Once back in the kitchen we fell into an easy partnership. Twelve burgers on the grill, four for the two of us, cooked medium, add two slices of mild cheddar cheese on half and top them with the rest. I put mustard and a touch of mayo on the buns with a sprinkle of red pepper and salt, some lettuce, and tomato. It took a large hand to hold one.
Wretch hand sliced potatoes, sprayed them with some garlic olive oil before dunking them in the oil. When they were ready, he pulled them up, sprayed them again, and used the salt mill to sprinkle fresh smoked salt over the top. It was my mother’s recipe, and he’d loved it the first time she served it.
We carried the food for the cops out front and then returned to ours in the kitchen.
“Upstairs.” I went up to my office.
Grace’s unfettered touch was barely forty-eight hours hold, but it was visible. We sat in the overstuffed chairs eating while we looked out at the river.
“If I see another body, I’m going to finish my food before telling Mike.” Wretch took a huge bite.
“If you tell him before he’s done eating, we’ll have an angry werewolf on our hands.”
“With a badge,” he said laughing.
It was a running joke. We loved the Eddie Murphy movie and when Mike was promoted to Chief, he was drunk downstairs and told a demon he was his worst nightmare, a wolf with a badge. The demon left, Wretch and I stopped laughing sometime the next day.
After we finished, Wretch took our plates down and brought up cappuccino we spiked with amaretto. Seated in my office, watching the late afternoon sunset, for a moment, I could pretend everything was okay.
An explosion went off with a huge noise. It rattled us where we sat, smoke blew from our east. We jumped up running to the window. It looked like it came from where the cabin used to stand.
“Did you leave anything flammable there? Set a spell I didn’t know about?” I was pissed.
So was he. “Cim, that wasn’t me. Someone found my handiwork and didn’t like it.”
“Ya think?”
He punched me. “Get serious.”
“I am. How can a demon remain anonymous, pull off the shit Brun is trying to pull, if he blows something up right down from his little storage facility?” He couldn’t be that stupid. Obsidian would’ve killed him a long time ago.
“Smokescreen?”
“Literally? You’ve got to be joking.” Even bad movies had better ideas.
“Nope, look.” He pointed to the yellow warehouse. Mike and his guys took off toward the cabin as two black vans with blacked out windows pulled up to the warehouse.
“Loading or unloading, it’s a stupid move.” Wretch started shifting.
“He doesn’t know we’re watching. He thinks we’re too busy mourning Angie to know he’s even up to something.” I reminded him. “Obsidian has always thought you and I were barely smarter than cavemen. Remember how she waited for you to blow yourself up the first time you learned the fire spell?”
“That was twelve hundred years ago, Cim.” He’d chosen a dragon form today. Light brown scales with tan wings.
“She has little faith in your abilities, and her opinions of people never change. She loved Nitha’s cruelty from the start, was embarrassed that Laythe and your mother were compassionate. Why else leave Brun here with us around?” That is, unless she planned on us killing him for her.
Wretch hated that his own grandmother thought he was dense. He did set things on fire for a while. Laythe told me she lost a whole wardrobe to his experiments with fire spells. Then, she made him go outside during the winter and practice on farmland.
“She’s always been convinced that my dragon father’s DNA would make me fall in love and forget how to be a demon. And when you saved me from Nitha, she was positive I couldn’t handle myself.”
I opened a balcony door stepping outside. “I like her warped opinion right where it is. We get front row seats and can kill demons on a regular basis.” It was my lifestyle. I didn’t plan to give it up.
He started to twitch. “She’ll know we aren’t useless when I pull her head off.”
“If you pull her spine out, we can keep her partially alive and nail her to the wall in the basement.” Right where she beheaded Laythe. We’d have to move Angie.
He smiled. “That’s the best idea you’ve had in days.”
“Thank you. Let’s go see what they’re doing. It looks like they unloaded some tables and equipment.”
He leaned partially outside. “They got Angie’s old lab equipment. We need to tell Mike.”
“No need. Look, he’s strolling back here and looking at the vans. C’mon. Let’s go investigating. The sun is about down.” I walked upstairs noticing the way Grace had set herself up.
No wonder she didn’t want to leave. It was three times larger than her apartment.
“She’s safe.” Wretch misread my pause.
We got to the rooftop garden. The view was gorgeous. The smoke from the explosion by the cabin was black and wispy.
Mike joined us. “Someone set off a box of fireworks on the kindling. I’m assuming that was your work?”
Wretch nodded. “The kindling not the fireworks.”
Mike tried not to be intimidated while talking to a six-foot dragon. “It looks like Brun got Angie’s lab equipment. My guys will follow those delivery vans and ask the drivers who paid them. If the answer is anything other than Brun, they’ll track the person down and bring them in.”
“While George is here running the club, would you go back to the mansion and check on Angie? I haven’t heard from her this afternoon.” Wretch was worried.
He’d now arranged for Greg and Mike to be there with her. Obsidian scared him to his bones.
“I’ll go by there and see her. I called a few minutes ago to confirm the markings on the table were hers. The DNA tests results won’t be in for a week. Until then, she’s setting up her equipment and notifying her contacts in the medical and forensic community that she’s dead-in-public, for now.
It’s not common in our business but the people we know will accept it without question.” He needed her back at work. New guy in the morgue or not, Mike’s trust of Angie’s instincts helped him close cases faster.
Mike went downstairs, and we heard Adam and Greg’s voices. They showed up moments later.
“No way are you doing this without us, Cim,” Adam said. “My pack scoured the entire Quarter today. All scent trails for Brun lead to the warehouse.”
“I would like a chance to give the doctor an injection.” Greg stated coldly.
I wouldn’t budge. “And that is why we’re doing this alone. I’m already part demon from drinking in souls so neither of us is in any danger if he comes after us with needles. You two can’t say that.”
“Is there a protection spell up?” Adam asked Wretch.
“I’m going to assume yes, and that it’s connected to Obsidian. Please go back to the mansion with Mike and take George with you.” He looked at me, I nodded. “We need to close the club with this going down now. If we need you, we’ll call. However, if my grandmother shows up there, it will take all of you to kill her. As much as I want to do it myself, if she appears, do whatever is necessary to make sure she loses her head.” He started to bounce from foot to foot.
“George and Greg would be her first targets. One good sniff and she’ll know they’re shifters with demon DNA. I’m not sure if she’ll kill you to get rid of evidence, like Patrick, or vanish somewhere with you as captives.” I warned them.
“The woods of Canada sound better every day.” Greg was disappointed. “Wretch, do you have a tracking spell, so if she takes off with us you can get there?”
“Yes.” He performed the spell on both of them.
“Would Greg leave?” Wretch asked after they left.
“Not a chance. He loves fighting, and we seem to attract it. We’re stuck with him.” At least, I hoped I was right. I’d been wrong too much lately.
“I like him.”
So did I. “I hope our pasts don’t come looking for us. We could be busy for years.”
“This is my past, Cim. I don’t forget this is my family.”
“I do understand why you never want children.”
He looked tired. The guilt on his conscience took a toll. Thinking Angie was dead for hours didn’t help.
“You need a vacation when this is over,” I said.
“I’d love to take Angie back to Europe for the summer.” He smiled.
“Then let’s get this taken care of so you can have a romantic summer abroad.” I shifted spreading my wings. It felt good to stretch feeling the breeze run over the soft leathery skin. I tilted my head from side to side and stretched out my shoulders and neck.
“Go.” Wretch jumped from the roof.
We flew east first to avoid flying over the market and came up over the extended warehouse roofs. I landed with care above an open window where the air smelled like a hospital. Wretch landed below me on the dock a few feet from their front door.
I leaned my head into the propped up window opening and listened. I could hear three voices, two male and one female. The older male voice giving orders had to be Brun and the younger two didn’t sound happy about the assignments.
“Professor, I don’t understand.” The female sounded scared and confused.
“We’re giving them a special vaccine I developed at my last post in Canada. It will help them become bigger and stronger. They won’t catch even the worst virus. If I give them two injections a year until their teenagers, they will live well over a hundred years.” That had to be Brun’s voice. It was clear and concise. He’d been doing this for decades.
“They are just kids,” She was shouting now and panic was clear in her voice. The woman was not there of her own choice.
“It’s a gift, my dear. They’ll thank you for helping them. I promise. I’ve done this before, and it always works.” Even he didn’t sound sure.
I was glad we didn’t let Greg and George come along. If he knew how successful he was, he would inject everyone. I only hoped Obsidian didn’t bring him up to date before the Court caught her.
“Always?” the young male asked.
“I gave the final injection to a former patient of mine yesterday. I can assure you it expanded his life and helped make him healthier.” He was talking about Patrick.
From the sound of his voice, he didn’t intend for that injection to kill him. This man was either deluded or too stupid to use Band-Aids unsupervised.
“Where is he? I want to ask him before I let you do this to our kids.” The young woman pleaded.
Oh, crap. Parents and their kids? This was lower than most demons would go. One of the Courts first laws was to leave human children alone. You were considered weak and less of a demon for playing with undeveloped adults.
Human parents are more protective of their young than demon or dragon parents. Ours walk away when we are teenagers and let us fend for ourselves. Mine were the exception as they kept me in the same hut with them for the first twenty years of my life.
I missed them at that moment, and I knew what my mother would do in this case. Sliding to the edge of the roof, I let go and landed on the ground as softly as I could on the opposite side of the door to Wretch.
“Did you hear?”
His expression said yes. He shifted into a human male dressed in a suit.
This was a new look for him. “Care to fill me in?”
“Door to door salesman.” He pounded on the door. “Sir? Sir, I know you are here I saw the vans out back from the market. I have an exceptional deal for you on some land that just became available. We can clean up the debris within twenty-four hours. It’s a small little wooded area just down from here. I can hear your wife; wouldn’t she like a place with a small beach for kids to play on?”
He pounded on the door again and stood back. We waited as whispered commands were given. I’d assumed he told the parents to shut up and stay back.
Until the door opened, and the frightened couple appeared side by side, smashed together, and frightened. They pleaded for help with their eyes, and I felt a surge of anger. They couldn’t be more than twenty years old, and he took them and their kids. This was going to be a bad day for Dr. Brun. I hoped his wife would miss him.
The mother opened her mouth to speak, but before any words came out a boa constrictor wrapped around the two of them and pulled them inside.
“We play dirty then.” Wretch announced shifting into demon and entering the warehouse at a trot.
I took my time looking around when I went in. I found the kids, not more than three years old, strapped down to small hospital beds. They weren’t unconscious, but he had drugged them. Their eyes were glazed over. They couldn’t focus even when I stood right over them.
“Brun, you took toddlers? How weak and pathetic are you?” My stomach turned. “Drugged up toddlers. You are pathetic. How does your wife let you live? She can kill demons and dragons without breathing hard, and you strap helpless human children down to gurneys.”
“Don’t call me weak.” He squeezed the young parents with one arm as a boa constrictor. “I changed myself into a demon. That makes me powerful. I can kill demons and dragons, just like she can.”
“And yet, you strap children down and hold their parents hostage. Are you sure your injections didn’t make you delusional, doctor?” I enlarged my dragon form to the full six foot eleven inches. My scales looked like liquid, my wings stretched the width of the building.
The human parents were terrified of the things that held them and the demon and dragon that were here to rescue them. Wretch reached out to the parents to try pulling them loose and they recoiled.
“Maybe you should look normal for a moment?” I suggested.
He shifted to his normal human male form, complete with excessive charm, and bare chest.
“Normal is not supermodel, Wretch.” I walked up behind him.
He turned to me. “What would you suggest?”
“Not frightening the people we are trying to save.” I shifted back to human form spelling jeans and a t-shirt for myself.
“You are?” the mother asked.
I smiled walking toward her. Brun stood three yards back with a smug look on his face. He knew we couldn’t pull them out of there before he constricted them.
“I’m Cim, and this is Wretch.”
“You sound like bad guys from cartoons.” The father was dazed.
His oxygen level dropped with each squeeze. Both of their lips were turning blue, and they struggled to keep their eyes open. Wretch moved behind them facing Brun.
“Hello grandfather, would you like to take on someone who can rip your head off?” He shifted into the largest dragon shaped demon I’d seen.
“Your grandmother doesn’t claim you.” Brun stuttered.
“I know. Do you know why she doesn’t?” His family kept his dragon heritage from other demons. They were so ashamed he had cousins who didn’t know.
I leaned toward the parents, and the mother grasped my hand. “Breathe slowly. Anything quick and he’ll feel it and tighten.”
They nodded at me trying to do as I suggested. The blue color in their lips indicated we might lose them before Wretch could set them free. “Inhale please, you need oxygen. Your lips are blue, and you need to raise those cute kids on the beds over there.”
That worked. They looked at each other and took deep breaths in. I kept an eye on Brun who was staring at Wretch as he kept growing. His head was a good twelve feet in the air.
The best motivation for any parent was their children. Demons didn’t understand this, but they were the only species I knew of that didn’t have that strong mother-child bond.
“Do I look familiar now, Brun?” His voice rumbled in the warehouse.
Brun froze in place. His face was white, and his jaw hung slack. “You?”
“Yes, me. The demon from your nightmares. Sent to kill you after you married Obsidian. Do you remember running from me in the woods outside of London?” Wretch laughed and the room echoed.
The parents gasped. The fear in Brun made him lock up.
I needed them to focus on me. “I’m going to change back into a dragon to cut his arm from you. Do you understand?”
They nodded with their eyes as wide open as they would go. I shifted using the talons on my right hand to cut through Brun’s boa arm. He yelled instantly shifting it back to a human arm.
The parents weren’t free yet, the arm was still stuck around them. I started slicing through the arm trying not to cut them in the process. They pushed with their hands until the remainder of the boa arm fell off. They stumbled past me to their kids.
I walked next to Wretch. “What’re we doing here?”
“This is between them.” I heard behind me. “Why don’t we let my husband and my grandson have the fight they should’ve had seven hundred years ago.”
Obsidian.
“Did we set off the alarms again? How annoying is that for you?” I hated this demon more at that moment for hellacious last week than at any other time. I wanted to keep her coming to me so the parents could get outside with the kids.
“Don’t worry Cimmerian, Death Dealer. I’ll let the young humans go. I have no use for children.” She turned to the parents. “Leave in the next ten minutes and say nothing of this to anyone. Or I will hunt you down killing you and your children.”
They ran out of the door we’d left open. I felt my chest compress and leave the ground. I hung in the air drifting over Obsidian. She didn’t constrict my airway.
“I knew you liked me.”
She made a gagging sound. How flattering.