The reaction from the people in the room was most odd. No one ran screaming from the building as auctioned items began levitating into the air before re-enacting into duels driven by invisible hands, and champagne continued raining down from broken bottles above. This was a ghostly brawl only my human eyes could see.
Searching out Wilcox, he appeared to be making his way toward me but a roadblock in the form of a dozen ghosts racing past, cheering on the fight, put the brakes on his quickened steps. While the detective couldn’t see into the veil, he was most certainly sensitive to it. A fact I was noticing more and more of late.
Humans raced around the room, excitement expressed on flushed faces as people grabbed for the remaining bottles of liquor before ducking behind chairs. A large hand wrapped around my arm. Surprised by the movement, I allowed myself to be jerked behind an overturned table. The man belonging to the grabbing hand was already crouched down for shelter from flying debris. He grinned. “Exciting show, eh?”
“What’s going on?”
“Ghosts.”
“You believe in ghosts?” I asked.
“Well, sure.” He gestured toward the room. “How else do you explain the flying objects? Happens every year.”
“And people still attend this event?”
“Still attend?” He stared at me. “Lady, this charity event would have ended years ago if the dead hadn’t started joining to liven things up a bit. This auction is the most popular one held in the city because it’s haunted. The broken auctions items will now sell for more than they would have if left untouched by the spirits’ hands.”
Well, then. This night was certainly proving to be… peculiar.
Wilcox had yet to make his way to me in the chaos, and Eyes went back to searching him out. It wasn’t my date my gaze finally settled on, however.
The woman I’d been searching for was standing near the exit to the room, once again speaking with the man I’d seen her with most of the night. As I watched, she handed him a cell phone. No doubt his. No doubt containing her phone number.
A blond woman approached the redhead, and the two women ducked out through the doorway as a champagne glass shattered against the wooden frame. The dark-haired man turned back to the room, and I had the first glimpse of his face. Tall and lanky he stood while surveying his surroundings. His eyes appeared to move at a rapid pace. Then the man exited out the back, leaving my sight.
Rising to my feet, I stared at the newly vacated spot at the entrance to the room. Too late to follow the man and uncertain of my next move. Wilcox finally made it to my side. He brushed my arm for attention. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I looked up to the detective’s face. “I think I saw him.”
“Who?”
“The demon. The man I saw wasn’t human. I could tell he was tracking the ghosts. Humans can’t see ghosts. And you know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I think I know him.” I turned back to the empty doorway. “Now I have to remember from where.”
Chapter 11
“She texted me five times.” I stood, rubbing at my butt, which felt sore from the new lump taking up unauthorized residence in my couch cushion, and then I paced. “Next she left three voicemails. Three.”
The small space of my living area wasn’t large enough to out-walk my aggravation. Planting both fists onto my hips, I turned and faced my best friend. My only friend who could be counted on. The one who would listen, who would sympathize, who would understand my frustration when I asked, “How many times in one day can a woman demand shopping trips? The mall doesn’t even open until noon.”
Hellhound’s large jaw fell apart into a wide yawn before he dropped his massive head onto plate-sized paws.
“Are you listening to me?” I asked. So much for my new designated BFF having my back. “Lacey Briggs does not shut up when she wants something, and right now she thinks she wants us to go have our toenails painted together and try on Jimmy Choos. I’m not giving up my day off to watch her spend money and listen to whining about some person who doesn’t live up to her high expectations. A person who doesn’t wear the right clothing, or laugh at the right jokes.
“The me of this alternate 1985 since I’ve momentarily been fast-tracked onto the socially acceptable list.” I kicked at a fallen couch pillow before glancing back down at the mutt. “And you’re fired as my new bestie. Having watched Back to the Future at least twenty times is a requirement to maintain the friendship status, and your tail hasn’t so much as thumped against the floor in recognition. How can you not have seen it? It’s a classic. What sort of movies do they show in Hell?” I gave the beast a stern look. “Hadley had seen the film one hundred and twenty-eight times by the time we started seventh grade. She can quote the movie verbatim.”
One hundred and twenty-five times was the number I’d reached by the first day of class. A who-can-watch-Marty-McFly-travel-back-in-time-the-most competition had somehow started the summer after sixth grade. Despite Hadley’s serious competitive streak, I would have won. But then my mother had gone and tossed the movie into the garbage can, killing off my chances.
If I was expecting Hellhound to jump to his feet and begin nosing his way through my DVD collection, I was out of luck. Hadley had big shoes to fill and a hellhound the size of a Shetland pony, straight from the pits, who had a preference for squid, wasn’t even going to expand into half of them.
I sighed. Besides, talking to an invisible beast that didn’t speak back was exhausting work. I was tasked with keeping up the entire conversation myself.
“So now that…” Turning, the emergency brake threw on my steps. Body flung forward by the abrupt stop of my feet. My arms flew out, Hands grasping air in a desperate search for solid objects that could aid in stabilizing my unsteady balance. Through it all, my focus never wavered from the sight standing in front of me.
Damon Reed. All dark featured and shifty eyed.
Hellhound had yet to let out a whimper. Much less a growl. Heck, I’d even take a panting of acknowledgment to the evilness that made up one Warlock asshole. But considering that I no longer stood inside my apartment, the beast could be forgiven. Hellhound had disappeared along with my meager furnishings. Details of my surroundings came into focus, along with the most important aspect: This was a vision.
Breath exhaled on a wheeze as Damon’s hands drew up to clutch my arms, his fingers digging deep into my flesh. Damn, that was going to leave a bruise. With subterfuge no longer a requirement regarding this Warlock, I gave my shoulders a hard shrug, forcing his hands to slip back down to his sides.
He smiled. It wasn’t kind. “Nice to see you again, Kiara. Hiding out has gotten old?” He inched forward. We touched toe to toe. A vibe of evil radiated off the man so strongly, the skin on the back of my neck pricked. Damon’s hand raised, his fingertips brushing a gentle caress of ice down my right cheek. “Not that you could’ve stayed hidden if I’d wanted you found.”
“Cockiness will be your downfall,” I said. Clearing my throat, I mustered as much steel into my tone of voice as possible. “Don’t think you control me.”
“A challenge, nothing more.” He inched another step forward, planting himself firmly in my personal space. “Now that I have you, we only need the coordinates.”
“You don’t have me,” I said, stepping back. “And good luck with the coordinates to whatever you want. I haven’t a clue what you’re searching for.”
“Oh, I think you do.” Invisible fingers clutched at my throat. Oxygen became a luxury as my lungs demanded more through the tight grip on my windpipe. Damon leaned back, one hip casually resting against the side of a building.
It was night, and we stood inside an alley. Why the hell those narrow passageways had become so prominent in my life since receiving my powers, I would have to figure out. It seemed as though all things that went bump in the night truly preferred the clichéd location for all rendezvous points. Damon flicked a hand, and the pressure at m
y throat tightened. “You’re a joke, Kiara. One cleverly played against Hell. A prophecy with no powers. No fight. Don’t ever think I can’t control you.”
The invisible grip at my throat slackened. I fell forward at the waist, panting for breath.
“Shh… you’re of no use to me dead.” His voice gentled as he brushed back a lock of hair off my forehead and drew me upright by the pressure of his fingertip underneath my chin. “Now tell me where the map is, and I won’t hurt you. Much.”
Lungs filled as I forced aside panic. Somehow this bastard would feel the tip of my sword and die. With a shaky hand, I reached behind me only to realize there was no sword strapped to my back. Nor a leather jacket covering the upper half of my body to conceal the missing weapon. Well shit. I would somehow—
I lurched forward. As if pushed. Damon no longer stood in front of me. The darkly lit alley no longer my surroundings. Instead, I was perched on the edge of a roof. The tip of my toes desperately clinging to the rough concrete ledge as I was unwillingly suspended forward, cushioned only by air that seemed perfectly content to let me go.
Far below me on the street, cars appeared to be nothing more than small moving dots. Night still remained—friend or foe, it had yet to be determined. A cold breeze brushed against my clammy skin as I struggled against a tight grip wrapped around my useless arms, which were pinned behind me.
The person holding me hostage possessed superhuman strength… someone who taunted me with death. As soon as my executioner released his clamp on my narrow wrists, I would be as flat on the city sidewalk as a bigot’s off-colored joke.
Struggling, I managed to turn my head far enough to the side and peered behind me.
“Tristan?”
Sharp rings from my cell phone jerked me to the present. Breaths were labored while I gathered my thoughts. As if I’d taken up running a 5k, not hyperventilating over the images still so vivid in my mind. With a shaking hand, I pressed the answer button on my phone.
“Hello?”
“Kiara, honey,” my mother said. “Are you and Lacey going out shopping today? There’s a sweater I noticed in that store you like so much… what’s it called? Kahlua?”
“Bailey’s and Cream.”
“I knew it was one of those coffee liqueurs—”
“Baileys, the drink, is Irish whiskey and cream, Mom. Not a coffee liqueur.”
“Why would you want to shop at a place named after alcohol?”
Truth be told, that was the entire reason the store had caught my eye in the first place. Clothing designs were done in beiges, creams, and chocolates that were both trendy and affordable. Not to mention their excellent sales racks that made Checking Account smile. Worked well for a boss who deemed bright colors to be loud and tacky. Black was Maude’s color of preference.
The fact that shopping at a place named similar to my favorite after-dinner drink only made wanting to hit up a liquor store afterward, for an actual bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, a perk.
“Well, regardless, I noticed a pretty cream-colored knit sweater that would look nice on you,” my mother continued. “Pick it up while you’re there and I’ll give you some cash when I next see you. We should do lunch soon. Just the two of us.”
The years I’d waited for my mother to want to take the time out of her busy day to see me… My chest felt hollow. It wasn’t real. Her desire to have a relationship with me didn’t exist. Lacey was the new daughter in her life. The one she’d always wanted, but I never was. I swallowed. “Uh, sure, Mom. Thanks.”
“I’ll chat with you later, dear. You two have fun today.”
With a click, she was gone. I was left staring at my phone with the realization that I had been suckered into a shopping day with my number one nemesis who forgot we were enemies.
As I stared downward, it wasn’t the comprehension that my idea of torture was coming to fruition claiming my thoughts. No, it was the sight of dark bruising forming on my biceps that snagged my attention. Bruising at the same location where Damon had gripped me in a hold.
Except Damon’s tight squeeze had been in a vision—as in, future events. It had not yet happened.
So why the hell did I bare the markings?
Sophomore year in high school, Lacey Briggs had managed to accomplish within one week something that I hadn’t done in ten years: become friends with the in-crowd. The kids who threw the best parties. The ones who drove the best cars. Those who generated the school gossip, not sat on the sidelines waiting to hear about who had hooked up with whom after the last game, or what so-and-so did after downing five beers smuggled out of her parents’ fridge.
None of that had defined my teenage years. I’d never attained party-invite-worthy status, nor was the ten-year-old clunker of a car I’d received after my seventeenth birthday mentioned by the social elite. At least, not in good terms. My daily gossip inquiries were simply to ensure my name wasn’t on the hot-topics list. And I had been okay with that.
But for all of two-point-one seconds, I’d considered befriending the new girl in class that fateful school year. Of course, the thought had occurred prior to my realization that Lacey was making a play on my crush while also being the origination point for the rumor that I’d gotten a little too friendly with Carter Reese under the high school bleachers one balmy Friday night.
Carter had been our school’s stereotypical gamer nerd. I was ninety-nine percent certain the kid hadn’t known how to locate the football stadium, much less what to do underneath the bleachers if he’d found it. This had been the years just prior to the first iPhone. GPS still wasn’t a household name. Although a guy with Carter’s smarts may have already been rocking a TomTom… but back to his cluelessness with a girl in his arms bit? Facts were irrelevant when dealing with hormonal teenagers thriving on the latest scoop.
Had I even once wondered what the cool kids discussed while hanging out at the mall on some slow Sunday afternoon back in the day—which I’d hadn’t. But, if I had…
I was now a classified expert in all things gossip-worthy. Which was a hundred percent wasted time. Drama that my not-so-simple life could do without. Except instead of it being fellow high school students analyzed to a dangerous level of scrutiny—either fairly or unjustly—I got to hear about co-workers. Lacey’s coworkers. From my viewpoint, it felt ten years ago… like back during the first round of the drama and angst I had tried my best to avoid. Fate apparently decided there had been a screw-up and I shouldn’t have missed out on that teenage rite of passage. Except the higher number in age came with more raunchy circumstances to discuss in detail, no doubt.
Lucky me.
“So Sarah’s been seeing this guy for about two months now,” Lacey’s voice said through a fitting room door. “And she thinks she might be pregnant.”
Well, crap. How was I to respond to that? Was the potential pregnancy a good thing or bad? With them having dated for only a couple of months, I decided to stick with… “Wow… What a surprise.”
“I know.” Lacey stepped out into the sitting area. She turned, modeling herself in front of a three-way mirror. The expensive dress she’d squeezed onto her body was a little on the side of tight, and it made her butt look huge, but my mouth remained shut with that particular insight. Lacey’s eyes caught mine through the reflection in the glass. “She’s going to wait until the pregnancy’s confirmed before they tell the wife.”
Jaw dropped. “What wife?”
“Nick’s wife. You know, Nick? The guy Sarah’s been dating?” Lacey disappeared back inside the changing room.
Wow. Just… “And you’re okay with this?”
“Why should I care?” Lacey’s voice called out. “If the wife doesn’t like her man cheating, she should dump his ass.”
I stared at the closed dressing room door, wondering if the woman tucked away on the other side contained certain human traits… such as the one most people referred to as morals? Because seriously? Was it possible for me to despise Lacey more than I alread
y did?
No, that question did not need to be asked. Fate had already proven she liked tampering with particular answers in order to invoke chaos, and I didn’t trust her one bit where Lacey Briggs was concerned.
Hadley would have never dated a married man. Hadley would have never placed blame on an innocent wife who had the misfortune of marrying a cheating scumbag.
Damn Fate and her Loki ways. I wanted my real best friend back.
“Ready?” Lacey asked, emerging from the room, dressed in her own clothing. “I think I should buy the dress. It looked fabulous on me, don’t you agree?”
“Of course.” I smiled.
Exiting the shop several minutes and one purchase later, a peek was sneaked at my cell. Numbers displayed on the phone indicated that time had placed the afternoon of torture at one hour and counting. At what point could a have-headache-and-need-to-go be claimed? That card had to be used sparingly, so the timing required perfection.
“You need to try something on, Kiara,” Lacey said. She then pointed to a passing store window. “That blouse would look so cute on you. Get rid of the ugly jacket. I don’t understand why you always wear it.”
“I like the jacket. It’s comfortable.”
“It’s hideous and at least five seasons out of style.” Lacey tugged at my sleeve. “Come on, take it off.”
Nope. Not happening, and not because of the flat, short bladed sword strapped to my back, or the bruising that stood out in stark contrast against my pale, Irish inherited skin that marred my upper arms by an event that had yet to take place.
Simply put, I was going to remain wearing the jacket because Lacey didn’t want me to. I could be petty like that.
“New girl!”
Aww… shit. Not my day.
While the tone of voice had sounded on the side of perky when uttering the greeting, the darkened-eyes, and an even darker scowl, indicated Psychotic Bitch was anything but.
Destined to Reap (Reaping Fate Book 3) Page 13
