by Jenny McKane
Sunny’s mouth hung open, as Gideon snapped the phone shut and handed it back to her. She closed her mouth and prepared to protest, but Gideon put a hand up.
“You’re too good for that job,” he said simply. “I can tell by the way he spoke about you that he doesn’t pay you nearly enough, and he probably abuses his power more often than you’d like to admit. You’ll find another job after this—if you need one, which I highly doubt.”
“You figure the archangels will make me rich for helping catch Seumat?” she asked with a wry tone. “Bundles of cash have never been in any of the fine print I come across. ‘Succeed or die’ seems to be the overarching tone they set when they deal with me.”
“Bring this abomination in and they’ll make sure you’re focused and lack for nothing as long as you’re in their employ, that much I know,” he said. “Keep them happy and you can spend your days underachieving in your classes and chasing all manner of demon castoffs by night.”
Sunny clicked the light back on and opened the folder.
“How did you know I was a student?” she asked as she scanned the top page.
Gideon ignored her question, so she returned her attention to the folder and a photo on top of the pile of paperwork.
It was a grainy surveillance photo taken of a tall, thin brunette with her hair swept up and held in place with sharp sticks. She wore a black bustier of some sort with red lacings. At least she assumed they were red—the photo was black and white, but when it came to leather corsets, the contrasting ribbons were almost always red. Sunny’d been to lots of Halloween parties since arriving at college last year and knew the corset-wearing type well.
The next sheet was another photo from the front porch, and this time it was a shorter, thin blonde woman with long, flowing hair that cascaded down her back. She wore a strappy black dress that hoisted her boobs out to kingdom come. Sunny snorted.
“Found something?”
She smiled and looked up from the photos.
“Yeah,” she said. “A huge rack and fake blonde hair. Really original, right? I never saw that coming.”
Gideon didn’t say anything, but the corner of his mouth tilted in the slightest smile.
“The photos are of two women, a tall brunette and a short blonde,” Sunny continued. “Nothing really stands out, and Anya put a copy of a page from the guestbook in here showing two signatures that I can’t read. The rest of the page has been blacked out with a marker.”
Gideon nodded.
“Of course, it has,” he said. “Her patrons value their privacy.”
The last photo in the folder was again of the front porch, but this time it was empty. Instead, Sunny looked toward the street in the photo and saw the two women getting into a luxury car while a large man with his back to the cameras held the door open. There was little else in the photo for her to glean, other than part of a license plate number off a California plate.
“There’s a partial plate number here,” she said, squinting at the page. “I can’t get the first two characters, but the rest is pretty clear. Do you think there’s a way to search it, even if we don’t have the whole thing?”
Gideon glanced at the photos in her lap.
“There should be,” he said. “It’s hard to stay hidden in the age of public databases.”
She closed the folder and put it on the console between them.
“Where are we going?” she asked. Her head swam a bit from reading in a moving vehicle. It got her every time—from the long car trips back and forth to her grandparents when she was a kid to the failed attempts to read for class on the bus, Sunny had a weak stomach when it came to getting motion sick.
“A northside night club. Not too far,” he said. “It’s one of the most popular spots right now, and a body was found within a mile of it last month. We’ll bring the pictures with us and see if anyone has seen one of our girls.”
“And if they have? You think they’re working for her?” The thought made Sunny nervous. The little dream demon nearly killed her—lust demons sounded a lot more sophisticated and deadly.
“No doubt they’re working for her; she can’t kill this many on her own and not be discovered by the archangels yet—they’re too good at tracking. I believe she’s in hiding and controlling an increasing army of lust demons.”
“Satan’s sorority,” Sunny muttered. “Sounds awesome.”
Gideon laughed for the second time that day and Sunny couldn’t help but smile as well.
“Are lust demons created from humans?” The thought was a little terrifying. Like a zombie outbreak but without the mindless, shambling herds.
“No, they have to cross a portal to get here,” Gideon said. “And a lust demon’s power really only works on men.”
“There aren’t any male lust demons? Or lesbian lust demons?” Sunny said. “For a breed of doomsday bringers, their personal politics seem ridiculously conservative.”
Gideon shook his head with that small smile in the corner of his lips.
“I don’t know each demon’s personal politics, Sunshine,” he said. “I’m sure there are lust demons for all manner of humanity. The ones I’ve run into, however, have been female. And men have been their victims of choice.”
“Are they very powerful?”
Gideon cocked his head to a light tilt and thought a moment.
“Over men, their power can be crushing. Suffocating and deadly,” he said. “But the irony lies in the fact of how freely men give lust demons the power. Lust is a funny thing—it’s not a guaranteed force. But these men, they’re like sheep when the lust demon gets a hold of them. And that empowers them.”
Sunny fidgeted with the seatbelt as he spoke.
“Do they get more powerful with each person they kill?”
Gideon nodded.
“They get deadlier, yes,” he said. “But only because their allure grows more powerful. The actual power itself doesn’t change. It’s more like their siren song grows louder and harder for men to resist.”
What really mattered, Sunny thought, was how they died. “Do they get harder to kill, the louder they can pipe their man-killing vibes?” She wasn’t sure why it came out so flippant, but there it was.
“No. Still relatively easy to kill. They’re mortal when they’ve crossed over to this side, even if they still have their strength and those awful claws that pop out when they need them. Watch for the claws, they’re vicious.”
Meow! Sunny thought to herself and chuckled. She always thought most pretty girls were catty and now these she-demons would have the claws to prove it.
“A knife? A gun?” Sunny asked. “What does it take?”
“Either of those should do the trick,” Gideon said with a smirk. “They’re not vampires, Sunshine. You don’t need a wooden stake for their hearts, and they’re not zombies requiring a complete bashing in of the heads. Consider them jacked-up people with seven-inch razor fingernails and the ability to climb walls. That’s all.”
“Easy,” she said, blowing out a breath. “What’s with the climbing walls thing? That’s new.”
“Not really,” Gideon disagreed. “You’ve just faced a really lazy dream demon that didn’t so much walk as roll toward his prey.”
She winced.
“Don’t remind me of that,” she said. “Not a shining moment.”
Though she was truly embarrassed, she laughed.
“You have a nice laugh,” he said. Out of nowhere, it seemed.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’d return the compliment, but all I’ve gotten out of you is a painful-looking smirk. Don’t demons laugh?”
He shrugged.
“I try not to think about what demons do unless I have to kill one,” he said. “Helps me sleep.”
“You don’t seem to have too much trouble with that from what I heard today,” she said and noticed they’d pulled into a half-full parking lot. “I had to stick my head halfway in my bag to block out the sound of you snoring.”
Another shrug.
“It’s been a few days since I’ve slept. Michael kept me busy, and then I was in a rush to get my loft situation figured out in time for our meeting,” he explained. “Busy.”
“I skip more than a couple hours of sleep and I end up with strep,” Sunny said. “Ever since I was nine.”
Gideon threw the shifter into park and killed the engine.
“One of the few perks of demon ancestry, I suppose,” he said, as he put the keys in his jacket. “Impenetrable immune system.”
He swung the door open, and she did the same. As they walked down the deserted sidewalk and chill ripped through the air on a cold wind. Sunny shivered and hugged her arms around her body.
“Where did the cold come from?” she said.
Gideon didn’t answer as he led them down sidewalks and around corner after corner. For a popular hot spot, this place was pretty obscure. Finally, she heard the muffled thumping of loud music blasting through walls somewhere close by. As they kept walking, the rhythmic bass became more intense, physically pounding her chest and ears.
They were close.
Up ahead, Sunny finally saw the dimly lit entrance, complete with a nine-foot, ponytailed bouncer, a velvet rope, and long line of dejected looking partygoers waiting for their chance to get inside.
“Damn,” Sunny said under her breath.
Gideon didn’t reply and instead snaked his large hand between her elbow and body and led her to the front of the line. Her cheeks burned as she felt the angry glares simmering from the line of castoffs behind her, and Sunny didn’t miss the occasional murmur of anger at the line cut.
Gideon spoke to the bouncer in a low voice, close to his massive ear. Seriously, the thing looked like a big, misshapen pancake stuck to the side of his head.
Expecting to get tossed on their asses into the street nearby at any second, Sunny was braced for their dismissal and was mildly shocked when the bouncer laughed and smacked Gideon on the back a few times with his ginormous, meaty paw.
And when the guardian of club entrance moved aside and unhooked the magical velvet rope, Sunny didn’t miss the hush that fell over the crowd behind them. Suddenly, the over-preened, underdressed women were trying to catch Gideon’s eye and take Sunny’s frumpy place at his side because, surely, this man was a celebrity or something.
Moments later, Sunny and Gideon were inside the deafening space, squinting against the strobe lights rocketing off the DJ booth and screaming above the noise to hear one another.
“Should we split up?” Sunny yelled into Gideon’s ear. He immediately shook his head no and made it clear they’d stick together. He motioned for her to follow him, and they began a slow, tactical walk through the dense crowd of partiers. Making your way through a crowd like this was tough enough, but add terrible music and spastic dancing, and the difficulty and frustration increased exponentially.
And this right here, was why Sunny avoided crowds any chance she could. She thought about her carefully crafted loner lifestyle and smiled. A lonely DJ booth, a carousel on the library’s fifth floor, a mostly abandoned apartment building she shared with a bingo-addicted group of geriatrics. No, Sunny didn’t get out much and mingle with people her age and there was good reason for it. She hated gyrating, sweaty bodies bumping into her and splashing her with overpriced, sticky drinks.
She’d just discovered her own circle of hell.
Gideon pressed on and Sunny weaved in and out of bodies to try to keep up. At this rate, all she was able see was Gideon’s massive back and the occasional dancer that jumped into her path. Sunny hoped he was having better luck scanning the crowd than she was because she was seeing nothing fast.
On he walked and on she elbowed, ducked, and squeezed. It was exhausting, really, and just when she was about to punch him in the back and tell Gideon that she quit, he stopped. She followed where his gaze had settled and finally saw what he saw.
A slender brunette with long, shiny hair and a slinky red halter top that draped just enough to cover her chest, though most of what she had to offer was still on display. A tiny red mini skirt clung tightly to her small frame, and at the end of long, tan legs were perfect strappy (and red) sandals.
The woman’s head was now turned, and her attention was focused on a young man using all his might to hold himself up against a tall table. He was clearly fighting a losing battle and his shirt was dark and half-covered with who knows how many spilled drinks.
He was drunk off his ass. That much was certain.
Was this the same girl from the surveillance photos Anya had provided? She couldn’t be certain, but it seemed Gideon had zeroed in on her. Sunny tugged on his sleeve to get his attention and inclined her head toward the brunette. She raised an eyebrow in silent question, and Gideon nodded an affirmation.
Now what? How does one approach an alleged sex minion? Is it a quick kill or do you drag it out for answers? Sunny was at a loss and incredibly thankful she could follow Gideon’s lead. Instead of approaching the couple, however, Gideon steered them to a far corner of the club. It was darker, a little quieter, but still held a good view of the brunette and her swaying, stumbling companion.
“What are we doing? Aren’t you going to kill her?”
Gideon smiled and glanced over his shoulder.
“So anxious to jump into the fray?” He glanced back down at Sunny as his large body boxed her in. Heat radiated off him, and it made her uncomfortable. She was torn between wanting to toss him away from her.
Sunny looked up and over his shoulder to try to see what the demon was doing, but Gideon was so broad, she couldn’t get away with it without being obvious.
“Can demons sense each other easily?”
He gave a nonchalant shrug.
“Usually,” he said. “But if you’re wondering how easily they can sense me, they can’t. One of the few benefits of being a half-blood angel bastard with a side of demon.”
Whoa. The weight of what he’d just admitted hit her like a smack in the face with a wooden board.
Gideon was half angel, half demon?
Chapter 4
The ride home was quiet and Sunny did her best not to stare at Gideon. Sure, he was still hot and fun to look at, but when he’d admitted to being both angel and demon, things had shifted a little bit.
She assumed she was dealing with persona non grata in the demon world--some sort of low-on-the-totem-pole grunt who happened to cut a deal with the archangels for a little slack. Technically, demons weren’t barred from the mortal plane. Neither were angels. But there were rules of engagement, and it seemed demons never wanted to play within these rules. And when they did, it upset the natural balance of power in the universe, and the angels saw to it that offenders of these laws and treaties were punished and sent back to the demon realm.
Sunny had made the mistake of calling it hell once and had been sharply corrected by one of the senior demon hunters.
“The hell you’re thinking of, from your Western ideology, isn’t the same thing. Traditional demons aren’t people or angels who go bad--those are called bad people and fallen angels, and sure, they pass over to that realm if they’re invited,” the man, Axel, once said. He’d been training her brother for years before his death, and when he inherited Sunny, it was pretty clear that his training days were numbered. It was all he could do not to walk out each time she asked a dumb question. “Demons are their own race, with many variations and abilities within that race. They have their own realm and it’s not the fiery pit full of burning sinners that you think it is.”
So, no, Sunny hadn’t assumed that Gideon was some former mass murderer who’d been turned into a citizen of Hell through misdeeds. But she sure as hell hadn’t counted on him being a mix of the angel and demonic breeds. She’d never even heard of such a thing.
And from the look on Gideon’s face and his tense body language, it didn’t seem like he was interested in a chat either.
So why had he told her?
The silence was killing her, so eventually she caved and tried to make small talk.
“Find anything interesting tonight that we can use?”
Sunny knew they’d come up short, but she needed him to talk. To say something. Anything. Instead, he grunted noncommittally.
“No?”
Gideon shot her a sideways glance.
“I said eh,” he snapped. “That means maybe. A bit. Enough.”
Sunny drew in a deep breath.
“I feel like you’re mad at me, and for the life of me, I can’t think of why.” She knew she was venturing on thin ice, but hey, he started it with his bombshell admission.
“I’m not mad, Sunshine,” he said, the sound of her name sending a weird shock down her spine. What was that?
“But you’re not thrilled you told me?” She ventured a guess. It made no sense, but it was something.
“I’ve kept that secret as tightly as I could for as long as I’ve been alive,” he said quietly.
Sunny wondered just how long that really was.
“I didn’t force it out of you,” she said, a trace of hope in her voice. “Hell, I didn’t even ask about your past. So, you can’t be mad at me.”
Gideon let out a frustrated sigh.
“I know,” he practically barked. “I don’t know what came over me to tell you that particular piece of info. I really don’t. It’s vital to my overall health and wellbeing that as few beings as possible know that, and it just seemed to fly right out of my mouth tonight when talking to you. I’m not mad at you, Sunny. I’m mentally kicking my own ass for being an idiot.”
Oh. She felt a pang of empathy for him. She had her own secrets to keep as a Solomon, so she understood. What she didn’t understand, however, was what had compelled him to share his deepest secret with her. But now that he had, she was interested.
