Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

DASH

Day four without Keir.I woke with tears sliding down my face as I clutched his pillow. I’d dreamed Keir was in my arms as we relaxed on the couch in the funeral home and watched a movie I couldn’t name. Waking to find it was just my heart playing tricks on me pissed me off.

We only had a few days until the funeral for Sergeant Green, and then two days after, we were flying to Monterey to be with Lucy and Lenny for Thanksgiving. I wished to hell I knew where Keir was, but none of my otherworldly contacts were talking to me.

“Jo!” I couldn’t help shouting. Doppelgänger was still missing, the fucker. I planned to call Beelzebub to alert him because a demon on the loose couldn’t be good.

After I showered and dressed for the day, I went to the kitchen for coffee. The peninsula in the kitchen felt so damn empty without Keir next to me. I loved that man more than I could measure, and the longer he was away, the more I hurt.

In my soul, I knew he was alive. I could feel his heartbeat inside me, but I didn’t know where to find him, and it was killing me.

“Jophiel!”

I walked to the door that led to the funeral home and took the stairs down. I’d heard nothing from anyone on the other side, and I was about at the end of my patience. Some fucker needed to give me more information before I did something irrational—or irreversible.

What I didn’t expect to find was Sergeant Horace Green guarding the walk-in. He was dressed in full military garb, standing at attention. I stopped in front of him and sighed. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you. We’re getting ready for your service on⁠—”

“They’re telling lies about me. Naomi’s lied about what happened between us, and I can’t let my daughter believe I’d ever raise a hand to her. I loved her more than anything. For Naomi to say I’d hit Rachel breaks my heart.”

Sergeant Green’s voice thundered in the building. Obviously, he wasn’t happy, but I had a question. Who was lying about him, and where were they?

“Where is this happening, Sergeant Green?”

“They’re saying I beat my daughter, and I would never raise a hand to her. I love her, and she loved me when she was a child. She’s just forgotten how much fun we had together when I was home on leave."

"What are you hearing? Are you hearing Keir? Do you know where he is?"

"Where Naomi lives. She’s saying I used to beat my daughter. She’s saying I hit her, and I would never do anything like that. My father used to beat my mother and me when I was a boy. I’m not like him.”

I wanted to shake him, but I knew it wouldn’t help. “Can you tell me where they are? Is Keir okay?”

“You have to make them stop saying those things!” Again, more yelling.

“I’d love to do nothing more, but I don’t know where she is. Do you know? Can you find them for me?”

“I don’t know. Cows. Snow. Please find Rachel and tell her the truth.” Green disappeared.

Cows and snow? That wasn’t Sacramento. Maybe Northern California? “Jophiel!”

It wasn’t Thanksgiving yet. I rushed to Keir’s computer and went to Weather.com, checking for snowfall in the US. The weather was unseasonably warm in the Dakotas and Wyoming, so there hadn’t been much snowfall yet. There was a low-pressure system easing down from Canada that was predicted to bring heavy snowfall to the Midwest. Could Keir be in the Midwest? How the fuck did he get there?

“Josephine! Please!”

Tears of frustration filled my eyes. I was a doer. I fixed things where I could, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix this.

“Hey, man, you’re taking the roof off the place.” I glanced up to see Michael the archangel come in through the door to the receiving bay.

“Where’s Joseph—Jophiel?” I softened my tone a little. At least someone had come when I called. “I need help finding Keir.”

“Keir is fine. Jo’s looking out for him right now. You need to find Doppelgänger. He can cause a lot of trouble if he’s allowed to run loose like he is right now.

In an instant, we were outside The Mystical Palm. Doppelgänger was standing outside the store, nervously scanning the area for someone—or something.

“Can he see us?” We were standing on the street corner, and it didn’t seem like his eyes had landed on us yet.

“He can, but he doesn’t know what to look for. He’s possessed, and I’m not in the mood to deal with a demon right now. Let’s go have a beer. He’s waiting for Lilith to show up for work at the store. Or maybe he’s waiting for the psychic. They won’t be here for an hour or so.”

“Do you know where my Keir is? We need to have a funeral and get ready to go to Monterey for the holiday. He’s helping Lucy with the wedding, and she’ll be worried if she doesn’t hear from him.”

We walked down the street to a bar I’d noticed a time or two before. Michael opened the door with no effort, but there was no one inside. “Is this place open?”

“Actually, no, but they won’t mind. Get us a beer.” He walked through a stainless swinging door, so I went behind the bar and got two beers. It was early in the day for me to be drinking, but I’d done the same for Quinn a few days ago, and now I had my own worries.

I pulled two from the refrigerator under the bar and placed them on the top, twisting off the caps and putting the two bottles on napkins. No use making a mess.

Walking around to the other side, I took a seat and waited. There was a clatter of pots and pans from inside, so I hopped up and started for the door. Michael came through the stainless-steel door with a big smile. He was wearing a Bee Gees T-shirt from their Spirits Having Flown tour in 1979, which surprised me. The emblem on the front had what looked like an angel with large white wings unfurled as if it had just taken flight.

“Bee Gees? Really?”

“Voices of Angels, those three. They never go out of style.” Michael handed me a cup of coffee and walked toward the bar where the two beers were waiting.

“What’s the coffee for?”

“You. You need to stay on your toes. You’ve got a demon to wrestle. I’m hungry.” He held up a plate with two huge sandwiches filled with cold cuts, cheese, and lots of peppers.

“I can’t eat that.” Hell, my mouth wouldn’t even fit around it. That reminded me of other things I liked to fit my mouth around, and I was right back to missing Keir.

The bar door smacked open, and Beelzebub strolled inside wearing one of his ugly tracksuits with matching sneakers and a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. “Arch, what can I do ya for?”

Michael laughed. “Not for all the manna in heaven. Here. I made you a snack, glutton. Take a seat.” Michael then looked at me. “Scoot down.” I got up and moved down a stool giving the prince of Hell a seat between us.

“How’ve you been, Arch?”

“Good. Just trying to stay ahead of the game, Beelz.”

“I hear ya.”

Small talk? I had no fucking time for small talk. “What the fuck is going on? Where’s Keir?”

“No patience, I see. Haven’t you ever heard of manners? We don’t get to see each other much outside of a confrontation.” Michael gave me a scathing look but fuck that.

“The Gatekeeper is missing, and I’m not sure if he’s protected properly. Adonis is still at the funeral home, so is Josephine looking out for him? What if Lucifer tries to kill him?” Maybe they’d respond better to the possibility of impending doom that we’d been working against?

“Hey, don’t blame us. We’re not behind this bullshit. Hell, we’ve sunk so low as to ally ourselves with these holier-than-thou assholes to prevent it from happening. The struggle between upstairs and downstairs has been going on since the day the Fallen made the leap. It’s a respectful battle between us. This new attack from a third party isn’t what anyone expected, but when certain people get restless, they act out. Chaos has pushed her daughter, Nyx, to make a power grab, and Dad’s not happy about it.”

“So why isn’t he doing something about it?” I couldn’t help asking the question.

Beelzebub, or Beelz as Michael had called him, laughed, his guffaws echoing through the empty building. I hoped to fuck nobody heard him because all of us would be sitting in a jail cell for breaking and entering…or maybe just me? I was the only lame-ass member of this group who couldn’t pop in and out of places. Times like this, I missed Scotty.

“We have an understanding with the celestials. We’ll try to recruit for our team, and they’ll try to stop us and recruit for theirs. It’s a bit of a competition, one could say. What Nyx is trying to do is inject themselves into it and disrupt the natural balance of power. She’s malicious and conniving, but Dad’s not ready to smite her and her followers. He has this sick sense of humor when it comes to shit like this.

“He likes to watch it play out and hope they’ll come to their senses, which is really strange for him because he’s never optimistic about anything. Anyway, Gatekeeper is in no danger. He’s actually helping undo some damage done by the demon inhabiting Keirnan⁠—“

“Stop! You said it yourself. It must play out. This one will get on a plane to Iow—” Michael hitched his thumb in my direction, catching my attention.

“Now you stop.”

The two of them were chuckling with each other, but I saw nothing laughable in the situation.

“You mean, you fucks know where my fiancé is and just aren’t telling me?” My blood boiled. What pricks!

“Look, you just track down Doppelgänger and keep him from doing something stupid in the human realm. Appeal to the demon. Maybe you slip them a mercy fuck?” Beelz smirked at his comment.

“How about I slip you a⁠—”

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. My throat was closing, though there were no hands near my neck.

Michael slapped Beelz on the shoulder. “Knock it off. He’s not the bad guy. He misses his mate. Cut him some slack. Now, Key, finish your coffee and go to that psychic shop. Call out the demon and make a deal with it, but don’t make it anything stupid. Just find out who sent it and what they want.”

I looked at Beelz. “You’re a prince of Hell. Don’t you know what he wants?”

“I don’t care. That’s the difference here. I got no dog in this fight.” Beelz shrugged and went behind the bar to get the two of them more beer.

I finished my coffee as the two spoke in a language I didn’t understand, and then I left the bar and crossed the street. I could see Doppelgänger standing outside the shop, and I braced myself for whatever fresh hell I was in for.

You knowwhen your day is going to hell, and then something happens that puts it on a bullet train? Yeah, Doppelgänger was the engineer on the throttle, and I was trying to put on the brakes as quickly as I could.

“Leave him alone, bitch!” I was yelling at the demon because he was actually holding poor Trent near the ceiling without touching him, and Trent had already pissed his pants.

“Da-ash! Don’t upset it.” Trent was clawing at his throat, and I’d about had enough.

“I said leave him alone. Tell me what you want, dammit.”

“Virgin. I want a virgin.” Oh hell. That didn’t sound good.

A virgin?“Why?” I had its attention, so I walked backwards toward a table with crystals displayed. Maybe some of that shit would scare it or kill it? I was damn well going to try.

“To mate. I need to mate. His mate was already pregnant.” It pointed to Doppelgänger, whose body it still inhabited.

The demon’s voice coming from Fake Keir was growling, whereas the man’s regular voice had been a silky bass, almost like my Keir. If he’d sounded like the demon at first, I’d have definitely picked up on something like that.

“We all want to mate, asswipe. Put him down, now. Why a virgin? Virgin woman or a virgin anybody?” The human looked so much like my Keir it was hard to maintain my anger. I remembered he wasn’t my guy, but he could lead me to Keir if I could win the demon over.

“Look, Demon… Can I call you that? Why don’t you tell me your name?”

The demon kept his eyes on me, and I glanced over its shoulder to see Trent slowly sliding down the wall, his breathing seeming to even out as his feet touched the floor.

“Which one?” I mumbled as I pointed behind me to the table full of crystals. One of those fuckers had to be useful. Suddenly, the office door opened, and Amelie walked through the door.

Her eyes were glazed over as she mechanically walked to Doppelgänger and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You called out for me?”

My head was on a fucking swivel as I watched her. Had she lost her mind, or was she just that whip-smart that she would distract it?

“Amelie, honey. What are you doing? You told me you’re not a virgin.” Trent’s face was white as a sheet. I’d have to get back to the virgin issue later.

“Kids let’s not get carried away. Amelie, he’s possessed. It’s not Keir.” I stepped forward and touched her shoulder just as the bell rang over the door.

There was a snapping sound, and when I turned, Beelz was standing there. This time, however, there were curled black horns coming from the front of his head, the tracksuit was missing, and he did not look happy.

Archangel Michael walked in behind him and shut the door, flipping the lock. He glanced around and chuckled. “I missed my invitation to the party. What’s going on, Key?”

“Well, now this one is looking for a virgin. It claims it needs to mate. Amelie, who isn’t a virgin, came out of the office with this glazed look in her eyes. There, all caught up.”

Beelz stepped forward and stared into Doppelgänger’s eyes for a moment before smiling, seemingly having changed his mind about helping me. “There you are. Tell me now, who helped you possess this man?”

Silence.

Beelz reached toward Doppelgänger, but Michael stopped him. “You can’t just jerk him out. That’ll tear up the body. Remember Jay Frick? He was a horrible mess and had to make a deal with you to get his body repaired. This is an innocent. Someone sent the demon.”

Suddenly, a roar came from Beelz that shook the building. He could be a scary fucker, that was for sure. “Who helped you?”

“Paxton De Vil. He’s a warlock who practices dark magic, and he chanted the incantation that allowed me to possess this man. Only he can remove me. Nyx wants a child from a virgin so she can inhabit the body to enter the human realm and ascend to rule over them.”

I was pretty shocked by that announcement. I glanced at Michael, who had his hand on his hip as he stared at Beelzebub. “That’s a little on the nose, isn’t it?”

“As I said, this isn’t our doing. Seems like Nyx is desperate to try anything.”

Michael turned his stare on me. “You’ve had dealings with this Paxton De Vil, correct?”

I was sure I had steam blowing out of my ears. That fucker knew where Keir was and wanted to charge me a million dollars to find him? I would beat the fuck out of him when I got my hands on him. How dare he fuck with me!