Dark Wings (Never Dark Book 1) (15 page)

I rolled my eyes.
She’d do this to me for the rest of my life probably. The thought of food made me queasy and I was seventy percent sure I was still drunk.  “Nothing. I gotta go. There’s a Horseman that I need to kill, remember?”

Jenga blocked the front door. “You’re not going anywhere until you put something into your stomach. Otherwise, Mikael is going to cut you down faster than a lawn mower cuts grass.”

I glared at her even though she was right. I needed to refuel, but all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. Lucas once told me that drinking before a mission was the most stupid thing an angel can do. That kind of stress on the body is unnecessary, he’d say. With a sigh, I dragged my tired body over to the breakfast bar and sat down. From the refrigerator Jenga took out bacon, eggs, bananas, and apples. She peeled two bananas and diced the apple. She threw it all into a bowl and placed it in between us. “We’ll snack on this until the real food is cooked.”

We chatted while she cooked. She told me abou
t how she died. She was in a train crash on her way to work. A scout picked her up and the next thing she knew, she woke up in the Never Dark hospital and they told her what had happened. The very next day she was being trained for assistant work.

“I wanted to be something cool, like a Veltra angel or a fighting angel
, like you, but apparently I don’t have that skillset,” Jenga informed me.

I thought about what I’d like to be if the fighting position wasn’t available to me. I wasn’t good at anythin
g else. I sucked at organizing and I’d never felt the need to travel. I definitely wasn’t intellectual; my past decisions had proven that. I couldn’t be anything else. This was what I was born for, to fight demons. Lucas told me that once. I believed him. I had no parents and no siblings. It’s almost as if it was all planned.

“Did you have any family?”

Jenga evenly dished out the eggs and bacon onto big, ceramic plates and handed one to me.

“I did. I come from a huge Italian family. You?”

“No. I was an orphan.”

“Jesus, no wonder you’re such a loner. Poor girl.”

I shoveled bacon and egg into my mouth. “Do you miss them?” I asked between chews.

“We can’t. The transition cuts our emotional ties to the human world
, remember? I think about them a lot, but I don’t feel sad. I know they would feel sad when they think of me… and I don’t want that, but there’s nothing I can do about it. This is my life now. Helping stuck up field angels with their paperwork.” She winked at me and chewed on the corner of a piece of bacon.

***

After I left Jenga’s I went home and showered. Pulling all the sticks out of my hair was torture and I was surprised I didn’t go bald. My scalp hurt whenever I pressed on it. I looked at myself naked in the mirror. My long red hair clung to my body and I shivered. I hated when wet hair touched my skin. On the plus side, if you looked at me you wouldn’t be able to tell that I was almost beaten to death at the beginning of this week. Yay for freaky healing powers. I felt much better after breakfast and a shower. The gross nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach vanished and the thrumming headache ceased. I wasn’t completely cured. There was still that unnerving feeling of going after Famine today. I couldn’t fail. Everything rested on my ability to fight. I was trained by Lucas Cross and I needed to prove that I was.

The fresh new uniform felt nice against my skin. It wasn’t filled with dirt and leaves, unlike the last one I took off
, and hopefully, this one stayed dirt free. I braided my hair down the side of my head and let it fall over my shoulder to drape over my breast.

I’d decided
to jog to headquarters this morning to keep myself warmed up and when I got to the front steps, Jenga was waiting for me in a cute all black business dress with a short white tie. In her hands she held a folder as thick as my forearm.

“Took you long enough
,” she called out. I ran up the stairs and we entered HQ. “I grabbed as much information on Famine as I could. I have a list of all his usual hangouts. All the bars and strip clubs he owns and visits regularly. There’s a place called The Lion’s Den he goes there a lot, but I suggest you avoid that place at all costs. It’s usually crawling with demons and it’s owned by War. Your best bets are The Soft Kitty and Big, Busty Babes.”

I sighed. “So my bes
t bet at finding Famine is at strip clubs? Remind me why I’m doing this again?”

“You’re doing this because you feel terrible that I have to put up with Govlonsky because yo
u couldn’t kill Death. Now go.” She turned away from me, but spun back around quickly and threw a tiny headpiece at me. It rebounded off my chest and I caught it in my hands before it shattered on the floor. “Take your head piece so we can communicate and don’t switch it off like you usually do. That would be very
unfriend
like.” She disappeared into a room filled with filing cabinets and I headed over to the missions office. Once again, I was given a mission that required only the death of two Tracker demons. The receptionist with the pretty golden ringlets and her golden eyes glared up at me. “You’re slacking off. These are the same two demons you failed to kill yesterday. Get it done.”

I ran my tongue along my
front teeth. It took a lot of strength not to mock her and I felt I deserved a cookie or something equally delicious. “I’ll be sure to do it this time.”

“You better.”
She handed me the missions tablet and it said the same thing as last time—two Tracker demons in Logansville. I signed my name along the bottom and she gave me the forms for the teleportation chamber. With a superficial smile, I turned away from her.

Tom didn’t say much when we teleported today. From what I gathered
, he was feeling ill, even the green pills he was slamming down didn’t help him. I guess I wasn’t the only one that hit the bottle hard last night. I stepped out of the teleportation chambers and walked right up to Gladys, who was still wearing too much purple. She signed my forms and sent me on my way. As I stepped out of the waiting room, Janet’s big red hair and makeup-caked face greeted me.

“Vi! How are you?” Her long, soft arms wrapped around me as she forced me into a hug.

“Good… thanks.” I pulled away and instinctively glanced down at my suit. Surprisingly, no fake tan or makeup rubbed off.

“So, how long are you here for this time?”

“A few hours, tops.”

She pouted her over-glossed lips. “Oh. That sucks.” Her green eyes softened and I could tell she was waiting for me to take the conversation further.

“What’s up?” I sighed.

“Well, it’s my
twenty-first birthday today and I wanted to invite you to my birthday party tonight. A few of my friends and I are going out.”

I wanted to answer straight away but I was still shocked on the fact that Janet was only
twenty-one. I was twenty-three. With all that makeup I was going to say she was borderlining her late twenties.

“Um… I’d love to, but I’m really busy. I’m
have to kill a few demons and then go straight back, sorry.”

She pouted even harder. “Oh… okay.”

Strangely, I felt really bad. What was wrong with me? A few days ago I didn’t care about anything and now I wanted to care about people. What did Jenga do to me?

“Where are you going?” I asked.

Janet loved the fact that I seemed interested in what she was doing for her birthday. As soon as I asked, she perked up. It reminded me of a puppy having a ball waved in its face.

“Well, my friends and I usually go to
The Darkside
,
but tonight we were thinking of going to The Soft Kitty.”

“The Soft Kitty?”

“Yeah, I know it’s a strip club, but it has cheap drinks for females and you don’t get harassed by seedy guys.”

Shit
. I was going to go to The Soft Kitty tonight to see if I can track down Famine. If things hit the fan, I didn’t want Janet getting hurt. I mean, she’s annoying and vain, but she didn’t deserve to be caught up in crossfire between angels and demons.

“Are you sure you want to go to
The Soft Kitty? Maybe try a backpacker bar or stay home and drink like teenagers do? That’d be more fun.”

“Nah,
The Soft Kitty is where we want to be. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

Damn it. I gave her a tight smile.
“Sorry, maybe next year.”

She smiled
back at me and her green eyes beamed with happiness. “I can’t wait. Come see me before you go back to the other realm, okay?”

I nodded
unconvincingly, but she seemed to be content with that. I got out of HQ as quickly as I could. The last thing I wanted was to speak to Cole Nark. I was not in the mood for his shit today and he’s certainly roast me for not filling a report out after my last mission. The morning sun was hot, leaving me feeling slightly claustrophobic in my suit as I waited outside The Soft Kitty. I figured I’d kill Famine in the morning before Janet got to the club. That way we both got what we wanted. She got her birthday night, I got my demon and Janet stayed safe. I glanced at the clock on my dashboard. It was a few minutes to noon and the strip club would soon open. Regularly, I looked over my shoulder, just waiting for Lucas to spring out and attack me. He never did, and by the time twelve p.m. came around, I assumed he had no idea I was even here.
Good
. I slid out of the car and the gravel crunched beneath my feet. For someone who was meant to be loaded, he sure went stingy on a proper asphalt parking lot. The Soft Kitty exterior was black, excluding the big, pink cat sign at the front. The cat was licking its paw and winking. On its collar were the words ‘
The Soft Kitty.
’ The front door opened and a furry pink curtain was put up on the entrance.

“Classy
,” I scoffed to myself. I headed toward the club. Now would be my best chance at getting the least amount of civilian casualties, if any. I felt dirty walking up to the club, let alone entering it, but I bit my tongue and went through the pink, fluffy door anyway. Inside was dark and seedy. The furniture looked like I expected—fluffy, comfortable and tacky. Pink booths that looked like vaginas lined the walls. What the hell was this guy thinking? Whoever he hired to do the decorating needed to be shot, it was god awful. Music began to play as a girl walked onto the stage. I stopped to watch for a moment, not because I wanted to see a girl slowly grind to the club beats, but because she had the biggest, fakest boobs I’d ever seen. How she managed to lug them around was beyond me. She noticed me gawking and smiled.
Crap, this is awkward
. I returned her smile with an I’m-not-a-lesbian smile of my own. I turned to the bar. The man that tended it was at least fifty years old. Behind me, a few drunken men entered and cheered at the girl with the basketballs strapped to her chest and the two security guards that waited at either side of the stage turned their sights onto the rowdy men instead of me.

“What can I get you, love?”
the bartender asked. He slapped his towel over his shoulder. He was Irish. I could tell by the way he rolled his ‘r.’ I slid onto a bar stool.

“Um, nothing to drink. I—”

“Sorry, we aren’t taking auditions right now, but if you show me what you’re packing underneath that sexy catsuit of yours, I’ll pass on my recommendation for when we’re hiring.”

My mouth opened in shock. I definitely wasn’t expecting that. The man looked so sweet with his
gray hair and short moustache… apparently he was a pig. He definitely wasn’t a demon, that I knew for sure. I cleared my throat and gripped the sides of my bar stool. I had to busy my hands and prevent myself from slamming his face into the bar. “That’s not what I’m after, either,” I replied, frustration clear in my voice.

“Then what do you want?”

“I’m looking for the owner, Fa—Mikael. I’m a friend of his.”

I noticed the bartender stiffen, but he cleared his throat and started wiping down the bar. An odd thing for him to do
, considering it just opened and no one had ordered a drink yet. “Mikael doesn’t have friends.”

I rested my elbows on the bar. “Okay, I lied. We aren’t friends. We’re business partners.”

He rolled his brown eyes. “Yeah, okay. Look, if Mikael took you home and didn’t call you again, let it go. You aren’t going to track him down. Although you’re definitely someone I’d call again after a one night stand, Mikael isn’t that kind of guy. He’s probably had ten more of you by now. Sorry to say it, darling.”

My frustration was growing stronger in my chest.
I ran my hands over my face. “Again, I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m after exactly.” I reached across the bar and pulled him toward me by his shirt. He tried to pull away, but I was too strong. He swung his right fist at me, but I caught it with my hand, still holding onto his shirt tightly. I could hear the guards chuckling.

“A-are you a demon?”

“No, darling,” I said. “But I’ll show you just how demonic I can be if you don’t tell me where Mikael is.”

“I-I don’t know.
I swear.”