t.” Nancy wiped the edge of her mouth with a napkin, balled up the paper and threw it on the plate.
I leaned an elbow on the table. “You actually want us to believe you didn’t know? You went to my sister’s strip club and invited her home with the intention of giving her demon repellent charms.”
Jane shot me a look, and in an undertone, she asked, “Would it be all right if I ask the questions for now, Alpha?”
I cut my gaze over to the woman. Everything in me fought against ceding control right now, but it was obvious that Jane was more experienced in this, and she and Nancy had instant rapport.
Fuck. Was Zeezee right?
Did I micromanage everything?
Clenching my jaw, I gritted out, “For now.”
The two little words hurt on the way out.
Nancy’s gaze bounced between us as she took another sip, studying our dynamic. Setting her beer on the picnic table, she asked, “Do you want me to answer that one?”
Jane gave the other woman a little smile. “I was going to get to it.”
“In some way that would hem me in, I would guess?” Nancy asked the question with a spark of amusement in her gaze, making me think she enjoyed the thought that Jane was trying to trap her in her own words.
Obviously, this was an A, B conversation, and these two wanted me to C myself the fuck out of it.
“Well, it’s a bit complicated,” Nancy said on a sigh, all flirtation dropping from her expression. She worked her thumb under the label of her beer, absently pulling it off. “Do you know who Morte is?”
Jane nodded, her pen already scratching along her pad. “Born Joshua Bright. Age nineteen. Graduated from the local high school six months ago. Solid C student.”
“Also known as my half-brother.” Taking another swig, Nancy set down the beer. “I could do with another one of these.”
Mack took the empty bottle and headed to the truck, returning a second later with beers for the whole table. It was barely afternoon, but when he popped the cap off, I readily swigged down the cold liquid.
Nancy set down her bottle, worked her jaw back and forth, and sighed. “Morte’s a good kid. We didn’t really know each other until recently. My mom was a necromancer, but she had a lot of problems. She’d already ditched my dad and me before she had Morte, so I didn’t even know he existed until he was taken, fostered, and then adopted. His parents are great, but they made the decision not to let the kid have much contact with the fucked-up side of his rogue mage family. My father wasn’t related to Morte, and… He was complicated as well. It was what it was. But when my brother’s powers started developing…” She opened her hands.
“They came to you.”
“Of course. They were ill-equipped to deal with a fifteen-year-old who was reanimating corpses in the graveyard to impress his classmates.” Sighing, she swigged down the rest of her second beer.
Aaron slid his unopened one across the table, and Nancy immediately popped off the cap. “This will be my last. I don’t want to be telling you all too much.” She cracked a smile. “Anyway, the kid mentored under me for a while. Just to learn the ropes, so he could get his powers under control. But he and I don’t see eye to eye in the business. The kid is sweet as fuck, but he’s driven to be recognized. If I taught him something, he’d immediately post a video tutorial about it on social media and count every single view coming through.”
“I’ve watched several of those,” Jane said as she continued to write.
“You didn’t show me that,” I said.
Jane had promised to keep me updated in this investigation, but clearly updated meant something very different to her.
“I found nothing pertinent to the case on them. They were very—”
Nancy snorted. “Ridiculous.”
Jane’s lips twisted. “I was going to say dramatic.”
“Then you were going to be nice.” While peeling off the label on her new beer, Nancy said, “He wanted to impress people, and I have no more fucks to give. Eventually, he didn’t see working for my little demon business as a good fit. He went union, making his parents happy. He’d drop in once a week so I could kick his ass at videogames, and he could tell me about everything he was doing, ask advice, stuff like that.”
“So, you two were still close?” Jane asked.
“Are still close.” Nancy thumped her bottle onto the picnic table. “Morte is alive.”
“They found Morte’s DNA at the scene.” Jane trailed off, her gaze on Nancy, who was shaking her head.
“His blood. They found his blood spilled over the scene. If Morte was dead, this incubus would be loose. But it’s not. It’s bound to a task. Each day, it feeds, chases down a target to
lick, and then goes into hiding and no more. If it were free, trust me, you would know it.”
“You know that it was Morte who conjured it?” Jane asked as her pen continuously scratched over the pad.
“He borrowed some supplies from me. I don’t summon demons, but my mother would do just about anything for money. When she died, her supplies came to me, and I was stupid enough to lock them under a blood spell, thinking that when I had the time and money, I’d dispose of them in a way that would prevent anyone getting ahold of them. It was like I designed the situation perfectly for Morte or something.” She swigged down the rest of her beer, and then whispered, “Damn it, now I want one more.”
Mack nodded toward the food truck. “Want me to get another?”
“No.” She pursed her lips. “If Marina knew that you gave me a second and third, she’d be pissed.”
“I already know,” a woman called from inside the food truck. “I’m not your mother, Nancy. You want to put your life and the rest of the city in danger from demons, that’s up to you.”
Nancy rolled her eyes. “See, she’s pissed. All right.” She stood, climbing off the bench seat and stretching.
“Are we leaving?” Jane asked as she continued to write.
“I just need to stretch. I’m tracking the demon tonight. You probably want me to explain what happened on the night of the summoning, right? That’s why we’re here.” She stretched her arms as she continued. “Last week, Morte started asking me pointed questions about demons—all theoretical, of course, but I didn’t like them. So, I followed him to the Full Moon strip club. Morte is anything but subtle. Or observant.”
“How so?” Jane asked.
“He always sat on one side of the club, but his eyes were on Zeezee. If she ever came over, he pretended like he was enraptured by another dancer. I brushed it aside until my shit went missing. Only one person could’ve broken through my blood spell.” She shook her head. “The dumbass.”
Though the words were harsh, I got the sense that she was both sad and hurt by her brother’s actions. “According to lore, demons are very fond of possessing werewolves. I wasn’t sure if your sister was my bro’s secret crush or his target for this demon summoning, so I gave her the ring and earrings, knowing that she couldn’t be possessed with iron horseshoes on.”
Jane peeked up from her paper. “You didn’t warn her?”
Nancy squeezed her eyelids shut as she continued to stretch out her arms. Opening her eyes, she sighed. “No, I didn’t. Zeezee seemed unhinged, and I didn’t want her going after Morte if I was reading the situation all wrong. I fucked up. I hoped that if my theory was correct, and he was going after Zeezee, Morte would have to find a new target, giving me time to stalk him and get my shit back.”
She slumped back onto the bench. “Problem is, I get where he’s coming from. Being a necromancer blows most of the time. After I got a sense of Morte’s personality, I knew it was a matter of time before he started taking higher paying jobs. Enforcing the city’s protections and killing demons that slip through from hell pays absolutely nothing. Honestly, sometimes it costs more money than it pays. When you’re eating spam out of a can with no heat and a leaky roof, it’s hard to unknow the fact that there are always those who would pay truckloads for you to raise a demon or reanimate the dead.”
“Good people died at that party,” Mack said in a hoarse whisper, his voice full of an underlying emotion. His tone made me strongly suspect that when he’d told me that he didn’t know anyone at that party, he was hiding the truth for my benefit. He’d been through so much in the past few days. Too much for a lifetime.
Scooting into Mack’s side, I reached down and threaded my fingers through his. He squeezed my hand in his warm and familiar grip. Leaning in close to his ear, I whispered, “I love you.”
His hand squeezed tighter, and he nodded.
I was barely aware of Nancy, who was saying something about how she didn’t know that this was going to be a full demon crossing until she arrived at the party after the carnage. She’d thought it would be a demon possession, which was easily containable. Leaning over, Nancy snatched my nearly full beer, lifted it to her lips and chugged the liquid down like a runner chugs water after a hundred-yard dash.
We all just watched her throat bob, and someone in the food truck muttered a stream of curse words.
Slamming down the beer, Nancy shook her head. “You know I have to get out of here if I’m going to track this fucker down. We lost him yesterday, and he’s been swapping skins daily.” At our dumbfounded expression, she clarified. “He takes on the appearance of people, right down to their eye color and voice. He only reverts to his infernal form when he’s found his next target.”
“That’s the pale, tonguey form?” I asked.
She made a gun with her hands and clicked her tongue. “You’ve seen it. Sexy, isn’t he?”
“Mouthwatering.” Speaking the words made me gag a little. “So, there’s only one?”
“Let’s hope so.” Nancy shook her head. “Sorry, the answer to that is yes. There’s only one.”
“Why would a full demon-crossing be more dangerous than a possession?” Jane asked, half standing as her pen still moved.
“Oh. People hire necromancers to summon sex demons to cause scandals with politicians and world leaders, that type of shit. The intention is for some human mafioso to get a senator in their pocket. Once in a while, the incubus will be summoned to assassinate someone while posing as the world leader. If that’s all that happens, I just track these stories in the news after the demon is banished. Problem is that once in a while, it doesn’t end in a sex or murder scandal. A full demon’s only goal is to break loose of their summoner, and they often do. After an incubus breaks free, he’ll go on a killing spree. First, he’ll hunt down his summoner. Then we’ll start to see deaths caused by violent sex of the sort that happened at that party. The incubus’ energy makes it feel good to be ripped apart.” She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of something as large scale as this party, and I’ve heard countless cases.”
“With werewolves from my pack at the center of this, we’ve been theorizing that whoever arranged this wanted to make it look like claws tore through those people,” I said.
“I’ve never heard of someone ordering an incubus to use violent sex as a weapon, but there’s a first time for every horror in this business. Welp.” Nancy pulled a plastic wrapped cigar from her pocket and set it to hanging from her bow-shaped lips. “I know you want to rip your sister a new asshole, but I’m going to need her to catch this demon tonight. Think you could leave it at yelling at her, and let her stay with me?”
“Hold up.” I closed the distance to the demon hunter. “You and my sister are trapping the demon tonight? Why didn’t you tell us that before?”
Nancy laughed. “Trust me, pretty Alpha Lady, this isn’t something you want to be involved in. And we don’t need your help. This is between your sister and me.”
“Not if you want to use one of my pack members in your plan, it’s not,” I said. “That is the definition of needing my help. How do you even know where the incubus will be?”
“I hope I can trust you to keep this between yourselves. The demon hasn’t resurfaced in two days. He’ll need to feed. Zeezee was going to be my in at the strip club.” Nancy nodded her head toward the van where my sister still sat eating her tacos. “She was going to put on a show at the Full Moon with one of the patrons to draw in the demon while I trap him.”
“A show?” My stomach sank as I realized what she was saying. “You’re not just talking about stripping, are you?”
“We need to get the demon locked in a feeding trance enough to trap him. She’ll lock him in by stirring up a shit ton of sexual energy, and I’ll trap him.”
Aaron stepped up beside me. “How do you know he’ll go there?”
“He will,” Nancy said with complete confidence. “There’s nothing an incubus loves more than a live sex show, and
Zeezee spread it far and wide that she’s planning to pick one of her patrons and screw them on stage tonight. It’s basically like an all you can eat buffet for a sex demon.”
“Nope. No.” I waved my hands through the air. “My sister isn’t going to do a live sex show.”
The door to the van swung open behind me. “Yes, I am! For Zane!”
“Zane is in San Francisco,” I yelled back. “He’s safe.”
“Well, then I’m doing it to trap the demon and catch the assholes who framed Zane and me. If we don’t do it, and the incubus manages to complete his mission, her brother will die, someone will get away with framing me, and fae will kill everyone in our pack.”
“No fucking way,” I growled.
“I don’t need you to babysit me, Scar,” Zee said. “I enjoy fucking strangers, and I’ll be wearing charms. It’s none of your business.”
“I wouldn’t have a problem with it if you were doing it for your own enjoyment, Zee. That’s you’re business. Having public sex to save the pack is something else entirely. That is way over the line of duty. No.”
“I’m a fucking adult.” Zeezee slammed the van door.
Nancy nodded toward the van. “This whole thing was Zeezee’s idea, and it’s a good one. We need to give him enough energy for a feeding, but also be able to catch him while he’s locked in. If he goes and sees only strippers, he might not get enough energy to feed on and leave. I’m figuring you’re as committed to keeping the incubus alive as me.”
“You want to keep him alive?” Jane asked.
Sparking her lighter, Nancy lit her cigar and puffed on it before exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Only way you’re going to find who conjured him, and the only way I’ll find my brother. Whoever arranged this has no problem killing people to tie up loose ends, so they’ll keep Morte alive as long as the demon.” She sucked on her cigar and blew down, filling the air with the scent of vanilla smoke. “You guys will be hard pressed to find anyone else who can kill the incubus, and I’m not going to do it until he leads me to Morte. Lucky for you, I’m planning to do that tonight. But I’ll need your sister.”
Filthy Fae: A Dirty Alphas Novel (Heartland Forest Book 2) Page 19
