Kali Sweet Series, Three Urban Fantasy Novels (Boxed Set) Page 21

  Silence met my question.

  Too bad Satan didn’t have a blog. “See what you can find out, JR. Put out calls to local supernaturals if you can find any and get the scoop.”

  “You’d be better off to find the town’s gossip and ask her.”

  He had a point, but I wasn’t sure if the humans knew about the supernaturals in town. “We’ll look into it. Call if you find out anything in the meantime.”

  Lost in our separate thoughts, we cruised the main drag. Vehicles were typical American trucks and mid-sized cars. A few blocks north, there was a fire station. A few blocks south, there was a bridge that led over the river and into Iowa. A dike separated the town center from the Mississippi.

  Cole parked in a designated spot and we walked the footpath up the dike to see the river. The water flowed by dark and cold under the cloudy sky. During the day, especially in the fall, I bet the sight was beautiful. Trees turning colors along the bluffs, the tall spires of churches peeking through here and there. The river, with its barges and boats, creating a serene and historic postcard image.

  But on a cold, cloudy November morning, the barren trees sported ugly limbs, the church spires glowed a ghostly gray. The river whispered eerily and the sparse lights of the dike seemed unable to fight back the dense darkness.

  Just like in Chicago, a lot of evil had been done here. Humans and supernaturals had gone to war with each other and not many on either side had lived. Their blood soaked the ground and it slithered up from under the dike’s path, worming its way into my demon nature. It was happy to see me. Starved, in fact, for dark magic. It wanted to be fed so it could reanimate itself. Wanted my blood to strengthen it.

  Whatever war had been fought, the good guys had won, sequestering the evil. That didn’t mean the evil had left. It had simply sunk back into the ground and bided its time. My presence excited it, made it believe I had come to resurrect it.

  Cole felt it too. He bounced on his feet, sticking his hands in his pockets and giving me a concerned look. He wanted to get back to the Land Rover. Posthaste.

  Interesting was the fact Lucifer’s witch lived here when she could live anywhere in the world. As his mistress, she could have whatever she desired, but she chose to live in this town and run a simple ice cream shop.

  To me—a demon filled with lust and greed—that didn’t compute.

  Even when I put on my human thinking cap, it still didn’t add up.

  Mimicking Cole’s actions, I tapped down the evil under my feet and motioned for us to head back to the SUV.

  He cranked the heat the instant we were inside. Cold rarely bothered me, but I rubbed my hands together and blew on them to warm them up. “This would be a good place to hide.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Cole and I often thought alike. “What would Lucifer’s witch be hiding from?”

  “Lilith?”

  “Nah. She doesn’t even know Lilith’s here.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe Amy’s not hiding. Maybe she just likes it here. Small town, family, friends. The American Dream.”

  I tended to think everyone had a devious reason behind their choices, but Cole was right. The ice cream shop had been in her family for several generations. She didn’t have any family except her sister. This was home to her.

  Home. Rome would always be my home. In the twenty-first century, Rome was Noctifector territory in a way it had never been before. They lived to drive all supernaturals from the world, and most definitely from their hometown.

  Cole shifted into reverse, interrupting my revelry. “Can’t believe they don’t have a fucking McDonalds. I need caffeine and some greasy food.”

  I’d noticed a ma and pa restaurant across the square from the ice cream shop. “Before we eat, let’s get a closer look at the witch’s place.”

  There were two police cars parked in front of the courthouse. I didn’t want the patrol car that had seen us earlier coming back to the station and noticing us sitting on the street. “Squeeze into the alley behind the shop.”

  As we drew closer, the white light glowed brighter. The power coming off of it didn’t reach out, though. It simply vibrated around the building.

  We parked and got out. “Consecrated ground?” Cole asked.

  The consecrated ground inside my church didn’t glow. It hummed and pulsed with energy like an electrified fence. “I don’t think so.”

  “Touch it. See what happens.”

  “You touch it.”

  Cole grinned at me. “Fine,” he said. He raised his demon magic and stuck the toe of his shoe into the light. Nothing happened.

  We exchanged a look. I shrugged.

  “Any other security system?”

  “According to JR, she has deadbolts on the doors.”

  “That’s it?”

  We examined the back door located near a dumpster. Sure enough, there were two locks, one a deadbolt. Not much call for high-security in this town. The place was growing on me.

  No fallen angel showed up from our breach of the light either.

  “Amy’s living with a friend until her apartment is done.” I was talking to myself as much as Cole. “And she has the Mark of Cain on her forehead, so even she were here, Lucifer’s not worried about anyone attacking her.”

  “How are you going to convince him to help you send Lilith back to hell if Lil baby can’t hurt Amy?”

  Stepping back from the door, I leaned on the SUV. “No one can harm Amy directly. Doesn’t mean Lilith won’t make her life miserable. That’s why she hired me. To exact revenge on Lucifer by screwing with Amy.”

  Cole drew a lock pick from his jacket. “Wanna take a peek inside?”

  I did, but caution held me back. Lucifer wouldn’t be as likely to listen to my offer if he found out I’d broken into the witch’s building. “Not yet. Let’s watch the place for a while, grab breakfast and see if we can dig up some scoop before we charge in.”

  A look of disappointment crossed Cole’s face. “Not a lot of good surveillance spots around here.”

  And the Land Rover definitely did not fit in on Main Street. “You notice that cemetery on the bluff north of the fire station?”

  The tone of his voice was wary. “Yeah.”

  “Good a place as any, and I bet Officer Small Town won’t be cruising through there at sunrise.”

  “We can’t see the shop from that far away.”

  I patted the Land Rover’s door with one hand. “I have binoculars.”

  Defeated, Cole climbed in. I did the same. A minute later, he maneuvered the SUV up the steep, winding hill of the cemetery, swearing softly at the sharp curves and potholes big enough to swallow small animals. “The cops can drive a thirty-thousand-dollar patrol car but the city can’t fill in the ruts in the boneyard?”

  Cemeteries didn’t score high on the budget list for any town, Chicago included. Once we parked on the hill giving us a view of downtown, I rummaged in the back for two sets of binoculars. There wasn’t much to see at that time of the morning, so mostly I sat and stared at the river in the distance. I thought about turning on some music, but it seemed wrong to disturb the quiet of the night and that place.

  Cole shifted in his seat, binoculars glued to his face. “So you and Damon…”

  He let the sentence trail off, his tone vague and accusing at the same time.

  “Me and Damon, what?”

  “He can read your mind.” He continued to hide behind the binoculars. “What’s up with that shit?”

  What indeed. “Wasn’t my idea. He just…”

  The binoculars dropped from Cole’s face and he met my gaze, the skin tight around his eyes, lips pressed together in a tight line. “Did he force himself on you?”

  “He kissed me, that’s all.”

  “Bastard.” He set the binoculars on the dash. “Should I kill him for you?”

  I punched Cole lightly on the shoulder, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re just jealous.”

 
Staring out the windshield, he nodded his head. “I am.”

  Cole had a different woman every week. Sort of like Di with her boy toys. Maybe I should get them together. “You ever date a goddess?”

  His gaze swung to me and his eyes told me he knew what I was thinking. “No. Way.”

  “Di’s an incredible person and drop-dead gorgeous.”

  He laughed and the sound echoed in the car. “I’m a demon, Kali, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Di’s not prejudiced.”

  “Everybody’s prejudiced.”

  I tsked. “So jaded.”

  “Me? What about you and Guitar Boy? What’s the story there?”

  “You know, you and Di are more alike than you realize.”

  He chuckled softly. “You never bought me that steak. You owe me. Spill.”

  I didn’t talk about the past to anyone. Not Di, not Neve, certainly not the people I worked with in the Bridge Council. Rehashing old history didn’t change it. And if I couldn’t change it, what was the point?

  Sitting there in the Land Rover with the river flowing strong and apathetic before us, the thought of letting the story out seduced me. Letting it out was exactly the way it felt. As if I’d been holding it in, imprisoning my history like I imprisoned my demon and refusing to set it free for all these years. Sure, Damon and the Council knew the facts in my file, but no one knew exactly what I’d been through with Rad. After Rad. The secrets I was keeping.

  The idea that I could suddenly set them down here in this rundown cemetery and free myself had a strange and frightening appeal. I stewed it over for several minutes, decided to let go of a few facts and see how it felt.

  “Rad came to Queen Maria’s court as a French ambassador and had no trouble charming all of us in her inner circle. I fell for him immediately, but so did Maria. He took a particular interest in me, and I was young and stupid and gave into his advances. We kept our affair secret, but Maria learned of it. She tried to bed him, he politely refused, and that angered her. She forbade me to see him, threatened to kick him out of the Roman Empire, so Rad devised a plan. He didn’t want to leave me, so he became more solicitous toward her and continued to steal away when he could to meet me in private.

  The years fell away and I was back in court. “Maria wasn’t stupid. My family’s business began to fail, my father’s creditors suddenly came calling for their money. My mother was no longer invited to attend the balls and other upper-class doings in Rome. All because Maria no longer favored me. She kept me at court, mostly to ridicule me.”

  My chest felt both lighter and heavier as I relived the days of my youth. Cole sat quietly, not prompting or rushing me.

  “Rad was sure the queen would destroy me and my family. He devised a plan to get us out of the Empire and take us to France with him. Not only was he a trusted advisor to the king there, but his family had connections all over Europe and he could help my father secure a position of prestige and wealth for us.

  “My father would only leave Italy if Rad agreed to marry me. The date was set and I was overjoyed. But the day of our secret wedding at my parent’s estate, Rad never showed. I was sure Maria had discovered our deception and had one of her mercenaries kill Rad so I went out searching for him. I never found him, and when I finally gave up, I returned home to find my family dead. Murdered. My mother, father and four-year-old sister.”

  Cole had been staring out the windshield. Now he cut his eyes to me. “Maria killed them.”

  That’s what I’d believed until I’d seen the Noctifector tattoo on Rad’s back. “I sought revenge but it didn’t work. I ended up in the dungeons where I was tortured by Maria’s new pets, a couple of young female demons she’d trained to take my place. I was held there until the ruling parties changed.”

  “Maria was a demon?”

  “Half demon, half human, and all psychotic.” All those years later, I could still see the craziness in her eyes. “I escaped, made sure Maria never hurt anyone again and went to Spain. That’s where Damon found me.”

  Cole shifted in his seat. “What’d you do to get on his radar?”

  “His wife hired me to take revenge on him for an affair. I didn’t realize who he was when I accepted the job.”

  Cole laughed again and I could almost forget the knot in my stomach. “That’s rich. Taking revenge on an Archdemon. Wish I could have seen that.” He rubbed his jaw with his knuckles. “What happened with Rad?”

  Ah, yes, Rad. “I thought he was dead, but I searched for him anyway. I heard rumors about various Chaos demons, but none of them ever led to him. Damon eventually sent me back to England to work for the Bridge Council there, and then I followed him to America in 1910. I gave up searching for Rad and tucked all that horrible time into a deep, dark hole. Couple of years ago, my friend Neve shared a bootlegged video of a band she’d seen in a rundown bar outside of Milwaukee. I didn’t have to see his face. I heard his voice and knew it was him.”

  “So he deserted you? Or blackmailed you to Maria?”

  He’d blackmailed me, all right, but not to the queen.

  The sky was steel colored, sunrise muted by storm clouds moving in from the southwest. “The café’s open. What do you say we grab some breakfast?”

  While Cole pushed my buttons in the gym to make me fight harder and longer, he knew when not to push too. He started the Land Rover, shifted into drive. “I could eat a water buffalo.”

  After my confession, I felt lighter. “I could eat one too.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “How will we know when Lucifer enters the shop?” Cole asked, digging into his Hungry Man Three Meat special.

  Good question. Even if we hadn’t stood out in Eden like black spots on a white dog, Lucifer probably didn’t use the front door of Evie’s to drop in for a visit. I stared out the plate glass window of the café, across the street to the witch’s building. “I’ve got a jones for a waffle cone.”

  The waitress appeared at our table, carrying two coffee carafes, one with an orange ring, one without. She poured the caffeinated version into Cole’s cup, eyed my red cape for the third time. “Evie’s don’t open ’til ten.”

  Her name tag read “Jan”. She’d already asked if we were from out of town, although the look she gave us when we walked in suggested she knew the answer to that question.

  My coffee needed a reheat, so I slid the cup toward her. “What happened to the upstairs of the ice cream shop, Jan?”

  “Burned down a few months back. Amy’s lucky the shop didn’t go with it.”

  “Anyone hurt?” Cole asked.

  “Nah. She wasn’t home. Her cats were, though. One of her boyfriends rescued them. He was a real hero.”

  One of her boyfriends? “How many boyfriends does she have?”

  “Two or three guys over there all the time, hanging around. The one that saved the cats seems to be pulling ahead of the others.” She looked Cole over from head to toe. “Women like a good hero.”

  Cole sent me a holy shit, help me out here look. I just smiled and winked at him as Jan strolled off, ignoring my cup. “Looks like you’ve got an admirer.”

  He threw a triangle of toast at me. “Shut up.”

  We ate, bought a local paper from a stack on the counter and proceeded to drink coffee and read. Jan didn’t seem all that happy about us taking up her table but she liked looking at Cole, so I forced him to make small talk every time she swooped by with her coffee pots. The café got busier and soon she paid us little attention.

  Finally, at ten o’clock, I saw lights go on inside Evie’s. The witch raised the shades, unlocked the doors and flipped the Closed sign over.

  Time for business.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Cole paid the bill, and for the first time since we’d entered the café, Jan didn’t stare at him like he was a prize steer. Instead she kept glancing out the front window.

  “Storm’s coming,” she said, handing Cole his change. “You two might want to get
on the road before it does.”

  For a second, I thought I was in a Stephen King novel or a B-grade movie, and she was issuing some portent for the audience. But when I looked at her face, there was no indication she was stating anything other than plain fact. This was the Midwest and there was a nasty storm moving our way. We were city folk and driving these hills and plains in a winter storm was difficult even for those accustomed to it, so she was being kind and warning us to get on the road.

  Cole gave her a hefty tip and I thanked her for the advice. We left the café and I told Cole he didn’t have to go to the ice cream shop with me or stand guard while I confronted Lucifer. After all, someone had to tell Damon what happened if the devil vaporized me.

  Cole told me to shut the hell up. He wasn’t letting me go in alone.

  The downtown square wasn’t big, so we crossed the street on foot, passed the courthouse, and took the sidewalk to Evie’s Ice Cream Shop. The sharp wind blew my cape around helter-skelter and I grabbed the edges and tucked it in close to my body.

  When we entered, a bell tinkled above our heads and two things struck me at the same time: the smell of waffle cones, which I love, and the fact that Amy Atwood had the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen on a human or a supernatural.

  A side effect of sleeping with the devil?

  In Chicago, my get-up turned heads, but I was one in a thousand unique looking people. Here I stood out like Little Red Riding Hood in a sea of Bo Peeps.

  Amy took in my blonde hair, red cape, and spiked boots and then her gaze swept over Cole. She pegged us, just like Jan, as out-of-towners, but unlike her neighbor across the street, Amy gave me a big smile. Red Riding Hood was cool, not weird.

  “Hi, folks.” She glanced again at my legs. “Nice boots.”

  Preparation is the key to any successful plan. I don’t like being surprised when I’m on a case, although it occasionally happens. I don’t like flying by the seat of my skirt, but that happens, too. Face-to-face with the devil’s mistress, all the prepping and planning and digging into her life seemed silly. Lilith’s anxiety, a bunch of overblown drama.