by Jenny McKane
“Are you close to home yet?” He must have heard the bus noises in the background. The brakes were known to grind at each stop and the engine was nothing short of jet-engine loud. She glanced out the window at the surrounding neighborhood.
“Another 20 minutes, maybe,” she replied.
Gideon swore.“I can’t wait. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sunny. Be safe.”
Sunny agreed to be safe and wished him well on whatever top-secret mission he was on now. She knew he was still hunting down someone to make the serendibite blade for his suicide mission to kill Camael. Maybe he’d found some sort of lead for that.
Scrolling through her phone for the remainder of the ride, Sunny was a little bummed that she was going to be spending the next day or so completely alone. She had a shift offered to her for the weekend, but still. Kitty was a doll, but it wasn’t the same. And Sunny had been having the nagging feeling that hanging around Kitty too much wasn’t a good idea--what if some of the demon goon squad got a lead on where she was working and hurt her? She wasn’t exactly sure she could protect Kitty if she could barely keep herself alive.
For the last stretch before home, Sunny searched for martial arts classes in the area. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was looking for, but when and if she got through this Seumat assignment, she was going to start learning how to kick some serious ass. Maybe she’d even see if Chuck Norris bothered to make self-defense videos back in the day. Something. Anything. The obsidian blade was fine for now, even though the possibility of the damn thing turning on her was very real, but she wanted a weapon that couldn’t be taken from her by force.
She found a couple Brazilian JiuJitsu schools near her frequent bus stops and bookmarked the pages for later. Maybe for Christmas, she’d buy herself a membership and get started. Sunny was excited. To ride the momentum, she used her last few minutes on the bus to watch a few mixed martial arts fights that she’d heard some of the dudes in class talk about.
Overwhelmed at first, she started to see the rhythm and beauty to the sport, and by the time the driver stopped at her stop, she was engrossed.
“Your normal stop, right, sweetheart?” Mitch, the Friday driver, called back to her. She looked up with a start and fumbled to get all her crap shoved into her backpack.
“Yeah,” she said with a wave. “Thanks, Mitch. See you next week!”
“Take care,” Mitch called as the doors slid shut.
Sunny was feeling pumped after watching a few minutes’ worth of video and wondered how fast she’d pick the art up once she started training. She’d be fearless. She’d be ruthless.
She turned the corner and nearly ran into a dark figure leaning against the alleyway wall and let out a choked scream. She wasn’t MMA material. She was a chicken shit.
Scrambling backwards in an attempt to see who she’d nearly run over, Sunny glanced up and swallowed hard.
What the hell?
Instead of some vagrant or other street person who used this alleyway as their personal bathroom, Sunny looked up and saw Liam.
And Liam was standing just a few blocks from where she lived.
Chapter 30
He must have sensed that she was uncomfortable at seeing him in her neighborhood.
“Don't freak out,” Liam said. He even held his hands up in the defensive position, as if Sunny was going to attack him, which she was seriously considering.
What in the holy hell was he doing on her side of town? At her bus stop? How did he know this was the one she got off at?
“I’m torn,” she said through clenched teeth, “between screaming bloody murder right now and hearing you out as to how you knew how to find me right now.”
Liam nodded and took a step back.
“I understand, and I don’t blame you for being freaked out right now,” he said. “But there's a rational explanation for this. Maybe not so much rational, but it will make sense to you.”
“So, rationalize,” Sunny said. She still wasn’t ready to give any ground. Her hackles were pretty raised.
“I’m not what you think I am.”
She waited for him to elaborate, as Liam had just stated the most incredibly obvious.
“Duh.”
She had caught him off guard, as he was obviously expecting to blow her mind with that little non-revelation.
“If that’s all you got, you better keep going,” Sunny replied. “I’ve known that for a few weeks now.”
Liam ran his hand through his messy blonde hair.
“I can’t exactly tell you what I am right now,” he said. “It’s out of my hands. but recent developments are making things dangerous for you, and I have it on good authority that your guardian isn’t going to be around today. I think you might need me.”
The heebie-jeebies were back in full force.
“Liam,” she said. She was trying to keep her voice as even as possible. “You really need to give me something to go on, or else I'm going to lose my ever-loving mind. You are terrifying me. I have no idea how you know so many personal details about me, and I don’t even know why you’re posing as a student at a community college. Please start talking.”
“Can we please get out of here first?” His gaze flicked around the convenience store behind them. It was never the safest place, even in broad daylight, but after the sun went down it was a bit of a haven for folks who might possibly take advantage of unarmed people.
Sunny didn’t know what to do.
On the one hand, she really wanted to know what Liam was about to say. Something in her gut told her that he was not a mass murderer out to steal her kidneys and sell them on the black market. But he had also been anything but truthful with her from the very beginning. Everything she had deduced about him she had had to learn the hard way. It wasn’t the strongest foundation for a friendship.
“Are you a demon?”
Liam shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Are you an angel?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Are you human?”
“No.”
If she hadn’t been worried about ruining her clothing, Sunny probably would have dropped to the ground right then and there. Not that she was terribly surprised, but she was still holding out a little bit of hope that maybe he was just some sort of human operative for one of the cherubim or seraphim. Hell, she’d even settle for another retired Hunter of Metatron. But no, she was dealing with a non-human who refused to identify himself.
“What made you finally give up the ruse of attending classes?”
Liam cast of gaze over his shoulder as the two of them started walking towards Gideon’s house.
“Recent developments,” he said.
“Well, if you can’t tell me about yourself, are you at least allowed to talk about what you’re doing?”
“Within reason,” he replied. “And as long as it has to do only with your scope of it.”
“What do you know of my scope of anything?”
“More than you think, Sunshine Bonnard.”
“I’m not sure that I’m allowed to have house guests here.” Sunny tried to make the joke as they walked. The truth was she really wasn’t sure what the hell was going to happen as soon as they got to Gideon’s front door. Maybe she’d hit the garage door opener, jump into his sports car, and run Liam over as she left town. At least it sounded good in her head. “Are you at least allowed to tell me which side you’re on?”
Again with the head-shaking. “No, but I can tell you that I’m trying to make sure that I’m on the winning side.”
“Is there such a thing? Seems like both sides have serious shades of grey problems.”
Maybe she shouldn’t be saying such things to Liam, as she had no idea who he really was. But she had seen some serious crap in the past few weeks, and her ideas and her whole foundation of how she thought about angels and demons were shifting.
“Hold on,” she said stopping short. “Is your name eve
n Liam?”
His lips went into a tight smile, and she knew that it wasn't.
“What’s your real name?”
She got a full smile out of him at that one, but not an answer.
“I can’t tell you.”
“If you say that one more time, I’m going to flip out.”
She was serious, too; she was about done with his non-answers.
“Can you at least tell me how you knew to find me here tonight?”
“When I went by the yarn store, I saw that it was closed, and figured you had probably taken the bus home tonight.”
He was telling the truth. What a novelty.
“How long have you known all the weird little details of my life?”
Again, with the mysterious grin.
“I can’t—” Liam began, but Sunny stopped him short.
“Don’t you dare, Fake-Liam,” she said. “I mean it. I will lose my ever-loving shit on you if you dare tell me I can’t tell you one more damn time.”
“Fake-Liam? Why are you calling me that?”
“Because you basically admitted that your real name isn’t Liam, and I refused to call you by that fake name any longer because it isn’t real. So, until you tell me who you really are, you’ll simply be Fake-Liam to me.”
Liam chuckled, and it was a melodic sound. He wasn’t much of a laugher, now that she was thinking about it. He was a pretty serious guy, always thinking about duties and homework and studying. Oh, and making sure Sunny was staying on top of everything.
When they arrived at Gideon’s building, Sunny had the keys to the door in her hand, and she stopped.
“I really don't know what to do right now,” she said, admitting the truth. “Part of me thinks I need to trust you, but the other part of me realizes you know more about me than anybody should, and you refuse to tell me anything about yourself or why you are doing this.”
Liam sighed softly and shook his head.
“It doesn't matter if you invite me into the Half Breed’s house,” he said. “I'll simply stand guard out here until he returns. It’s that simple.”
“So, the news you’re going off of is that bad, is it?”
“It seems to be,” he said.
“That’s what someone else said earlier tonight,” she replied, with her key in the door. The door swung open, and she crossed the threshold, but Fake-Liam didn’t.
“Who?”
Sunny’s smile was wide and devious. “I can’t tell you,” she sang to him and stuck her tongue out.
“Touché,” he said, clutching his hands over his heart.
She turned to head up the stairs but stopped when she saw that he wasn’t following.
“Are you a vampire?” It was a joke, and when he quirked his head to side, not completely understand the “standing in the doorway waiting for an invitation in” reference, she rolled her eyes.
“Come on up, Fake-Liam,” she said. “You can explain with more half-truths while I make tea.”
A half-hour later they were sitting at the small bistro table Gideon had purchased a few weeks ago over a mug of peppermint tea. Fake-Liam had seemed hesitant to drink the stuff, but after a few sips, he’d gushed over the flavor.
“I just never would have guessed crushed leaves like this could taste so good,” he said, frowning at his mug.
“Are you an alien?”
He stopped talking and looked up at her.
“You know the answer to that,” he said dryly.
“No, or I can’t tell you?”
“Both.”
Fake-Liam took another look around the loft and frowned.
“I feel like you’re either judging the décor, or casing the joint for later,” she said. “So which is it?”
“Neither,” he said. “I’m just surprised at the half-demon. He’s much more cultured and settled than I’d originally expected.”
Sunny scoffed.
“Now that’s just rude,” she said. “So many assumptions about someone you don’t know anything about.”
“It’s true,” he admitted. “I wasn’t tasked with knowing anything about him, and I didn’t care to until you came along and your paths seemed to intertwine in the strangest way. I still can’t explain what I’ve witnessed.”
That had her attention.
“What do you mean by that?”
Liam took a long sip of his tea.
“It’s hard for me to put this in terms that not only stay within my current boundaries, but also don’t come off making me sound like a pompous ass,” he explained, but Sunny demanded that he finish what he was going to say.
“Gideon Lafayette is not human,” he began.
“He’s one-quarter human at least,” she said, defensively and Fake-Liam raised his eyebrow at her, proving some point she didn’t know he was proving yet.
“But he’s more demon than he is human,” Fake-Liam continued. “And my assumptions were that his more demonic side would be dominant in how he expressed himself and presented himself to the world--especially after what he had been through.”
“You know about that?”
Fake-Liam nodded.
“His story is quite sad and quite legendary, actually,” he said. “But that’s beside the point. I had an understanding of how he would be, what he would look like, how he would behave. And for a year or two, he met those criteria almost to the letter. But then you came along, Sunshine Bonnard.”
The sound of her full name on his lips for a second time tonight caught her attention. It was strange hearing him say it like that--like he’d known her for a very long time.
“What did I manage to do?”
“You made him more human,” Fake-Liam said. “And that is quite extraordinary.”
It didn’t seem like she’d had much effect on him at all, to be honest. But Sunny considered his words and wondered what sort of half-monster had emerged from the demon realm when he’d gotten free of Seumat.
“How much do you know about him?” Sunny asked. “How much can you admit to knowing about him, actually.”
“I know his parentage,” Fake-Liam said bluntly. “I know his father is an archangel who bound him to the demon realm to cover his sins.”
The word sins clanged on Sunny’s subconscious like a mallet on a copper pot. The sound of it on Fake-Liam’s tongue was like a beacon. A clue.
He was angelic, that much was certain.
He shifted his words at that point, as though he remembered something.
“I’m going to make this visit tonight worthwhile to you, Sunny,” he said suddenly. “You obviously know a little about angels, demons, and humans. But do you know anything more dangerous than the three of those?”
She wracked her brain for anything more dangerous than angels, demons, or humans.
“What could possibly be more dangerous than those?”
He was speaking riddles; he had to be.
Fake-Liam gave her a small smile, as though he pitied (or envied) her naivete.
“Fallen angels, Sunny,” he said. “Fallen angels are much more dangerous than angels, demons, or humans.”
Oh, hell. Shit just got real. Again.
Chapter 31
Fake-Liam spent the night. But the crazy thing was, that the more she got to know him, the more formal and distant she found his true self to be. He was gracious and had good manners, but something about the way he carried himself and the way he spoke grew more and more formal the more he let his guard down.
It made no sense to Sunny, either.
There were no incidents the night that Fake-Liam sat on Gideon’s couch and watched endless episodes of cooking shows. Sunny had bade him good night and went into her own room to sleep. She knew she was crazy, and that she should not trust anybody she knew as little about as Fake-Liam to be in the same house with her while she was asleep. Especially with Gideon and Plaxo gone. But there was something familiar about Fake-Liam that she could not ignore. And the bottom line was that everything within her
trusted Fake-Liam.
In the morning, he was gone. He’d left a note on the counter in a looping, old-fashioned cursive, telling Sunny to give him a call if she needed anything. He also told her to call if her guardian was late returning.
Her guardian, whom Sunny assumed Liam meant Gideon, returned around lunchtime later that day.
He wasn't more than three steps in the door, while Sunny worked on doing the dishes, when he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Who was in here?”
His eyes danced around the room, similar to when he had sensed the first time Plaxo had to come inside his house.
Sunny was now in the awkward position of either telling him the truth, which she would like to do, or lying to him, which he really would like. She had hoped that she could have been able to keep the truth to herself by omission, as long as Gideon didn't ask her any questions. But Gideon had senses like a damn cat, and he had sensed something different as soon as he stepped foot inside his house.
Stupid wards and demon magic.
“It’s a long story,” Sunny said with a sigh. That part was true at least. Gideon dropped his overnight bag right where he stood and walked over to the kitchen island.
“I’m all ears,” he said.
Sunny told him the entire story. From Fake-Liam nearly giving her a heart attack as she got off the bus, to the strange conversations they’d had. She did not leave any details out, and Gideon was silent while she said her piece. She even mentioned the fact that Michael had popped in unexpectedly before Gideon had called.
“Why didn't you mention that when we were on the phone?”
“I guess I was distracted by the fact that I was going to have to be here alone for the night? I’m not really sure,” she said truthfully. “Was your little overnight trip successful?”
By this point, Sunny knew better than to ask him too many details. Gideon actually smiled and nodded at her.
“I have to make a short side trip today, but I don't want to leave you here alone,” he said. “It might take longer than I anticipated, and I’d rather not have the man-boy in my house again if I can avoid it.”
“He’s not so bad,” Sunny said.
