The Sidekick Chronicles: Sixx and the Hellhound

by Becca Vincenza

  “What’s going on?”

  “They’re going into that club.” She pointed to a decrepit building that looked utterly abandoned.

  “Um…that’s an empty building,” I pointed out.

  “No, it’s not. You don’t hear the music?” Ana asked. “Or see the lights going a little crazy right now?”

  A boarded-up building loomed in front of us, the windows on the second floor cracked and broken. The businesses surrounding it seemed fine, but a prickle of unease slithered up my spine the longer I stared at the building.

  “It looks abandoned to me, and honestly, the last thing I want is to get closer.”

  “Oh, shit. Hang on.” Ana stepped behind me and placed her hands on my temples. After a few muttered words, the soft trickle of her magic coursed through me. I opened my eyes to see the club ahead of me bursting with life.

  “Glamour?” I pouted.

  “Yup. Sorry, I forgot.”

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  “We go in.”

  Chapter 6

  The club thumped with the beat of music that was about two hundred decibels too loud. Lights flashed erratically as slickened bodies gyrated against each other on the dance floor, moving with an inhuman grace. Some were facing each other, and at first glance, it almost looked like they were necking. But one glance at the ecstasy painted on their faces and I doubted it was that innocent. Ana fit in well with this crowd. On average, everyone else stood at least a head taller than me. Most had an ethereal beauty that made me wish I’d put on more than a nude base of makeup.

  Ana, gods love her, managed to walk out the door with not even a swipe of mascara, and she still looked stunning. She leaned down to whisper in my ear. “Meet me at midnight. I want to see if the drug switches hands again, but stay close to the bar. Order a drink, but don’t talk to anyone. I don’t like the feel of this place. They will assume you’re a para if for no other reason than the club is blocked with glamour and humans can’t sense it.”

  I nodded and followed her lead. She peeled off her leather jacket, exposing her milky, flawless skin, catching the eyes of a couple of paras standing near us, both male and female. Suppressing my smile, I took her jacket from her. She shook out her hair, not realizing the chaos she caused by just being her natural, beautiful self.

  Heading to the bar, I kept her jacket close to me while keeping my eye on where I saw a flash of Z and Ana’s guy, Kallan. They sat together in a booth with a few other paras. I didn’t get a great view when we first came in, but I settled on a barstool that provided a direct, clear view.

  I draped Ana’s jacket over my lap, wishing I could squeeze into it since I was feeling a little exposed in my flirty top.

  A flash of long blonde hair caught my eye as Ana lithely moved through the crowd, keeping a safe distance from the booth where the guys sat with two females and another male. The girls seemed more interested in Z and Kallan than the guy they’d come with. Wringing the leather between my hands, I clenched my teeth tightly as Z leaned in to listen to what the gorgeous, raven-haired woman next to him said.

  A snort brought my attention to the bartender, who was watching me with keen eyes. His pallor was way too pasty to be considered human even if I overlooked the dark circles that ringed his gaunt, red eyes. His hair was slicked back with way too much gel for my taste, but I could see where he might come off as handsome. Even if he looked a little worse for wear tonight.

  “Unrequited love?” He smiled, flashing insanely large canines, the teeth next to them filed into sharp points.

  Feigning confidence was something I had to learn fast, especially when dealing with paras. “No, it’s just…”

  “Ah, you don’t care for interbreeding. A little harsh, don’t ya think?”

  “No. Just not a fan of PDA,” I snapped, uncertain where my feelings of anger radiated from.

  “Alright,” he replied, placing his hands out in surrender. “What can I get you to drink?”

  “Whiskey sour,” I mumbled, glancing over the club, looking for Ana. I definitely wasn’t trying to see what Z was doing or with whom. Shaking my head, I snatched the glass as soon as the bartender set it down in front of me and took a long drink. He continued to watch me with a speculative glint in his eye. Shivering under his rapt gaze, I looked back to the booth and noticed they were moving.

  Z stood with the raven-haired beauty and gripped her hand, leading her to the dance floor. As soon as they got under the strobing lights, his hands circled her waist. My eyes zeroed in on big, strong hands holding her small waist in a sensual hold.

  Kallan stayed in the booth, maneuvering the remaining girl onto his lap as he spoke to the other guy. When the stranger caught my eye, terror bolted down my spine. He didn’t have any horrifying scars, but something about him screamed danger. His dark hair was styled artfully in a way that made it seem like he spent no time at all on it. But his eyes, even from where I sat, were icy and emotionless. His features were masculine and sharp, but not overly so.

  He wore a suit, which seemed oddly out of place in the club, but he listened intently to whatever it was Kallan was saying. The girl on Kallan’s lap ran her fingers through his hair and kept sweeping down to lick his ear. I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t completely lying about the aversion to PDA. I didn’t mind some things, but licking a guy’s ear like a lollipop? No, thanks.

  The bartender laughed at my reaction.

  “What?”

  “You must be new here.” His gaze roved over me hungrily. “In the city, we don’t mind sexual desire. It’s often shown very openly.”

  I made a noncommittal noise as Ana threaded across the dance floor on her way back toward me. But before she reached me, my attention got diverted again. The woman with Z wrapped her arms around his neck, running one manicured hand through the shorter hairs on the back of his neck. She pulled his head down to meet hers. When their lips met, my heart dropped to my feet. Especially when I saw his hand cup her ass, the other reaching to cup her breast. Disappointment speared through me as I watched him with another woman.

  But I didn’t miss him slipping the little baggie of drugs into her cleavage.

  “We gotta go. Now,” Ana hissed, her gaze cutting to the dark-haired male who sat with Kallan. For a brief moment, it felt like his frostbitten eyes passed over us. I shivered, hoping to any gods out there that I’d only imagined it. But I did not imagine my best friend gripping my hand in a death grip.

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  “Stay safe, little chickie,” the bartender said to me before I slipped him a twenty, leaving without getting change.

  We hurried out of the club, back through the city, and took a bus back to our apartment, both lost in our own thoughts.

  I couldn’t get over the irrational betrayal I felt every time I thought about Z’s hands roaming over that other woman. Was I more upset about that or that he was dealing drugs?

  ****

  The following morning, Ana and I stepped out together for breakfast at a twenty-four-hour diner down the street. My friend seemed distracted, but I had to admit my night was restless and uncomfortable, too. The bartender’s words echoed in my head, and I felt like such a novice. I tried my best not to think about Z’s hands on another woman or how he was involved with the drugs.

  “I overheard a little bit of chatter about the drugs in the club. Honestly, I couldn’t get a whole lot, but I think para-laced drugs are being peddled to humans on purpose. Paras deliver them to human drug dealers, telling them it’s a new drug that has hit the streets, and then it’s sold to unsuspecting humans who think they’re just getting a regular high,” Ana whispered as she scooted closer to me.

  She had a heaping pile of food including eggs, bacon, and pancakes while I had a slightly smaller plate of French toast and bacon. But the food tasted stale.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked.

  “This is bigger than anything we’ve taken on before. If it just involved humans, I would say we could
compile some information on the involved parties and drop it off with the police. You’re a whiz on the computer, so I know you could get me some dirt. But we’re dealing with all paras here, which means the human police force is out.”

  “Maybe we should take a step back, Ana. The bartender last night picked me out as an outsider almost immediately.” I couldn’t help but think about the dark-haired man that Z and Kallan met up with. It made me uneasy just thinking about him. And while my instincts might be dulled, my fight-or-flight worked just fine. When it came to that male, my instincts said run.

  “Nah – I’m too pissed now. Kallan came to the bar and tried to talk to me like I was some newbie!” Ana scoffed. “I don’t know what his end game is.”

  I worried my bottom lip as she spoke. Ana’s bright eyes were lit up with passion that always resulted in a marathon session of planning. Last night was too spontaneous for my liking. If we had more information… but I knew Ana. She wouldn’t want to let this go. I had to keep her away from it as long as I could.

  “Okay, well, let me do a little research and see if I can find any news articles that mention a new drug on the streets. Maybe we can gather some information about the product before we jump in feet first,” I offered. Ana nodded, but I could tell she was still restless. For now, I could only hope she’d stick to our plan.

  ****

  The next few days passed in the same monotonous routine. Ana told me she took extra shifts at work since one of the bartenders decided to take a sudden vacation. The first night, I believed her, but when I found her clothes left on the floor of the bathroom and paper towels dotted with blood in the trashcan, I knew she was lying.

  I continued with my shifts at work, anxious that I’d have an unfriendly visitor. Thankfully, Z never came sauntering down the aisle to my pharmacy window. I worked diligently on my searches, pulling out all my computer sleuthing skills to see if I could turn up any news related to a new street drug, but both the regular web and the dark web were eerily silent.

  I tried staying up until Ana got home but ended up falling asleep on the couch. When she finally walked in the door, she wrapped a blanket around me, and I didn’t stir. The third night, I was so determined to stay up I started drinking coffee.

  Ana rolled in around three A.M. looking exhausted and worse for wear. If I didn’t know her better, I would have guessed they just had a rough night at the bar. But Ana thrived on the bar’s energy and worked well under pressure. She held nothing back and even more so when her boss wasn’t watching.

  “Where have you been?” I asked shrilly, my hands firmly planted on my hips.

  Ana closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the doorway. “Can we not do this right now? I’d really like to take a shower.”

  “And I would really like it if you didn’t lie to me, saying you’re going in to work when you’ve obviously been going out on the streets on your own! Don’t you think I worry about you?”

  Ana stepped forward and pulled me into a reluctant hug. I allowed it for a minute even when she started to sway with me in her arms.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I muttered.

  “But it already is,” Ana replied with a smile in her voice.

  I rolled my eyes. The swaying was lulling me back to sleep.

  “We will discuss this in the morning. Don’t think for a minute that you’re going to weasel your way out of it. I know for a fact you aren’t working at the bar tomorrow, so don’t try that lie,” I scolded, pulling back from my friend and looking her in the eye with my best schoolteacher glare. “Now go take a shower. You’re all sweaty.”

  Ana laughed as she headed toward the bathroom. I stomped to my bedroom with dread twisting in my gut.

  Chapter 7

  The morning turned out even more disastrously than I thought it would. After falling into a fitful sleep, I woke up early and checked on my programs. I had several data scraping programs running, scouring public and private records for specific terminology. I typically allowed the programs to run in the background since we used it to find leads on any paras in the area causing trouble. After several days with no luck, I added a couple more terms, including those for aberrant drug activity that we kept track of. A ping went off, startling me. We had a hit in the police database in an area where there was a drug bust. The drugs they found weren’t like anything they had encountered before; they resembled a drug that had been off the market for many years.

  The men who were busted fought with a savage nature that seemed… unnatural, the police report stated. With this new information, it was hard to go back on my stance to stay out of it.

  This update would only fuel Ana’s righteous fire. She made me proud with her sense of justice and desire to fight to right the wrongs in the world. My sense of justice hit a little closer to home. I only wanted to protect my family, and Ana was my family. If we did this together, she’d be safer.

  Needing a break to prepare for the conversation to come, I decided to make a quick breakfast. Ana stumbled out of her room with her nose in the air as she sniffed out the cheese omelets I made for us.

  “I’m not sure what I did in a past life to deserve you, but I am thankful for it every day.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not buttering me up before I get to yell at you. I deserve to get a yell in!” I scolded. Then Ana gave me her most devastating puppy eyes that always seemed to get her off the hook. When we first met back in high school, I remembered asking her to stop wearing colored eye contacts because they freaked me out. It turned out her violet eyes were all-natural. Now they sparkled with an eternal glow that I knew was the result of fae magic.

  “No! I’ve been worried sick about you! You promised me all those years ago you wouldn’t go out without me.”

  “Relax, I haven’t been hitting the streets. I’ve been going back to the club we went to the other night. Some nights, it’s strictly a bar. The bartender said they might be looking for extra help, which means I might have an in.”

  I shifted in my seat. Guilt nagged at me. “I think it’s time I came clean to you, Ana.”

  She straightened, a look of worry crossing her features. I hated that I was the one to put it there in the first place. My stomach clenched with nerves, and my palms sweated. I pressed my hands on my knees and breathed out steadily.

  “A couple of days after our run-in with Z and Kallan… um, you know, the same night Kallan came and visited you? Well, I got my own visit from Z. Well, his name isn’t really Z; it’s Olezka, but anyway…”

  She interrupted, “Are you okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he?” Ana stood up and came around the table to check me out even though the visit was over a week ago.

  “I would’ve told you sooner if I felt he was threatening me in any way, but he wasn’t. He came to talk to me but got distracted by this.” I gestured to where my bruise had been.

  Ana got a sly look on her face. “Oh? Well, what did he do about this distraction?” Ana asked with a smile creeping over her lips, her brows raised high with expectation.

  I rolled my eyes. “He asked about the bruise. Down, girl. He wasn’t looking at me like that. Not even when… Never mind. Anyway,” I waved the thought away, “he asked who attacked me, but that’s not the point. The point is that he was snooping around me, too. I’m worried that they know where we work, especially after seeing them buy the drugs and give them out at the club.”

  “Wait, what?” Ana placed her hands on her trim waist and tapped her foot, annoyed.

  “You didn’t see it?” I groaned. Of course, she wasn’t watching Z. Why would she be? She had no reason to be more suspicious of him than Kallan. “Z gave the drugs to the girl he was grinding on, out on the dance floor.”

  My voice wasn’t bitter. Nope. Not at all.

  “Hmm, so you think they’re dealing to paras? But that doesn’t make sense. The only people I’ve run into who were acting strange were human. We’re not far enough in the para world to know if they’re affected by h
uman drugs or even if they use them. But this proves one thing – I really need to get that bartending job.”

  For some reason, I wasn’t worried about Z or Kallan running into her there. I was more concerned about the dark-haired, steely-eyed man. Something about him made me uneasy. Perhaps it was because he didn’t suppress the aura of being different like most paras with whom I came into contact. I recalled that the Alpha from the wolf pack that took me and Ana had the same air about him. He had no qualms projecting his dangerous vibe to those around him.

  “I don’t know, Ana.” For some reason, my gut was telling me Z wasn’t doing the horrible things we suspected him of doing. But just because he got pissed that someone marked me with a bruise didn’t mean he was a good guy.

  “Well, if you saw him giving it to another para, she could be the one selling it or using it. Either way, we need more information.”

  I nodded. “Which is why I made breakfast. I got a hit on my scans. There have been reports of an older drug that has been off the market for a long time popping up, but I think they’re mistaking it for the new version that we’ve been running into. The old drug used to make people act almost like they were drunk, which is characteristic of what we’re dealing with now. I need to do a bit more research, but maybe we could go check out the place the police raided to see if there are any clues you can pick up that they couldn’t.”

  Ana nodded and went back to her food. “I know you don’t like it, but I think I need to try for the bar job. I’ll keep my position at Sea Creature. The bartender you spoke with seemed nice enough when I talked to him. He said he was the only one at the moment because his partner left.”

  I swallowed down my questions about why this was so important to her. It was no secret that Ana longed to understand her other half. She could only get so much support from me since I didn’t truly understand that side of her. Ana was raised by her Aunt Lola, who was human, but somehow, she knew a lot about the para world. Before she passed, she filled us in on as much information as she could. Lola wanted Ana to have someone she could turn to, which was why she brought me into the fold, but Lola was very protective about the identity of Ana’s father. She only said that he was a fae. Still, it hurt me more than I cared to admit that Ana was seeking more and wasn’t bringing me along with her.