Hellbent Halo Boxed Set

by E. A. Copen

  I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car for a look. A few paces forward and I had to stop and stare, dumbfounded. “Can’t I leave him alone for five damn minutes or is he going to blow up half a building every time I turn my back? That idiot!”

  A hissing sound off to my right drew my attention. I shielded my eyes from the falling rain and the flashing lights to spy Niko pressed against the narrow space between one brick building and the next. White, powdery debris stuck to streaks of blood flowing from a nasty cut above his eye and coated his clothes. Niko glanced around the corner, nervously eying the police vehicles. When he did, I noticed an unconscious and bloody Josiah leaning on Niko’s arm.

  I stomped across two lanes of road to grab Niko by the ear and drag him further into the alley.

  “Ow! That fuckin’ hurts!”

  I let him go. “Give me one goddamn reason not to make your brain melt out of your ears, Niko! What happened in there?”

  He rubbed his ear and avoided making eye contact. “I swear I didn’t mean for him to get hurt. I’ll explain it later after we’re off the street.”

  I folded my arms and waited, forcing myself not to look at Josiah. He was in bad shape, but I’d seen him recover from worse. As long as he was still breathing, he would recover. Niko wouldn’t drag a dead man out of the rubble. Not unless he thought he’d gain something from it.

  “Fuck, you’re a hard-ass bitch, you know that?” Niko grunted and shifted Josiah’s weight. “Iosef told me if I brought him Josiah, he’d give me the name of the man who killed my sister.”

  “You used him.”

  “I didn’t mean for him to get hurt. That was never part of the plan. Things went to shit in there.”

  I uncrossed my arms and glanced at Josiah’s unconscious face. When he woke up, he was going to be pissed, and rightfully so. Niko deserved some punishment for being an asshole and almost getting him killed, but it wasn’t up to me to deliver that. Josiah could deal with it himself. I just had to make sure Niko didn’t cause us any more trouble in the meantime.

  “Get in the car, then. But you’re riding up front. Josiah goes in the back with me.” I laced an arm under Josiah’s other side and helped Niko carry him to the car. It wasn’t easy, shoving dead weight into the back seat, especially since he was all limbs and awkwardly heavy for someone his size. Somehow, we managed.

  Niko hopped into the front passenger seat and closed the door, giving the demon a questioning look.

  Thoganoth nodded at him. “What’s up? I’m Thoganoth. Demon.”

  “Niko,” Niko said, extending a hand. “Oracle.”

  They shook and the demon turned back to driving, throwing the car in gear. Tires squealed as he spun the wheel and hit the gas, doing an illegal U-turn in the middle of the road.

  I spied the rental car we’d been driving around in and told Thoganoth to stop the car. He did, and I hopped out to search the back seat. If Josiah were conscious, he would’ve wanted me to get his bag. He’d flip out if he woke up and it was gone. I found it there, tucked against the back of the driver’s seat, and hauled it back to the car.

  “Okay, we can go now,” I said, shoving it against Josiah’s feet.

  Sirens tore open the quiet. Thoganoth lifted his shoulders and tucked his head as more police cars passed, then carefully eased off the main roads.

  While he drove, I tried to look over Josiah. He didn’t have any damage to his face other than some superficial scratches, but one spot on his shoulder was turning an angry shade of reddish-purple. Something heavy must’ve fallen on him. Hard to say if there was a fracture, but he was breathing and had an even pulse. Everything else was secondary.

  “Dammit!” Niko struck the dash. “That motherfucker got away again!”

  I pushed Josiah away to lean against the opposite window. “I’m sure you’ll get another shot.”

  “It’s not that.” He looked down at his hands and closed them into fists. “He’s laughing at me. At how he got away with it. That motherfucker! My sister and me, we gave the organization everything, but when she needed help, no one was there for her. Not even me. Now I’ve gone and fucked this up too.”

  Josiah coughed. “Vengeance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, mate.”

  “You idiot.” I gave him a gentle punch to the side. “Are you ever not going to blow up a building when I leave you alone?”

  “I didn’t blow it up. And how’s it my fault if they’re all built like fucking cardboard? Thing came down way too easy.” He sat up, grimacing and holding his side. “Who’s our new friend?”

  “His name is Thoganoth. He wants me to take over Hell.”

  Thoganoth’s eyes flicked up to the mirror, watching for Josiah’s reaction. It was hard to tell how he’d take that news. I knew Josiah was a friend to some demons while he hated others. It seemed impossible to predict which ones he liked and which ones he’d kill on sight. Maybe it was random and based on how he was feeling.

  “Correction,” said the demon in the driver’s seat, “I want you to oppose Remiel.”

  “That’s a fool’s errand.” Josiah grunted and tried to sit up straighter. “Christ, I could use a smoke.”

  Niko shifted, turning in his seat to offer a nearly full pack of menthol cigarettes to Josiah.

  Josiah stared at them a moment, then turned away in favor of looking out the window as if he’d never seen them. If he was turning down a cigarette, he must’ve been furious.

  Niko slowly retracted his arm.

  “In any case,” Josiah continued, “you’re no match for him. No offense, Khaleda. The best defense against Remiel is to prevent him from rising altogether, a task I thought we’d already gone to complete.”

  “I didn’t know Alexi would be there,” Niko said quietly, staring hard out his own window in the opposite direction.

  “If you wanted to take him out, mate, you should’ve been straight with me.”

  Niko let out a bitter laugh. “If I had, you would’ve ditched me. The only reason I’m still here is that you think I can help you stop this.”

  “Can you?” I asked, leaning forward.

  Niko squared his jaw. “No.”

  The leather upholstery creaked as I leaned back. “Then I vote we let him out right here, right now.”

  “I saw it happen in a vision.” Niko closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest. “And once I’ve seen it, there’s no stopping it. Trust me, I’ve tried. Every time I try to stop something bad from happening, more people just get hurt. You can’t stop Alexi from summoning Remiel, no matter what you do.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Josiah said, crossing his arms. “What’s the point of having prophetic visions if it’s all set in stone? And even if it is, I don’t plan on sitting around with my thumbs up my ass just waiting for it to happen.”

  “There may be another way,” Thoganoth volunteered. “Kill Alexi.”

  “Kill Alexi?” Niko gave the demon a doubtful look. “You’re talking about murdering one of the Godfathers of Night, a man with a literal army at his back, not to mention a talented mage like Iosef. He owns this town. We can’t even cross a bridge to get out of here without him knowing we’ve done it and you want to kill him?”

  “Someone killed Georgie,” I pointed out, “so it must be possible. He’s human. Humans die pretty easily in my experience.”

  Niko shook his head. “He’s not human. Alexi killed Georgie, and that took months of planning. He was Georgie’s second in command, and it still wasn’t easy. You guys are outsiders, and I’m wanted. You’ll never get close enough to pull the trigger, not with Iosef protecting him.”

  “Yes, we will,” Josiah said. “We’ve got something to trade. Something Alexi desperately wants.” He leveled his glare at the back of Niko’s head.

  It seemed fair. Niko had used Josiah as bait to get what he wanted. It still wouldn’t be easy. First, we’d have to convince Alexi to meet with us in person, and now that he knew we were a force to be reckon
ed with, he would hesitate to come anywhere near us. Not only that, but as Niko said, he had his own personal army. No way was Alexi Komnosis going to meet with us alone.

  “No one is going after anybody right now.” I put a hand on Josiah’s shoulder. “The police will be looking for both of you, and Alexi will be on high alert after what just happened. Not to mention how busted up the two of you are. We need time to prepare, to choose the right location, and to get some backup.”

  “Backup?” Josiah snorted. “Just where do ya plan on gettin’ that, sweetheart? We’re all out of friends unless you want to call in God’s Hand, and they’re as likely to fuck things up as to help.”

  “I’m not talking about God’s Hand.” I met Thoganoth’s eyes in the mirror. “We’re going to fight fire with fire.”

  “What if I say no?” Niko asked, turning his head slightly away from the window to eye me. “What if I told you getting me anywhere near Alexi was the worst possible thing you could do?”

  “Then you can stuff it, mate. This is what you’re doing. I’ve proven I can find you, even when Alexi couldn’t. There’s nowhere you can run that I won’t follow. Not with this on the line. Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

  Niko bit his lip, looked out the window, and shook his head.

  “In the meantime, we need somewhere to lie low,” I suggested.

  Josiah sighed and shifted his weight, wincing. “We should go back to Harmony’s. Haven’t burned that place yet.”

  I cringed. “Yeah, about that. Her apartment building might not be the safest place either.”

  Josiah rolled his head toward me. “Root one of the neighbors, did ya?”

  “Upstairs neighbor was beating his wife. Now he’ll never hurt another soul again.”

  He snorted. “Good on ya, but that means we’re out of luck unless you want to call in God’s Hand. They might have a safehouse or some hotel in the area that’s clean.”

  By clean, he meant free of Alexi’s spies. God’s Hand would never put us in a nice hotel, and they’d only pay for Josiah and me. Cramming four of us into one New York City hotel room would be a nightmare.

  “I know a place,” Niko offered, turning around to look at us. “The people who run it are still loyal to Georgie. They won’t give us up to Alexi.”

  I scrutinized Niko’s words. He’d lied to us before, and there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t again, except his life was on the line now too. Niko didn’t strike me as the suicidal type.

  Josiah stared hard at Niko, his gaze like hot iron until Niko lowered his eyes. “You’d better not be lyin’ to me, Niko. Do that again, and you won’t have to worry about Alexi or Iosef killing you. I’ll choke the life out of you myself.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  JOSIAH

  Niko showed us to a two-story building at the edge of Astoria named Taverna Konstantine’s. It was a quaint place from the outside with worn blue banners and handwritten signs in the window, all in Greek.

  He got out first and rapped on one of the side windows. I didn’t expect anyone would answer, considering it was after midnight and all the lights were out, but an elderly man with silver hair and a mustache to match opened the door, drying his hands on a dirty white apron.

  “Niko!” he exclaimed and gripped Niko firmly by the shoulders, a big smile on his face. They spoke a few seconds before Niko gestured back to the car and the man’s smile faded.

  He came back a moment later and opened the door on Khaleda’s side. “This is Konstantine Sava. There’s an empty apartment upstairs he’s willing to let us use for a few days.”

  Khaleda shook hands with Konstantine and thanked him in Greek. At least, I assumed that’s what she was saying. Suppose I had no way of knowing as I didn’t speak any Greek.

  The old man ushered us into a small dining room where all the chairs had been placed atop tables. The rug had been swept and tile mopped. It wasn’t a big place, but there was pride in every inch of it. Reminded me of some of the places I’d frequented back home before I left, little mom-and-pop joints where the owners knew me by name. It was something I missed moving from city to city, all the nameless faces that just seemed to repeat with slight changes in pattern.

  Once we were inside, Niko took over guiding us to the rear of the restaurant to another door that hid a staircase. Wood creaked and groaned underfoot as the four of us climbed. Niko stepped aside once we reached the top, holding the door open for us.

  The apartment was small but adequate. Better than most of the rooms God’s Hand had provided for us. There was an old sofa in the center of the front room with mustard-colored upholstery. Someone had tossed a quilt that looked like it’d been hand-stitched over the back of it. No television on the wall, just a bookshelf stuffed to bursting with paperbacks. Blinds and long, dark curtains covered the window, letting in just a sliver of the light from the street.

  I walked through, stopping to glance into a bathroom that had one of the smallest bathtubs I’d seen. With a little imagination, I supposed you could call it a large shower. The apartment didn’t have a kitchen, just a counter with a hot plate, a mini-fridge, and a microwave. Tucked in behind the bathroom was a bedroom with a single, queen-sized mattress and a metal headboard with paint flaking off it. Two metal radiators heated the whole place, which would’ve been more than enough with the ovens running downstairs.

  While I was still looking around, the apartment door opened again and a heavyset woman who must’ve been in her sixties entered, wrestling with a big covered tray. Niko went to help her, though it sounded like they were having a mild argument in Greek. He took the tray away from her and placed it on the coffee table before turning back to her and folding his hands in a pleading gesture.

  She frowned and touched the cut on his head only to have him duck away and say something defensively. Probably telling her it was nothing, which it was. Just a break of the skin. Didn’t even need stitches. He was lucky to have walked away with barely a scratch after that.

  The old woman pulled out a handkerchief, spat in it and wiped some of the blood away before kissing him on each cheek before pinching one and leaning to the side. “He’s a good boy,” she said in a heavy accent. “But he needs to eat more. Make sure he eats. You want some bougatsa? I’ll bring you some bougatsa. It’s his favorite.”

  “No, Ya-ya,” Niko said, trying to usher her back to the door. “I’m fine.”

  “What about a soda? Orange soda?” She stopped at the door, her hand holding it open.

  Niko crossed his arms. “I haven’t had an orange soda since I was thirteen, Ya-ya.”

  She smiled sweetly and patted his cheek. “That’s right. You’re all grown up now. I’ll bring you some tsipouro and an orange soda.”

  After a little more negotiating, he convinced her to leave and shut the door behind her, putting his back to it as if he were holding it shut.

  “She seems nice,” Khaleda said, restraining a grin. “Is she really your grandma?”

  He rubbed his palms together. “No, my grandparents on my mother’s side passed away years ago. My dad’s parents are in Greece. I only see them once a year, maybe. That’s more often than I see him. Helen and Konstantine practically raised me when Mom wasn’t looking. Spent my summers working downstairs. This place is as much home as anywhere else.”

  “And Alexi won’t look for you here?” The demon reached down to lift the lid on the tray, inhaling the scent of warm food.

  Niko crossed his arms. “Alexi doesn’t know me well enough to know that. No one alive does. He and his men killed everyone who gave a damn about me. Only reason I’m still alive is that I’m useful.” His eyes flashed to me just a second before they went to the demon.

  He was avoiding me, but we would have to talk sooner or later. Or not. What the fuck did I care? In his position, I might’ve done the same thing, which should’ve made me feel better about how he’d used me to get what he wanted, but it didn’t. It stung. But even the sting of that knowledge was bett
er than the emptiness I’d felt before.

  “Just open it, man.” Niko grabbed the cover from the demon and pulled it away, revealing a plate of seared meat on skewers alongside a dish of tzatziki and a stack of slightly overcooked pitas.

  Khaleda picked up a skewer and picked a chunk of meat off it to pop it into her mouth. “I’ve changed my mind,” she announced after a moment of chewing. “We can keep him if his grandma keeps bringing us food.”

  Thoganoth picked up a skewer and sniffed it. “What is it? Is it cat?”

  “No!” Niko exclaimed, obviously offended. “It’s pork!”

  The demon frowned and put the skewer back. “Too bad. I like cat.”

  The smell made my stomach growl and my mouth water. It’d been hours since I’d had that pizza, and it probably couldn’t hold a candle to what Niko’s grandmother had brought up, but eating meant socializing, something I was in no mood to do.

  While the rest of them dug into their meal, I paced the perimeter of the apartment, looking for mirrors and putting up blood wards. The couple downstairs probably wouldn’t appreciate the strange bloody symbols I painted on the walls, but they’d probably appreciate Iosef interrogating them even less. Just the same, I did my best to hide them behind furniture out of courtesy. The mirrors, I covered with sheets I found in one of the tiny closets.

  When that was all done, I stopped at the entrance to the living room. Someone must’ve just told a joke because they were all smiling and laughing as if they were old friends.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” I announced. “I covered the mirrors and warded the place so Iosef won’t find us using magic, but that only buys us a couple hours at most. Khaleda, I suggest you go and find your backup. We’re going to need it before this is over.”

  Niko’s face darkened, the smile fading. “What should I do?”

  “Can’t say I care what you do, Niko.” I went into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

  In the shower, I turned the hot water up all the way, even though it burned and turned my skin bright red. The bruise on my shoulder ached, a dull background pounding to the pain in my skull. I focused on the pain because it was familiar. I knew how to deal with that. Lies and betrayal weren’t new either, I supposed. Should’ve been used to that too.