Supernatural Security Force the Complete Series, page 26
part #1 of Books 1-5 Series
“None reported,” I said. “That’s the strange part. I could have sworn I saw a chalked pentagram on the floor when I got there.” Lie. But close enough. “And by the time I was gone, it had vanished.”
“A pentagram? You’re sure?”
“Yeah, but that’s old-world witchcraft. No one’s that old school anymore.”
She pulled out her phone, typing in a message to someone. I tried leaning in to see the screen, but the display simply read “J.N.”
“You’d be surprised,” she said quietly.
I started to ask what she meant by that, but sharing time was apparently over. She slid her phone back into her pocket and straightened.
“Good work, Gem. I’ll be in touch soon.”
Shit. This was the part where I asked for something in return. I bit my lip, wishing I’d had time to look into that address in Dad’s file. Without time to investigate, I had no idea what else to demand from her.
So, I just sighed as Starla flashed me one last look.
Then, she was gone, the sound of her coat flapping around her legs nothing more than a whisper in the darkness.
“Another riveting exchange,” I muttered and headed for home.
Half a block from my apartment, a shadow crossed the alleyway, and I slowed my steps. Exhaustion had dulled my senses, but I knew a predator when I felt one. And whatever was lying in wait up ahead wasn’t some drunk mugger. It also wasn’t human.
I slowed my steps, debating.
I could either cut through behind Donny’s convenience store on my left and up to the roof where I could shift and fly home, avoiding the asshole altogether, or I could double back and sneak up on whoever was waiting to jump out at me. On the one hand, I’d already done more than a full day’s work, and my exhaustion was probably going to hinder me if it came to a throwdown. On the other, I couldn’t afford anything predatory hunting me in my own ’hood. Not with a baby to worry about.
Up ahead, the shadow passed over again, and I realized whatever it was hadn’t really tried for stealth. Not with the way it was moving in and out of the desperate glow of the street lights.
With a shake of my head, I made my decision and hoped it wasn’t the wrong one.
CHAPTER SIX
I crept slowly toward the corner ahead, my fae senses practically yelling at me to shift into something better able to defend myself. The sounds coming from the alley were a disgusting blend of slurping and ripping—an unnatural combination that put me on edge. The volume was low enough that the handful of humans loitering in front of the bar down the block still hadn’t noticed the disturbance pulling me forward. But thanks to them, I couldn’t afford to shift here.
Instead, I reached for the blade I always kept in my boot and eased forward. Just before I rounded the corner, a gurgle then a cough sounded from the alley. A second later, something stubby rolled out of the darkness and bumped my boot. A red and sticky coating clung to the black leather I saved two paychecks at the sandwich shop to buy.
My nose wrinkled as my senses picked up the scent. Blood.
I bent closer and picked up the strange item, holding it up for a better look. It caught the glint of the streetlight, and I recognized it for what it was.
A fucking toe.
My stomach chose that moment to grumble, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since who-knew-when, and I realized I was simultaneously both hungry and disgusted.
Another wet gurgle came from just around the corner, and I pressed my lips together, out of patience—and out of time. Whoever the toe belonged to was having a bad day.
I leaned forward and did a quick peek before pulling back out of sight again. Then I blinked as I realized what I’d just seen in that quick glimpse. It wasn’t pretty. It also wasn’t what I’d expected.
The grisly scene imprinted on my brain in one giant, impossible bloody- ass collage of disconnected body parts. And in the center of it all—a baby.
My baby. Fucking shit.
I blew out a breath and leaped around the corner.
My little bundle of demon joy was so caught up in her midnight snack she didn’t even notice me coming.
I marched over and scooped her up, immediately regretting my decision when I realized she was covered in blood. Not hers. It all belonged to the owner of the toe from the looks of it. And it was pooled right where I was still standing.
I grimaced, holding her up and away from me as she whined and struggled to get down again.
“No way, young lady,” I scolded her, doing my best to keep a tight grip around her slickery little body. “What do you think you’re doing up so late anyway? I thought we agreed on gummy bears for dinner. Not people.”
She whined again, and the sound grew louder.
I remembered the ear-splitting scream from the bathtub earlier and promptly set her down again before she decided to go straight for Defcon Five and drew an audience. The moment her little legs hit the pavement, she waddled back to her snack and started slurping again. This time from a dismembered leg.
“Ugh.” I pressed a hand to my mouth and turned away—but not before I finally caught sight of the face of her meal.
“Shit balls,” I muttered, glancing away then back again just to be sure.
Oh yeah, it was her.
“Really, kid? You had to go for my neighbor?”
Demon spawn continued sucking out all the juiciest parts while dear old Patrice—may she rest in peace—lay filleted wide open next to the dumpster.
“I am so screwed,” I moaned, pacing back and forth while I tried to come up with a plausible explanation I could sell to Patrice’s nephew when he found out about this. Even after five minutes with the guy, I knew he wasn’t going to let this go once it came out she’d been murdered. And dismembered. And eaten.
Not to mention how I would explain this to the agency I worked for. The agency that would probably assign ME to clean up this mess.
Fuck.
Farther down the alley, something moved, and I froze, staring into the murky darkness for a glimpse of who was there. If it was some unsuspecting human, I could probably manage to summon enough fae glamour to convince him he hadn’t seen anything here tonight. But if it was a supe, I wasn’t making any promises. Not after the loss of sleep and alcohol. If push came to shove, maybe we could just eat them for dessert.
But no matter how hard I looked, even my fae eyesight couldn’t make out the shape approaching us out of the shadows. The air coming from its direction pulsed with some sort of otherworldly power, and I drew in a shaky breath as the signature reached me. It was a feeling I’d only ever felt in close proximity to two things: angels and demons.
Goosebumps rose along my arms and neck. I could feel just as clearly as I could see the creature approaching us.
Whatever it was—it didn’t come from this world. And if the smell of Patrice’s blood was drawing it, chances were I didn’t want to meet it.
We needed to move. Now.
“Fuck my life,” I muttered, scooping up my little bundle of homicidal joy for a second time.
She wriggled like before, but I was already moving, doubling back the way I came and looking for a quick escape. When her meal was out of sight, she settled down, and I sighed in relief that she wasn’t going to throw a fit over leaving her meal behind.
I did my best to tuck her into my jacket, or at least the bloodier parts of her, then hauled ass in a roundabout route back to my apartment, praying no one noticed the little hairless T-rex-lookalike with flesh stuck in its teeth.
Teeth! That explained a lot.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were teething?” I whispered. “What a big day.”
She grinned at me, and I flinched at her full mouth of canines. Damn.
My baby was an early bloomer, apparently.
Halfway there, her gurgles turned to suckling sounds again, and I realized she’d managed to snag a bone that looked deceivingly like a pork rib with the skin still hanging on. My stomach churned, and I looked away, whistling to drown out the sounds she made as she ate my poor elderly neighbor for dinner.
Holy shit. This night could not get any worse.
I’d nearly made it back to my apartment building when the prickle of the otherworldly power returned. I quickened my steps, but the power was unshakable. I’d been spotted.
A low growl nearby stopped me in my tracks. The sound had an edge to it that suggested something more than a pissy werewolf too drunk to find its way home. Once again, the hairs on the back of my arms and neck rose in response to whatever power was rolling off the asshole currently stalking me from the shadows.
I glanced right then left, peering into the alley between this building and the next. Satisfied, I looked back at the path before me. Less than ten yards away stood my apartment entrance, but whoever the growling belonged to sounded close—and menacing—and I damn sure didn’t want it following me home.
Somewhere in the depths of the shadows, something moved toward us. My senses practically screamed at me to get out of sight.
I took a hard left and slipped into a cubby. The space wasn’t much more than a pocket cut between two buildings, but I slid as far back as I could go, only stopping when I was wedged in tight between walls. The air was stale here and, though warmer, not the best place to hide considering all it took was one good look from whoever stood at the opening and we were busted.
The power I sensed stalked closer.
I concentrated on the handful of demon baby currently tucked into my jacket, soothing her and praying she wouldn’t get us both eaten.
A moment later, something passed by the opening. I went absolutely still at the sight of the monster.
It was taller than me by at least two feet and covered in thick fur. For a split second, I wrote it off as a werewolf. But werewolves weren’t that big. Not unless some freakazoid human had grown to the size of a skyscraper then been bitten and turned. Also, it didn’t have a snout. Or if it did, someone had done a great job of smashing it in because the front of its face was flat and wide. More proof this thing wasn’t a supe.
It stopped and sniffed the air, and I held my breath, using my hand to softly cover the mouth of the little demonling in my arms.
The thing turned slowly as if testing the air around where it now stood.
A pair of glowing blue eyes swept past me as the thing swiveled its head, casting a glance backward. After another pause, the blue eyes swept back again, and the thing finally faced forward and moved on.
A trickle of genuine terror washed over me as I realized just how far off base I truly was. Werewolves were just humans who shifted, but this. . .
This wasn’t shifter or man. It wasn’t even of this world, I realized.
A demon. But not just any demon.
At the Tiff, we’d done a unit on greater demons, all of which had been extinct for at least a couple of decades now.
The photos and lore made them sound like myth rather than part of actual history. Especially when you factored in how few humans actually knew about them. The destruction they’d caused had been catastrophic before the SSF had bolstered their numbers enough to take down the beasts.
This particular guy was reminiscent of a photo I’d seen depicting an entire village wiped out by a single creature.
This asshole was a level six.
“Holy fuckery,” I breathed when enough minutes had passed and the weight of the power clinging to the beast had finally faded.
“Fuckery,” a tiny voice bleated, echoing my own.
I gasped and nearly dropped the wriggling worm-girl in my arms before I remembered I was holding her in the first place. All at once, it hit me: the voice I’d just heard belonged to her.
My demon-baby.
“You can talk?” I whispered, staring intently down into her too-large eyes. She grinned up at me and waved the leftover rib bone in my face as if offering me a bite.
“Eww.” I grimaced and arched away to avoid contact with the thing. “No thanks, kid.”
“Fuckery,” she sang again.
“Yes, this night has been full of that,” I agreed.
Her grin turned to a laugh, and I tried not to notice how terrifying she looked covered in blood, gnawing on a human rib, giggling hysterically. I sure knew how to pick ‘em.
Still, I didn’t move. Just in case that glowing-eyed wolf monster decided to backtrack.
An hour ticked by, and my muscles began to cramp. When I couldn’t hold my position any longer, I eased out of my hiding space and into the alley. When nothing jumped out to eat me, I wandered a little farther.
Still nothing.
The wolf-demon was gone.
As I neared my apartment, I glanced down at my toddler-monster and squared my shoulders. “Look, I need you to stay quiet,” I told her. “If you do that, I’ll buy you all the gummy bears you want.”
Yes, it was a bribe.
No, I didn’t feel guilty for it.
She grinned, and I took that as a yes.
With a final glance around—just in case blue-eyed demon-king was still lurking—I ran for my apartment.
Halfway up the stairs, I heard Patrice’s apartment door open behind me. “Gem?” I heard. “Is that you?”
Rourke, Patrice’s nephew, sounded curious and a little concerned.
I cringed and took the stairs two at a time. “Sorry, Rourke, no time,” I called out. “Listen, have you seen—”
I kept running, using my last stores of energy to slide the deadbolts loose on my apartment door. One-handed, I flung it open and slammed it behind me, drowning out Rourke’s questions.
From inside my jacket, a burp echoed off the sad space that made up my entryway, living room, and dining room in one. The burp was followed by a demonic giggle.
“Fuckery,” she said again.
“Ugh. Bath time,” I announced, heading for the tub.
Thirty minutes later, I had a clean demon baby again. When she was dressed in an old t-shirt of mine, I burned what was left of Patrice’s rib bone in a barrel underneath my kitchen window. It was the best I could do for evidence destruction on short notice. Half a bag of gummy bears later, the little nightmare on T-rex legs was asleep.
Again.
Afterward, I’d just found the demonling’s escape method from earlier—a broken window leading to my fire escape—when the exhaustion finally hit me. I did my best to push through and clean up the glass littering the floor. But eventually, keeping my eyes open became too much.
My lids fluttered shut and I sank, slumping onto my lumpy couch. Finally, oblivion grabbed me with both hands and yanked me under. Long before I would have liked, something woke me up. I rolled over, surveying the room through slitted eyes. Sunlight streamed in, casting my hardwood into a dirty-honey glow that warmed my shoulder. But judging from the positioning, it hadn’t been up for long, which meant I still had zzz’s to catch up on.
I shut my eyes again and began to drift when a thump sounded behind me. Immediately, panic sent a shot of adrenaline through me, and I prayed demon-spawn hadn’t escaped again.
I sat up quickly, wobbling as I caught myself on the arm of the couch before I could teeter over onto the floor. At the sight of my still-closed bedroom door, I frowned. If she hadn’t made that noise, what had—
I blinked in disbelief at the sight of Jax McGuire standing in my living room. He wore combat boots and a pair of dark denim jeans that were snug in all the right places. His hair was just messy enough to make me want to run my fingers through it—and he was looking at me like I was a snack.
The feeling was mutual, but the fact remained that he had just broken into my home, and I was obligated to yell about that for a minute.
“What the hell?” I demanded in a voice I hoped conveyed fury while not waking my flesh-eating roommate.
Shoving to my feet, I marched around to meet him, demanding, “What are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
Jax shrugged, gesturing next to where he still stood beside my broken TV.
“Window was open.” He pointed, and sure enough, the window beside him was wide open.
I wasn’t sure whether to be more pissed about the fact that he’d used it to come inside uninvited or that my little toddler-beast had ignored the easy exit in favor of creating her own.
Parenting wasn’t just hard. It was also expensive.
“Uh-oh.” Jax frowned as he took a step closer. “What’s that face for?” “Toddlers are assholes,” I muttered, folding my arms across my chest, mostly to hide my still-hard nipples. Jax had that effect.
His mouth curved at my words, and I tried not to notice how his smile made him hotter while also less trustworthy—or that it was a combination that heated my panties despite everything else going on in my world.
“Uh-uh, don’t smile at me like that,” I warned.
His brow arched. “Smile like what?” he asked way too innocently.
“Like you got a full night’s rest and a hot meal on both ends of that sleep and now you’ll waltz in here and flirt a little before heading off to an easy day of slaughtering your enemies. I can’t handle it at the moment.”
Jax’s ensuing laugh made me want to kill him—and make out with him at the same time. “Ah, the life of a single mom.”
My eyes narrowed, and I did a quick sweep of the area for an easily reachable weapon. Maybe I’d skip the kissing part and go straight to murder.
“Jax, do not start with me right now.”
“No starting, got it,” he said, striding closer with a swagger only egomaniacs who were great in bed could pull off. “What about finishing it?” he murmured, stopping in front of me and letting his lips brush my earlobe.
Like a switch being flipped, my body reacted. My nipples hardened, and my thighs ached instantly. Lust rolled off me, and my aura became a cloud of desire shoving us together and sealing us inside. Fucking hell, it had been way too long. One tickled ear, and I couldn’t keep my energy on lockdown, much less my hormones.
“Jax,” I said through gritted teeth, but I didn’t move.
I should have moved.
Jax’s lips brushed my cheekbone then lower, trailing whispery kisses along my jawline. I stood utterly still and tried not to give in to the desire to let my hands shift into griffin’s claws and use them to shred his clothes clean off his chiseled body. And I knew it was chiseled because I’d gotten a firsthand feel-up the night we’d met at The Monster Ball.
