Storm Secrets, page 20
part #4 of Scarlet Jones Series
A thin layer of sweat covered my entire skin. Once again, Arius was right:
“What I need is an object. It’s small, easy to steal and conceal. It’ll fit into your hand perfectly,” he’d said back at the monastery after I’d agreed to steal for him. It was the only sure way I knew to set everybody at the monastery free from his spell, so it wasn’t like I had a choice. “It’s located inside Erick Adams’s house.”
I’d laughed and told him that it wasn’t possible. That nobody knew the location of the ECU leaders’ homes, and even if they did, their places were protected better than the Coca Cola recipe. Apparently, I’d been right.
“Have you no brains in that head of yours?” Arius had said, rolling his eyes at me. “Use what you already have. That dog boyfriend of yours is as good a candidate as any.”
I’d wanted to tell him that Wilder wasn’t a dog and that he wasn’t my boyfriend, but I doubted Arius wanted to hear it, so I didn’t waste my breath.
“He doesn’t know. He’s just the Captain of a team of five. He isn’t one of the big players.”
“Oh, he knows,” Arius had said with that sneaky smile of his. “Trust me, he knows.”
So now, here I was, in Wilder’s living room, drinking wine and manipulating him with lies, drawing out of him information he wasn’t supposed to give away. I don’t know how Wilder knew where Adams lived or how well his place was protected, but it didn’t matter. I had my location now. The worst had passed because I sure as hell wasn’t sad about having to steal an object made of wood from Erick Adams’s house. God knows he deserved everything stolen from him—even his life.
“It’s already one,” I said, checking the clock on my phone. “I better get going.”
Putting the glass down, I made an attempt to stand up. Wilder’s hand wrapped around my fingers.
“Stay.”
I didn’t hesitate. I was tired, drained of energy, and a bit scared to ride my bike drunk. Now was not the right time to get in an accident. Besides, morning was just a few hours away. Wilder’s couch was as good as my bed.
There would be time to figure out if that argument was valid, or if I was just fooling myself to hide the real reason I wanted to stay with him. There would be time to figure out why I didn’t move my hand away but let Wilder play with my fingers until I fell asleep.
***
I was at the office at six in the morning. I slipped out of Wilder’s house as silently as I could. Maybe he heard me. Maybe he didn’t. But he didn’t come after me.
There were nine Dunkin’ Donuts in Long Island. I could go check each one as soon as I was off work. I’d made the plan long before I went to see Wilder that night. I was going to ask for a second advance, find a Pretter master who could keep his mouth shut, buy as many Pretters as I could afford, and go into Adams’s house tomorrow night at the latest. The Storms at the monastery had no time for me to prepare properly.
When Wilder came to the office with the others, he was all business again. I had the addresses in Long Island memorized, as well as two Pretter masters that had shops in the city. I’d buy my Pretters there, away from Manhattan, just in case somebody recognized me. Just in case Wilder decided to follow me like he had at the monastery when Eddie came to kill me.
I tried to avoid eye contact with him at all times. It was easier now that Wick, Stacey and Vera were there, pretending nothing had happened the day before. Pretending I hadn’t gone crazy for a few moments. The knives I’d buried in the wall were gone, the wall filled in and painted just like it was before. No trace of my “breakdown” anywhere in the office.
We didn’t talk about the Storms at the monastery again, but we did talk about demons. At Wilder’s request, the weaponry department—I had no idea the ECU even had one of those—was working on a smaller flamethrower, easier to carry and fire, and infuse it with magic so that the fire never died and was impossible to put off without the counter spell. Until then, we’d just use our weapons in an attack that same night.
I wanted to object. I could turn the whole thing down by saying that I wasn’t feeling good enough to fight, but then they’d want to do it tomorrow. Tomorrow, I was busy stealing from Erick Adams. So tonight it was.
“I need another advance,” I said to Wilder from across the office, in front of everyone because I was too much a chicken to face the man alone. Not after last night.
“And I need a Bugatti,” he said.
“Hmm. I pegged you for a Ferrari kind of guy.” I tried to lighten up his mood.
“That would be me,” said Wick, raising his hand.
“But you can’t give me an advance, can you?” I said to him.
“Nope. But if you have a Ferrari you don’t know where to put, I’m your guy,” Wick said with a grin.
“Come to think of it, I need an advance, too,” said Stacey. “I saw a killer Prada purse the other day I’d like to own for no reason at all.”
She made me laugh.
“I like to own Prada purses for no reason at all, too.”
Stacey grinned and brought up her Tommy Hilfiger purse on the desk. “See this? Lots of wasted money to work in an office with guys.” Then she turned to Vera. “And Miss Vera, who doesn’t understand the concept of fashion. No offense, Miss Vera.”
Vera didn’t even raise her head from her notebook, just waved Stacey off.
“Not wasted money. It’s gorgeous,” I said, eyeing the white-and-blue purse.
“Thank you,” Stacey said with a proud smile, than turned to Wilder. “We’re ganging up on you, boss. Us girls demand an advance, and if possible, a raise.”
“Amen,” I said, laughing.
I realized that Stacey was probably keeping this up because of Adams’s orders, but I’d lie if I said that I didn’t enjoy the chitchat. It made me feel…normal. Now that I knew where the Storms were, I no longer felt like losing my mind. I felt focused.
“What about me? I’ll be a girl for a raise, too,” said Wick.
Wilder stood up. “You’re not getting a raise, and you’re not getting an advance. What you’re getting is training. I want to see all of you down there in ten minutes.”
Without a look my way, he walked out of the office. Wick followed close behind, and Vera left, too, holding four notebooks in her hands.
“What the hell got him so grumpy?” Stacey asked me, putting her awesome purse away.
“How should I know?” I mumbled, turning the desktop off. Some exercise didn’t sound so bad.
Stacey stood up from her desk and rolled her eyes. “Weren’t you with him last night?”
I froze in place. “How the hell did you know?”
She arched a brow. “You smell like him which means you haven’t changed clothes since last night. Which means you spent the night.”
Oh, boy… “It’s not like that,” I whispered. “We were working.” Or at least I was.
“Right,” Stacey said, going for the door.
All kinds of alarms went off in my head. Nobody could think that there was something between Wilder and me. Nobody.
“No, no, wait! Stacey, we were just working, I swear.”
“Whatever you call work, don’t get him so grumpy next time,” she sang.
I slammed my hands on the table. “There’s nothing between Wilder and me anymore than there’s something between Wilder and you.”
“I beg to differ. For starters, I don’t call him Wilder. Nobody does. And second, I’ve been injured with him in a fight before. He never came to check on me and hug me.” She shrugged. “Just saying.”
And she walked out the door.
***
I stooped to a whole new level that day. I asked my father for money.
Backed against the wall, with no money or means to plan a proper heist, I took the only way out. If Adams had half the protection in his house Wilder said he did, I was going to need a small fortune just to get me in. Getting out was a whole other monster.
My father wasn’t happy to hear from me at first. Then, he wanted to know all about what the ECU was saying about me. To impress him and get him in a good mood, I told him about the conversation I’d overheard of Adams and the team. Naturally, he took that to be a good thing. He took Adams’s orders to mean that I mattered, that I was worth something for the bosses to tell others to play nice with me.
So when I asked for money because I wanted to “impress” my new colleagues, to take them to dinner and to dress properly at the office, he jumped on the idea.
“Send it to the Captain,” I said when I realized I no longer had the card of my old account. He probably froze it, anyway, and I didn’t have time to open a new one.
“Will do,” my father said. “And Scarlet? You’re doing a good job.”
He thought I was doing a good job by working with the people who were out to kill me just a few weeks ago. A freaking model parent, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it. It didn’t even hurt the way it would have had I not been planning a robbery.
Back at the office, I texted Wilder to tell him about the transaction he was about to receive because I didn’t want anybody else to know. My father and I hadn’t talked about how much, but I trusted he’d send enough. After all, he wanted me to show off just like he and mother did. In his eyes, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I already signed the advance…he replied. I looked up at the back of his head. Didn’t he say that there would be no advances?
I thought you were serious earlier, I texted, feeling like shit. He probably said that just so the others wouldn’t know he was giving me advances on a regular basis.
You left before I woke up, he said next. Way to change the subject. I hadn’t even seen him typing on his phone.
You’re a werewolf. You should have heard me moving inside your house.
I don’t like it when you disappear on me, he said. There went my hope for leaving it at that. At least we were texting. Texting was so much better than looking him in the eye. I’d rather keep looking at his back from all the way across the office.
Sorry. I had a lot on my mind and I needed air. It was the truth—just not the whole truth.
Do you wish you hadn’t stayed? My heart picked up the beating.
No. I hit Send, then immediately regretted it. I should have lied. Why didn’t I lie this time?
I’ll hear you leave tomorrow morning.
Was that an invitation? Was he asking me to stay the night with him again?
I put my phone away. Some texts are just better left unanswered.
Nineteen
We were in Chinatown for our next demon attack. The horde was staying below the Columbus Park Pavilion. The Park was closed. It’s why we’d had to wait until ten pm to make our way there. We and six other soldiers we’d trained with earlier today were waiting for the first guards who’d gone to the bottom floor of the pavilion, below which were the demons and who knew how many Storms.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight. No complaint about having to wait this time,” said Wick, sizing me up. I wore my usual navy suit, my usual weapons, which I planned to not return until tomorrow.
“It’s a big place. I don’t want to hurry,” I said.
Wilder gave me a look, the same look he’d given me when he told me we’d have to wait until ten to get to Chinatown, and I hadn’t said anything. The schedule suited me. I went to my apartment and changed, told him I was going to sleep for a few hours, then got on my bike and rode to Long Island. I found Erick Adams’s house close to the third Dunkin’ Donuts. The house was the only one made entirely out of stone, with no front yard, and with four men guarding the front double doors. It couldn’t have been more obvious, which made me nervous, because if Adams hadn’t tried harder to hide the place he lived in, it meant the inside was much worse than Wilder thought.
After finding the house, I’d had more than enough time to go to the first Pretter master in the city. The witch was kind enough to never even look me in the eye. When I asked for the best spell stones she had in her shop, she smiled sadly.
“You won’t be able to afford them, I’m afraid,” she told me, shaking her head.
Impatient to get the hell out of there already, I put three thick stacks of cash on the glass table that had about eighty Pretters on display below. My father didn’t play games when it came to money. He’d sent me more than enough to buy the best spell stones out there, and those fuckers were expensive as hell. A sharp intake of breath later, the Pretter master did everything she could to accommodate me until the very last penny of that money was spent. When I left, we both had a smile on our faces, and I was armed with the best protection a Pretter master could give me.
Wilder said Adams protected himself with all kinds of magic, so I had to get spell stones specifically designed to counter Blood, Bone and Green magic separately. Those were the strongest. I also got a healer, a freezer that could take up to three grown men and keep them frozen for a whole minute, a Pretter full of magnetic energy—Blood magic that could mess with electrical devices like no other—for the cameras and the alarm system—and finally, a shield that altered my smell, my magic signature, and my body heat for the werewolves that were sure to come after me when I left that place. If I left that place alive.
I bought the blonde wig, the dress and the stilettos in Harlem before going back to my apartment to shower, in case Wilder could smell something on me. By the time Adams sent soldiers all over the city, I’d look like a drunken blonde in a really tight dress looking for the next party to crash. Nobody was going to even look my way twice, and I’d do the same. Playing human couldn’t be hard.
It’s why I was so calm. Tomorrow during the day, all I’d have to do was tell Wilder I was tired and that I was sleeping in, and go keep watch by the house all day to take notes of who lived there and how many people guarded it. As far as the world knew, Adams had never been married and didn't have any living family, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure that was true.
Everything was supposed to go like it always did. The guards down there would give us the okay through the camera, I’d go in first, get the dragon to become a sword, and then everybody else would come down and fight until there were no more demons left.
I expected nothing different this time.
Boy, was I in for a surprise.
“Permission to abort, permission to abort!”
The soldier shouted so loudly that we all heard his voice coming from Wilder’s earpiece.
“Get out of there, now!” Wilder said when we all realized that the screen on his tablet had gone blank. We no longer had a visual of what was going on down there.
Before the words had even left his lips, we all ran forward, into the pavilion and to the entrance of the basement in the far right corner. The stairs were steep and made of old wood that creaked under my weight. As soon as I saw the floor, I jumped, and the others jumped right after me. With the flashlight in my hand, I ran down the corridor to the left, ignoring the smell of piss and rot. Puddles of water lined the floor every few feet, and the black walls at the side were covered in something gooey. I found out the hard way when I almost lost my balance and reached out my hand and touched it to steady myself.
The soldiers who’d asked to abort the mission were the first people I saw. They were huddled together, backs against one another, guns and rifles pointing ahead. The room was dark save for a sliver of light coming from a half-broken window right below the ceiling on the left. The floor was covered in mud, the smell metallic. Almost like a lot of blood had been spilled in there recently. The demons were hiding in the shadows, keeping away from the light, and when our flashlights fell onto their faces, I almost took a step back.
They looked…wild. They wore neither shirts nor shoes, only pants. Their hair, normally perfectly combed to the back and shiny, was disheveled, like they’d just woken up after a night of restless sleep. Their eyes shone red with anger, and they stood crouched, like animals, waiting to jump on their prey.
Swallowing hard, I took a step forward. Wilder put an arm over my shoulder.
“Are you sure about this?” he whispered, never tearing his eyes off the demons. He could tell something was off about them, too. Everybody could. It’s why you couldn’t hear a breath being let out in that basement.
But there was no other way out of this. If I didn’t get my sword, we were all screwed, and those demons would start with me.
“Yes,” I whispered in half a voice, and without giving myself the chance to change my mind, I ran forward.
The demons didn’t hesitate. Forgetting the soldiers they’d circled, they all ran to me. My magic vibrated under my skin, rushing through my veins, in its need to get out. I attacked them as I always do, and normally, they’d just open their mouths and begin to suck on my energy right away.
This time, though, about five of them flew back, hit by my magic the same way every other paranormal is.
I didn’t get the chance to be surprised. Another five were before me, down on their knees in front of my feet, drawing my magic in, their strange eyes locked on my face. I vaguely remembered seeing their faces like this, so out of control. So mad.
The first ever demon who’d caught me in Manhattan had looked like it. He’d worn only a pair of green shorts, his hair a tangled mess, the look in his eyes murderous. I remembered him like one remembers a dream, but now that these five demons were in front of me, it was like a wakeup call.
The dragon began to burn my skin much faster this time. It began to glow bright blue, a warning to the demons in front of me. They didn’t hesitate. They jumped back as the sword in my hand grew, the lightning throwing harder and farther. Shoving the fear as far away into the corners of my mind as I could, I jumped forward even before the dragon’s transformation was complete.
Fire spilled behind me in all four directions. The flamethrowers ran toward the demons first, trying to get them away from me, and then Wilder and the team shot forward, too. They used guns and they used spells, surrounding the demons just like we’d trained earlier that day, only the fight was much bloodier than in training. The demons moved a bit slower than I was used to, or maybe I was just out of it. Either way, I managed to turn three of them into charcoal before a minute had passed, and that had never happened before with the sword. The whip was a different story.
