Kali Sweet Series, Three Urban Fantasy Novels (Boxed Set) Read online

  Maddy was watching TV, some music video channel that showed more reality TV than videos. I tapped her on the back of the head. “I’m heading to Eden, Illinois, to handle some Sweet Investigations business there. I’ll probably be gone all day. You stay here, find some clothes, clean up and wait for me to get back. We’ll go to the coronation ceremony together if I haven’t figured out a way to get out of it by then.”

  She nodded, lost in her show.

  So young.

  In the garage, I hailed Cole. “Road trip. Let’s go.”

  Rad, looking at home behind the wheel of Nudra’s Porsche, was just driving in.

  Cole stood to my right, eyes fixed on the Porsche’s tires. “How’d she drive?”

  The Chaos demon grinned, shifted into park and unfolded himself from the seat as if leaving the car pained him. “Smooth as silk, man.”

  Cole glanced at me and waved a hand at the lineup of high-end vehicles. “Which ride do you prefer for this road trip? I haven’t driven the Porsche or the Bugatti yet.”

  They were all beautiful and I felt cheated that Cole and Rad had gotten to drive them before I did, but the trip we were about to take needed to be covert and comfortable. I dangled my keys in front of Cole’s face. “The Land Rover. And you’re driving so I can read.”

  He snatched the keys out of my hand. “Fuck.”

  Rad looked surprised but grinned. “So I’m not the driver this time?”

  “You’re not coming,” I said, and turned to leave.

  “Wait.” He caught up to me, matching my strides. “Why not?”

  Because I couldn’t stand the thought of being trapped in a car with him for two hours. Because I knew one of us would say something and the whole, terrible truth about our feelings for each other would spill out. Or the past would surface like it always did. I couldn’t avoid the landmines piling up on all sides. “I work alone.”

  “But you’re taking him?”

  I knew blowing Rad off wasn’t going to be easy, but it annoyed me he was making it hard. “Cole’s assigned to me until we get through the coronation. Otherwise, I’d go alone.”

  Rad followed me in silence to the front entrance. “What if Lucifer’s with the witch? What are you going to do then?”

  The thought had crossed my mind, but it was a question I couldn’t answer yet. Avoiding him was the best idea. One way or the other, I was going to pay the piper. Either Lucifer would strike me down for messing with his lover or Lilith would strike me down for not doing my job. “What I always do. Figure it out.”

  Emotions were pumping through him with alarming speed, causing my chest to tighten in response. “This is suicide, Kali, and you know it.”

  Standing there, close enough to see the desire in his eyes, to hear the blood throbbing in his veins, to feel the left-over excitement of driving the Porsche rolling off his skin, my legs trembled. “Well, at least we’ll finally be free of each of other.”

  Hurt flashed in his eyes. He started to say something, closed his mouth.

  For the second time that night, I wanted to run. “Next time you’re on stage, sing that song. The one from the other night.”

  His brows dipped. “It’s not finished. It’s only half a song.”

  “So finish it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know how it ends yet.”

  Like most good things in my life, in my version, it would end bloody. Someone’s heart would be ripped in two. “Goodbye, Rad. Good luck on your upcoming tour. I’ll bank some blood for you at Chloe’s.”

  I shuffled down the steps. Cole was waiting for me in the Land Rover. Behind me, Rad half-hummed a few words from the song under his breath. “After all this time, after all the wrongs…I still care…”

  Hopping in the car, I shut out the rest of the song, shut out Rad’s emotions coursing through me. Cole had the GPS up and working but his broad-tipped fingers kept hitting the wrong buttons on the touchscreen and he swore at it. Rad’s fingers, nimble and agile, would have skated over the touchscreen’s buttons with ease. I smacked Cole’s hand away, feeling awkward that we were still sitting there while Rad watched. “Just drive. I’ll figure this out.”

  I pretended to be busy with the GPS and didn’t look at Rad as we drove away, hating myself for being such a coward but telling myself I was doing this for Rad’s own good.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Why didn’t you let Guitar Boy come?” Cole asked once we were on the highway.

  This time of early morning, there were few cars. The speedometer hovered around ninety. I played with the passenger side light above me to focus it on the papers in my lap. “Why would I?”

  “He’s handy to have around.”

  “I don’t need him, and he’s been around too much already.”

  We both knew that wasn’t the real reason I didn’t want Rad there. Cole accepted my lame excuse, though, and the two of us fell into a comfortable silence.

  The words on the papers in front of me blurred. Originally, I’d planned to use Rad to help me with Lilith’s witch. The only way to break the kind of hold Lucifer had was to recondition the human. Rad could create chaos every time Lucifer was near her, every time she sought him out. My own version of Pavlov’s dogs. If Amy encountered something bad when Lucifer was around, she’d get gun-shy and decide he wasn’t worth the trouble.

  While that approach allowed me to stay covert with my work, the type of conditioning necessary to change a human’s psyche required months, sometimes years, to effectively sever the human’s ties to the supernatural. I didn’t have months or years on this assignment. I had hours.

  Rad’s ability to cause chaos might still have been useful as a distraction if things went bad with Lucifer. I couldn’t imagine things would possibly go good. But if the situation went bad as I suspected it would, Rad would end up in the pit with me enduring Lucifer’s punishment.

  I fingered the papers and stared out at the dark countryside. We’d left the city limits and were in farm country. White two-story houses rose ghost-like from flat stretches of land, dark barn counterparts shadowing them. Here and there, fences, cows, horses. Beyond them, harvested fields of corn, their stubby stalks marking rows like ragged soldiers.

  Cole drove silently, giving me the space I needed to think. Rad wouldn’t have done that. Rad would have tried to keep up a steady stream of conversation. He would have asked questions I didn’t want to answer, probed into the past and tried to talk about had happened between us. Even if he’d steered clear of the most painful subjects, there was no away around discussing our lives that wouldn’t somehow lead back to that day all those years ago.

  Or the fact he was a demon killer.

  When Cole finally broke the silence, he was there in the moment with me, planning for the immediate future and not thinking about the past. “How can you take revenge on Lucifer without getting your ass fried?”

  “I can’t.”

  “So this is a suicide mission?”

  “Ye of little faith.”

  He snorted. “You made it through the encounter with Lilith. You took down Raj Nudra and handled Toel Chase like he was nothing more than an annoying fly. If anyone can handle Lucifer, it’s you.”

  I appreciated his confidence. My phone rang, caller ID showing me Di’s face. “Hey, Di. Everything okay?”

  Her voice was light and cheery. “The Blackstone is perfection. Nice of your boyfriend to lend it to me. Will you thank him again?”

  “Thank him yourself. You’ll see him before I will.”

  “JR told me you were at Nudra’s house together.”

  “Were. I’m on the road now. Out of town business.”

  “And Rad’s not with you?”

  Amazing how in such a short time, we had seamlessly become a couple in the eyes of everyone else. “No, he’s not. He’s probably on his way back to the Blackstone.”

  Her voice hardened. “Please tell me you didn’t brea
k up with him already. He’s good for you. You need to stop living in the past.”

  If only it were that easy. “If it wasn’t for Radison Beaumont, Nudra’s Merc demons would never have gotten the jump on me.”

  “If it wasn’t for Rad, you’d still be Nudra’s blood slave.”

  Point to the goddess. “Speaking of blood slaves, there’s a young female at Nudra’s compound that needs your help. I told her she could stay at the compound for now if she let you work with her on regaining her human life. Can you go see her?”

  “Of course. Now stop changing the subject.”

  “There’s also a young vamp there who could use a friend. Her name’s Maddy. Maybe you can help her too.”

  “Kali, what are you doing?”

  “I’m heading to a small town near the Mississippi River to break up a romance between Lucifer and a witch.”

  “JR told me. And while I’m not digging the idea, that’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”

  Another sigh threatened to surface. I shoved it down. “Unless I figure out how to break up this relationship and send Lilith back to the pit, what I’m doing with my life, and Rad’s place in it, won’t mean jack squat.”

  Silence dangled between us as she thought it over. “So what’s your plan to break up the witch and Lucifer?”

  There was no plan. Not yet. Once I got eyeballs on the witch and watched her a while, something would come to me. “I’m working on it.”

  “You can’t break up true love. Temporarily, yes. You can throw a kink in their relationship. But long term? If they’re meant to be together, you can’t stop them.”

  Everything was about love in Di’s book. “He’s Lucifer. He’s had hundreds of women, maybe thousands, both human and supernatural at this beck and call for millions of years. Why is this witch special?”

  “Exactly.” Her voice was no-nonsense. “After millions of years and all his affairs, why is Lilith worried about this particular one?”

  JR’s notes said Lucifer and Amy had been together for seven years before the witch broke up with him for sleeping with her sister. They now appeared to be back together.

  Seven years was a microscopic speck in the history of time. Lucifer, while not as prolific in wives and children as Vlad the Impaler, had still had an infinite amount of women through the years. Di was right. Why was Lilith losing her cool over this one? “You may have a point.”

  “I always have a point. He’s met his soul mate, and nothing you or Lilith do will change that.”

  “Soul mates can be separated.”

  “Sure if you’re Shakespeare and write tragedies. Or you’re a god and the Stretchers mess with your life.” Stretchers was goddess slang for the Titans, deities that overstretched their powers to screw with lesser gods and goddesses as well as humans. “In the overall scheme of the universe, however, true love always wins out. It can’t be pushed aside, suffocated or damaged beyond repair.”

  Could have been my imagination, but I suspected she was talking about my relationship with Rad as much as she was talking about Lucifer’s with Amy. “You don’t think I can break them up?”

  “You’re a conniving demon—I mean that in a good way—and you always manage to find the perfect weakness to exploit in order to gain revenge, but in this case? Even if you turn the witch against the fallen angel, he’ll never go back to Lilith, and that’s what Lilith truly wants.”

  I slouched in the leather seat, staring up at the starry sky through the moon roof as I walked through the scenario out loud. “It’s not enough to remove Amy from the picture. I have to get Lucifer to desire Lilith and want to be with her.”

  Cole shot me a look from the driver’s seat, and shook his head in a you are so fucked motion.

  Di made eating noises. “You should have brought me along. I could have sensed if Lucifer and his witch were soul mates or not.” She bit into something and moaned softly. “Damn, that’s so good. Cordero lechal. Have you ever had it?”

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Lamb in red catalan curry sauce. Mm-mmm.” She licked her fingers. “I’m Rad’s guest, so I get room service whenever I want. He has connections at this hotel, let me tell you. That boy has a special charm.”

  “Rad’s been charming the pants off women for centuries. Doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Kali! Why can’t you admit that he’s a nice guy and you’re in love with him?”

  “Mind your blood pressure.” And your own business. “You don’t know him like I do.”

  She fell silent, but I could hear her chewing. Funny how she could convey irritation even with her mouth closed.

  My stomach got tight whenever Di was mad at me and I didn’t like that feeling. I drummed my fingers on my thigh. “So what should I do with Lucifer?”

  There was a superior tone in her voice when she answered, but she loved it when I asked her advice. “I doubt he wants Lilith roaming the streets of Chicago any more than you do, and if he’s truly in love with this witch, he’ll go to any means to protect her.”

  My brain worked at the problem, poking it from different angles. Various ideas and options rose and I discarded all but one. “I should form an allegiance with him.”

  Di’s smile conveyed through the phone as easily as her earlier irritation. “Make him an offer he can’t refuse. You’ll leave his witch alone if he helps you get rid of Lilith.”

  “If I double-cross Lilith, I’ll pay for it when I die and go to hell.”

  “So don’t die.”

  Easy peasy. Not. “Thanks, Di. This plan might work.”

  “Any plan that focuses on keeping soul mates together will work. Trust me, I know.”

  We disconnected. Cole glanced at me, one brow raised. “Seriously? You’re going to double-cross Lilith?”

  The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. Not double-crossing Lilith per se, but asking the fallen angel for assistance in disposing her back to hell. “Even if Lucifer destroys me, Lilith won’t stop trying to harm his witch or break up their relationship. Di’s right. He’ll do whatever it takes to protect Amy, and that means getting rid of Lilith.”

  “But if Victoria raised her once, what’s to stop her from doing it again?”

  I smiled at my bodyguard. “Me.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Eden was a typical small river town in the Midwest. Off the highway, the streets narrowed, the trees became more numerous, and a combination of businesses and residential properties jostled each other for space along the main road.

  It was just after five in the morning and heavy clouds covered the November moon. The houses, a combination of ranch and two-stories, were dark. We met a patrol car as we drove by the Welcome to Eden sign. Population 3,800.

  The town sat low and flat compared to Chicago’s overpopulated skyscrapers. To the west laid the downtown area and the Mississippi River. To the south, flat prairie land stretched out like syrup, flowing around copse of trees, random farmhouses and the highway. North, limestone bluffs rose like dark sentinels in the distance.

  Three minutes after we entered the township’s eastern limits, we exited on the northwest side…and two four-way stops had slowed us down. Small town, indeed.

  “Bet they don’t have vampires here,” I said, already liking the place.

  “Hell, they don’t even have a McDonalds.”

  Cole turned the Land Rover around and took a right at one of the intersections. We drove over a hill and down, down, down into the heart of town. The business district was laid out in a square with a courthouse, a couple of bars boasting dollar draft beer and pizza, a library, a florist, a gas station that looked like it doubled as a used car lot, a lawyer/chiropractor combo and some kind of tourist attraction center. And of course, there was Amy Atwood’s ice cream shop, Evie’s.

  Except for the stately looking courthouse, it appeared the other buildings housed apartments on their second stories. Amy’s shop had new construction on the sec
ond floor. JR’s notes mentioned her apartment had burned up back in the summer. The new apartment looked almost complete, and once they added a brick façade to match the rest of the Victorian era buildings, no one would guess it was new.

  What bothered me as I stared at it was the faint glow coming off the building. Not from the streetlights reflecting against the shop’s large plate glass windows in the front or security lights scattered around the building in a few places. This light was ethereal, unearthly. Human eyes couldn’t see it but I could. The glow sent a warning straight to my brain and my central nervous system.

  Angel light. Merde.

  Just because Lucifer had rebelled against God didn’t change his angelic stripes. He was an angel. His presence still had the ability to protect and defend if he so chose to use it that way. That didn’t mean I couldn’t enter the shop, but I suspected the moment I touched the building, he would know about it.

  There was something off about the light, though. Something…too white, too heavenly about it for Lucifer.

  I called JR, set the phone in a cradle and hit the speaker button so Cole could hear. “Does Lucifer live at the shop with Amy?”

  “How should I know?” The words were pissy but his tone was bored. “It’s not like he runs Satan’s blogspot or gives interviews to People magazine.”

  Satan’s blog. Funny. “I’ve got angel light coming from the building, but I don’t think it belongs to the fallen angel.”

  The tapping of computer keys filtered through the line. “One of the employees lives there. A Gabriel, no last name. That’s it.”

  Cole faced me, eyes wide. “As in the Gabriel?”

  “The Gabriel?” JR echoed. There was a pause and when he spoke again, all traces of boredom and sarcasm had vanished. “Holy shit. The archangel Gabriel?”

  Holy shit was an understatement. I rubbed my forehead. “Can’t be. Archangels don’t come down to Earth. Why would he be here?”