Lassiter, page 7
An image of Devina rammed into his brain. He saw the demon straddling him, her breasts bobbing as she fucked him, her eyes boring into his with the kind of evil glee that came when a person enjoyed cruelty.
Why was it that even though that female had been the thief, he felt the guilt of having stolen something? It was as if the void created by her lack of conscience had been filled with his shame.
Helluva way to maintain the essential balance of things.
“Lassiter, say something.”
As he tried to figure out what kind of syllable salad he could toss her, a little car went by out on the road and his eyes shifted over to it because he couldn’t bear the tension—except then they stayed on the Mini: Just as the pocket-sized pod passed by the streetlamp at the McDonald’s entrance, the illumination penetrated the driver’s side window.
It was just a flash, a mere instant where the profile registered, but the identity was concrete and conclusive.
Adrian?
What the hell was that fallen angel doing back on the planet? And this far upstate?
As implications started to swirl, Lassiter wanted to groan. Like his life couldn’t get any more complicated?
Reaching up to the nape of his neck, he tried to massage some of his WTF away. “Ah, Rahvyn… look, I’m sorry. I have to go now.”
Instantly, her face became a mask of composure and she bowed a little. “But of course, do what you will.”
He glanced at the golden arches. “How did you know I was here? Just tell me.”
“I merely had a feeling.”
In the silence that followed, Lassiter reached out to brush her cheek—but dropped his arm before he made contact. “Who’s lying now.”
Before she could argue, he put his palm up. “If you want only the truth between us, it’s a two-way street. And please, don’t come looking for me again. You have to stay away from me.”
“Why.” Defiance carved into her features. “If that is what you want, you will have to tell me why.”
“It’s not safe.” He searched her face. “You can’t be around me. I’m contaminated, and you’re the one thing that I care most about. I can live with just about any hell except for hurting you.”
Her eyes, those lovely silver eyes, widened, and her mouth fell open a little.
“Take care of yourself,” he whispered. “And by extension, my heart.”
Closing his eyes, he dematerialized away—and although he left the female, he took her with him somehow, too. And as for the question about how she’d found him, he supposed the particulars didn’t matter. Maybe it really had been a whim, but he doubted it. He’d never told her about coming up here to help Tohr, and even if he had, why would she think he’d been chilling at this particular McDonald’s on this specific night at this exact time.
She was holding something back.
And as he pictured her lips parting, the only thing he knew for sure was that she wasn’t safe around him.
For a whole host of reasons.
CHAPTER NINE
Rahvyn followed the angel.
After Lassiter departed from the restaurant, she stood in the false glow of the golden arches for a few heartbeats. And then she up and traveled in his wake.
He was not hard to track. While he flew through the night, seeming to follow a small, boxy vehicle that proceeded off the winding country road and onto the way of speeding vehicles, he left a sparkling trail behind him, a ghostly marker that she had never seen before. And as she went along, she was forced to re-form at regular intervals to check her trajectory—and each time, she worried that she would lose him.
She did not. His shimmering trail continued down the way of the fast cars and trucks, and presently, she inferred that whate’er destination awaited them all, it was somewhere within the city proper, with its towering glass constructions and its right-angled streets. Soon enough, the gray-and-black buggy departed onto the puzzle work of asphalt lanes, and now she had to be of additional care, lest he would see or sense her in the closer quarters.
Meanwhile, the car moved without confidence along the one-ways, as if the driver were searching for the correct route, perhaps because he or she were being given incompetent directions—or because they could not properly translate the dictates of whatever navigational device or program was being utilized.
It was hard to pinpoint when the ringing recognition hit her.
She was very much distracted by not losing sight of Lassiter’s trail, yet as they penetrated the density of buildings, an awareness prickled upon her, traveling down all her nerve endings until she was painfully alert—and she had a thought that it was better to remain of the air as much as she could.
Danger was upon them all.
Just as she re-formed at the corner of an older building, the little car slowed, blinked one of its taillights… and turned in out of sight, the glowing trail following like a flag.
Rahvyn looked about. There were no humans close by, either on foot or in vehicle, and she jogged silently forth, having to fight a choking sense of doom. Slowing as she reached the lane that had been utilized, she cautiously leaned around the building’s cold, mortared foundation.
A broad swath of pavement was marked by a pattern of many yellow lines, and the little car crossed the vacant expanse as Lassiter discreetly re-formed himself. He was very careful in choosing his spot, staying downwind and tucking his sizable body in the eaves of a neighboring building’s roofline.
And then the true character of the sojourn became apparent.
Members of the Black Dagger Brotherhood stepped free of the shadows at ground level: Zsadist with his scarred face. Rhage with his preternatural fair beauty. Vishous with his goatee. The trio were dressed in black leather, and she was well aware that they were fully armed, their open jackets revealing the black blades strapped, handles down, to their powerful chests.
Her heart began to pound. This was what the Book had showed her in portrait form.
This was why it had sent her away, not just for Lassiter… but for these brave, strong males.
And Wrath.
Further confirmation came with what emerged from the diminutive vehicle: Two tall males straightened unto their full heights, one with a long dark braid down his back, the other with a shaved head and piercings in his ears.
These were the pair of males the Book had shown her, the ones she had not known.
And they were not vampires, she thought. They were something else…
They had halos, just as Lassiter had once had. They were of his kind, and yet he did not reveal himself unto them.
He recognized them, however. From his perch, he stared at them as if their appearance was a shock, and not in a good way. But would not he greet them? Especially if they were with the Brothers?
Double-checking on him once again, she took a deep breath and heard his voice in her head.
Take care of yourself, and by extension, my heart.
She needed to leave. She had no business being even on the periphery of what was clearly a military exercise of infiltration. Instead, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the texture, color, and arrangement of the stones that formed the six-foot-high decorative frieze around the base of the building that sheltered her presence. When nothing altered of her body, she worried her pounding heart was going to prevent the shifting—but then she felt the orientation of her molecules ripple themselves into a new alignment, what was her physical form now assuming the appearance of the creamy stone and pale gray mortar.
When she was certain the transmutation was complete, she reopened her lids and moved her position, progressing down the building so she could close in on the clutch of males.
“We go in this way,” the Brother Vishous announced. “Through the mailroom.”
The Brother turned to a series of broad doors that were lined up at waist height off the ground. They were the kind of thing she had seen located off to the side of houses, and she remembered Nate working on the ones out at Luchas House. He had explained the ancillary structure was a “garage,” but how would they get a car inside these? There was no ramp?
This was the least of her concerns.
Evil.
The building the warriors were going to enter was steeped in darkness, stained with it, though there was nothing showing upon its exterior. Surely the Brothers sensed the threat, too? And Lassiter? It could not only be her.
With a lithe shift, Vishous jumped up to the lip of one of the garage doors, and after manipulating something down at the base, he hoisted the metal panels up on tracks, rolling them into the ceiling above. Dim lights glowed in some kind of barren interior, and she glanced back at Lassiter’s position. He was still up there on the roof next door, watching everything.
But he was not going to stay where he was: In the ambient glow of the city, his face was drawn in tight, grim lines, as if he were in a kind of intense inner debate, and she was certain he was going to follow at a careful distance.
Knowing this, Rahvyn ghosted into the building herself, flying over the heads of the other Brothers and the angels as they propelled themselves off the pavement with powerful lunges and landed in the open area in near silence. Unsure what they were going to do next, she chose a temporary perch hovering in the far corner by a reinforced panel she assumed opened into the structure at large—and indeed, after Vishous shut them all in, he focused on that door, which opened on its own, as if he had willed it so. Rahvyn wafted herself in front of the group, weaving her essence over the polished concrete floor, continuing along with them as they proceeded down the corridor. At another steel door, which Vishous also opened, she was the first to descend a set of stairs.
As she emerged upon the lowest level, the foreboding she felt was so intense, she nearly lost the concentration necessary to keep herself camouflaged against the environment—
“Does anybody else smell that?” one of the angels hissed.
She could sense nothing olfactorily in her current incarnation, but as the Brothers traded glances and promptly unsheathed their daggers, she knew exactly what they were going to say. And she hated being right.
“Yup, that’s a lesser,” one of them replied grimly. “Fucking hell… the war is back on.”
* * *
Of course Eddie and Adrian were back.
As Lassiter watched the fallen angels disappear into the loading dock of the older skyscraper, the confluences of the night were wearing him the fuck out. First, all those humans cosplaying the people he lived with. Then Rahvyn showing up. Now the Creator’s Frick & Frack henchmen. And what the hell were they doing here with the brothers—
Devina.
Oh, shit. Maybe they’d come for the demon and not him? Because this was the seat of her lair—assuming they could penetrate her metaphysical camouflage.
As the implications of it all fell on his head, he had a momentary paralysis.
Off in the distance, he heard the thumping bass of a club’s sound system. Some tires screeching. A cop car’s siren. All around, the downtown was doing its night thing, festering addictions and law violations, humans racking up stupid score points and winning stupid prizes.
Meanwhile, his past and present were colliding over the airfield of a sadistic bitch who was capable of everything. And the solution for him? Go up to the Sanctuary and sit around like a house cat.
Yeah, ’cuz that was going to help this situation.
Looking down at the pavement, he measured the five-story drop and then let his weight free fall. The landing sent shock waves of pain through his feet and up into his knees, and he sucked the sensations deep into him because it was easier than feeling his anger and sadness. Seeing Rahvyn had been like getting clocked in the head, and he was not over the injury to his already wounded thought patterns—but he wasn’t going to let his personal tragedy get in the way of his ability to do good hair.
Thank you, Miss Dupuis.
As he started for the loading dock, he didn’t even bother fronting like all he was going to do was observe. Although he was going to stay hidden for as long as he could—
“Come back for more?”
At the intrusion of the female voice, Lassiter closed his eyes as every inch of his skin tightened like he’d been lashed. For a split second, he imagined picking up the gray-and-black clown car Eddie and Adrian had gotten out of—and throwing it broadside at the demon who had shown up behind him.
Instead, he pivoted around calmly. And made sure his thoughts were locked down tighter than a vise.
Fucking hell, she was so ugly. From her long, luxurious brunette hair, to her full red lips, to the cleavage and the rest of her won’t-quit body, she was trash-pile vile, that Dior’s Poison she insisted on wearing a grape-based stench in his nose. Bracing himself for an up-and-down by those pit-black eyes of hers, he made sure his focus was on her and only her.
Nothing else.
No one else.
Especially not the five males who had infiltrated the building.
As the wind hit his back, the demon leaned in, her nostrils flaring. “What… the fuck.”
Shit, he’d slipped—
“You saw her.” Devina looked around the empty parking lot. “Where did you see her? You were with her—I can smell that female on you.”
“There is no female—”
The palm that came swinging at him was a high-flyer well landed, the stinging impact on his cheek and the clapping echo a wake-up that he didn’t need: His adrenal glands were doing just fine, thank you, ma’am.
Although he would have taken some satisfaction in getting under her skin in different circumstances.
“That’s why he left.” Those black eyes gleamed with menace. “It’s your fucking fault, you were just with your female.”
Lassiter shook his head. “I ate alone at a McDonald’s in the fucking boonies. Sorry, guess you’re confused.”
As she brought her arm up for another round of pickleball for the puss, he caught her wrist and jerked her back.
“Yeah, enough of that—”
“You know it’s never going to work out with her, right?” The demon leaned in, even though he was exerting enough pressure on her bones to powder them. “I fucked you and I took your virginity and you don’t have anything to give that stupid cunt. Every time you’re with her, you’re going to see me, and that’s what gets me mine. You’re ruined and I get mine!”
Her words were like a freight train coming fast and faster, and the culmination was a burst of energy that exploded out of her. The force was so great, he was blown off his feet, sent bottle-rocket high into the cold night air, his body crumpling into a ball like she’d wadded him up. Disorientated, he was aware of gravity pulling him back down, but his fall was a tumble, lights spinning around him.
Just before he hit the asphalt, he caught the total non sequitur of a neon palm tree glowing green and brown on a stretch of golden beach.
What the—
“Fuck!” he blasted, as the impact knocked all the oxygen from his lungs and carried the word in his head out to the rest of the world.
The pain was paralyzing. Then again, even though he was immortal in a corporeal illusion, bones were bones, and he was subject to the laws of compound fractures when he was in his body.
Compromised as he was, he was defenseless.
And the demon knew it. Devina took her own damn time coming over to him, and on the approach, her hair fanned out around her head, even though there was not enough wind hitting her to get that effect. Jesus, she looked like there were flames emanating from her.
Maybe the shit wasn’t her hair after all.
“He left me because of you,” she growled. “For me to have my love, you can never have yours.”
Lifting her hand over her shoulder, she summoned from the darkness a shadow that was shaped like a spear, the harnessed evil so tangible the muscles in her arms flexed as she held it aloft.
“This is all your fault. You took him from me—”
From out of nowhere, something tackled the demon, hitting her at waist-level like a linebacker and driving her back with such force, her body’s contours blasted through the solid wall of the building he’d been on the roof of. The hole that was left behind was classic Warner Bros. cartoon, busted mortar rising as dust as her arm-raised position made the cutout look like it was cheering a score in a game.
With a groan, Lassiter tried to lift his head, and when his vision went wonky and he felt a strange rush of cool air, he reached behind and touched a wet spot just above his nape.
Oh… crap, he thought as he inspected the silver blood on his fingers.
It was quite possible that the bone he’d broken most was his goddamn skull.
And to think he’d assumed his coccyx was the worst of it.
“You’re bleeding bad,” somebody said. “And I think part of your brains are on the pavement. Take a deep breath, this is gonna hurt.”
As he was lifted up, he screamed and lost his sight completely—and shit got even worse as he was stuffed into a suitcase, his legs and arms, all of which seemed snapped in half, bending at wrong angles.
“Put your seatbelt—actually, never mind. Like a car accident can hurt you now?”
There was a jolt forward, and it was so violent, his face smashed into something that smelled like vinyl, cheap perfume, and old curry. Then there was a lurch to the side.
After that: “Hold on to your butts.”
Squealing tires now, and as another round of fire pokers went after every square inch of his body, Lassiter blinked his eyes clear and got a close-up of his own knee: The thing was pressed up against his nose.
Just as he was about to pass out, Adrian, the fallen angel he had been avoiding for three years, twisted around from the driver’s side. The big idiot smiled like this was a reunion to be savored.
“There are no snakes back there. Don’t worry.”
“Stop making Samuel L. Jackson refs and just fucking drive.”
