All Hallows Night (Night Series) (23 page)

His arms squeezed me tight. “Told you, little demon, you can’t scare me off.”

“Sometimes I really don’t like you.”

That damnable dimple peeked out. “I’m your favorite person—you just haven’t realized it yet.”

Shoving off him, I shook my head because that wasn’t true at all. I did realize it. That’s why he scared me so much. Dusting off his shirt, he watched me for a second.

But I had nothing else to say, so I started setting up my altar. After a second, he joined me. Grabbing short and long candles from the box, I lined the casket with them, propped up a couple of pictures of the Virgin Mary, and set a freestanding antique gold crucifix at its center. I then moved the basket to the foot of the cotton-candy-pink grave before tracing my fingers across the headstone.

“Who did this grave belong to, Pandora?” His deep voice washed through me like healing waters. I was becoming addicted to the man.

“Her name was Paz.”

“Means peace, right?”

I nodded and he squeezed the fingers of my other hand, which was resting on my thigh.

“She died in eighteen sixty-three of consumption. She wasn’t even a year old.”

Placing his hand above the one I had on the grave, he moved it so that we were both able to feel its scratchy texture rub against us.

“Her grave looks remarkably well preserved. I remember your years in Mexico—that would have been around eighteen sixty-three, wouldn’t it?”

I sniffed. “You’re such a stalker.”

“Pandora.” He playfully swatted my hand before grabbing back on. “Read the damn book.”

“Whatever. And yes, it was around that time. Influenza had hit the village hard, decimating the people. But Paz was so young that when she contracted it, it morphed and became twice as deadly to her. She didn’t stand a chance. Her family threw her out into the streets. Not an uncommon practice back then, sadly. I found her, and I held her until she died.”

My lips thinned as the memory of that night came floating back, as vivid and bright as the day it’d happened. Me standing on the edge of a cliff, cooing and rocking the child as she’d coughed and struggled to breathe. I’d stood under the stars holding her because it seemed like a beautiful place to die.

At the very end, Paz had curled her brown little fist around my finger and she hadn’t seemed to struggle, she’d simply let go.

“How’d you know what her name was?”

“I didn’t.” I shook my head and lovingly traced her grave once more. “I named her. Then I buried her and watched over the gravesite for years. A century later when this graveyard popped up, I transferred her remains over here and have been tending to it ever since.”

“You’re remarkable, little demon.”

He hadn’t said I love you or given me any promise of some fairy-tale future, but the words he’d said hit me harder than an actual declaration. I smiled and kissed his cheek. “I’ll go to the hive with you tomorrow. But I am going to talk to Luc first.”

“You know I’ll support you no matter what. But maybe I’ll just join in on that meeting of the minds.”

“You think he’ll burst a blood vessel when I tell him this?”

He stood, then helped me to my feet. “At least ten.”

“Well, I feel better being here tonight anyway. After what happened last night, I don’t want to leave and then find out after the fact that zombies set upon this crowd.”

“Agreed.” He rubbed my arm. “Look.” He jerked his chin. “The mystery of the mums is solved.”

I turned to look where he’d pointed and noticed a slim, young brunette dressed in a plain blue dress and wearing black shoes, standing across the street from us and holding an obscenely large wicker basket full of bright red mums.

I shook my head because there was no way I was seeing what I was seeing. But I couldn’t deny the fact that that fresh-faced girl most definitely had one brown eye and one green eye.

“Just flowers, see.”

“No.” I shook his hand off and started across the street. “I know that girl. She was the girl at the taco stand that night.”

He walked beside me. The moment we stepped onto the sidewalk, it was like trying to wade through a crush of migrating salmon. People were everywhere. The bands were playing all along the streets.

There was chaos and noise and heads obscuring my line of sight. A group of giggling girls bumped into my back, giggling even harder when Asher smiled down at them, before running off with squealed delight.

The dual-colored eyes were locked on me.

“Which girl, Pandora?” he asked, looking around the crowd.

I pointed to the scrap of blue I could still see between the crush of people. “Her.”

“I don’t see her.” He frowned. “Which girl from the taco stand is this?”

There were dancers and revelers everywhere, some drinking, others just trying to make their way to the graveyards to light their candles and set out their food. Asher was holding an arm out in front of us, trying to help clear the way, and I just couldn’t understand how we were suddenly swamped by humans.

It was frustrating that for every step forward I made, I was shoved back two or three.

“The one serving me that night, Ash. The one who looked at me like I was nuts when I asked her if she’d seen the man who disappeared.”

Literally in the split second that I’d taken to turn and answer his question, she was gone. The girl in the blue dress with a basket of mums had vanished.

I hissed, standing dumbfounded. Not only because the girl was gone, but the crowd that’d been bearing down like a wave had thinned out to a trickle.

“Did you see where she went?” I asked in frustration.

Rubbing his jaw, he glanced to his left and then to his right. “Now I see what you’re talking about when you say people are vanishing. And was it just me, or does the sudden lack of crowd disturb you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Everything disturbs me, especially since stepping foot in Mexico. Nothing at all is going like it should. There is nothing I hate more than a mystery.” I tossed my hands in the air. “What do we do now?”

“You bring us some paying customers, that’s what you do.” Luc’s voice growled from just behind me.

I turned. Luc’s arms were crossed and he was dressed just as Bubba had been, but he was eyeing Asher like a man who wanted to kill something in a most violent and brutal manner.

“Luc, I thought I saw something—”

He chuckled. “I could give a crap what you think you saw. You work for me, don’t forget that. And you.” He turned to Asher. “You can just get the hell away from her.”

Asher was practically vibrating, and I stepped in front of him. Last thing I wanted was a pissing match between these two out in public where everyone and their mother could see it.

“Don’t think so, Lust.” Asher’s voice never wavered.

Stepping between the two of them, I sighed. “Luc, I’m here and I don’t plan to leave tonight. But if I see something that I think can help
our case
,” I whispered, “then I’m going to follow up on it. And Asher stays with me. Period.” I hooked my arm behind Ash’s waist and my foot behind his. Just in case he had any kind of stupid ideas right now. Like tackling my boss to the pavement.

Luc’s snarl was a vicious thing of fangs and animalistic wrath.

“And one more thing.” I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t care who you sleep with, but you keep your mouth quiet about me and what I can do.”

That finally made him turn from looking at Ash to me. “What are you talking about?”

“Vyxen told me. So don’t try to deny it.”

“I didn’t tell her shit.”

I hated that it still made me feel like someone had jabbed a hot stick right through my heart when he didn’t deny sleeping with her. “That’s not what she says. So just keep your kitten on a leash.”

I turned to go, but Luc yanked me around so hard it made my neck jerk.

Latching onto the hand Luc had curled around my wrist, Asher murmured, “I will snap you in half if you ever touch her like that again. Let her go.”

Luc carefully unfurled his hand from mine, deliberately slowly, and whatever he might have planned to say to me suddenly didn’t seem to matter. He turned and walked away.

“Come on.” Asher pulled me to his side and lifted the hand that Luc had gripped, kissing the inside of it softly and making my knees weak.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked when we walked behind a large office building.

“To a roof so we can watch the streets like old times.”

“Old times.” I snorted. “You do remember I’m immortal? Your definition of old and my definition are clearly polar opposites.”

Laughing, he took me into a corner of shadow and wrapped his arm around me. “Hang on.”

I didn’t really have time to question him, because the next thing I knew the air was thick and static charged, and the shadows we’d walked into now almost seemed to pulse around us.

And then it got really weird.

Wings shot from his back.

These weren’t fairy wings either. They were honest to goodness angel wings, but instead of them being white, they gleamed like ink in moonlight.

“Oh my God,” I gasped. “You’re an angel?”

T
he second we landed on the rooftop I jumped out of his arms. It all made sense, the flaming sword, his ability to be undetected around us, how fast he moved and his abilities to do things I’d never seen any other breed of monster do.

He’d flown us up with one powerful surge of his massive wings, and my hands were shaking like someone had just shot me up with ten vials of adrenaline.

“Angel and demon. A little cliché, don’t you think?” He chuckled, tucking his wings back into wherever he hid them.

My fingers twitched as I recalled a long-forgotten memory of me gliding my hands down his back and thinking the fact that he had two large vertical ridges running down it was weird.

“Are you saying you are or aren’t? ’Cause I don’t do angels—bad things happen when you guys fall.”

“Relax, little demon. I’m no angel.” He walked over to where I was and I reluctantly let him drag me back to his side.

“You’ve got wings.” If he wanted me to spell it out for him I would. Tapping my foot, I gave him a minute to answer before I forced it out of him. I wasn’t exactly sure I was strong enough to hold him down if he didn’t want me to, but I’d try anyway.

“Read the—”

“If you tell me to read that damn book one more time, I’ll cut your tongue out.” I snapped my fingers in his face.

Swatting my hand away, he chuckled. “Anyone ever tell you have a temper?”

“Oh no, never.” I widened my eyes. “You think I have an attitude now, keep toying with me, Priest.”

Slapping my ass, he grinned when I just about jumped out of my skin. “Watch the south and east; I’ll keep my eyes on the north and west sides.”

“Did you really just slap my ass? Really?” I rubbed my still-stinging cheek.

“I seem to remember a certain demon who had way too much fun at my expense one night not too long ago. Turnabout is only fair.”

He was of course referring to the “daddy” fetish incident. “You’re a jerk.” I sniffed but couldn’t keep from grunting when he tickled my ribs.

Slapping him away, I pointed at the opposite end of the building. “Behave or you’re going to the corner. And what in the hell has gotten into you? You are so not the guy I knew.”

It got quiet after a while, so I studied the street, keeping an eye out for the blue-dress girl.

“Keep looking while I talk,” he said in a soft tone. “For years I’ve imagined what it would be like to actually meet you, Pandora. To meet you and not have you fear me, but to have you look at me the way I’ve looked at you for so long.”

I gripped the railing, standing absolutely still.

“But I always believed that day would never come, because unless certain things happened, I had never planned to reveal myself to you. The day I did, it was because a colleague of mine had learned of your whereabouts. For years I’d covered your tracks, but one of yours had gotten sloppy in Tennessee, got herself killed by a priest, and suddenly your location was once again known. Once I’d ascertained that the colleague hadn’t divulged it to anyone else, I had to take him out. That’s why I came at you with the amount of force I did. To throw off your scent again so that no one else could learn of you.”

I turned in his direction. “You killed a priest?” I gasped. I’d felt eyes on me constantly back in South Dakota and never imagined for a second it was another priest.

He nodded toward the street, which was once again swelling with a human tide. The parade was well under way now. The bands were playing, revelers were dancing and shouting, singing and fighting, all signs of an exceptionally run fiesta. Bubba’s almonds smelled divine, even from way up here, and my mouth watered for a taste. I was hungry again. Weird.

“I told you not to look back. Pay attention, Pandora.”

Grumbling, I turned. “You’re bossy.”

He ignored that jab.

“And I can’t tell you who I killed without revealing things. But my point is this, you have to understand that while I may seem like I’m coming on strong, for me this isn’t new. I’ve wanted to meet you for a very long time, little demon.”

“Okay, that’s it.” I turned and burrowed my way into his arms because how could a girl not want to hug a man who’d basically just told her he felt
exactl
y as she did? It was a scientific impossibility. (Look it up if you don’t believe me, I’m not lying.)