by E. A. Copen
Flesh And Blood
Hellbent Halo Book 4
E.A. Copen
Flesh and Blood is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2019 E.A. Copen
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, November 2019
ebook ISBN: 978-1-64202-575-0
print ISBN: 978-1-64202-576-7
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Author Notes
Connect with the Author
Get an Exclusive Story from The Lazarus Codes
Books by E.A. Copen
Other LMBPN Publishing Books
Chapter One
Josiah
The sun hung red like the end of a lit cigarette over Los Angeles. I squinted up at it, staring through layers of smog and hazy heat, willing it to sink faster. Hot air rose from the blacktop, baking me from below while I sucked down the exhaust fumes of passing taxicabs. I lit a cigarette just so I’d have something else to breathe. Stefan ought to be out any minute with his luggage, and then we could hail a cab of our own.
A blast of cool air kissed the back of my head as it rushed out the open doors. I turned at the sound of a voice booming through a megaphone, the source, a man standing just inside with a big sign that read GOD HATES FAGS. He’d attracted a small crowd of tourists, who’d apparently never seen the arse end of America before. They were snapping selfies like mad.
On a normal day, I’d have ignored it. This was the land of the free, or so they said, and that meant people had the freedom to be ignorant fucks if they wanted. Who was I to judge? But I’d just spent the last four hours on a plane without a ciggy, and this fuckwit was ruining my buzz.
I took another puff, turned away from the never-ending parade of cars, and marched back toward the entrance. “Oi, you with the sign. Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you. You spelled ‘loud morons’ wrong. You mind keepin’ it down? The rest of us are tryin’ to think.”
My response prompted more photo snaps and a few chuckles from the crowd.
The man shifted his sign to lean against his shoulder and ignored me. If there was one thing he shouldn’t have done, it was to ignore me. I wasn’t in the mood to be ignored.
I plucked the smoking cigarette from between my teeth and gestured to his sign with it. “What’s your god got against a ciggy now and again, eh, mate?”
“Fags,” he said, turning on me. “Homosexuals. Feminists, liberals, adulterers, sinners... God hates them all, and this city is full of them. You all need to repent, or this city will burn like Sodom and Gomorrah before it!”
“God’s a cunt, then.”
He rolled his eyes and lifted the megaphone to spew his message of hate. “Go back to where you came from, Aussie fag.”
I should’ve walked away. After all, it was just a word, and I’d had worse ones thrown at me. Hell, I’d said worse to better people. There was just something about the way he said it that took me back to another time when I shouldn’t have walked away but did. Memories of a blacktop beatdown struck me, of watching from the sidelines as ugly boys let their fists do the talking. Spit, blood, and tears mixing in a pool while Danny curled, helpless to stop it, and I stood by, unwilling to.
I’d swung my fist before I even took a second to think about it.
The shouting man toppled and broke his cardboard sign in half on his way down. His megaphone hit the floor, the plastic housing cracking before it slid away. I pounced on him and struck him in the face again. Blood and spittle flew. The jagged edge of a tooth sliced open my knuckle. I grabbed him by the shirt and jerked his face up. His wide, bloodshot eyes glistened with justified fear.
“Josiah!” Stefan’s voice boomed like a church bell.
I stopped with my bloody fist drawn back.
Stefan’s glare could’ve rivaled the look my mum used to give me when I got in fights back then. It wasn’t anger in those deep, dark eyes but disappointment. I had stained his image of me, pulled back the curtain too far, and let him see just how ugly and hateful a creature I could be.
I let the man with the sign go and stood. Blood raced down my scarred fingertips and fell to the floor in a large drop as I pulled out my wallet. I dropped a tenner for the bastard I’d punched to cover the sign I’d broken and walked off. Back out in the heat, I picked up my bag from where I’d dropped it and grabbed the first cab I could find.
Stefan caught me just as I dropped my bag into the back. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”
“It’s this city.” I squinted at the unforgiving sun. “I fucking hate LA. It brings out the worst in me. You don’t like it, say the word, and I’ll put you on the first plane to New York.”
He said nothing, but the look on his face was enough to tell me he didn’t understand. How could he? He was a New York boy, born and raised. He knew nothing of this hateful city. City of Angels, my arse. Los Angeles was hell with a shoreline, and we’d burn if we stayed much longer.
I’d discarded my ciggy before the fight, and I couldn’t smoke in the cab, so I focused on the cars passing us. Red, yellow, green, blue. A rainbow of oblivious sedans sped by while the sun crawled toward the ocean. Their drivers were people heading home from work or dressed up blokes out for a night on the town. Tonight, their biggest worries would be picking up some B-list model from Ohio at the club. His place or hers? Or perhaps a seedy motel with a flickering neon vacancy light. In LA, the options really were endless if you were willing to sink to the city’s level.
“Let me see.” Stefan offered his hand. He had one of those prepackaged wipes from somewhere. Must’ve gotten it from the back before we got in.
I looked down at my knuckles. They ached. I’d have a nice bruise there come tomorrow morning, not to mention the cut from where I’d grazed the fuckwit’s teeth. At least the bleeding had stopped, even if it had left itchy crimson smears on my fingers. They could do with a cleaning. Never know what sort of germs might’ve gotten in there.
I almost let him do it until I saw the cabbie watching us in the rearview.
“Nah,” I said, folding my arms. “I’m good.”
“You’re covered in blood.”
“I’ve had worse, and you know it. Besides, it’s a badge of honor, it is. Bastard had it comin’, calling me names like that. He didn’t even know me. Fucker would’ve taken the first fight coming his way. He was lucky it was me and not some asshole with a gun.”
“I’m sure he
didn’t mean you with his sign, Josiah.”
“Course not. I’m not a bloody—” I stopped myself. I wasn’t sixteen, and this wasn’t the Los Angeles from that time. Here I was in the back of a cab next to the man I was sleeping with, about to object to being called a fag.
“It’s all right. Say it if you want.” Stefan cleaned his hand with the wipe and tucked it away to look out his own window. “Think I haven’t heard it before?”
“Think I haven’t either?” I sighed. “Don’t take offense, mate. I’m living in a different time. Once upon a time, two men being together was dangerous, even in this city. Being anything other in this city meant you couldn’t simply be. That’s the LA I got to know.”
He said nothing, just stared out the window, lost in whatever memory he’d fixated on. I had to let it go. It wasn’t something he’d understand, not as young as he was. We had a lot in common, Stefan and me, but he was ten years my junior. At the same age, I was fighting rooftop magic battles in secret, and he would’ve been streaming music on an iPod. The world had changed between us, and that generational shift had carved a rift that made Los Angeles ache like an old scar. I didn’t know how to make him understand, so I just didn’t try.
“Tell me about Maggie,” he said suddenly.
I grimaced as a wave of nicotine craving hit. If LA was a scar, Maggie was the wound that never healed. She might’ve been my flesh and blood, but she couldn’t ever be my daughter. She had to be a secret for her own safety, especially now that Remiel was prowling about. That she’d called for my help now made my gut uneasy.
I sighed and drew a hand over my face as if I could wipe away the taste of bad memories that easily. “Maggie’s got a penchant for trouble. Likes bad men. Couldn’t tell you why, but she attracts ‘em like flies. And even when she knows she’s in over her head, she sticks with the fuckers so long as they’re making her empty promises. Wants to be a movie star. It’s why she came here from Omaha some years back. Works at a bar called Daily Bread, which is where we’re headed. She ought to be there this time of night.”
“You think she’s just having domestic trouble?”
“Who knows? She’s never called me about it before. Practically have to drag it out of her when her boyfriends get to beating on her. It’s not something she volunteers, but I have helped her with it before.”
I’d replayed her voicemail a dozen times, trying to discern her trouble from it, but she seemed intentionally vague. It was short, just a sentence or two asking me to come help because she was in trouble. She’d tell me more once I got here. Nothing at all about the nature of the trouble.
The cab drove into a shitty little neighborhood near the Fashion District. It wasn’t the worst neighborhood in LA, but it wasn’t far from it. Lots of barred windows, and people just milling about with nothing to do but cause trouble.
Daily Bread was a tin-roofed watering hole with a stucco exterior that had seen better days. Once, it must’ve been some shade of off-white, but now it was as gray as the exhaust the taxi spat as it sped off. Wire mesh darkened the big picture window where neon danced, promising beer by brand name.
Stefan shifted his grip on his suitcase. “You sure she’ll be here?”
“For eighteen years, I’ve known exactly where she was,” I said.
I felt his eyes boring a hole into the back of my head. “She’s only eighteen?”
“They don’t know that, of course. She’s working on forged documents and a very expensive fake ID. Dropped out of high school in Omaha when she turned sixteen, changed her hair, became two years older, and came here looking for her big break.” I sighed. “You can’t be who you are in LA and make it, I suppose. Everyone learns that sooner or later.”
I pushed through the doors, my magic bag slung over my shoulder. The air inside was recycled and stale. Smelled like motor oil, sweat, and piss. The din of chatter and the sports announcers on the television nearly drowned out the strained vocals of old Ozzy on the jukebox.
A paper-thin waitress with a peacock feather hanging limply from her hairband lifted her tray and slid around me. “Have a seat anywhere, boys. I’ll be right with you.”
“Have a seat?” Stefan murmured, scanning the room. “Where?”
He was right. Place was packed, much busier than the last time I’d been there. No stools at the bar either, but that didn’t stop me from sliding in at the end. I drew an irritated glance from the bandana-wearing old-timer warming the last seat until I gave him a nod of greeting. He grunted and turned back to his beer, content not to speak.
I had time to search the faces in the bar for any sign of Maggie while I waited to put in my drink order, but I came up empty. Could be she was out back having a break, or that she’d scored a day off. Unlikely, considering how busy it was, but possible.
“What’ll you have?” The bartender was a newcomer since I’d last been here, a bearded and tattooed hipster type who couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight or so.
“Give us a Rusty Nail, would you? No ice, no garnish.”
“And you?” He nodded to Stefan.
“Just a beer. Whatever’s on tap.” Stefan slid his suitcase against the wall and pushed the handle down as the bartender went about making our drinks. “You spot her?”
I shook my head. “’Scuse me. Is Maggie O’Dale workin’ tonight?”
The bartender snorted. “You want to talk to her, you’re about three weeks too late. She quit right about the time I started.”
“Quit?” The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I had people watching her; spells laid, too, that were supposed to tell me if something changed. None of them had reported anything. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Why’s any pretty girl quit being a bartender in LA? She got a bit part in a movie somewhere. Couldn’t tell you with which studio, just that she was excited. Last time I saw her, she was jumping in some prick’s Bugatti. Must’ve been some job she landed. What do you want with her?”
“I’m a friend. If she happens to come by, tell her I stopped by, would you? Name’s Josiah. Josiah Quinn.”
He glanced at Stefan, frowned, then nodded.
“Thanks for the tip.” I patted the bar and counted out enough bills to cover both our drinks plus a tip. “Nix the drink order, then, mate. Looks like I’ve got more digging to do.”
I lit a cigarette outside while Stefan called for a car. My fingers were really starting to ache, enough that when I pinched the ciggy between them, I winced. Where are ya, Mags? What have you done, and how’d you avoid all the protection I put down for you?
Stefan lowered the phone. “Where to?”
“Mags has a flat over on San Pedro. Let’s go see if she’s home.”
He nodded and went back to putting the information into his phone.
I put the ciggy back in my mouth and blew smoke at the sky.
Chapter Two
Stefan
Maggie’s apartment occupied the space above a closed Mexican minimart. Spray paint covered the awning and brickwork, while a nylon sign above flapped in the wind. It read SPACE FOR RENT, followed by a local number. Cars lined her side of the street, but the only one I was concerned about was the white van halfway up the block.
Josiah stopped on the sidewalk and cupped his hand around the end of another cigarette to light it. “Someone’s watching the place.”
“White van three spaces up?”
Josiah nodded.
I blew out a mouthful of smoke from my own cigarette, then dropped it on the sidewalk and crushed it out with my shoe before reaching into my pocket.
Josiah frowned at me as I brought out a cheap lollipop, ripped off the paper, and tucked it firmly in the corner of my mouth. “What’re you doing?”
I tugged the waistband of my jeans low enough to show the top of my hips and winked at him. “Seeing what we’re up against.”
His scowl tickled the back of my neck as I sashayed my way down the sidewalk. He hated it when I turned up the flame, but
that was his problem. I knew how to get answers without getting blood on my best shirt. I gave him a look when I reached the van, a challenge. After how he’d acted in the cab on the way over, I almost had to make a point.
“Hey, fellas!” I knocked on the side door of the van and waved at the mirror with a big grin.
It took an extra minute before the door cracked open and a bald tough-case stuck his head through the opening. “Piss off.”
I pulled the lollipop out with an audible pop. “Well, I would, but, honey, I work this stretch of road right here, and you’ve got your ugly-ass van parked all up in my space. You’re scaring off my customers.”
He stuck his head out a little farther and looked up and down the street. Josiah had disappeared around the corner, leaving the street empty. “What do you want?”
“It’s prime time, baby.” I crossed my arms and canted my hip to the side before holding out one hand limply. “Put up, or pull up.”
“Or what?” he growled.
“What do you think, asshole? I tell my pimp. Five minutes later, he’ll slash your tires, pull you out of that pedo van you’re riding in, and make you his bitch. Or you can slide me a couple twenties and leave right now, and maybe I don’t tell him you and your bitch-ass friends are out here casing my street.”
Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cool air coming through the open door. While he considered his options, I studied him. Nothing about his disposition gave away who he might be working for or why, but something about him said he was the help and not the power behind whatever operation he was running. Of course, he was. The boss wouldn’t be on a stakeout. Not much of a stakeout, of course. The van hadn’t been parked long, not if it was still cool in the back.
