12. Blane

CHAPTER 12

Blane

“ Y ou should have worn a black suit today,” Joseph muttered as he took my jacket. “The French blue is going to show the bloodstains.”

I’d begun wearing blue again after Lola, the four-year-old child I very much suspected was the reincarnation of my dear Nevaeh, told me it was her favourite colour. Nevaeh had loved the cerulean sky, the deep blue of the Pacific, and the turquoise of the Caribbean Sea. Her eyes had been the colour of worn denim, and even now, they were the last thing I saw before I fell asleep and the first thing on my mind when I woke up. When I bought her jewellery, it had always been sapphires. I wore one of them in a ring now.

Nevaeh’s return was problematic in so many ways, her age being the most significant issue. All those feelings I’d had for Nev were wrong now that she was a young child. But I couldn’t turn off my protective instincts. I’d failed her once, and I wouldn’t do so again. Unfortunately, that had led to me putting on a few pounds seeing as Marianna, Lola’s mother, had started a small baking business. I was her best customer. I might not be a significant part of Lola’s life, but I could ensure her mom wasn’t short of money.

And the excess cakes wouldn’t prevent me from taking on Zion.

Or winning.

Perhaps I should have cut him a little slack on account of his lack of celestial knowledge, but I couldn’t get past the fact that he’d sent a man to kidnap an innocent woman. It wasn’t as if Laurent wanted to invite Wren over for coffee and cookies. No, I very much feared that if he got his hands on both ladies, nobody would ever find the bodies.

Joseph watched my back as I climbed into the cage. Zion was so delightfully oblivious as he jogged on the spot and cracked his neck from side to side that I had to suppress a smile. He took his time wrapping his hands while I leaned against the side of the cage, legs crossed at the ankles, and waited.

“Are you ready yet? Time is money, remember?”

“You wanna call the ambulance before or after I pound you into the floor?”

“Let’s not waste a valuable medical resource.”

Ever watched a pet cat play with a mouse? They rarely go in for the kill right away. No, they prefer to toy with their prey, even giving it false hope of salvation before pouncing. Sometimes, they abandon it altogether. Take Myrtle the Maine Coon, for example. In Plane Two, she spent hours catching mice, crickets, spiders, even small snakes, and letting them go in my parents’ home. She also enjoyed snaffling valuable knickknacks and shitting in the bunkers on my father’s favourite golf course. Myrtle irritated my parents to no end, but who could blame her? Until my second-cousin Orwell got ahold of Great-Uncle Tiberius’s notes and began experimenting, she’d been a perfectly normal—by celestial standards—twelve-year-old girl. Now she only assumed her human form at random moments and spent the rest of the time wreaking havoc.

Anyhow, I digress.

Zion finally got his act together and swung a right hook. Hard. Which was a good thing, because I sidestepped and caught the wince as his fist connected with the wire mesh. By the time he recovered, I was behind him, and my jab to his kidney only riled his temper. The growl he let out was barely human. I should know. In my peripheral vision, I spotted Nero moving toward the cage, and Joseph stepped forward too. He’d run interference while I dealt with this unethical idiot. I had nothing against sin, per se, but there were some lines a man shouldn’t cross.

Another growl, and Zion swung again, this time with an uppercut. I blocked, punched him in the stomach, and waited politely while he got his breath back.

“Why do men like you invariably have to do things the hard way?” I asked. “Violence isn’t always the answer.”

The growl turned into a roar, and a blow glanced off my shoulder as I spun away. Beating me was nothing but a pipe dream, but I didn’t want him giving up too soon. Nero was at the cage door now, and Joseph tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned, my demon sidekick felled him with a single punch to the jaw. Zion hadn’t hired Nero for his brains, then. The sparring partner hovered in the background, no doubt trying to make up his mind whether he wanted to be next.

Slowly, slowly, Zion began to realise he’d made a monumental error. He’d judged me on my appearance, and supernatural strength and speed were two factors he hadn’t considered. Plus his accuracy was terrible. A left jab missed me completely, and when he stumbled forward, I helped him down to the mat. Hard. Blood from his nose speckled the canvas like it was a cut-price Jackson Pollock painting .

“Aargh!”

“You wanted this,” I reminded him. “Broken ribs are an occupational hazard.”

He garbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Fuck you,” which only served to remind me how long it had been since I’d indulged in pleasures of the flesh. Almost two weeks now. Thank goodness Nevaeh wasn’t around to see me turning this fool into ground beef—she’d been a confirmed pacifist.

“Now, let’s continue the conversation we started earlier. You’re going to locate Caria, and when you do, I’ll compensate you for your time.” Later, I’d work to tear apart his drug empire, but that could wait for a month or two. “And if you fail, I’ll come back and show you a whole new meaning to the term ‘spineless.’ Do you understand?”

I took the grunt to mean “yes.”

“Don’t get any cute ideas about tipping off Laurent, either. Not unless you want your Colosseum to go the same way as the Temple of Artemis.”

“The…the what?” Zion choked out.

“Look it up.” I hadn’t come here to give a history lesson. “I’ll dismantle your little empire piece by piece, and then I’ll dismantle you.” When I glanced around, the sparring partner was nowhere to be seen, and Nero was still on the floor. The bigger they were, the harder they fell. I patted Zion on the shoulder. “You have one week. I’ll be in touch.”

That’s how it worked in Plane Three. I gave a punishee a task and a deadline, and they fulfilled their duty. On those rare occasions a resident let me down, I came up with a suitably egregious penalty, and everyone else stayed in line for another year or two. So far, things seemed to work the same way in Plane Five, although I couldn’t get quite so creative with my disciplinary measures. Tongues would wag if I conjured up a wall of flame in the middle of Las Vegas.

Once we got outside into the daylight, Joseph looked me up and down and groaned.

“You have blood on your pants. And your shirt.”

At least it wasn’t my blood. I’d sliced my hand open on one of Zion’s front teeth, but once I’d picked the piece of broken enamel out of the wound, the flesh had regenerated almost instantly—another advantage of being not entirely human. All I had to show for my trouble was smooth skin.

“Let’s pick up lunch from La Nostra Casa on the way back,” I suggested. Vee had recommended the restaurant at the end of last year, and I’d eaten there a number of times since. The food was excellent. “You’ll have to go inside to collect our order, obviously.”

“Can’t we get it delivered? Rosetta keeps trying to set me up with her granddaughter.”

La Nostra Casa was a real family affair. Rosetta and her husband, Carmelo, owned the place, her son cooked, her daughter looked after the books, and her grandkids waited tables on the weekends. Which was why Joseph and I tended to visit Monday to Friday, although it would be amusing to see him pushed into a date with Giorgia Romano. The woman literally never stopped talking.

“We have to drive right past the place. What does Wren like to eat?”

“How should I know?”

“You’re right—just order one of everything.”

After all she’d been through, Wren deserved to be thoroughly spoiled.