Broken: Hidden Book Two (6 page)

Brennan gave a small nod, ceded the point. We stood there, awkwardly, for a couple of minutes. I remembered my discussion with Eunomia. He deserved to know something was up.

“I’m going to be taking on some additional shit. If I ask you to keep things running around here…”

“You know I’ll do it, Molly,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Not yet. Because I don’t completely know. It might be nothing.” I hope, I thought to myself. “Once I know, you will. I promise.”

He nodded. Sometimes, I hated how clearly I could feel him. Nain had been tricky to read sometimes. Brennan’s feelings were clear. Love, concern, sadness. Longing. It threatened to drown me, knock me over and pull me into its depths, and I didn’t know if I would be strong enough to surface again.

“I care about you, you know,” I said softly. “Just not the way you want me to.”

He blushed a little. I knew he wished I couldn’t feel him. It really did complicate everything. There was no place he could hide, not from me. “Like a brother,” he said, irritation in his tone. Frustrated. Guilty.

“Like a friend. It is a compliment. I want you to be happy. And even if I could feel for you what you want me to, I would hurt you. Over and over and over again. You know it. I already do.”

“It would be worth it. And you’re not the monster you think you are,” he said quietly.

“No. I’m much worse. Find some gorgeous shifter who will adore you. Make baby shifters with her. Be happy.”

He shook his head. “That is not going to happen. You’re asking me to replace you in my heart. I can’t.”

“Please stop saying shit like that,” I said, felt tears slipping from the corners of my eyes. I hated that. I have this thing about crying. I don’t do it, and those rare times I do, it makes me want to destroy things.

I’m a wreck, basically. I know. Emotionally stunted, or whatever you’d call it.

Brennan walked over to me. He gently cupped the sides of my face, wiped my tears away with his thumbs. “Okay,” he said softly, soothing. “Okay. I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I nodded, tried to force the tears back. He gently rested his forehead against mine.

We stood that way for a bit as I tried to get my emotions under control again. It took longer than I expected, and he waited it out with me. His presence, his calm, soothed me after a while. He took a breath, then murmured, “I am here for you, however you need me. I will be your friend, your receptionist, your butler. I’ll be Alfred to your Batman, Jarvis to your Iron Man. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, Molly.”

I nodded again, took his hands in mine and removed them from my face, gently. “I’m broken,” I whispered, releasing his hands.

“Not broken. Never. Not you. You’ve been twisted, ripped apart. But you are not broken,” he said.

“Remind me of that when I start to fall apart, Alfred,” I said, stepping back from him a little.

“I will,” he answered, meeting my eyes one more time. Then he walked away, up to his room, and I went up to the roof to spend another night alone.

Chapter Four

Meetings and destroying, destroying and meetings. This was my existence. I hadn’t been wrong about the fact that new adversaries would pop up in the void left by Astaroth and all of his people. I had, however, underestimated how damn many of them there would be.

They were power-hungry, impatient, and, usually, dumb as rocks. This was a really bad combination when it came to trying to protect the Normals from them, keep them out of the crossfire when two big bads decided to face off over territory. It was easy for me to catch and either destroy or gently convince the morons to go elsewhere. The hard part was trying to get to them before they hurt people. They were reckless in their desire for power.

In addition to frequent calls from Chief Jones (since when had I become a member of the Detroit P.D., anyway?) I also had my usual influx of supernaturals seeing me. Brennan had started convincing some of them to talk to him rather than see me, trying to take some of the load off of me, and he filled me in on these cases when we had a chance to breathe.

I hadn’t slept in three days. And even with my freakish metabolism and endurance, it was starting to take its toll on me.

In addition to the craziness happening in the city, I still had the gateway Eunomia had warned me about on my mind. I hadn’t heard back from her about it, and even if I wanted to be guarding it right now, I didn’t know where it was or how to look for it.

I was sitting in my office after finishing up with a meeting with the Brightmoor packmaster, warning him to keep his werewolves away from innocents. He’d been afraid of me, and I had a feeling he would be more attentive to what his pack was doing from now on.

Brennan came in with a cup of coffee. “Last one will be here in a couple of minutes. I need to reduce the number of appointments I’m making for you. This is nuts,” he said, setting the coffee down next to me.

“No, it’s fine. You’ve already taken on a lot of this shit for me. These are things I need to know right away so I can take care of them.” I picked up the coffee cup, took a long drink. “Thank you,” I said.

“No problem.” He leaned against the edge of my desk, next to me. “Hey, Molly.”

“Yeah?”

“This next one…do you mind if I stay in the room with you for this?”

I looked up at him. “Why?”

“I just got a weird feeling when I was talking to this guy. Branford. Something seems off.”

“Is anything ever
not
off about the people we deal with, Bren?” I asked.

He grinned. “Good point. But this guy seemed more off than usual.”

“I don’t need protection,” I said.

“I know. I really am just being nosy. I want to hear what he says.”

I shook my head, took another sip of coffee. “Fine.”

“Good.” He walked out of the office, and I enjoyed a few seconds of peace before Shanti came in.

“I cannot do this,” she said, holding up the copy of
Wuthering Heights
I’d left in her room, along with instructions to read it and write a paper on it.

“Yes, you can.”

“This is freaking impossible to read. These characters all seem like jerks, and I can’t even understand what they’re saying most of the time!”

“Give it a shot. You’re smart. You will not regret reading it,” I said.

She sighed. “Can’t I just read, like,
Twilight
or something?”

I mock-glared at her. “Get your ass out of my office. When’s the last time you sparkled, vampire?”

She walked away laughing. I heard Brennan mutter “Twilight?” as she passed him, and she laughed more. He glanced into my office. “He’s here. Ready?”

I nodded, took another sip of coffee. Then I leaned back in my chair and waited. Brennan led my next appointment into the office, then closed the door behind both of them. Dahael and Bashiok, as always, flanked me. I felt them both stiffen in anger and hate as the man entered the room.

“Angel, this is Devin Branford,” Brennan said, standing behind the chair Branford would be sitting in. Ready. On edge.

I could see why. Branford was a demon. A pretty powerful one, from what I could feel. Not as powerful as me, but he was powerful enough to cause trouble. He stood a little over six feet. Shorter than Bren. But he was solid muscle, biceps bulging under the black t-shirt he wore. He was not an attractive man. Shaved head. Eyes that were nearly black. A hooked nose, cruel-looking mouth.

“Angel. A pleasure to meet one of my kind,” he said, bowing his head to me.

“Thank you. Please, have a seat,” I said, gesturing to the chair. Branford nodded and sat, crossing one leg over his knee.

“Thank you. I would like to offer my condolences on the loss of the Nain Rouge. We did not always see eye to eye.” He glanced back at Brennan. “I remember when you were a teenager. Probably the last time Nain and I faced off. You remember me?”

Brennan shrugged. “Not really. Nain didn’t let me do much fighting back then.”

Branford shrugged, turned back to me. I glanced up at Brennan, who was staring daggers at the demon. Whether Brennan remembered him or not, he clearly did not like him. I’d keep that in mind. Brennan’s instincts about this stuff were usually dead on. And, my first impression of the demon didn’t exactly endear him to me, either.

“So. What can I do for you, Branford?”

The demon looked at me. “Well. There are a few things I can think of off the top of my head.” I felt it already of course. Lust. Ew.

Brennan was ready to rip the demon’s throat out already, and he’d barely been in the room for two minutes. I caught Bren’s eye, hoped he understood to calm the hell down. He seemed to, took a deep breath and shook his head.

“Well. Flattering as that is, Branford, that’s not really what we’re here for,” I said, looking directly at him. Meeting his gaze. He met mine as well, and it was an unspoken challenge. Who would look away first? Stupid battles of wills, looking for signs of weakness.

“I have heard something I think you’d want to know,” he said, still staring back at me. “There are people in danger, and that’s the kind of bullshit you seem to care about.”

“And why bring it to me? It’s not like you care about Normals,” I said, knowing it was true before the words even left my lips.

“No, I don’t. But we’ve all seen the news. The P.D. is onto us. Supernaturals. We have them poking around, they’re eventually going to figure it out. And while I really have no problems steamrolling any nosy cops, having to watch out for them puts a dent in my lifestyle. I figure, come to you with this, save us all some trouble.”

I leaned back in my chair, still holding his gaze. We sat in silence for a few minutes. I let my power roar over him, felt the house tremble around us. He looked away. Victory.

“So, who’s in danger?” I finally asked.

“There’s this group. Coupla witches, warlocks. Couple shifters. They’ve been working the six and Gratiot area for a while now. They started taking women off the streets a week or so ago, keeping them locked in one of those big old houses over there. I don’t know what they’re doing with them, but I can guess, and I bet you can too.”

“How many?”

“As far as I know? Fourteen women.”

I could feel how anxious Brennan was. I caught his eye again, gave a small shake of my head. He nodded. The tension in him did not subside. His jaw was clenched, hands fisted as he crossed his arms over his chest. If looks could have killed, the demon sitting in front of me would have been dead about fifty times over.

“So. You’re saying fourteen women. Held by a few witches and warlocks, shifters. Anything else I should know?”

Branford smiled like a cat who’d just cornered a mouse. Asshole. “I have the address if you want it.”

“That would be great,” I said. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, set it on the desk in front of me.

“They’re there. It looks deserted, but it has electricity and everything. Real overgrown in front.”

“All right. I’ll take care of it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention,” I said.

“Well, I figured you’d want to know, considering the way you are about finding lost girls,” he said. He was doing a good job of looking sincere.

“Absolutely. Thanks for coming,” I said, dismissing him. Brennan walked him out, Ada reset the wards, and within seconds Brennan was back in my office.

“That bastard was setting you up. You know this,” Brennan said, crossing his arms over his chest. Anger still radiated from him. Along with a strong desire to protect me.

“Of course I know it,” I said. “He looked like he hit the jackpot or something when I said I’d go. I could feel it from him.”

“Okay. So what do we do?”

I stood up, started loading up my pockets. “We?”

“Yeah.
We
. I know you’re going to go because there are probably really women there to draw you out. And he’s probably lying about how many bads are there. I’m not going to sit here while you walk into god knows what by yourself.” Steely determination in his voice, in his eyes.

“Are you my sidekick now, too?” I asked, putting my sunglasses on.

“You start calling me Robin and you’ll never get a good cup of coffee again, Molly.”

I laughed, then headed out, Brennan close behind me. We got into the Barracuda, imps filling the back seat, and roared through the city toward the neighborhood the demon had specified. Night had fallen, moonless and cold.

We parked a few blocks away from where we needed to be. It’s not like we really had the element of surprise on our side, since they’d feel us long before they saw us. I needed to ask the chief where he’d gotten his amulet. Too late now.

We got out and started walking toward the house.

“Leave the demon to me if he’s there,” I said quietly.

“Yes, ma’am,” Brennan answered. Tension rolled off of his body, ready for a hunt, a fight.

“Do not do anything stupid trying to protect me. I have a healing ability. You don’t,” I continued.

“This is hardly the fist time we’ve fought together, Molly.”

“Just thought I’d remind you,” I muttered.

“You’re sure I can’t go after the demon? I’d really like to put the hurt on him,” Brennan said, a bit of a growl in his voice.