Underworld Lover (A Guardian Angel Romance #2) (2 page)

It also bothered Josh that Peter had cheated to get elected. Not the cheating part, since he could almost admire Peter’s efficiency.  Josh didn’t understand why Peter wanted the job in the first place. Peter could read, unlike any of the former directors going back well over a hundred years. As in the past, Josh had nominated another candidate, one who had no idea he was even on the ballot. The poor bastard didn’t even know he’d lost the election, even though he had voted as instructed—for himself. Peter had nominated himself, another first for the Underworld.

“So, Felix—that is your human name, your stage name, right?”

“His new name is Beelzebub,” Karl inserted.

Felix punched him in the arm and re-directed his gaze back to Josh. “Yes, sir. He gave me that name.” Felix looked down to his lap and blushed. His sandy brown hair stood in a mass of curls like a piece of brown steel wool. With freckles and pimply pink skin, genetically he looked seventeen, although he was probably in his early twenties. And now he would forever look like a boy—a young man forever trapped in a boy’s body.

Why had Peter turned him?
A director never had a quota to fill.

“Well, as your sponsor, he has that right. Any idea why he named you Beelzebub instead of Simon, Elijah, James, or John?” Josh asked, puzzled over why Felix hadn’t taken on a well-known Bible name, as was customary.

“Nope.”

“Maybe he liked it,” Karl said.

“Shut up, Karl.” Josh was losing his temper. “So, how did the turning go?” He was positive there was a story there. Sponsees were usually something to be boasted of, even though not required. He wasn’t sure why Peter had thought to humiliate and intimidate the boy who would owe his allegiance to him for all eternity.

“Well, Melanie and I were in love.”

“Excuse me? Who’s Melanie?” This was beginning to get interesting.

“She was, is…” Felix sighed. “She was my girlfriend, sort of. She always told me I was her soul mate.”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“Peter came to me one day, told me Melanie had contacted him about getting something to, you know, end it.”

“Kill herself.”

“Right.”

“She wanted your help?”

“Yes. No. We were going to do it together.”

“And?”

“We’d been talking about it for weeks.  Sounds stupid now, but at the time, we were both so miserable.” 

“So you were afraid to pull the trigger. So what? It happens. I’ve heard it thousands of times. Go on.”

“We were going to do it soon. He gave me the capsules so there wouldn’t be any pain.” The boy’s eyes started to water. He wiped away his tears with the backs of his hands.

So Peter was going for a pair of aces.

“And then what happened?”

“We got ready to do it. My dad has a cabin in the mountains. We were going to go there and take the pills, just fall asleep, like Peter said we would. He said we would wake up together in a beautiful garden with everything we ever wanted, and really good dope. Sort of like a Garden of Eden. All we had to do was call out what we wanted and it would get delivered to us—forever!”

Peter, you fucking asshole.

An icy breeze blew the tablecloths loose, sending a glass to the pavement where it shattered. Felix continued, “It sounded pretty nice, and I thought well, perhaps then Melanie and I could be like Adam and Eve, you know. Have sex.”

“Wait a minute. You were already having sex with her, right?”

A woman shielded the ears of her young daughter as the pair strolled by.

“Ma’am,” Josh nodded in her direction.

“No. No, she wouldn’t let me.” Felix frowned.

“Excuse me? You were soul mates and you were
not
having sex? She was going to kill herself with you and you were
not
having sex?” Josh asked.

Felix shook his head and shrugged.

“Unbelievable. Go on, man.”

“I talked her out of it. I didn’t mean to, but I’d already taken my pill. It made me feel funny and I got kind of confused. I told her about Peter coming to me, and she told me she didn’t even know him. That’s when I knew I never should have talked to this guy. Melanie said there was someone following her around. She thought he was a tail her father had hired to keep tabs on her.”

“But you now think it was Peter.”

“Yes. I’m sure of it,” Felix said.

“Why didn’t you stop yourself? Why not get help?” Karl asked.

“Like I told you already, I was confused. I was having a lot of sexual fantasies right then. I mean, it wasn’t anything I’d felt before. And besides, for all I knew, this guy was going to come after us. I mean, I’d told him everything—where we were going to go, the date, everything.” Felix frowned at the onset of tears gathering steam at the corners of his eyes.

Josh saw how tormented the young angel was and knew Peter had done a good job there. He also knew Peter must have laced the pill with some Sexual Apricot, one of Josh’s favorite aphrodisiacs.
Nice touch, you bastard.
He had wanted to claim his new prize and have her primed and ready to go.

“Did he show up?” Josh asked.

“Don’t know. I sent her away. I never told her I was already feeling the influence of the pill. I made her leave, told her he was coming. That got to her. She was fucking scared out of her mind.” Felix hesitated. “She texted me when she got home. I hung on until I got that message. That was my last thought. I remember feeling good, just before the blackness. I felt like I finally did something I was proud of.” Felix took a long sigh and let the tears fall down his cheeks silently. Karl was mute as well.

Josh was beginning to understand Peter’s issue with Felix. Peter was going for the girl. The virgin. He wanted to make her the virgin concubine of the Director of the Underworld. And Felix, stupid, clueless Felix, had foiled the director’s plans. And the only reason he was alive now was for one of two scenarios, or perhaps both: to be a spy on Josh, or to get the girl to change her mind.

Josh handed Felix his drink and motioned for him to finish it off. He decided he liked Felix after all.

Chapter 2

Director of the Underworld.
Peter liked the ring to his new title, and he liked the inscription in Latin carved into his mahogany office door. He tapped perfectly manicured fingertips on the faded red file folder that was marred by what he figured was a coffee stain. The edges of the folder were frayed and dog-eared. Part had been exposed to sunlight while a rectangle in the lower left quadrant retained some of its original bright red color. The rectangle was about the size of a small magazine or paperback.

Probably a graphic novel or comic book.
He knew the former director couldn’t read, just like his predecessors. He planned on becoming acquainted with the rules of law. That’s how he’d learned how to vaporize, ending the monopoly one certain well-respected dark angel had over the horde of his new kingdom.

The spotless obsidian desk he sat behind as he addressed his group of dark angels reflected the importance of his newly elected position. There wasn’t a fingerprint or smudge to be found—not the tiniest speck of dust or even a hint of a dead insect body part, no matter how microscopic. The highly buffed desktop contained only two items: the well-worn file folder and an “In” basket, made of solid silver, Peter’s favorite metal. It thrilled him to see the tray completely empty.

Peter crossed his long legs, sheathed in black leather custom-tailored pants. He could still smell a hint of the animal the leather had come from—a rare breed of South American cattle raised purely for their buttery hides. He looked with pride at his black snakeskin loafers with the red diamond designs of the sacrificed serpent’s underbelly.
Must have been a big one
.

He couldn’t help staring at the reflection of his face in the shiny desktop, mesmerized by how his dark hair and shiny black eyes contrasted to the cool pink tones of his skin. Even clean-shaven—and he liked to shave several times a day—he still had a dark shadow that covered his square jaw. He ran his hand over the fine sandpaper of his stiff blue-black stubble and lingered over his chin, then rubbed his finger up and down mindlessly, enjoying the feel of the dent. He flicked his gaze from himself to the red folder.

On the tab of the red folder was written one name: Joshua Brandon. The faded black letters made with a felt tipped pen long ago were barely legible. He picked up the file with his right hand and held it above his head, showing it to the small audience that sat before him on newly purchased metal chairs. Peter had gotten rid of the padded chairs along with the old carved wooden desk filled with candy wrappers, soda cans, and porno magazines, all which reflected how seriously the previous director had taken his job. But all that was in the past. Every one of those things had been permanently discarded and would never be seen again. Including the former director.

“It took all six of you nearly an hour to find this file,” Peter said.

The staffers nodded their heads in the affirmative.

Sunlight leaked through the tall windows banking the right side of Peter’s office. Bookshelves surrounded the office interior, stuffed with binders and ancient black tomes with golden spines. The wall behind Peter was in perfect order, dusted and categorized by size, even color. The adjoining wall was a work in process, with papers and books rammed into places at odd angles, folded, bent, and ignored. The chairs squeaked, protesting the weight of the male dark angels occupying them. Yesterday had been a difficult day for them, Peter mused, and their rebellious streak was, for now, completely extinguished. There used to be seven staffers, but Peter had to vaporize one of them for answering a question wrong. The dark angel technically hadn’t answered it wrong, he just happened to answer first, and so that had earned him a charred oily spot on the black granite floor. The rest of his buddies had to clean him up. At least, what was left of him. Peter was giving them a lesson in control and in the randomness of his fairness. He expected many of them to want to resign soon. The first one to voice a request to get out of serving him would of course earn a death sentence, and then that would be the end to that rebellion.

So easy to do this if one has the vision, the need.
The chaos of the Underworld had been Peter’s particular pet peeve since becoming a dark angel only a year ago. He had quickly learned how things worked, who was paying attention, and who was not.

“So, you want to tell me what I find most important about this file?” Peter flicked it back and forth, as if fanning himself. The pectoral bulges of his packed chest thrilled him, demonstrating the discipline his body had adopted as a human. Now he would be eternally frozen in perfect shape. He liked showing off his masculine physique, trying to impress the others as he waited for an answer.

Of course they were afraid to respond. Even trained rats could grasp the concept of pain and death. Their faces were long and full of practiced dullness, but he smelled their fear just the same.

“No one? Hmmm?” He didn’t really expect them to say a word. “I can tell you what’s in it, or, more specifically, what’s
not
in it, just by looking at the outside.” He watched them search their memories, their eyes roving around the room and at each other, looking for a tiny morsel of relief. Someone unbuttoned his collar. Someone else coughed. Several changed leg positions. Peter noticed they sat with their left knees folded over their right, like a string of clowns at the pitch and toss booth. Apparently no one wanted to appear not to know what he was talking about.

That was smart.

“Well, gents, look at this file.”

All six of them did.

“Notice the edges, here? The stain of a beverage? What this folder tells me is that no one has looked at it for a long, long time. Do you think I was very surprised to open it, and, voila!” Peter popped it open like a can of nuts. “There’s one sheet of paper in it.” He held up the paper on which was a picture of Joshua Brandon, the dark angel.

Peter inhaled deeply before adding the next part, which made the windows rattle, “
And nothing else!”

The men jumped but didn’t look him in the eyes. They fidgeted in the squeaky metal chairs, examining the stains on their boots and the cleanliness of their hands. They even avoided eye contact among themselves. A young dark angel wiped his brow and licked his lips. But they all kept their heads bowed.

Peter wondered if the fight in them was extinguished or just temporarily hidden. He’d had his fun yesterday and wasn’t in the mood to kill again today. But he also knew some of these men had developed affection for the former director and were probably uncomfortable with the fact, as well as the manner of his death.

“I want this dark angel found and brought here by tomorrow evening.” Peter stood up suddenly and heard the collective squeak of metal chairs in response. “I have a steady supply of bodies and absolutely no need for anyone who cannot follow orders.” He leaned over the desk, demanding their attention. “Are we clear on that?”

There were mumbled “Yes, sirs” and an overall nodding of heads. The staffers seemed relieved they had been given a command they had a prayer of executing. One of them even managed a smirk Peter chose to ignore. There was a collective sigh of relief when they were dismissed.

Peter sat back down in his new black leather chair, watching his ragtag crew silently shuffle single file from his office. He was excited his newfound position would finally allow him to bring the Underworld to its former glory. First, he had some housekeeping things to attend to. He looked over the disarray of books and papers on the other wall, the pile of magazines thrown in the corner. By tomorrow it all would be clean, without a page bent or out of place.

Disgraceful. Utterly disgraceful.

“Cleanliness is next to…” He smiled and didn’t finish the sentence. His gaze landed on the faded red folder again. He needed to be careful with Joshua Brandon, the legendary dark angel everyone looked up to. That particular piece of housekeeping had to be handled with great care.