Chapter 14 #2
Luke opened the door but refused to let Eli enter his office. “You’re too late. She’s on her way home.”
Eli’s jaw went slack as he lost all color in his cheeks. “What? How?”
“Her father sent a hellhound to collect her.”
Eli growled deep in his throat. “I’ve lost my woman. My apartment…this isn’t right!”
“Them’s the breaks.” Luke shut the door in Eli’s face.
Sorcha bit back her laughter. “That was rude.”
“Not really. Rude would have been to slap him first. And I was tempted. I’d like a little credit for my restraint. Which is a lot harder for me than most.”
Sorcha would have commented on that except she realized something. “Wait…did we just solve our case?”
“Part of it.”
“Part? No, I disagree. I think we solved it. Amandine was the target. It’s not a serial killer on the loose. Right?”
“True, but we still don’t know who killed the students or set me up. All we know is who their target is. Until we find the merciless moron who’s been doing this, Amandine isn’t safe.”
He had a point and she hated that she’d jumped ahead. She’d just been so glad to know the reason behind the killings. Nothing else had mattered.
Dang it!
Why couldn’t Luke use his powers and just have it solved?
If only life worked that way…
Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked at Luke. “You’re not safe, either. Whoever it is wants you to pay for something.”
He shrugged. “I’m not afraid. I just want the throat of whatever asshole thinks they can frame me and live happily-ever-after. But at least Amandine’s home now, and hopefully it’ll stop the killer from targeting anyone else.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“That’s why we’re still looking and the case isn’t closed.”
Another knock sounded on the door.
Luke growled. “Eli! How many times do I have to tell you—” His words broke off as he opened the door to find a wide-eyed Rory standing on the other side.
Screwing up his face, Luke slammed the door and gave Sorcha a fierce scowl. “What is this? Annual Asshole Day?”
“What?” she asked with a laugh.
Rory knocked again. “Open the door, Teivel. I’m here to take statements.”
With obvious reluctance, Luke pulled the door open so he could glare at Rory. “My statement? I stand by the fact that you’re an asshole.”
“Real mature.” Holding a steel clipboard, Rory walked into the room without an invitation. “Where’s the girl?”
Luke gestured toward Sorcha.
Rory growled at him. “Not her. The one you were seen running away with from the fire.”
“She left.”
Rory’s jaw dropped. “And you let her go without a statement?”
“Didn’t know I was supposed to knee cap her. Last time I checked, keeping someone against their will is false imprisonment.” Remind me sometime to tell you how I learned that lesson when I first got here.
Sorcha inwardly groaned as Luke passed that thought to her. She could only imagine what the lunatic had done before he’d learned they had rules in this dimension.
Poor victim…
Opening his clipboard and pulling out a sheet of paper, Rory made the sound of a low, frustrated growl. “Why are all conversations with you impossible and migraine inducing?”
“Because we don’t converse. I find conversation with you to be utterly trivial and boring.”
Sorcha really wanted to laugh at the expression on Luke’s face. But the last thing she wanted was to contribute to their mutual disdain. So, she decided to distract them. “Would you like my statement, Rory?”
“Please.” He passed an angry grimace toward Luke before he crossed the room to where she stood. Only then did he glance about with a fierce grimace of distaste. “Fire your decorator. This is darker than most caves. How can anyone work in this environment? It looks like a teen-aged Goth threw up.”
Completely unrepentant, Luke moved to his desk chair and sat down as if he were…well, the prince of Hell. “If you don’t like my cave, door’s in the wall.” He put his booted feet up on his desk, then turned his smart board on and somehow began watching a baseball game.
Rory curled his lips. “What are you doing?”
“Watching the Savannah Bananas. Why aren’t you?”
Clipping a piece of paper to his pad, Rory shook his head. “How do you work with him?” he asked Sorcha.
“I think he’s funny.” But not nearly as funny as the weird ball game he was watching. “What is that?”
“It’s Banana Ball. You should try it after you finish giving your statement to the monkey who inspired me to watch it.”
What was it about the two of them that they couldn’t even pretend to get along?
“Is there somewhere else we could go to do this? Anywhere else?” Rory asked.
Luke glared at him. “Right here is fine.”
“I need to take statements from both of you. I’d rather do it individually.”
“Why?” Luke asked like a petulant toddler. “We’re both professionals and I don’t feel comfortable leaving my partner alone with you. She might get rabies or something.”
Rory rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll take your statements here.” He glanced to Sorcha. “Normally, I’d force him to the station for this, but I know he’ll make friends with my boss and probably get me fired. Or written up…again.”
The shit-eating grin that spread across Luke’s face said that he might do it anyway. “I challenge you to take me in.”
“Behave!” she said to Luke.
“Why? Misbehaving is so much more fun.”
Ignoring Luke, Rory cleared his throat. “Can you walk me through what happened at the apartment?”
“Sure.” While Luke watched his Banana Ball, Sorcha relayed everything from the moment they arrived until they returned here with Amandine and Eli. She omitted mentioning Luke’s mom and how Amandine actually left.
Instead, she shrugged. “The girl became angry at her boyfriend and stormed out of here. No idea where she’s gone.”
“Thank you.” He looked over to Luke. “You?”
“That’s about the size of it,” he said in an affected Southern drawl. “No need in doing two reports unless you love paperwork. I’ve nothing to add to what Detective O’Malley said.”
“All right.” He tucked the paper he’d filled out into the metal clipboard case. “If there’s nothing else…” He headed to the door and stopped to look back at Sorcha. “Did we say seven or eight?”
“Thought we said six, but seven works.”
He smiled kindly. “I’ll see you, then.”
The moment he was gone, Luke turned off the board with his thoughts. “What’s this? You’re meeting up with the Snozzle?”
“Snozzle? What?”
“If I use the term I normally use for him, you’ll be highly offended. Snozzle is the wholesome alternative.”
She took a long breath as she moved to sit in front of his desk. “I really don’t understand the animosity between you two. What did he do? Steal your bone?”
Luke ignored her dig at his heritage. “He’s a pompous dickweed. How can you stand being around him?”
She gave him a dry, pointed stare.
“Fine. I’m a dickweed, too. I acknowledge my whole dickweedery.” He gestured at the door Rory had just walked through. “He’s a cambion and he’s too stupid to know it.”
That made her stomach drop. “What?”
“Oh yeah. Before you go on a date with him, be careful. Prince—bleeped for your delicate sensibilities—is not fully human.”
“How do you know that?”
The look he gave her was bone-chilling. “I can smell it on him. It’s an unmistakable odeur.”
That was interesting, but she still didn’t know why he was so angry over it. “I would think that would make you get along all the more.”
“Not when he’s something fetid to me.”
“And that is?”
“Nephilim.” Luke spat the word as if it choked him to even pronounce those syllables.
Oh. That made sense. Sort of…
“How do you know that?”
“He oozes that desperate like me, like me ’cause I’m good pheromone. It chokes me every time I’m near the beast.”
There was so much to unpack from those words that she wasn’t sure where to begin. But she kept coming back to one thing. “You’re friends with an angel. Why does Rory irritate you so?”
“Remi is Remi. He never judges, as it’s not his place. Rory judges the shit out of me, so I return the favor. With interest. No pencil-neck shit-stain is going to look down his way-too-long nose at me like I’m the runt of my litter or something that just pissed on his leg.”
He said that, but there was more to it than just what he told her.
Much more.
“Oh my God! You’re jealous!”
Luke scoffed. “I’m not jealous,” he said petulantly. He even poked his lip out.
“Then you’re childish.”
After considering that for a few seconds, Luke nodded. “That, I’ll cop to. Especially if you want to spank me for misbehaving.” He flashed that grin at her.
This time, it didn’t work. She was too pissed at him. “Ugh. We so need an HR department.”
“Wouldn’t do any good. I’d only make Helly take the boring class.” He sat up. “So…Detective. What fun shall we get into now?”
Something in his tone made the hair on the back of her neck rise as she imagined the evil he could do. “Guess we need to find something to do before you get arrested again.”
“Well, so long as it’s for something I actually did, I don’t mind. It did piss me off to be arrested for someone else’s bullshit. Makes the beast in me want to hunt down the bastard responsible and rip out his throat. Which I just might do before everything is said and done.”
“How do you know it’s a man?”
“Women want me for other things…so do some men. But I haven’t met a woman yet who wanted to frame me for a crime…that smacks of male assholery.”
“You say that, but women can be exceptionally petty. It would make sense to me that it’s a female culprit.”
“Fine. I’ll keep my options open.”
His reversal confused her. Especially given the lightning quickness of it. “Just like that?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Why not?”
Now she fully understood Rory’s complaint about Luke. He was hard to have a conversation with when he got into this mood.
And speaking of Rory…
“Can I clarify this for my sanity so that I fully understand it?”
Luke put his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his office chair. “Sure.”
“You’re a…hellhound not a demon.”
“Yeah.”
“Helly is an imp. Your mother is a full-blooded hellhound.”