Good Side of Sin (12 page)

Ethan put his hands out and spoke in a low and calm voice, doing his best to calm her down before someone brought out the strait jackets. He was guessing she would wear a small. “All right, all right—jeez, just calm down.”

He watched as Cross glanced over her shoulder at the other agents, all busy looking for any other clues that a human could have taken the men from the accident. There were no other tire tracks or anything that could have caused the vehicle to end up on its roof; none of the tires had blown. She took in a deep breath and lowered her voice. “The men in that hotel room with us last night weren’t human, and you can’t stand there and tell me that they were.”

Ethan nodded. “You’re right. I can’t. But I’m smart enough to stay away from them, whatever they are. If you’ll let me have my bike I’ll go home and pretend this whole thing never happened.”

Despite the tension running thick in the air around them, Cross let out a short laugh. “Your apartment must be thirty miles—”

“Then take me home,” Ethan growled through clenched teeth and curled his hands into tight fists. “I can’t fight whatever is after me, but I can hide from the damn thing!”

Cross reached up and tore the sunglasses from her face, and then just stared at him in shock. “It’s after
you
…”

“Yeah—that’s what I said! You said it yourself; all the people it or they have taken in the last week have come in contact with me before they disappeared. I know I’m not the one taking them, so that only leaves two other options: someone is trying to frame me—” he huffed, “or someone is after me.”

“Of course! Why the hell didn’t I think of that?” Eyes wide, Cross turned, stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. Everyone looked up from what they were doing. “Cabrejos, let’s go! We gotta get Ethan in a safe house.”

“No—” Ethan started, but Cross turned on him and pointed to the vehicle.

“I’m not losing the only witness to my sanity. Get your ass in the Suburban!”

“I can’t leave my dad alone! He’ll have himself in so much gambling debt by tomorrow that I’ll never get the loan sharks paid off,” he finished in a whisper as Cabrejos walked up.

“Did it ever occur to you to let your dad pay for his own mistakes?” Cabrejos said.

Ethan bowed his head and took a step back. Ten different kinds of emotion pulled at his eyes and mouth and forehead. He finally shook his head. “He’s sick. He has a real problem and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if he ended up face down in a ditch with a bullet in his brain. Not when I know I’m the only one that cares enough about him to prevent it from happening.”

“We will send someone to pick up your dad, Ethan, but I can’t allow you to go back to that apartment. It’s too dangerous. If the—the kidnapper tracked you all the way out here, then it’s a huge possibility that they already have your address.”

Ethan ran his hands down his face, pulling the skin down with his fingers and disfiguring his rugged good looks. “Shit,” he finally said, and then started walking toward the SUV.

A shout came from the far side of the wrecked vehicle and he paused to turn. “There’s blood over here! A lot of undisturbed footprints in different sizes, too!”

Ethan looked at Cross as she turned to look at Galloway.

Galloway swore under his breath and flung his hand through the air. “Get him the hell outta here! I’ll take care of it.”

Cross ran to the man and threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back and Ethan instantly felt heat flush his cheeks.

Ethan turned swiftly to grab the handle of the door, and then turned his head to look back at Cross as she started to speak to the other agent.

“Thank you, James. Call me if you find anything.”

The agent gave her a smirk. “I’ll call you if I don’t find anything.” He winked, and then slapped her on the butt when she turned to run toward the vehicle.

Ethan jerked on the handle, got in and slammed the door behind him.

Thoros had a slight bounce in his step as he descended the grand staircase and a slow smile spread across his cleanly shaven face as he headed for the door. Someone was standing on the other side of the damn thing, and had been wearing out the door knocker and doorbell for over ten minutes now.
Was there nobody else in the house?

The door to the basement cracked open about eight inches and Fallis poked his head out.

Thoros smiled and cheerfully said, “Oh, hey, Fallis. Didn’t you hear that someone is at the door?”

“No human—” Fallis started, but Thoros already had the door thrown wide open.

Just on the other side of the threshold stood a woman in maybe her early thirties and dressed in a simple white cotton dress with a big blue floppy hat atop her head. A single thick brown braid hung long over her left shoulder.

As she pulled away her sunglasses, he noticed there was no make-up on her face to pretty her up, not that she was ugly—she was in no way ugly—but
plain
and
ordinary
and
innocent
came to mind. They didn’t need any of that shit here, he thought, and shut the door in her face.

“—should even be able to get to the door with the oasis I have on the property,” Fallis finished. Thoros turned to look at him, and then Fallis added, “To anyone that doesn’t live here, the mansion looks like a small abandoned shack from the outside, and anyone that tries to breech the perimeter will quickly feel a strong urge to do something else.”

Thoros chortled. “Maybe your magic is wearing off, brother.”

“Don’t you find it strange that we’ve lived here for three months without a visitor? Until now?” he pressed.

Thoros shrugged. “No.”

Fallis sighed as he emerged fully from the basement. “Well, I do. Who was it?”

Thoros shrugged again as he started for the kitchen. “Jehovah’s Witnesses.” He was hungry for the first time in days, and he was about to take full advantage of it. He hoped Phoebe had picked up some of those new cracker crisp things that she got last time she made a grocery run.

“Jehovah’s what? No.” Fallis shook his head and went to the door.

Thoros turned lazily to watch Fallis greet the young woman, not caring if his rudeness had already scared her away. No woman had interested him since he’d met Josselyn, and talking to any of them was only a solid waste of time until he had the stubborn angel in his bed.

Fallis turned the handle and pulled the door wide, exposing them both to the pale blue, almost white, eyes of the young woman. She stood in exactly the same place she’d been when Thoros had opened the door the first time.

Guess bad manners didn’t offend her,
Thoros thought, but didn’t make a move to make amends.

“May I help you?” Fallis said, and Thoros could tell the guy was smiling from ear to ear. Total suck-up. At this rate, the guy would have the hem of her dress thrown up over her hips and introducing himself on a more personal level within the hour.

“Well,” she started, and Thoros’ head popped up in interest at the sweet chime of her voice, “I thought maybe I could help you.”

Fallis turned to follow her line of sight and stared directly into the eyes of Thoros, and then turned back to the female, confused. “I’m sorry?”

She smiled and, without an invitation, took a step inside the house. She paused only a moment to nod at Fallis and then crossed the open foyer to Thoros. Both men stared dumbstruck at her.

As her delicate hand reached up to touch his cheek, Thoros stared at it like it was a venomous snake about to strike. He fumbled back, his own feet tripping over themselves as they hurriedly tried to get him away from the woman.

Two strong hands grabbed Thoros’ biceps, standing him upright and steadying him on his feet, then they shook him a bit to get him to look up to the cerulean blue eyes they belonged to.

“What’s going on? Who is this, Thoros, and what is she doing in the house?” Baddon asked in a stern voice. When Thoros only shook his head, Baddon looked over to Fallis who only shrugged as an answer.

“Excuse me,” the girl said, and everyone’s head shot in the direction of her angelic voice. “Maybe I can tell you who I am and why I’m here.” She giggled lightly when eyes blinked and heads turned to the side in puzzlement. “I’d be happy to clear everything up. Maybe we could all go somewhere a little more comfortable.” More of the blinking, as if she had spoken a different language, one they couldn’t understand. “The living quarters would be sufficient, I believe. You have such soft cushions on your furniture here.”

Thoros’ head turned and he locked on to Baddon’s innocent expression. It was clear the guy hadn’t ever seen the female before, much less brought her home for love games. Thoros wondered which of his other demon siblings she belonged to. Certainly not Fallis; the guy was just as clueless. Damien? Coen? As far as he knew, Phoebe wasn’t interested in anyone, much less the same sex. He shook his head as Lameria came to mind; the girl wasn’t her type.

At that moment, Phoebe emerged from the basement entrance with six angels at her heel. The big guy Josselyn had been talking to at the accident scene was one of them, but…
where was Josselyn?

The big angel took one look at the girl and smiled. “You’re a seer.”

Everyone in the room looked from the angel to the guest.

She smiled sweetly. “Tea would be nice, too. I take two sugars.”

***

Arms crossed over his chest and deep in thought, Thoros paced the hardwood floor of the great room. Everyone else was scattered about, standing by or sitting on the furniture the new guest had so graciously told them was comfortable, even before she had even sat on the damn thing!

Seer. So she was a seer. What did that have to do with him? And what the hell was a seer, anyway?

As if Baddon had read his mind, he spoke up. “Someone want to fill me in on what a seer is?”

Troy leaned forward to accept the glass of iced tea from Phoebe with a smile and a thank you, and then he cleared his throat as he looked over at Baddon.

“A seer is defined as many different things and, I dinnae ken what all this spring flower kin dae,” he nodded at the woman with a flash of pearly whites and the wink of an eye, “but I kin feel the energy radiating oot o’ her.” He lifted his arm and showed the room the goosebumps that had risen on his forearm. “She has wonderful control o’er her gift.”

“What is her gift?” Damien asked.

Troy motioned toward the woman. “Care tae introduce yersel’, lassie?”

She smiled as every eye in the room fell on her. “My name is Aries, and Troy is right—”

“Wait,” Thoros interrupted. “Excuse me. Sorry,” he said as he pointed at the angel in the red ball cap. “I don’t remember him ever telling you his name. Have you met him before? Is this all a game all of you are playing on me?”

“Be quiet and listen, Thoros. Nobody knows the girl,” Baddon said calmly.

Aries took a sip of her tea, and then set the glass on a coaster that was placed on the coffee table in front of her. “I do not need him to speak his name aloud for me to know who and what he is. I am a seer, Thoros.”

Thoros’ mouth fell open in astonishment and he dropped into the chair closest to him. “So, you can read our minds?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s quite different. It’s more like I can
feel
everything about a person, almost like I am that person. I know their present and their past, and sometimes… well, sometimes I can see their future.” She averted her gaze from the other eyes in the room and picked up her glass again. She sat there a brief moment before looking back up. “I’ve known most of the people in this house for a little over three months now. Others have been added just recently—”

“Are you a psychic?” one of the other angels Thoros didn’t have a name for asked.

He stared at the guy a minute, remembering Josselyn saying his name at the accident scene. He was the guy that found the bashed-up survivor. Maybe Paul or Marcus or Joshua. Ah, who gave a rat’s ass? Thoros turned his attention back to the freak-show in a sun dress.

“Of sorts,” she said with a nod.

“I don’t believe it,” Thoros said menacingly, and got to his feet to pace off the sudden uneasiness that was creeping into his mind.

“You don’t have seven dead bodies and a comatose Marshal in your basement?”

Thoros gasped in horror and backed over an end table that had sprouted out of nowhere, landing none too gently on the wood floor, and hitting all the pointy parts of his body in the process. He rubbed his elbow and knee, and then got to his feet when it appeared nobody was going to offer a hand to help him up.

Embarrassed, he scooted the table back in its rightful place, and then walked back to the chair. Sitting on the edge of the cushion with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together safely in front of him, he ignored the paranoid feeling that everyone was staring at him. Of course they were looking at him! He was a bloody idiot!

“How much do you know?” Damien asked from his perch by the door.

“Well, I know that even though the female angel found a way to extract the souls from Thoros, the spirits of the human lives that were taken are still lost and need to be reclaimed by them in order for their souls to properly rest—if their fate is that they rest,” she added on quietly.

Thoros placed a single hand over his eyes and leaned back against the backrest. “Anyone else feeling dumber the longer this witch talks?”

Aries shot to her feet, an angry scowl covering her face as she shouted at Thoros. “I’m not a witch! Take it back or I will leave here and let you continue to run around like chickens with no heads!”

Thoros flung his hand through the air, uncaring. “Go—”

“Thoros!” Baddon thundered. “Apologize to her now or I will lock you in silver chains for the remainder of your eternity here on Earth! We need all help that is offered and you can’t go around offending people because your ego has taken a punch.” When Thoros only sat, glaring at him, Baddon jumped to his feet and grabbed Thoros by the throat, and then commenced to haul his friend out of the room at a rapid pace.