Drop Dead Demons (25 page)

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” My hands strangled the air wishing for Matthias’s throat.

“That’s what I think any time you open your mouth,” the Aussie said dryly. 

After Ayden had picked me up from school, we’d gathered in the Ishida’s game room. I’d let Mom know I was doing homework and promised to be home for dinner. We had the place to ourselves because Mr. Ishida had surprised his wife and daughter with a trip to the theater in Los Angeles, and an overnight hotel stay. The boys were sure it was his continued attempt to keep their mom distanced from whatever the Mandatum needed from her.

The orgy in my class had broken up almost as quickly as the linebacker’s eyes had stopped glowing pink. He’d been a bit confused, but not unpleasantly so, to “wake up” in a hot liplock. Mika was all kinds of embarrassed and flustered. Last I knew, they were both sent to the principal’s office.

Ayden sat on the opposite end of the couch flipping through a file propped up against my legs lying across his lap.

Tristan was inside the secret lab using the multitude of monitors covering the walls to run some sort of algorithm to compare and find connections among the images of the pages he’d scanned from Flint’s books as well as the files. Documents were flipping across the screens at light speed. On his feet and in constant motion, Tristan’s fingers flew across a small army of embedded keyboards, touch screens, and floating hologram thingies that included new ones of Flint’s underground, water-powered, steam pumping, electrical plant chugging away like magic.

Matthias waved the scrap of paper that Natasha had given Logan. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“You don’t know what to do with a girl’s phone number?” I snorted. “Someone please explain how Jayden was the only one who flunked the Seduction course.”

“
Almost
flunked,” Jayden corrected. He hung upside-down from the rings in the vaulted ceiling, pencil in hand, reading the double spiral journal in order to decipher the code. “
Blake
was evicted entirely.”

At the pool table, Blake had been skimming files, then stacking them in neat piles based on “correlating subject matter.”  He grinned, “I’ll call her for you!”

“A girl in my history class had a note for you too, Matthias,” Tristan said. “It’s in my backpack.”

“Keep it. Bloody hell.” Matthias crumpled the paper and tossed it toward the fire.

But before the discarded note could disappear in a flash of flames, a gust of wind caught it and swirled the paper into Logan’s hand. He stuffed it inside his blazer, grumbling, “I’ll deal with it.”

As he retreated outside to the balcony, the boys shared a look but said nothing. Moments later Logan was walking the railing while papers from the Flint files literally hovered in the air as he read them.

So cool. 

And then there was Matthias. So
not
cool.

“You should be thanking us for getting all this info,” I said, taking a break from math to wave an arm at Flint’s control room manuals scattered about. “And finding the center of Flint’s magical universe. It was a success, not stupid, and as soon as I’m done, I’m helping.”

“We can do without your kind of help,” Matthias said. “You defied a direct order and endangered a team member which is the definition of ultimate stupid.” He grabbed a pile of documents and spread them out on the bar with enough force to knock a few off. Not that he noticed since he was too busy trying to kill me with his scowly stare. “
This
is classified. For Mandatum eyes only. Just shut up and do your homework.” He glared at Ayden. “Why didn’t we drop her at home? Or off a cliff?”

Ayden didn’t look up from his file. “Thought this would be more romantic for the two of you rather than gagged in the trunk of your car.”

“Might upgrade to bottom of the lake next time,” Matthias growled. “We need to come up with a plan before we go running off to the tunnels like morons again.” He looked at me. “Or moron. Singular. Meaning you.”

“Yeah. I got that.” I chucked a wad of paper at Matthias’s head. “But I’m the one on borrowed time. And the one who needs Flint’s treasure before Rose decides to kill me.”

“Hey.” Ayden lifted his head from the file he was reading. “I told you we’re not going to let that happen.”

I stood and paced, hands flinging through the air. “Sure, sure. But he could remote mind control someone to murder me. Like some killer drone swooping in. And he can
poof
. In
pink.
Can all Joats do that? ’Cause it’s a neat skill, and he could just, you know,
poof 
in with a gun, shoot me dead, and
poof
out before anyone can stop him. Kiss, kiss,
bang
,
bang
,
poof
,
poof
, I’m dead.”

Ayden caught my hand and guided me back to the couch, dark chocolate eyes brimming with confidence. “Trust me.”

“And me.” Tristan held up futuristic looking handcuffs with dials and buttons and lots of things glowing. “These are state-of-the-art. Will neutralize any hunter or demon’s ability. We slap these on and he’s not disappearing again.”

Ayden’s lips curved into a lopsided grin. “And don’t forget, you’ve got a few moves of your own.”

I ignored Matthias’s snort.

Blake looked like he had an epiphany. “Hey, babe, we should get you some boots. Short skirt. And lots of leather to complimentarily accent your luscious lady parts.”

Ayden raised a brow. “I’m good with that.”

As I thumped his shoulder and went back to homework, Ayden’s smile turned grim.  “But Rose is no Joat. They’re never much good at anything and his powers are way more than good. And I’ve never heard of one with the ability to teleport.”

“That would be the
poofing
you spoke about, Aurora,” Jayden said from above.

“I know what teleport means.”

Matthias opened a file. “What do we do if we find Flint’s treasure? If Cacciatori finds out, hell, we’re better off if it stays buried.”

“But, dude, we’d be heroes,” Blake said wistfully. “Fortune, fame, the ladies falling at our feet.”

“And the whole Mandatum descending on Gossamer Falls.” Matthias rifled through papers. “Not that we’re any closer to finding it. I’ve got Flint’s background here, something about a sister who was Mandatum too, and he had a big interest in anything Divinicus related. Maybe that’s what caught Cacciatori’s eye. There’s some footnote about a cover story on his ‘true purpose.’ What’s that about?”

“It’s not much better on my end,” Tristan called from the computer room. “I have a serial number on the tracker we found in the demon, but if I try to access the report on what hunter last signed it out for use, the
entire
Mandatum will know I’m hacking their records. Which would expose us and Aurora.”

“Well, in that case, some questions are best left unanswered.” I rapped my pencil against my knee and tried to focus on homework. “What are linear systems of equalities again?”

“Inequalities,” Jayden corrected.

“I could do it with an untraceable, non-Mandatum computer,” Tristan said. “But the only computers sophisticated enough to hack their systems without a trace are ones designed by them.”

I penciled in an answer. “Which means my best bet is finding that weapon before her hounds hunt me down.”

“Her?” Matthias said.

I grimaced at my paper. No, that was definitely not the right answer. I erased, again, careful not to rip the page which had become dangerously thin.

“Rose’s accomplice.” I rubbed my scratchy eyes. Numbers were blurring together. “Didn’t get a good look at her, but I had a thought that maybe her demon dog was actually trying to save me from the gorilla demon which then got me thinking maybe she’s the ‘she’ Fiskick was working for, but then the dogs tried to kill us last night so I’m not sure. ” A yawn cracked my jaw. I let my head fall back to stare up at Jayden. “Hey, bat boy, could you try explaining this again using very small words?”

Matthias snarled, “When did you meet Rose’s partner?”

I hid another yawn behind the back of my hand. “Who said I met her?”

“You just did,” Ayden ground out.

I looked at him, confused. He’d stopped reading, and was watching me with a harsh, near hostile expression. Then my sluggish senses clued into the sudden silence. Palpable and quivering. Outside, still reading, Logan remained unaware, but Blake had stopped organizing, Tristan came out of the computer room, and Jayden hung upside down, wearing a frown, which looked like an odd smile.  

They were all staring. At me.

“Oh…” Crap. I should’ve just gone home. I sat up and rubbed my eyes hoping to wipe out the exhaustion and knead in a pinch of common sense. “I didn’t… exactly…meet her, I…”

“Had a vision,” Ayden said quietly.

My stomach wrenched. Dear God, he knew I was the Divinicus. How? Where did I blow it? I glanced nervously at Jayden who looked as appalled as I felt.

So I blustered, “Pfft. What? Vision? Why would I have a vision?”

“Or a dream.” Ayden stood abruptly, knocking papers in the air. “Whatever you call it. Like that thing you had when you saw Fiskick and Echo talking about hurting Jocelyn.”

I breathed a little easier. But not much. Ayden’s expression wrestled between anger and hurt as his fingers curled into fists.  

“I should’ve known. It’s one of the reasons you went to the tunnels that night. I’m right. And you chose not to tell us. Again.”

I laid my book down. “I can explain.”

“Spare me the bloody drama,” Matthias said tiredly. “Just tell us what you saw.”

For once I was happy to do Matthias’s bidding, avoiding Ayden’s glare as I gave the details of Rose and the mystery woman’s conversation. Minus the Nex talk, of course.

When I finished, the Aussie rubbed his temples. “What a nightmare. So we have a woman with demon hounds who wants some stone that Rose has, but they both want the treasure, and she’s distracting some ‘rogue’ and there are more players in this game.”

“Vipers in the pit, she called them,” I said.

“And she uses a bow and arrow?” Tristan returned to the secret room. “I’ll put this all in the computer. See if it comes up with anything.”

“I completely understand what you’ve been through.” Two somersaults later, Jayden landed on his feet, snatched my wrist, and pulled me up. “Some tea would settle your nerves. To the kitchen! We’ll get Logan.”

“Hey, guys!” Logan flew in from the balcony, so animated that his cheeks actually had some color. “You are not going to believe this. It’s Flint. He was—”

Outside something crashed louder than a NASCAR pileup and sent the whole gang running.

At the end of the Ishida’s driveway, Rose struggled with the mountain of garbage cans and their contents which was piled on top of him.

“Well, this is embarrassing,” Rose said with a smooth chuckle.

Matthias and Ayden pounced on Rose, shovinging him down and slapping on those super shackles that would squelch his ability to teleport.

Wow. Impressive. We just nabbed my supernatural assassin.

Blake caught my shoulder and reeled me back between him and Tristan as Rose sat up amid the trash. The rest of the boys circled him, eyes glowing.

Logan’s fingers twitched and a whirlwind swirled around the outside of our perimeter creating a wall that would suck up anything that crossed its path. Flames licked up Ayden’s arms. Matthias’s shadow whips unfurled from his hands and danced like cobras swaying to the music of the charmer’s flute. Knives of serrated ice glinted with lethal threat in Jayden’s hands. 

“Calm down, gentlemen.” Rose sounded bored. “I came to talk, not indulge in murder. Unfortunately, it was dark and I encountered some unexpected wildlife which gave me a start and,” he shrugged, “I am at your mercy.”

Matthias cracked one of his whips. “Get up and get in the house.”

“As you wish.” Rose wrinkled his nose, picked a banana peel off his lap, and stood in the last faint beams of sunset.

“Whoa!”

“Is he wearing a leather cat suit?”

“Holy Mother!

“Dude!”

The guys all quickly averted their eyes and raised their hands to further block any chance of catching a view. Anything to
not
see Rose in his painted-on leather one-piece that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Their reactions were pure entertainment.

“Stunning, right?” Rose spread his palms as far as the cuffs would allow. 

“Oh, I’m stunned.” Ayden looked ill.

Rose looked down at himself with admiration. “Not many males can pull off this look.”

“
No
male can pull off that look.”

“Actually, his finely sculptured physique would be considered the perfect complement for this type of anatomically revealing attire which accentuates his—”

“Bloody hell, Jayden, shut it!”

“Dude, this is so not right.”

“I feel like it’s looking at me.”

“Feel like what’s looking at—? Oh.
Oh!
Ugh, now I feel like it’s looking at me too.”

“How can it be looking at both of us?”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m gonna be sick.”

“Someone please gouge out my eyes.” 

“He might as well be naked.”

“Already did that,” Rose said dryly and gave me a suggestive wink. “Ask Aurora.”

“What!”

Now the crowd had eyes on me.

I frantically shook my head. “No, no, no. It’s not what you think. He was in the water with most,” my hands circled over my abdomen, “stuff covered.”

“Most?” Ayden almost shrieked. The orange-red flames on his arms flashed blue-white.

“Trust me.” I gave him a look. “You’ve just seen more than I did.”

“Alright, stay put, Rose.” Matthias kept his eyes up. “But cover yourself.”

“And exactly how am I supposed to do that?”

“Right.” Matthias waved a hand at the boys. “One of you cover him up.”

“I’m not touching him.”

“Me neither.”

“Un-uh.”

“Grow up, guys.” I kicked a fallen trash can toward Rose. “Put that in front of you.”

Rose righted the container and placed it in front of himself. It covered what needed to be covered, and the guys visibly relaxed.

Rose sighed with weary amusement. “While my anatomy is impressive, what should concern you is our quest. Have you found Flint’s treasure?”

“Why do you want it so much?” Matthias said.

“I only require one item. A stone. About so big.” His hands formed the shape of an egg. “It hums with life. Within its confines the colors pulse and vibrate, constantly changing. It’s a weapon which can be used to get my sister out of hell. You can keep the rest of the treasure. Keep the stone for all I care. Once I get my sister, I have no further interest in it.”

“Why should we help you?” Tristan wanted to know.

Rose pressed his palms together as if in prayer. “Because I’m Mandatum. We help our comrades, do we not?”

“We can’t find any record of you. You aren’t a Joat,” Ayden said. “What are you?”

“One that can help you. That’s all that should matter.” Rose was losing patience. “Those who want Aurora dead will only send others if I fail. I am offering to help you destroy them for good. Even help uncover the traitor in the Mandatum. In return you are asked to rescue a mortal from demons. An
innocent
mortal who is only in danger because demons desire Aurora dead. His hands clenched. His voice shook with emotion. “Indeed, isn’t this just the type of crusade you have pledged your lives to endeavor?”

The resulting uncomfortable silence seemed an indication that Rose had some kind of point. If he was telling the truth.

“This stone,” I said. “How can it get your sister out?”

“So happy you asked.” He bowed slightly. “It gives the bearer the ability to open any portal. From
this
side.”

The boys shook their heads.

“Impossible,” Jayden said emphatically. “In the centuries of Mandatum history, no one has ever opened one from this side. Ever.”

“You know only what the Mandatum tells you.” Rose’s voice oozed with condescension. “This stone was found centuries ago and considered too powerful. So all evidence of its existence was erased from the archives. The stone has been kept hidden, left in the care of a small sect of individuals, the responsibility passed down through generations.”

“If there was something like that, we’d know, dude.” Blake glanced around. “Wouldn’t we?”

Rose lifted a shoulder. “It’s just another example of a truth the Mandatum does not want you to know. Just as you have found the truth regarding Flint.”

Matthias folded his arms. “What truth?”

“Have you not read the file?” Rose quelled his sharp, exasperated tone, and ground his teeth in irritation. “Flint never stole any artifacts. Never killed anyone. He
saved
thousands of lives. He used his estate here to run an underground railroad for Mandatum hunters and any member who wanted to flee the society.”

“There’s no substantiation for such pronouncements,” Jayden said firmly.

“Not in the briefing of lies given to the likes of you.” Rose started to pace but stopped when the boys shouted for him to stay put. “Oh, for the love of— That’s why I wanted you to see the
original
file. So you would know the truth. See their lies.”

“You’re the liar,” Tristan said.

“Actually…” came a quiet voice, “he’s not.”

We all turned to Logan. 

He shrugged. “He’s right about Flint. I was reading it in the file before he showed up.”

Rose wore a smug expression. “Bravo, young Logan. Perhaps you could enlighten your fellow hunters.”

Logan shook his head. “No. You tell us your version first. I’ll see how truthful it is.”

“As you wish,” Rose agreed. “The Mandatum didn’t willingly let people leave the society. To get out, you had to flee, and if you were found, well, let us say, you were better off dead.”

“It’s not like that now,” Ayden said.

“Really?” Rose raised a brow. “Would they let you just walk away? And if it’s so different now, why do you hide the extent of your powers to avoid being forced into the Sicarius?”

Or in my case, into service as the Divinicus. I didn’t rebut his claims. And neither did the Hex Boys.

Rose stifled a smirk and continued. “Believe what you will about today, but in the late nineteenth century Flint hid people until it was safe to go out into the world. He provided false documents with which to start new lives. He never
stole
artifacts. Hunters happily paid Flint for their freedom from an oppressive tyrant. That’s how he acquired his treasure.”

The Hex Boys turned to Logan who nodded, looking grim.

Rose shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t care about any of that. I’m just pointing out that your society isn’t as benevolent as you would like to believe. When they found out what he was doing, they tortured Flint for information and the whereabouts of those he had helped, the treasure, and especially the stone, but rather than give anything up, he took the punishment and went insane for his troubles.”

I looked at the boys. “Does the Mandatum still do that?”

“Of course not,” Tristan said sharply.

“At least not that we know of,” Logan muttered.

That was reassuring.

“Find the treasure,” Rose said. “Use the stone to set my sister free. Then use it all as leverage to set yourselves free. But do it with haste because while I’ve grown rather fond of Aurora, and although it would be bittersweet, I
will
kill her to save my family.”

“You’re hardly in a position to make threats,” Matthias said.

“You still don’t understand the game we are playing.” Rose looked disheartened. “Perhaps some…incentive would best spur you on with more enthusiasm of purpose.” 

Didn’t like the sound of that. Or the cold glint in his eyes.

“Hmmm.” Rose laid a slender finger along his jaw as if deep in thought, then he turned to me. “I believe the loss of a beloved brother should hone my point.”

Fear sliced razors across my gut. Then my eyes settled on the handcuffs. “Threaten all you want. You’re not getting anywhere near my family.” 

“Thank you.” Rose’s smile took a malicious curve. “These will come in handy.”

As he raised his arms, his skin shimmered translucent, and the super high-tech shackles dropped through the air. Rose caught them before they hit the ground, then he dissipated in a swirl of pale pink smoke.

Wow. Impressive. We just
lost
my supernatural assassin. And let him loose on a new target.

Matthias turned paler than the moon. “Aurora, where are your brothers?”