by Misty Evans
“Can’t.”
I squeezed her tighter. “Yes, you can, and you will. Don’t give me that pansy-assed, I can’t do it crap. You’re the strongest goddess I know.” She was the only goddess I knew but there was no point in splitting hairs. “You’re the strongest woman I know.”
“Need…love.”
A tear squeaked out of the corner of my eye and fell into her hair. “You know I love you. Not in the gay human way or even the gay demon way, but you know I love you like a…” I swallowed and forced the words out. “Like a sister.”
A small smile tightened her cheek under my chin. “Love…you…too.”
She relaxed another smidgen in my arms. Seemed like a good sign. “BFFs forever, right?”
Cole looked down and caught my eye, cocked an eyebrow at me. “While I’m totally digging the girl-on-girl action here, we need to move to a more secure location.”
I kicked out and hit him squarely in the side of his knee, making him yelp and nearly fall down. “And Neve loves you, and JR loves you, and probably the professor loves you even if he doesn’t realize it yet. For thousands of years, men and women alike have worshipped you. You’re one of the most loved figures in all of human history.”
She sighed deeply. “Who’s…the professor?”
“That college boy you brought by my place last week.”
“Oh.” She sounded sleepy now. “He’s only after me…for my…body.”
Damn, it was good to hear her joking again. I laughed, both from amusement and from relief. “And you’re only after him for his brains, right?”
This time she laughed, a small sound, but a good sound. I loosened my hold, touched her skin in different places. Not totally normal, but definitely warmer than when I’d first found her. “Feeling any better?”
“Yes.” She yawned. “Just tired.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Lilith wouldn’t wait for you. I tried to stop her from leaving.”
“I told you not to engage her in any way.” A new, ugly thought struck. “Did JR make it back?”
“No.”
Merde. She’d sent him to the blood bank nearly an hour earlier. He should have been back before then. Had he seen the lights were out and figured Di and Lilith were gone? My gut told me no. I removed my cell phone from my cape and punched the speed dial button for JR. The call went directly to voice mail and I swore under my breath.
Keeping my cape tucked around Di as I sat up, I looked at Cole. “Let’s take her back to my place. She can sleep and I can keep an eye on her there. I’ll send Rad to find JR.”
“No.” Di pushed up on an elbow, fell back down.
“Whoa, there. Take it easy.”
Rolling onto her back, she pressed her fingers against her temple. “Not your place.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone yet, and my place is safer. Your place doesn’t even have a deadbolt on the door.”
“Your place isn’t safe,” she said, voice stronger.
“Why not?” Cole asked.
Three things happened at the same time. A bam, bam, bam at the front door only a few feet away made me nearly jump out of my skin, Cole’s cell phone blared, its echo following on the heels of the knock, and Di sat up and grabbed me by the arms. “Lilith is there.”
Chapter Seventeen
Inside the office’s break room, Cole, Rad, Di and I stared at the floor. None of us sat at the small, square table that looked dingy in the growing natural light coming in from the hallway’s single window, even with my red cape tossed on it. Cole was on his phone near the door talking to Damon. Rad lounged against the sink. Di leaned on the fridge and I paced the two feet of open space across from her, toying with the end of my ponytail—a nervous habit.
I lowered my personal protective magic a notch in order to fuel the protective circle I was sustaining around the building. The entire complex, actually. The humans next door weren’t in direct danger from Lilith or the vamps, but demons and the Undead cared little about collateral damage. I couldn’t take the chance any of the humans would get hurt in the crossfire.
Normally, I wouldn’t have needed to shift my energies and focus from one to the other, but that morning I was drained. The past twelve hours had taken its toll on me, mentally, physically and emotionally. I prided myself on stamina, but this was a little much.
The single bright spot at that moment was the coffee in my hands. Once again, Rad had come through in the coffee delivery department, stopping at the coffeehouse before knocking on the front door of Sweet Investigations.
The first sip had nearly made me swoon. It was hot, creamy and oh, so perfect. Thank the sweet fires of hell for Rad and his obsession with coffee.
The thought made me nearly drop my cup, Rad’s half-lidded gaze intensifying as he watched me. A few hours ago, I’d wanted to kill him. Now I was grateful because he’d brought me the perfect cup of coffee?
Yes, dammit. It was wrong, but I had to admit, it was also true. Amazing what you’re willing to forget over a simple act of kindness. All was not forgotten, but temporarily dismissed, in this case.
“Finish your story,” I said to Di. “You tried to stop Lilith from leaving. She shot you full of evil and took off. Why do you think she’d go to my house?”
“Like I told you on the phone, she said she had a job for you. Since Victoria had raised her, she planned to put her time on Earth to good use but she wasn’t waiting around. Said she couldn’t trust anyone else to do the job properly. While she was talking, she started acting like a junkie needing a fix. She said she couldn’t wait for you or JR and she would find you at home when she was ready.”
Ready for what exactly?
She doesn’t know where I live, crossed my mind, but Lilith wasn’t human. She was my creator. I was tied to her like she was tied to Vicky. My umbilical cord was much thinner but she could still use her senses to find me like a bloodhound tracking a rabbit. “She is a junkie. For souls. She needs lots of them to stay here on Earth.”
“What about the blood?”
“An appetizer. The blood JR was bringing wouldn’t have sustained her for long.”
Thinking of JR, I speed-dialed his phone. Once more, it went directly to voice mail. I left him the third message of the morning.
Rad played with his cup, turning it in circles. “What kind of job would Lilith need you for? One she only trusts you with?”
Di and I exchanged a knowing glance. What else did women, both supernatural and human, come to me for?
“Vengeance,” we said at the same time.
Rad whistled softly. “Who would be ballsy enough to piss off the queen of demons, and why wouldn’t Lilith seek her own revenge?”
Both good questions. Ones I didn’t have answers to.
Cole was listening intently to Damon, sneaking an occasional glance my way. Jamming a hand through his short hair, he finally said, “Right,” before he disconnected and slipped the phone inside his jacket. “Boss says I’m to bring you back to the Institute, pronto.”
“Un, unh. No way. Besides the fact Lilith is on the loose and looking for me, I need to find JR. I need to protect Di. I can’t do any of those things at the Institute.”
“You don’t need to protect me,” Di said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Fine like you were when I arrived?”
She stuck her tongue out at me.
Rad straightened. “She can come with me and we’ll find JR.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. How damn gallant could one half-demon be? “Don’t you have band practice or a concert in Canada or something?”
“North American tour doesn’t start until next month. I’m free.”
Oh, goodie. “What about your other job?”
He didn’t need me to spell out I was talking about his demon hunting. “No assignments at the moment.”
“What other job?” Di asked.
Cole huffed. “Kali, let’s go.”
Good to know I wa
sn’t an assignment on Rad’s docket, but on the other hand, why wasn’t I an assignment? I was so high up in the demon hierarchy, freakin’ Lilith wanted to hire me. “Tell Damon to screw himself. I’m not hiding out at the Institute. I’m not safe there from Lilith anyway. I’m not safe anywhere.”
“Don’t make me hurt you,” Cole said with a hint of jesting in his eyes.
I smiled, but there was no humor in it. “The only way for me to handle this mess is to confront it head on. I’m not hiding behind Damon’s skirts. Lilith wants me to do a job and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“There are other vengeance demons around,” Cole said. “She can find someone else.”
“But I’m the best.” I set my coffee cup down, the rich flavor now bitter in my mouth. “And the queen of demons only accepts the best. She’s not going to kill me until the job’s done.”
Cole, Rad and Di looked at me like I was one hellhound short of a six-pack. Rad shook his head. “And when the job is done?”
I opened my mouth to reply, saw Cole go rigid. “What is it?” I whispered.
He raised his gun and threw my cape at me. “Weapon up. We’ve got company.”
Chapter Eighteen
The doorknob jiggled. Cole stood on one side of the door, me on the other. His gun pointed at the ceiling and his head tilted toward the wall as he listened to whoever was on the other side. Rad had taken up post at the front door, watching out the windows in the waiting room in case anyone tried coming through that door. Di held her pepper spray and was standing in the hall, ready to do battle from either direction. For what good it would do, she chanted a love spell at the same time.
If the electricity had been working, we could have seen who was outside on my security camera monitors. As it was, we were blind to who or what was trying to get in.
I put my nose to the door and drew a whiff as I heard the sound of metal on metal. Was someone trying to pick the lock? Touching the door handle, I tried to sense if our assailant was magical or human. No buzz of energy and only the faint feel of heat.
Filtering through the steel door, I caught the scent of sweaty human. The sharp tang of fear. The musky smell of male deodorant that had failed about two hours ago.
The doorknob jiggled again, followed by a soft rapping of knuckles. “Kali? Di? Anybody in there?”
I waved off Cole, a sudden lightness filling my chest. “It’s JR.”
We unlocked and opened the door, JR practically falling inside as we did so. His hair, usually flat and straight, was spiked in random places. His glasses were askew. A dirty streak smudged his fair skin from chin to ear, and his clothes were torn and soiled.
“What happened to you?” I asked, relocking the door and turning on the alarm.
JR was shorter than me by in inch or so, scrawny to boot, but he was a whiz at all things tech oriented, which Di and I weren’t. Plus, he had a master’s degree in religious studies. He’d read and analyzed texts that were thousands of years old and had a library that rivaled Damon’s. He could spout the history of Rome with more accuracy than I could and I lived through several centuries of it.
Besides Neve, JR was the only one-hundred-percent human who knew I was a demon, and also like Neve, didn’t treat me any different because of it.
He pushed his glasses back into place, glanced at Cole and then stared at my chin. JR never looked anyone in the eye. When I’d first met him, the idiosyncrasy had annoyed me until I realized he was just extremely shy, even with people he knew. “Vampires. At least I think they were. They wanted the blood.”
His eyes met mine for a split-second. He shuffled his feet, crossed his arms over his chest, uncrossed them, fiddled with the edge of his coat. “They were waiting for me when I came out of Chloe’s and jumped me. Asked me if the blood was for you and if you were going to drink it.” He shuddered.
Rad and Di joined us, Di throwing her arms around JR and hugging him. “You’re okay.”
JR blushed and Di looked him over. “Good grief. Did you roll in the dirt or just bathe in it?”
His blush deepened. I motioned everyone into my office. The break room wasn’t big enough for all of us.
My office was sparse, but filled with things I loved, most especially an early seventeenth-century Italian desk that had been my father’s. The dark wood was scarred, mainly from me, but it held a wealth of good memories and my father’s strong presence. As I settled into my office chair, I ran my hands over the ornate drawers and worn top and felt grounded again.
Cole stood guard at the door, frowning in thought. “Why would the vamps want to know if you’re drinking blood?”
“Maybe they heard about my run for vamp queen and think I need the blood to keep up appearances.”
Di, who was sitting on my sofa, went bug-eyed. “Your run for what?”
Rad was also giving me a curious look. I waved them off. “It’s a temporary assignment from the Bridge Council to form a new alliance with the Prince of the Undead and his minions. I’m carrying Nudra’s blood and have a couple of blood…” I cut myself off and looked at Rad. He didn’t give anything away, for which I was glad. “The coronation ceremony is in two days and a few of the vampires might be upset about me becoming queen, even if it is temporary.”
JR stared at his shoes. “They took the blood and the blond guy took my cell phone. Bastard. That was the next gen xCelsar. Public doesn’t even have it yet. Hell, the CIA doesn’t even have it yet.”
JR was friends with some scary-smart people. He was always getting ahold of gadgets that the rest of us didn’t know existed.
“Why would they want his phone?” I said to Cole and Rad. “Just because it was different?”
Rad shrugged. “Vamps like bling.”
Cole didn’t seem to care about the phone. “What’d these assholes look like? How many were there? The blond, was he the leader?”
“I think so.” JR scrunched up his face. “I don’t know. Guy was an idiot. Called me dude about a hundred times and talked like he’d toked too much in the back of the surf shop.”
I sat forward. “Blondie have blue eyes and a shark tooth necklace?”
JR’s eyes skimmed my chin. “Yeah. You know him?”
I smirked, sat back and shook my head. “That little fuckweed.”
Everyone was eyeing me, curiosity on their faces, so I gave them an explanation. “Toel Chase. He’s the vamps’ west coast regional manager. Vamp king in other words. I thought he was enamored with me, but that’s too weird that he would jump JR and steal the blood we intended for Lilith.”
JR looked at the doorway, fiddled with his glasses. “Where is Lilith, by the way?”
“She’s gone,” Di said. “Probably waiting for Kali at her house.”
Yeah, and didn’t that just make my already shitty day even better. I wasn’t sure who I most wanted to deal with: Toel or Lilith. Both had messed with my friends and I didn’t take that lightly.
Thinking about my friends, a new thought popped into my head. “Did you have contact list on that phone?”
My tech guru nodded.
“Can you track the phone on your computer? Find out where Toel and his friends are?”
“Why?” Cole asked. “You going after a vamp for stealing a cell phone?”
“My friend Neve is in that address book, plus other innocent people. If Toel’s trying to get to me, that’s the perfect way to do it. I underestimated him once. I won’t do it again.”
Cole shrugged as if I was giving the vamp too much credit. “He sent JR back.”
“As a message. To let me know he’s gunning for me.”
My bodyguard glared at me, impatient. “My orders are to bring you back to the Institute, not track down this Toel freak.”
“I’m not hiding inside the Institute while my friends are in danger.”
Di raised a hand to interrupt. “You mean, I can’t go home because this vampire might try to rough me up?”
Sunlight spilled through my east
facing office window. Di was still pale from her ordeal with Lilith. “Toel’s clock is missing a few gears. He might do more than rough you up.”
“I’m a goddess. What can he do?”
I raised a brow. After her ordeal with Lilith, I was surprised she’d ask such a question. “Humor me. I don’t know how strong Toel is or what kind of powers he has beyond the usual vamp ones. Like I said, I won’t underestimate him again.”
“She can stay in my suite at the Blackstone,” Rad said to me. Then he faced her. “Should be up to your goddess standards.”
Di’s eyes widened. “I love the Blackstone. That would be so cool.” She glanced at me and winked. “What a nice guy.”
Cole and I both rolled our eyes as Rad gave Di his stupid grin.
“And where will you stay, Mr. Nice Guy?” I asked.
He met my gaze. “With you.”
Never one to enjoy confrontation, JR stood up. “I’ll grab my laptop and triangulate the cell phone’s location using the GPS chip.”
I tore my gaze from Rad, who really needed to be taken down a peg or two, and nodded at JR. “While you’re at it, see if you can locate a residence for a shapeshifter named Arman.”
“That’s it?” JR frowned. “No last name? No work address? Not even the type of car he drives?”
He’d done more with less information, but I let it slide. After all, JR’d been sent out to retrieve blood for Lilith and then been accosted by a vamp king. Neither of which were listed in his job description. “Arman’s a werecheetah. Can’t control his cat side. Lives here in the Chicago area, but could be the burbs. I’d guess his age at seventeen.”
JR looked putout as he headed for his own office. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” I called after him and picked up my landline phone’s handset. No dial tone. “Di, use your cell and call Neve. Tell her what’s going on. She needs to lay low, get out of town, go visit her mother in Jersey, something. And then check with JR as to who else was on his contact list.”
Knowing my techhead, there weren’t many contacts—his friends were as limited as mine—and most of those were other techheads like him, working at the Pentagon and for various countries around the world out of their mothers’ basements. “All of them need to be on the lookout for Undead, but especially those living in the tri-state area. Toel probably won’t bother with anyone farther away than that.”
