Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I think maybe that Bellamy might have understated things with Darcy when he called him “unreserved.” Darcy storms into Santanos’ taxi garage with a thundering clap of displaced air that damn near deafens me as he “pops” us all into the center of the garage.
Darcy’s booming voice echoes through the huge space as soon as we land. “HELLO MINIONS! GET ME BELAPHOR BETELGEUSE, AND I WON’T SIC THE FOX ON YA!”
For several ridiculously long seconds everything in the garage goes quiet.
We’re well past the shift change at this point, but the place is still busy, hopping with the activities that keep a cab company running.
Every employee/minion in the place turns to look at the tiny little Asian guy with a country accent and goth gear and a voice that wouldn’t be out of place on a phone sex line.
I mean, I could probably get off listening to him if he was dirty-talking me.
“What is wrong with you?!” A screech from above has us all looking up toward an actual harpy in flight, coming straight for us.
She’s got a pretty human half, huge tits hanging out, and the glossiest black wings I’ve ever seen.
“GET BACK TO WORK!” she yells at the minions, alighting in front of us and shifting into a fully human form, dressed in coveralls with a clipboard in hand.
Huh. Her magic shifts clothes onto her human form and includes a clipboard but leaves her harpy form buck naked.
I look up at Fox curious, pointing to the woman.
Fox shakes his head, and I sigh. I guess he’s not part harpy, but I hear those creatures are only female, so I didn’t think it was a good guess anyway.
“Belaphor Betelgeuse you say?” she questions, voice craggy like she misspent her youth running up the stairs in horror movies.
“I sure did, ma’am,” Darcy replies, suddenly sounding like sex on a mini-stick.
I eye him as he takes a step closer to the harpy with a ridiculously charming smile on those black lips.
The harpy doesn’t stand a chance in hell of resisting the man and licks her lips as she looks him over. He’s a foot shorter than her, but damn, the charisma coming off him almost snags me.
“His last shift was last night. He put in his two weeks and worked doubles every day. He just turned in his car this morning.”
“Do you mind letting me have a little look at his car? I just need to use it for a few minutes. I’m Darcy Hellspinner, by the way,” he offers her his hand.
“Rowan Cran,” she flutters, taking his hand and letting him kiss the back of it.
“Pleasure, Miss Cran. Competent and successful people are my kryptonite. Perhaps after I track down your employer, you wouldn’t mind me tracking you down?”
Holy. Shit.
I shoot my gaze at Bellamy, who looks like he’s suppressing the grimace from eating a lemon, and my empathy for him wells up.
Fox and I move at the same time, each taking up one side of our Bellamy.
Fox puts his hand over Bellamy’s shoulder and I take his waist, and we just snugglehug him while we watch the trainwreck that is Darcy Hellspinner make mincemeat out of our boy.
Rowan chuckles at Darcy’s charm and nods. “I wouldn’t mind that one bit, Mr. Hellspinner.”
“Call me Darcy, love,” he offers, crooking his elbow at her like she’s not covered in questionable stains and isn’t a foot taller than him.
Rowan doesn’t even blink; she puts one hand on his elbow and leads him (and the rest of us chumps) to a car in the line to get detailed.
“Oh love, this is wonderful. Thank you,” Darcy says, running a hand over the hood of the cab. “I’ll be done in a shake.”
“Come find me when you are,” Rowan flirts.
Darcy turns a heated look up at her. “I assure you, I will.”
With that, the woman shifts back into her harpy form and takes off.
Darcy watches her fly away and shoots us a lascivious wink.
“Never bedded a harpy before.” The lust clears off his face at the neutral masks we’re all wearing, and he turns back to the cab, returning to his work voice, which admittedly is just as sexy as his lusty voice.
“Let me get his scent and we'll find him.”
Darcy opens the cab door and bends at the waist, audibly sniffing the driver’s seat. Then he licks it. Twice. Gross.
Fart mouth. You dodged the bullet with that one.
I don’t send that; I just hold it up where my boys can see it.
Bellamy barks out a laugh. “I wish.”
What? Did he already fuck you?
Bellamy purses his lips and lets out a slow breath, nodding once.
It’s totally hypocritical of me to judge you, but I am. 100%
Bellamy chuckles as Darcy stands and turns back to us. “Got the bastard. Let’s go. ROWAN, I’M ABOUT TO MAKE A BLOODY MESS.”
“NOT IN MY CAB!” She screeches back from somewhere in the garage.
“NEVER, LOVE! ON THE FLOOR!”
“I’VE GOT POWER WASHERS!”
“THANK YOU!”
“Aren’t you worried that someone will get your blood?” Fox murmurs.
Darcy shakes his head. “I’ve got it spelled to reflect any magic done to it back on the caster.
The only beings capable of using my blood against me are actual blood gods, and I have an understanding with every last one of them.
” As he explains this, he cuts his wrist open along the scab of the previous wound and starts drawing another array of symbols on the floor.
This time instead of a circle, he draws in two parallel lines about three feet apart that run the length of the car.
We watch in silence until he finishes drawing, looking a bit more pale than he had before. He walks to the back of the cab and pulls a pinch of the glitter out of one of the pockets on his utility belt and tosses it down the line of the array, activating the magic.
“Decide what order you’re going in. Walk between the lines; when you step past the end, you’ll be stepping into the room with the largest concentration of the necro-Nephilim magic, which should be where he is if he isn’t storing his power in artifacts.”
Fox’s eyes tighten with worry when he looks at me. “He can break your ward, but this is official business.”
And officially Harbinger's go before their Reapers, which makes this a dangerous job for me.
Good thing I have an assassin Acolyte.
“On your heels,” Bellamy assures me, pulling out his machete again (he decided to leave the sniper rifle at home).
Fox looks like he’s trying to swallow nails, so I step up to him and press a kiss to his lips. When I pull back I exaggerate mouthing, Love you.
His hand on my hip squeezes me. “You’re so bad at that,” he teases softly, pressing his forehead to mine. “Love you too. Run if he tries to grab you.”
I kiss him again and nod, heart fluttering at his love confession. Even if we never get that third date, I’m fucking him when this is over. I’ve stuck to the plan long enough for it to go wrong twice; I’m not waiting another night.
He releases me, and I jerk my head for Bellamy to follow. I thank Darcy with a punch to his shoulder and put some steel in my spine before walking down the line.
I feel the magic thicken as I walk. On one side, it’s like strolling through air, but as I reach the middle, it’s more like wading through soup, and it gets thicker as I get to the end of the array, like pushing through gravy.
Yeah, sorry; I’m hungry. It’s way past breakfast, and the coffee’s already passed through.
When I step past the end of the line, I literally come out the other side nose to nose with Belaphor. Reacting on instinct, I push him away and dodge to the side. Belaphor stumbles back three paces and hits the edge of a table where he has Santanos strapped down.
Bellamy walks in immediately, finding me and stepping to my side, holding the machete at the ready, facing Belaphor.
Belaphor laughs, reaching back to put his hand on Santanos’ chest. “Welcome, Harbinger and your Acolyte. I assume your Reaper is—Ah, there he is.”
Fox appears, pointing his sword at Belaphor.
Santanos screams.
Visible, puce magic curls up from Santanos’ chest, swirling around Belaphor’s arm and diving into his chest. Fox runs at him, swinging his sword, but the magic flares, sending the sword bouncing off a ward and out of Fox’s grip.
Shit. He’s using the council’s ward. We need to get Santanos away from him.
“Can’t kill what the council wants alive, can you?
” Belaphor taunts with a wide grin. “They want the Avatar alive, but they don’t actually care who the Avatar is, do they?
” He looks over at Santanos with a creepily affectionate gaze.
“Give me a few more hours and I’ll be the Avatar we need.
Santanos is weak. Always submitting to the whims of the council.
He should have had a bit more backbone. The balance is never in our favor because the council is biased, isn’t it?
I’m going to change things for my people.
” He turns a sharp glare on Fox. “You won’t be killing my people so much when I become the Avatar. ”
“Lord save us from self-important minions,” Darcy’s dry voice startles us all.
I didn’t even notice his arrival. He carries a bowl in one hand while his other one stays busy pulling ingredients out of the pockets and satchels of his utility belt and adding them to the bowl.
“Fox, it occurred to me that this fucker knows the trick to breaking the council’s wards, and then it occurred to me that you probably don’t, so I came to help out a bit. ”
His busy hand stops, and he shakes a couple of drops of blood from his wrist into the bowl.
Belaphor sneers at him. “The only way to break the ward is to absorb it.”
Darcy snickers as he tosses the contents of his bowl toward Belaphor. Neon green, blood red, and fiery orange magic flares up as soon as it hits the ward, and we watch the magic of the borrowed ward melt off Belaphor.
Santanos’ screams quiet to whimpers and the draw of magic out of him ceases.
“You’re turn, Reaper,” Darcy announces and falls back to Bellamy’s side.
Fox doesn’t even twitch, he just moves .
I’ve watched him fight hand-to-hand, but there’s usually weapons involved in those fights.
This time, he attacks unarmed. The two of them are a blur to watch, and honestly, I can’t follow the furious flash of their fists and kicks.
They’re both very good at hand-to-hand combat, but this isn’t Hollywood where everything is scripted and choreographed for film.
It’s a fight, and it’s difficult to keep up with, and they move too quickly for me to see.
Just imagine Keanu Reeves in the Matrix fighting Mr. Smith, but you know, no slowy-downy parts.
What? That’s a legitimate descriptive-word technique for the verbal, why can’t I use it? Don’t be prejudiced against the nonverbal. We can add the ee sound too. We just can’t make the ee sound.
Belaphor is about a match for Fox in speed and strength, which begs the question:
I thought the Nephilim were giants?
I send that in the group chat that includes Darcy.
Darcy and Bellamy both pull out their phones and check my message.
“They’ve been bred down to normal size. The originals were around twenty-five feet tall.
Crazy big. But rumor has it they had small dicks since they were able to breed human women,” Darcy snickers.
“Rumor also has it, today’s Nephilim still have small dicks.
” He says that loud enough for Belaphor to hear him.
We don’t dick-shame in our family. All dicks are beautiful.
Darcy winks at me. “Nothing to be ashamed of in your family.”
I have not been naked in front of this man, but, ahem, Fox’s fighting always turns me on, and my suit isn’t designed to hide my assets; Darcy isn’t shy about looking at my crotch.
Oh hey, look at that, Fox got his elbow around Belaphor’s neck.
And now he’s on the floor, flipped over Belaphor’s shoulder.
Santanos is looking a little pale.
Should we do something about the Avatar? I mean, we could probably take him while Fox is keeping Belaphor busy.
Bellamy considers this while Darcy outright dismisses it.
“I’m not touching that fucktard,” Darcy grunts.
Bellamy’s expression says he agrees with Darcy. “It’s a risk to touch him. If he’s in need of power, his magic will lash out. I don’t really want his magic making a mess in my pants again.”
Ugh. Yeah, no thanks. Any way we can get his minions to come retrieve him?
“Sure, but we need to know where we are.”
We both look at Darcy, who shrugs. “GPS on your phones should work. We haven’t crossed dimensions.”
I leave the details to Bellamy, but I do check over his shoulder where we are. Huh. Nova Scotia. Odd place to set up camp.
The fighting noises suddenly stop, bringing my attention to where Fox stands over Belaphor’s body, head turned the wrong way. He points at the man. “That’s an immortal.”
“Shit,” Darcy cusses and quickly grabs his athame off his belt, running to the body and stabbing Belaphor through the ear. “Ok, he’s down for now. I want my athame back when you get him secured.”
“I’ll make sure you get it,” Fox agrees, picking the body up and heading out the only door into the room.
Bellamy pushes me to follow. I guess we’re leaving Santanos tied to a table. Can’t say I’m sad about that.