Then again, it looked like Satan had taped the target on for her.
“Come on,” Reed said, extending a hand to her. “Before your mother calls in the cavalry.”
“Forget the cavalry.” Alec winked at Eve. “Miyoko would charge in herself.”
She was halted midlaugh by the stench of a sewer. Looking for the demon whose proximity had to be the cause, she found herself staring into an inexplicably lingering puddle at her feet.. . and familiar eyes of malevolent, crystalline blue. A face in the liquid. She stomped instinctively, destroying the visage of the water demon in an explosion of spraying droplets.
“What the hell?” Reed barked, catching her as her wounded thigh caused her to stumble.
In the literal blink of an eye, Eve found herself in the kitchen of her third-floor condo in Huntington Beach. “Did you see him?” she gasped, leaning heavily into his hard body.
Reed’s arms tightened around her. “Yeah, I saw him.”
He’s gone. Alec’s tone was grim. I’m heading out to hold off your mom, but we need to address this when we ‘re done here.
The demon was a Nix—a Germanic shape-shifting water spirit. He’d targeted her almost from the moment she had been marked, then made a nuisance of himself until she killed him. Correction: She’d thought she killed him.
She would kill him. This particular Nix had taken the life of her neighbor Mrs. Basso. Sweet, forthright, widowed Mrs. Basso who had been a beloved friend. Eve’s need for vengeance was what motivated her when the damned Infernal bounty hunting got tough.
Pulling away from Reed, she limped down the hallway to her master bedroom. The crash of the waves against the shore pulsed in through the living room balcony’s open sliding glass door. In her premarked life, she’d been an interior designer. Her condo had been one of her first projects, and the space remained one of her favorites. Even the mistakes she’d made in the layout were fond ones. She wouldn’t change a thing. She felt safe here, less like a demon killer and more like herself.
Eve absorbed the calm she found in her home with deep, even breaths.
Reed called after her, his tone both seductive and challenging. “Need help getting nak*d?”
She sighed inwardly. Outside these walls, the worst of Hell’s denizens were converging en masse. She would need to be ready when she ventured out again.
As if her love life wasn’t dangerous enough.
CHAPTER 2
Eve climbed onto one of the Shaker-style bar stools at her kitchen island. “You know, I wish the demons I killed would stay dead.”
In truth, they usually exploded into ash like the yuki-onna had and were returned to Hell where they were punished for blowing their chance to play with mortals. She was the only Mark to have vanquished the same demon more than once.
“Hey,” Diego Montevista protested from his seat on the stool beside her. “I’m alive for the same reason they came back to haunt you.”
She smiled. “That’s right. And you’re worth it.”
Montevista—previously the archangel Raguel’s chief of security and one badass Mark—bumped shoulders with her. “Damn straight.”
Mira Sydney frowned from her position at the other end of the island. Like her partner, Montevista, she was dressed in head-to-toe black—parachute pants and cotton T-shirt, with thigh holsters for both a 9mm and a dagger. “I still don’t understand how that worked.”
Montevista was large and forbidding, but his lieutenant was tiny and sweet-natured. Fair to his dark, Caucasian to his Latino. But it was clear that decades of working together had created a strong affinity between them. Alec had assigned them to Eve’s protection detail after the Obon festival. After all, Cain of Infamy didn’t need the same protection that the other archangels did. Eve didn’t mind. She’d bonded with both Montevista and Sydney during her training— infamous for being the worst Mark training disaster in history. Out of a class of nine, only three survived. And Raguel Gadara had been taken; the first and only successful archangel abduction.
“The world’s gone to shit since Eve hit the scene,” Reed grumbled from the stove where he was stir- frying homemade Kung Pao chicken. He was clearly unhappy to have company during their date.
“Gee, thanks,” Eve said.
His mouth curved in a devilish smile that contrasted sharply with the wings and halo he occasionally sported for shock value. There was very little that could be called angelic about Reed. “At least you’re good eye candy.”
Eve groaned. He winked.
As gorgeous as Reed was—and he looked especially fine with an apron tied over his usual elegant attire—he had some seriously rough edges. But she didn’t want to smooth them away; she wanted to understand them. She knew firsthand that he was the type of man who could lure a woman to sin with just a look. Charm wasn’t a necessity. Still, Eve strongly suspected that some of the crudity that spilled from his mouth was due to his nervousness around her. It was oddly endearing that he would be so affected by her. She couldn’t resist exploring the attraction further.
Sydney cleared her throat. “Tell me the whole story. From the beginning.”
Eve looked at her. “Surely you’ve heard it too many times already.”
“Not from the source I want to hear it from you.”
“All right.” Eve leaned into the counter. “When I was a newbie, I stumbled across a tengu who didn’t smell like shit and had no details. I told Cain. We told Gadara. Gadara told us to find out where the demon came from. Abel agreed and put the order through.”
Sydney shot a quick glance at Reed. “I remember hearing that you were assigned to a hunt before training.”
Reed’s features took on a stony cast. As Eve’s handler, he was the only person who could put her to work. Marks weren’t supposed to hunt before they were fully trained.
Eve nodded. “In his defense, no one believed me. They thought I was in transition and my Mark senses hadn’t fully kicked in yet.”
“How green were you?” Montevista asked.
“A day or two.”
Sydney whistled.
“Yeah. Rotten,” Eve agreed. “Especially after I proved I wasn’t nuts and we still had to track down the source of the tengu’s abilities.”
“The masking agent,” Montevista offered. “Stuff that temporarily hides Infernal stench and details.”
“That’s what they started calling it. Cain and I discovered that they were producing and distributing the mask out of a masonry located less than an hour’s drive from here.”
“Ah.” Sydney grinned. “Upland.”
Eve nodded sheepishly. She was never going to live that down. “The masking agent was concocted from blood and bone meal made from Marks, animals, and Infernals. Plus spells and other stuff. Cain came up with the idea to destroy the mask ingredients in the masonry’s giant roller kiln. I came up with the idea to toss the Nix in there and evaporate him, too. Abel came up with the idea to lock the Black Diamond Pack’s heir in the kiln room. And it was God’s idea of a joke to make the masking agent a life preserver when cooked at high heat. It kept the wolf and Nix alive when they should have been blown to smithereens. It’s also what saved Montevista a few weeks later.”
Sydney shot a concerned glance skyward. When lightning didn’t strike Eve for her blasphemy, she said, “I heard the kiln explosion left a crater in the ground the size of a city block.”
“At least.” Reed snorted. “It was like a mini—atomic bomb.”
Montevista grinned. “The stories aren’t exaggerations.”
“Wow.” Sydney looked at Eve. “So, you killed the wolf a second time, but the Nix showed up today at the festival.”
“Exactly.” Eve’s fingertips traced the veins within the granite countertop. “In fact, the police left a message on my voice mail this afternoon. I wish they would have called yesterday or even this morning. Then I would have been prepared for the Nix to pop up.”
Pausing his stirring, Reed stared hard at her. “The same detectives who are investigating Mrs. Basso’s death?”
“The ones from Anaheim, yes. Jones and Ingram. I haven’t heard from the Huntington Beach Police since their initial interview.”
“What do they want?”
“To talk to me. They didn’t give any specifics. I’m guessing the Nix might be back to his old tricks. He’d already killed a dozen people before Mrs. Basso, so I can’t see him stopping now.” Her chest ached at the thought of her neighbor. “I don’t understand why we weren’t hunting him a long time ago. Isn’t it our purpose to save lives?”
I’m sorry, babe. The sympathy in Reed’s tone elicited a grateful smile from her.
Montevista gave her hand a commiserating squeeze. “No one knows what criteria the seraphim use to target Infernals.”
Most demons kept a low profile. Being too obvious not only pissed off God, it pissed off Satan, too. Neither of the two was ready for Armageddon just yet. Satan wasn’t powerful enough, and God liked things the way they were.
But the Nix was too cocky. He’d been killing women all over Orange County and leaving distinctive “calling cards” that caught the attention of the police—a water lily floating in a Crate and Barrel punch bowl. The death of Mrs. Basso had brought notice to Eve, too, who’d unfortunately had her own Nix calling
card sitting in plain sight on the coffee table. Now, the detectives were looking at her for information she couldn’t provide. Replying with, There’s a rogue demon on the loose, but don’t worry because I’m a demon slayer for God, wasn’t the way to alleviate their concerns
Alec suddenly appeared on her left side, shifting into her home without warning. “Let me guess: Kung Pao chicken.”
“Good nose.” Eve looked back and forth between the two brothers, noting the perpetual tension that filled a room when they were both in it. Alec should have knocked Since he lived in Mrs. Basso’s old condominium next door, it Wouldn’t have been a hardship. But a traditional entry Wouldn’t have the same irritate-Reed factor.
Alec set one hand on the countertop and the other on the back of Eve’s stool. Leaning in, he pressed his lips to her temple. “If Abel’s cooking for a girl,” he murmured, “it’s always Kung Pao.”
“Really?” She looked at Reed with raised brows.
Montevista’s dark eyes filled with amusement. Sydney glanced away with a half-smile.
Reed glared. “If you count ‘always’ as being a onetime thing in nineteenth century China. We’d get more mileage talking about Cain’s ‘Hop on, baby, let me take you for a ride’ spiel. You think I suck at pickup lines—”
“I’ve actually got something worth riding on,” Alec drawled.
Reed’s bamboo spoon hit the side of the wok with a clatter. “Saddle up and f**k off, then, shithead. No one invited you over.”
Eve slid off the stool. “Enough. Satan’s lackeys are after me and you two want to argue about who’s more adept at getting laid?”
“He started it’ Reed snapped.
“I’m finishing it.” Eve wished a shot of liquor was an option. Unfortunately, mind-altering substances were ineffectual in her mark-enhanced body. She crossed her arms and asked Alec, “Did you come over because you have some news for us?”
He shook his head. “That’s the problem. Not a word on the streets about this supposed bounty. We’d expect to hear something through an informant or an Infernal seeking shelter, but it’s dead quiet.”
“You had to barge in on our date to say you don’t have anything to say?” Reed growled.
“No.” Alec smirked. “I had to barge in because it pisses you off.”
Eve snapped her fingers to bring their attention back to her. “The fact that we’ve been busier than usual can’t be a coincidence, since you’re always telling me there is. no such thing.”
Alec nodded. “Right. I’m still digging.”
“Also.. . thinking about that night in Upland brings up something important that I forgot until just now.”
Four pairs of eyes trained on her.
“The Nix said something to me,” she went on, “just before I rolled him into the kiln. I asked, ‘Why me?’ and he answered, ‘I do what I’m told.’”
“You didn’t tell me this before,” Alec accused.
“I’m sorry.” And she meant it. Staying alive meant not dropping the ball. “He was dead and sent back to Hell. I was trying not to join him. The memory got lost in my brain.”
“Shit. This is why you’re not supposed to be able to shut us out.”
Eve didn’t know how or why she was sometimes able to circumvent the inherent connection between Marks and their superiors, but she was grateful. A woman had to have her secrets, especially while embroiled in a contentious relationship triangle.
She continued before they got off on a tangent. “I also noticed something new today—his details say he’s now one of Asmodeus’s lackeys.”
Reed turned off the fire on the stove. “The Nix’s details were courtesy of a lessor demon.”
“They’ve changed since that first day you and I saw him,” she insisted.
“Sammael and a king of Hell,” Sydney breathed. “Yowza.”
Eve could only give a lame nod. And to think she had once thought of herself as a lucky person. “Can I ask why Satan is a prince, but the demons under him are kings?”
“No!” Reed and Alec barked in unison.
She held up her hands in a defensive gesture. “OOO-kay, then…”.
Alec stared at her with narrowed eyes. “Damn it, angel.”