Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Sorcha was glad she was leaning against Delilah at that disclosure.
Holy shit.
“Carlos the werewolf is our captain’s brother?” she repeated.
Luke nodded slowly. “I knew there was something peculiar about Reyes that I couldn’t peg. Never guessed this was what she was hiding.”
“When you were at the party, couldn’t you tell he was a werewolf?”
“I wasn’t at the party. The picture is one Bernadette sent to me.”
Oh.
That made her wonder something else as she looked from Luke’s phone to his face. “Wait. Do you think our captain is a werewolf, too?”
“No. This breed isn’t hereditary. Although…she could have been bitten or scratched. So, maybe. But it would be off for me not to detect it on her. Which isn’t impossible. Some werewolves can hide themselves from me.” He opened the car door for her. “I think we should at least ask.”
Definitely.
Their captain’s brother was a werewolf.Holy shit, she repeated silently as she slid into the passenger seat.
Luke closed the door and rounded the car.
Reyes and the werewolf. Sounded like some cheesy novel title.
As Luke got in, another thought went through her mind. “What if Reyes doesn’t know her brother’s a werewolf?”
“Then we’re screwed.”
She didn’t appreciate his humor. “What do you think she’ll say?”
“No idea, and there’s no use in speculating. She’ll either know and have an excuse as to why it was kept secret, or she doesn’t know and will have his ass. Either way, should be interesting. Let’s go rip off a Band-Aid.”
For some reason that put an image in her head of someone pulling a piece of duct tape off the arm of a fully transformed werewolf.
Ouch.
Reaching for her purse, Sorcha pulled out her reMarkable tablet to start making notes while Luke drove them back to their office.
It didn’t take long to get there and park in the garage. Delilah had been particularly quiet for the ride back.
“Should I be worried that Delilah hasn’t said anything?” she asked as she got out of the car.
Luke shook his head. “She’s in Hell at the moment.”
“Oh?”
“My father recalled her. Probably over something my mother said to get her cleared out of here. Or, knowing my mother, it’s a whole ’cause, fuck you, Ken move just to screw with D.”
That made sense. His mother couldn’t stand Delilah, and it annoyed the hellhound that Delilah constantly intruded on Luke’s life and space. “Gotcha.”
She led him out of the garage, through the back door that opened into the courtyard where a pool rested across the lawn from their garden-level offices.
It was the pool where she’d first met Luke and the sight of it always made her smile.
And as much as Sorcha wanted to go into her office and research, she veered off to the spiral stairs on her right that led up to the main floor.
As Luke had noted, she wanted to speak to Reyes as quickly as possible. Find out what the woman knew and if she could give them a lead on the werewolf killings.
Sorcha opened the door and walked into an invisible wall of cool air that felt so good, she sighed in relief. Even though it was fall, Savannah was still very hot.
“Please don’t leave the door open!” Ryan Braddach called from her desk down the hall, just inside the front door. “I hate being on the main floor where everyone lets the heat in during summer and cold in during the winter. It’s a wonder I don’t keep getting pneumonia.”
The woman was always a bit surly, but Sorcha liked her anyway. “Sorry.”
Ryan leaned over the desk so that she could see Sorcha and Luke coming in. “Oh, hey! Didn’t realize it was you. Sorry for being bitchy. Christian’s been coming and going all day. I think he’s fighting with Winslow and is heading outside to sneak a vape.”
Sorcha laughed. Winslow was the resident ghost who shared the upstairs room where Christian made his office. Though Winslow left her alone, he was a poisoning victim who forever turned over whatever drink Christian had. At least that was what he’d done when Christian first moved in.
But Sorcha had a suspicion that Winslow was now doing it just to irritate his office mate.
Their fights were legendary.
“Is Reyes in?” Luke asked Ryan as he stepped past Sorcha.
“Yeah. She had a meeting with Bernadette, but they should be finished by now.”
Curiously, Sorcha cocked her head at the sight of a deck of tarot cards on Ryan’s desk. “You doing a reading?”
Ryan crooked her finger to motion her closer. “You won’t believe this.” She used a pencil to scoot the cards closer to the edge of the desk. “They were part of our case. They’re haunted as shit!”
Wouldn’t be the first time. In this job, Sorcha had become used to haunted items, especially things like tarot cards. And don’t get her started on baby dolls.
Shiver…
“How so?” she asked Ryan.
“No matter how much you shuffle them, they always come up with the Devil, the Tower, Ten of Swords, and Judgment. Even if you do a three-card layout, the missing one will pop out of the deck and fall on top of the other three.”
Sorcha was suspicious of that. “Statistically impossible.”
“Oh, I know. One in one-hundred-fifty-six per position per card.”
“It’s a summoning deck.” Luke reached across Sorcha to pick it up and thumb through the cards. “It’s not haunted. It’s cursed.”
That caught both their attention.
“Any more details?” Ryan asked excitedly.
“Sure. You want to talk to the chort trapped in it?”
Sorcha stepped back at the same time Ryan scooted her chair farther away.
Eyes wide, Ryan stared at him. “What’s a chort?”
“Lesser demon. Shapeshifter. They barter souls and back in the day, I used a lot of them to search out vermin. This one in particular is a nasty little beast.” Luke pulled the Fool from the deck. “Otakar, I summon you to form.”
Two heartbeats later, a tall, handsome man appeared. The moment he saw Luke, his eyes flared and he shrank back. “Dominus!” He turned into a short, warted man with a twisted form, horns, and an actual tail that flicked around his body.
Sorcha gaped as he bowed low before Luke.
“Stop it, Otakar. I’m not my father, and I don’t like pomp and ceremony.” Luke gestured toward them. “Say hi to the ladies and play nice.”
Otakar immediately ceased bowing before Luke and turned to face Sorcha. “What can I do for you, my pretty one?”
Luke picked him up by the scruff of his neck. “Nothing. You aren’t to touch these women, understood?”
He nodded vigorously.
“You have any questions for him?” Luke asked Ryan.
Ryan nodded. “So, so many. How did you get trapped in the cards?”
“Not trapped. I locked myself in there.” Otakar gave her a twisted smile. “Humans are stupid. Any idea how many souls I can get from a simple deck of cards? It’s amazing.”
Ryan paled. “Not sure I want to know.”
Luke placed the deck back on her desk. “No, you don’t. It’s why people shouldn’t play with things they don’t understand. A little knowledge is a most dangerous thing.” He started for the stairs.
“You’re not banishing me, dominus?” Otakar asked.
Luke shrugged. “Why should I? You’re just doing your job. But don’t do it to Ryan. Answer her questions, then get back in the cards.”
Ryan’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gulping air. “Aren’t we supposed to banish them?”
Pausing, Luke turned back toward her with a quirked brow. “Why? He’s not bothering anyone here.”
Otakar grinned at Ryan.
Sorcha had no response to that. On the one hand, Luke was right. Otakar wasn’t bugging anyone. At least not at the moment. But on the other, she rather agreed with Ryan. The chort shouldn’t be left to roam around and barter for people’s souls.
Rushing to catch up to Luke, she cleared her throat. “Is it safe to leave them alone?”
“Yeah. He won’t bother her now.”
She wanted to believe that, but her job … and life … had given her serious trust issues. “You’re really going to leave him here?”
Luke scowled as she passed him on the stairs. “Why wouldn’t I?”
This was when she remembered he really was a prince of Hell. Things that seemed so obvious to her, such as vanquishing and removing all evil from the world, were lost on him.
He didn’t fight or banish demons. He cuddled up with them.
“I know you think evil needs to exist—”
“Sorcha, we are never going to agree on this. But yes, trust me. There are a lot of people in the world who need evil and rely on it. They can’t be happy in their lives.
No matter what. They won’t let themselves.
And before you say that’s not true, remember you’re not the average person.
I’ve been alive for centuries. Believe me when I tell you that The Matrix was right about one thing.
Humanity cannot handle perfection. It’s not in your DNA.
That’s why Eve took the big bite. By nature, humanity is self-destructive.
You need evil in order to survive and thrive. ”
“God doesn’t make mistakes.” Her default was always the teachings of her grandfather.
“No, but humanity does. God gave you free will. With it comes fault and a lot of idiocy. While God doesn’t make mistakes, He does make imperfections.”
The grand dichotomy that she had such a hard time understanding.
Even when he and her grandfather tried to explain it, she couldn’t wrap her mind around that concept. It just didn’t seem right.
But who was she to question what she couldn’t understand?
Faith of the mustard seed. Her grandfather’s favorite default.
Fine, she’d cut Luke slack. While he was a creature of evil, he didn’t follow it.
As he said, free will.
The grand cure-all. People chose their path. Against odds and against reason.
But right now, she had a shiver down her spine when it came to leaving Otakar alone with Ryan.
They neared the captain’s door that was slightly ajar.
“Captain?” Sorcha knocked lightly. “You have a minute?”
“Sure. Come in.”
Elana was a tiny woman and yet she had a massive presence that made her seem a lot taller than her petite height. Even though she wasn’t that much older than Sorcha, the captain held an aura about her that said she was a lot wiser than the average person.
From the moment Sorcha had first interviewed with her, she’d adored the woman.