by E. A. Copen
Bodyguard One returned with the all-clear and eyed Noelle with a curt nod. “Ms. Islana.”
She nodded back. “See you soon,” she called as the guards led us forward.
Something about the way she said it made me shiver.
The two guards escorted us to an oversized metal door that looked like it’d be more at home as the entry to a meat-packing plant than a flat. Iron. The bricks around it were laced with some heavy-duty spell that was currently inert. Since it was shut down, I couldn’t tell what it did, but I had to assume it would make for an unpleasant evening if activated. They opened the latch and stepped aside.
The door opened on an impressive space of several thousand feet. Exposed brick and beams heralded back to the loft’s previous life as a warehouse. Huge picture windows with tasteful evergreen colored drapes lined the far wall. Furniture, all dark wood and deep velvet colors, sat in crowded clumps around the room. Sofas in front of a fireplace, chairs in a reading nook full of leather-bound books, a mahogany table with comfortable, modern chairs. Another set of iron doors, these with frosted glass panels, were open on the right. An oversized skylight cast snowy shadows over another library.
Danny came down the floating wooden staircase, buttoning his suit jacket. He flashed a warm grin and opened his arms wide. “Joey! Welcome! It’s good to see you again!” He grabbed my hand in a firm shake, still grinning like a fool. “Glad you could make it. I know it’s late and the weather’s awful. You want something to drink? I was just about to have an Irish coffee.”
“Leave the coffee and cream out of it, mate. Just the whiskey, if you would?”
Danny snapped his fingers without turning, and another suit I hadn’t noticed darted off for the kitchen. “And you, my dear?” He took Khaleda’s hand and kissed it. “I have a very nice Sauvignon.”
Khaleda’s smile grew tight. “Just some hot tea, chai if you have it.”
“Excellent, and you, sir?”
“Nothing.” Victis kept his voice neutral.
While the suit went about making up our drinks, Danny escorted us to the sofas near the fireplace and fussed about, making sure we were comfortable. He was stalling, playing the gracious host. Suppose that was more familiar to him than what would come next.
The suit came over with a silver tray full of drinks and several dishes of cheese.
Danny’s Irish coffee was more cream and sugar than coffee. He picked it up and leaned back. “Not to ruin the mood, but I have to ask. My security team retrieved a body from an elevator at the building this afternoon. You wouldn’t know anything about that?”
I tapped my fingers on the untouched whiskey I held in my hand. “Let’s cut the shit, Danny. God’s Hand cornered me in a bar this arvo with a wild story about you.”
“And what wild story would that be?” He sipped at his coffee.
“That you were hellbent on cashing in the souls of New York, possibly for a shot at the Devil mantle.”
“I see.” He was silent for a long moment before leaning forward and placing the unfinished coffee on the table. Danny’s gaze focused on Khaleda, calculating, before he turned back to me. “You always were a man of few words, weren’t you, Josiah? Always business. I’d almost forgotten how single-minded you could be when it suited you.”
Khaleda blew some steam from her teacup. “Is it true?”
“Yes,” said Danny. “But I’m not the monster they’re making me out to be. I called you here to explain things, hoping that we could come to an understanding.”
I placed my drink back on the tray and stood. “There’s no understanding to be had, Danny. I’m not going to let you murder ten million people for power. Come on, Khaleda, Victis. I didn’t come here to drink with a madman.” I turned and found two of his security goons in my way. “Danny, call off your dogs before I turn them into stains on your expensive floor.”
“Afraid I can’t do that, Josiah.”
Fine then. Danny wants to play rough, we can play rough. I extended a hand and reached for my power only to find an empty void. Fear stabbed at my chest and I tried again, but it was no use. The magic was there, but lurking somewhere beyond my reach.
The floor creaked as Danny stood. “It’s no use. I’ve had every inch of this place hermetically sealed against all magical energies. You couldn’t spark a flame in here, let alone call down the wrath of Heaven.”
I turned back to Danny, feeling queasy. We’d always talked about it, sealing off a space so magic couldn’t flow through it, but it was impossible. You’d have to go over every square inch, seal it on one side and then pull the power through the other, storing it in something else. The circle would have to be perfect, the mage working it immensely powerful with perfect concentration. More than that, he’d have to devise an apparatus to sit in the entry that would somehow shed any magic coming through. Shit, the spell at the doorway. It wasn’t inert; it was only meant to seem that way. He’d done it. The genius bastard had done the impossible.
Danny smiled. It was a good-natured, boyish smile. “There’s no need for violence, Joey. We’re friends here, aren’t we?”
“Friends don’t keep friends from leaving with guns and muscle, mate.”
He came to put his arm around me, leading me away from the seating area. “Don’t think of it as me keeping you here. Think of it as me keeping you safe. Out there, in the snow and cold, the city is a dangerous place. Anything could happen. In here, you’re protected. No spell can breach my walls, no power can touch you. Not yours, not mine, not God’s Hand. In fact, you’re safer here than you’ve ever been.” He turned and placed his hands on my shoulders, still grinning. “You can let your guard down here, Joey.”
I frowned. “What d’ya want? Really?”
“I told you. I want you. I want you with me like old times.” He moved his hands to my face.
I pushed him away. “We can’t go back to the way things were, Danny. Things have changed. I’ve changed. The whole damn world has changed. We’re not boys anymore.”
His face hardened, and his jaw flexed. Something dark and sinister moved behind his eyes, promising fire, brimstone and vengeance. The same look he’d given me just before I defeated him on that rooftop eighteen years ago. That’s it, Danny-boy. Take a swing. Let’s work this out with our fists instead of magic. Come on.
But he didn’t. He walked away, collected his drink, and went to the window. When he spoke again, his voice was cold and purged of all emotion. “This storm is going to clear earlier than expected, just in time to allow the parade to go on as planned. Then, tomorrow while the rest of the city is glued to their televisions with their turkeys in the oven and thankful prayers on their lips, I will activate the spell and wipe New York from existence.”
I sighed. “Danny…”
He put his back to the window and looked to Khaleda, addressing her rather than me. “You have until ten tomorrow morning to support my bid publicly. Once you do, I will return the portion of your soul that was taken from you.”
“Hold on.” Khaleda put her tea down. “Wait just a minute.”
Danny cut her off. “Refuse, and both of you will be executed as sacrifices to fuel my spell. Until then, you may have the use of these facilities as if they were your own, but you may not leave. You may not make outside calls. Any attempt at violence will be met with deadly force. Do we understand each other? Good.” He looked at both of us and swept from the main room through a set of double doors that led to the rest of the flat.
Khaleda met my eyes, her face marked by fear and confusion. He had us right where he wanted us, and we had less than ten hours to stop him, or we’d be as dead as the rest of New York.
Chapter Sixteen
JOSIAH
“Danny! C’mon, mate. Talk to me.” I followed him into the rear of the flat, passing another seating area. Past that, two small bedrooms stood off to the left while another, longer hallway led to a master bedroom. That’s where I found him, pouting on the end of his bed.
He glared at me, his gaze glacial. “What else is there to say?”
“I don’t know.” I spread my arms and shrugged. “Explain it to me. Why the fuck would you want to be the Devil? Why New York? Why any of this?”
He laughed, but his eyes sparkled with the promise of tears. “Of course you wouldn’t understand. Not you. It was always so easy for you, wasn’t it? The power. You know, I remember the day Christian brought you back. You were a skinny, dirty kid with a dream and barely two dimes to rub together. You knew a handful of tricks, but we all knew you had promise. A year later, you rivaled Christian in raw power while I hit a plateau.”
“I know it looks like I had it easy, Danny, but I promise you I paid for it.”
“You lost Evette!” he shouted. “One person! I lost everything!”
Evette… I shook the memory away. Danny wasn’t going to listen to reason, but maybe I could appeal to his emotion.
I sighed and sat down on the end of the bed next to him. “It wasn’t fair what happened to you. If you want to hurt me, then hurt me. It’s got nothing to do with all these people. These ten million idiots are nothing to you.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “They’re a means to an end. It doesn’t have to be New York. It could be Seattle. Chicago. Los Angeles. They’re just cities, and cities rise and fall. What’s one wrecked city in the grand scheme of things?”
A chill slithered down my spine at the casual way he mentioned murdering millions.
Danny looked away, focusing on the fire escapes winding down the next building. “You want to know why I want to be the Devil? Why not? What else am I supposed to be?”
“Anything you want, Danny. You’re a free man now. Do what you like.”
He swallowed, his throat working with the weight of what I’d said. “Thing is, I have. I’ve done a lot since then. When I heard the news about Christian, I thought everyone was dead. I wanted to die too. I was tired. Tired of being used, lied to, tired of trading blow jobs in back alleys for food, of sleeping in tents and thinking that was all there ever was. I was tired of being powerless.”
I put a hand on his back and leaned forward. “But you’re not. Look at what you’ve done with yourself. You’ve got your own bloody company. You’re a millionaire, Danny-boy.”
He stood and went to the window, leaning his forehead against it. “I made a deal, Josiah. A new life, money, nice apartment on the other side of the country. Everything I thought I wanted. I was even married for a little while. To a woman. Can you imagine? God, that was awful. But I thought if I could just be someone else, I’d be better. I sold my soul for it.”
So, there it was. Danny’d hit rock bottom and cut a deal, his soul for a new lease on life. Everything he had, he owed to some smug bastard in Hell.
He shook his head. “But no matter how rich I became, or how much I owned, it meant nothing to me. I want more. I can’t be fulfilled. This thing inside me, this hunger, it can’t be ignored. It has to be sated, do you understand? And I don’t know how. I just want it to stop. You say I’m free, but I’m not. I’m still a slave.” He struck the glass with a fist before pushing away. “But if I were the King of Hell, every soul would be mine. Every dark, twisted, and monstrous shadow could be mine. I’d have everything. I’d be a god!”
Danny stopped in front of me and took my hand. “Imagine my surprise when I found out that not only were you alive, but you were coming to New York with Khaleda Morningstar. I knew what I had to do. With her support, and you by my side, nothing can stop me. I could finally have everything.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. What was there to say? Danny was stuck in a moment eighteen years ago, a moment that had made him feel powerless and pushed him to make a stupid deal.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to imagine it. The gentle, slightly eccentric genius with all the good looks and none of the sense, shivering in the dark. Alone. Forgotten. I hadn’t even looked for him. No one had. No one cared.
Maybe it didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen when his family disowned him and threw him out, or in the years Christian spent torturing him, or his first nights on the street for a second time. It must’ve taken years, but slowly the light behind his eyes went out. The Danny Monahan I had known broke under the weight of the world.
“Steel is forged in fire,” Christian had said to me the night after he exiled Danny. In the memory, Christian put an arm around my neck and led me down from the rooftop for a congratulatory drink. “You’re steel, Josiah. Danny was more like wood. You burned through him. You don’t need him anymore. From now on, Danny is dead, do you understand? He’s dead to you.”
The words had stung. I hadn’t wanted Danny to go, but his leaving was also a relief. With Danny gone, I could move on, pretend that what’d happened between us wasn’t real. Too much to drink, too many drugs. I didn’t like boys. I was into girls. I loved Evette and not Danny. The idea that I could’ve ever had both was dismissed as teenage lust, and I boxed myself up nice and neat to be like all the other boys I knew.
That box had long ago burned to ash. Still, the one part of me I thought I had figured out was the sex. Then the ghost of Danny Monahan walked into my life and reminded me of a time when the lines blurred into non-existence.
The bed shifted as Danny sat down next to me again. I opened my eyes, suddenly acutely aware of his leg against mine.
“Danny,” I started, turning to him.
Danny put a finger on my lips. “Don’t say anything. Not yet.” He leaned in.
Warning bells went off in my head and the bottom dropped out of my stomach, the instinctual alarm that something terrible was about to happen. A train wreck in motion I couldn’t turn away from, even if I had wanted to. And I wasn’t convinced I did. I wasn’t convinced of anything.
Soft lips grazed mine, so light I doubted it ever happened. Something lit a fire in my chest and made it burn. Silence weighed down the air, the only sounds his breath and the fire burning quickly through the rest of me. My brain screamed for me to stop, but the rest… The rest of me didn’t care. All the rest knew was that someone was touching me, and I liked it.
A smile touched the corner of Danny’s eyes that never quite made it to his lips. He kissed me again, and this time, there was no pretending it didn’t happen.
Eighteen years lifted, and we were back in the small room we shared with the four other boys, pressed against each other as if we knew what we were doing. Except this time, there was no need to whisper, to clamp hands over each other’s mouths to muffle moans or to retreat to separate beds and fall asleep alone and confused. No one there would dare point and laugh or snicker.
But ten million people would die.
I snapped back to the present and pulled away from Danny. “Call off the spell,” I said, suddenly breathless. Why was I breathless? It was only a kiss. But dammit if a part of me didn’t want it to be something more.
“I can’t.” He tried to kiss me again.
I turned my head aside, though it didn’t stop him. He simply redirected his affections, teasing the sensitive skin where my jaw met my ear with his tongue. I almost caved. We could talk about this after.
No.
I closed my eyes. “You said you wanted me. Prove it. Call off the spell, and I’ll stay.”
He made a small, exasperated sound and leaned back. “Joey, I just explained this to you. I need this.”
“Then find some other way, mate. I’ll help you. You want to be King of Hell? Fine. Let’s do it, but not like this.”
His face changed. Danny pushed away and stood. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. What is it? You’re with her?”
I blinked and almost burst out laughing. “Khaleda? Not even close.”
“You always did like the girls better. Acted like I was nothing to you. Always fawning after Evette while I was just a convenient fuck when you couldn’t get to her.” He started pacing, stomping so hard whoever was below us was likely to come knocking.<
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“That’s not what this is.” I tried to reassure him several times, but Danny wouldn’t have it.
He planted his feet and pointed to the door. “Get out! Get the fuck out of my room! Guards!”
“I’m going! Christ, Danny.” I hurried out of the room and shut the door behind me only to run into his security in the hall.
Hadn’t met those two yet. Maybe there’d been a change in shift. They scowled down at me.
I gave them my best smile, despite the pounding in my head. “Hey, fellas. Either of you got a ciggy?”
Chapter Seventeen
KHALEDA
They locked us in one of the guest rooms. The three of us. Together. Five thousand square feet, four bedrooms and two living rooms and they shoved us in the same room to wait out the night. It was as if they knew it was a punishment.
Josiah lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He’d finally stopped whining about not having any cigarettes and resorted to massaging his temples in silence. Victis leaned against the opposite wall, next to the room’s only window, arms crossed.
I reached the wall and turned around to pace the length of the room again. “They can’t do this. We need to tell somebody. Don’t you have a phone or something in that bag? Maybe a spell to notify someone?”
“Spells don’t work here,” Victis reminded me.
Josiah groaned. “Khaleda, sweetheart, would you mind not pacing or talking? In fact, don’t do anything that makes noise.”
I spun around, ready to kick him. “It’s only been two, maybe three hours since your last smoke, asshole. It can’t be that bad yet.”
He groaned and put the pillow over his face. “Thanks for reminding me.”
I almost laughed at him. Reduced to a puddle over a cigarette. At least I knew how to get to him.
“Wait a minute.” Josiah flung the pillow aside and sat up, jabbing a thumb toward Victis. “If magic doesn’t work here, why’s he still mush for brains?”
