Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
B ianca chose not to question how they left a Toronto hotel at ten thirty in the morning, she closed her eyes for a quick nap, and woke up pulling into the parking lot of Clayton’s general store. The dashboard clock told her she’d been napping for twenty minutes, and they’d traveled 360 kilometers.
Lucifer was behind the wheel and still exuding a scary amount of hell prince fuckoffery. He glanced at her, eyes solid black, and she found that oddly sexy. Maybe that made her the strange one.
“Tell me where to go,” he said.
“Or I could drive?” She prayed like hell he wasn’t going to take offense and get even angrier.
Actual smoke came out of his nose, and he growled.
And that was enough to snap her out of her awestruck thrall. “Ew!”
“What?” He blinked, and his eyes returned to normal.
“Your nose.” She shuddered. “God, I don’t even want to think about what else is coming out of your nose with the smoke.”
Aaand his eyes went scary again. “God has naught to do with this.”
“And you can stop that as well.” Bianca jabbed her fore and middle fingers at his eyes. There was only so much cowering she had in her. “It freaks me out.”
“Bianca,” he rasped like the creature from the crypt in some cheap horror movie.
“Don’t Bianca me.” She shoved open her car door. “You’re the one going all tomb voice and abyss eyes on me.” She stomped around to the other side of the car and yanked the door open. “And those time warpy things you do are going to make me blow chunks.” She waved an imperious hand at him. “Out you get.”
He stared at her. “Words fail me.”
“Well, that would be a first.” She repeated her out-you-get hand wave. “You can think about what you’re going to say as I drive.”
Amazingly, he did climb out. He towered over her, giving her more knee weakening eye action, and then strolled around the car and climbed into the passenger seat.
She had to adjust the seat to accommodate her shorter legs.
“Tomb voice?” He shook his head. “Abyss eyes?”
“What would you call them?” She pulled back onto the road. “You’re the one doing them.”
Christen lived in a newer townhome development on the outside of Clayton. Bloody developments were popping up all over the place. No piece of land was safe it seemed from some zealous developer with a vision for how your life should look.
Lucifer looked around him at the neat two-story homes on either side of the road. “Where are we?”
“I thought we’d start our search at Christen’s place.” She slowed down to turn into Christen’s drive. Stupid fucker still had his Christmas lights up. Bianca loved Christmas lights, but there was a time to display them, and late summer wasn’t it. “If we get no luck here, we can try Carmen.”
Carmen opened the door to their knock, thus killing two birds with one very unwelcome stone.
“Bianca?” She blinked, and then her face crumpled, and she wept. “Bee.”
Taking care of Carmen was second nature, and Bianca enfolded her in a hug. “Hey sweetie, not doing so good?”
“He’s g…gone.” Carmen sobbed. “We went to bed, and when I woke up, he was gone.”
“Why do all the houses look the same?” Lucifer asked from behind them.
She didn’t have time to deal with him and Carmen. Although he had a point. Why did developers insist on cramming people into little carbon copy boxes? “I’m so sorry.” Bianca stroked Carmen’s back. “Let’s go inside.”
“Smashing idea,” Lucifer drawled.
She might smash his face if he didn’t button it. Bianca took a deep breath. She wasn’t really annoyed with Lucifer. Well, no more annoyed than usual. Finding Carmen here was a shock. She’d had no idea Christen and Carmen had progressed to the point where her sister stayed over. Now was not the time for those questions, however, and she led her sister into the open plan lounge to the right of the front door.
Lucifer loomed behind them, his impatience a palpable cloud at her back. She sincerely hoped he wasn’t doing that icky smoke out his nose thing again.
Her baby sister needed her, and Bianca maneuvered Carmen to Christen’s huge faux leather sofa and sat beside her. “Why don’t we sit here, and you can tell me what happened?”
The sofa ate up most of the space in the room. Judging by the other bits and pieces of Carmen’s crammed around the sofa, things had progressed further than the odd sleepover. A laundry basket of Christen and Carmen’s clothing sat on the chrome and glass coffee table. Carmen’s WiFi speaker was fighting for space on the mantel beside Christen’s oversize TV.
Scowling, Lucifer dropped into an armchair Bianca had last seen in the flat Carmen shared with an old school friend. Between the table, the armchair, and the giant sofa, he had his knees almost up around his ears.
Bianca would love to snap a quick picture, but Carmen was looking at her with a splotchy tear-stained face. “It’s not true what Patty said.”
Bianca didn’t have it in her to lie, so she went with a verbal sidestep. “Did he say anything about where he might be going?”
“Nooo,” Carmen wailed and pressed her face into Bianca’s shoulder. “He didn’t even say he was going anywhere.” She peered up at her. “But he wouldn’t have left me like that. I know he wouldn’t.” Carmen sniffed and frowned. “At least, not without a good reason.”
Bianca made a comforting noise.
Lucifer sent her a pointed stare to get on with it.
He must be getting a crick in his knees.
She pushed a tendril from Carmen’s soggy face. “How about a cup of tea?” Instead of getting a knee cramp and glaring at her, Lucifer could make himself useful.
Carmen sniffed. “I’d like that.”
“Good.” Meeting Lucifer’s gaze, Bianca jerked her head at the kitchen.
He glared back.
She glared harder.
The door opened, and Raphael strode in. “Tea sounds like a wonderful idea.”
Unwrapping herself from Bianca, Carmen gaped at him. “Who are you?”
“I’m Raphael.” He smiled. His golden eyes shone like they were lit from within. “But you can call me Rafe.”
“Rafe?” Carmen swallowed.
Raphael was a lot to take in with his perfect body and gorgeous smile. He’d also never told Bianca she could call him Rafe.
“Good.” Lucifer shot to his feet, dislodging the shade on an arched floor lamp. “Raphael will make the tea while Bianca and I look around.”
Carmen bristled. “What do you mean look around? I told you he wasn’t here.”
“For clues as to where Weaz—Christen has gone.” Lucifer wrestled the lamp shade back into place.
Carmen narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”
“So we can find him.” Bianca was getting too much enjoyment out of Lucifer versus the lamp shade.
“Would you like to show me where the tea things are?” Raphael held out a hand to Carmen. “And I’m sure they’re only going to have a quick look and see if they can find anything to tell us where Christen has gone.”
“They won’t hurt him? When they find him.” Carmen took Raphael’s hand and stood.
“Of course not.” Raphael put an arm around Carmen and guided her to the kitchen. “We want to find him and bring him back to you.”
Bianca glared at Raphael. Archangels shouldn’t blatantly lie like that. They had no idea what they were going to do with him when they found Christen.
“Oh-okay.” Carmen stared at Raphael like he’d bewitched her.
Maybe Bianca had gotten used to perfect beings popping in and out of her life, but Raphael had never had that effect on her. Objectively speaking, she recognized he was beautiful. Rich, flawless umber skin over aquiline features. A carved, pouty mouth and those mesmerizing golden eyes. He was a lot for a girl to take in. Except it didn’t affect her.
With Lucifer, on the other hand, she had to remind herself not to stare. Probably because he could be such a dick. Her reasoning didn’t even make sense to her, but she wasn’t going to interrogate it.
“Shall we?” Lucifer motioned the stairs beside the kitchen.
Carmen’s head snapped round. “Don’t go into the spare bedroom. That’s Christen’s private space. Not even I go in there.”
Bianca’s gaze met Lucifer’s, and they both knew exactly where their search was going to start.
“Oh, peppermint tea,” Raphael said from the kitchen. “I love peppermint tea.”
“Really?” Carmen giggled. “It’s my favorite.”
The door to the spare bedroom was the first they reached at the top of the stairs and was locked. Of course it was. If she’d been the plucky sort, she’d have been able to produce a hair pin from her stylish updo and pick the lock. Unfortunately, she didn’t have an updo or any idea how to pick a lock.
The murmur of Raphael and Carmen’s voices drifted up the stairs.
Lucifer jiggled the door handle.
“It’s locked,” Bianca whispered.
“Is it?” One dark eyebrow shot up and Lucifer opened the door.
“Huh.” Bianca stepped into the room. “Nifty little tri—what the fuck.”
Photos everywhere. All over the walls. In frames on the desk. Even the screensaver on Christen’s desktop and all of her.
Lucifer shut the door behind him and took it all in.
“It’s me,” Bianca said unnecessarily as she struggled to process. “They’re all of me.”
“Indeed.” A muscle ticked in Lucifer’s jaw, and his eyes were doing that scary thing again.
“Christen despises me. He broke up with me.” Bianca couldn’t get her mind to slow down and stick on a thought. There were photos of her walking down the street, in the grocery store, stepping out of her front door. She felt shocked, sickened, violated and angry. So very, very angry.
Lucifer approached the wall opposite the desk. He ripped photos down. “He’s obsessed with you.”
“What are those?” Bianca tried to snatch the photos out of his hand. Who the fuck even printed photos these days?
“Never mind.” Light flared and ashes drifted from Lucifer’s palm. “You don’t need to see those.”
An awful suspicion burgeoned in her mind. “Was I naked?” Her voice grew shrill in her panic. “Has he been taking naked photos of me?”
She lunged for the wall, but Lucifer blocked her. “He will pay for this.” His voice deepened with menace and vibrated from his big chest. “But you don’t need to see how much of a degenerate he is.”
Raising one hand, Lucifer flashed a super bright light through the room.
Bianca blinked the black spots out of her vision.
It was all gone. Ashes floated in the air and settled on the beige carpet. Little square scorch marks pocked the walls. Even the blackout curtains and the desk were gone. “What did you do?”
“He had no right.” Lucifer growled. “And he will pay.”
* * *
Humans were scum. Rage that would have made his brother proud pounded through Lucifer. Over the centuries, he’d seen humans descend to depths of depravity and evil he could not have imagined.
Humans had invented their notion of hell and the devil and used it to explain away their worst actions. If they could blame an external force, then they never had to be accountable for the fact that hell existed amongst them and within them.
He’d certainly borne silent witness to worse iniquities than he’d seen in this room, but this hit him like a personal affront.
The fucker had been stalking Bianca. Taking photos of her going about her day, and photos of her sleeping, changing, showering. Invading her life from the shadows and violating her.
He cupped her elbow. “Let’s go.”
Bianca was paper-white and shaking. He didn’t want her subjected to any more of this fuckery.
Up until now, Christen had irked and annoyed him. He’d found the prick laughable and pathetic, but now…
Lucifer had to pause and breathe deep before he leveled the house.
Now, he wanted to wipe Christen from existence. Viciously and permanently clean the earth plane of the stain of his existence.
But first, he had to see to Bianca.
“I don’t understand.” She allowed him to lead her from the room. “Why?”
Her fragility tugged at him and made his chest ache. Trying to lend her strength, he pulled her into his arms and held her.
“You’re hugging me again,” she whispered against his chest.
Her weight resting against him grounded Lucifer. “You’re imagining things.”
She wouldn’t allow him to hold her for much longer, so he took what she’d give in greedy gulps. He craved soothing her, erasing the vile intrusion. “We will find him,” he promised.
Raphael appeared on the stairs. He glanced at Bianca, and then looked at him.
Lucifer shook his head. He couldn’t explain now, or he’d lose his tenuous grip on his rage. Bianca needed him to stay calm. “Carmen?”
“Asleep on the sofa downstairs,” Raphael said.
Bianca stirred, and then disentangled herself. She took a deep breath, and her tough-girl mask descended. One day, he would discover how his haglette had learned to get so resilient. Women like Bianca weren’t born with armor plating. Life and other people made them that way. He wanted to know the story behind her protective barriers and hard edges.
The last pieces of Bianca’s mask fell into place. “Is she okay?”
Raphael nodded. “She’s all talked out.” He smiled. “And she gave me a good lead on how to find Christen.”