Angel Falls (Cassandra Bick Chronicles Book 3) (17 page)

We threw the spare duvet over my blood-splattered bed and slept with it rolled around us like a sleeping bag. Cain hadn’t even undressed, simply fallen beside me in his t-shirt and unfastened jeans. He held me so tight I barely moved in my sleep, waking once with a start but then, realising we were still alone, burrowing myself back in against him, losing myself in his embrace.

I had no idea what time it was when I finally woke up, stirred by the cat tunnelling his way under the duvet and indicating he would like feeding, and whether that was with cat food or our toes was entirely our decision. I turned onto my back, too bone-weary to get up, and Cain shifted, slightly, to accommodate my movement without letting me go. His belt buckle was digging into me and I was pretty sure I’d have a neat outline of a zipper pressed into my flesh when I made it out of bed, but even that mild discomfort couldn’t convince me to move. I wanted to stay here, in this cocoon, and let the vampires and the hunters and the angels all go battle it out amongst themselves while we just stayed in bed. Besides, I knew as soon as we were both awake, we’d be fighting.

***

‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!’ Cain exclaimed, his usual authoritative tone slightly hampered by the fact I’d sneakily waited till he was eating breakfast to inform him of my plans for what remained of the day, so he was protesting through a mouth full of bagel. Dante, who’d been draped over his shoulder like a shawl, glared at me, since my announcement had also stopped Cain from feeding him bits of bacon.

‘No, I’m not. I need to go into work for a few hours. The human side of the business still needs running, and I’ll make sure I’m out of there by dark.’

‘Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?’

‘As opposed to staying in the inviolate sanctuary of my home?’ I snapped, and he frowned, having to concede my point.

‘How about I pay you to stay here?’ he ventured, eventually, in the slightly plaintive tones of a last ditch attempt. ‘I can cover your bills till this all blows over.’

‘It’s not about the money, Cain,’ I sighed, even though a voice inside me was reminding me how much a new kitchen would cost, so was pretty keen on the money right now. ‘It’s my business. It matters to me. When all this is over, I want something…’ I trailed off, running out of steam. I didn’t want to vocalise it, but we both knew what I was thinking. Whatever happened with the vampires, the Valkyries or the angels, for good reasons or bad, Cain would be leaving.

‘You took money from Laclos.’

‘As an investor.’

‘So why can’t I be an investor?’

‘Because he’s a silent investor. You’d be more of a never frigging shuts up investor.’

He pouted at that – a new look for him – and I stepped forward and kissed him lightly, smiling at his bready, buttery taste. The cat looked put out by this, so I petted him too for good measure. Great, two moody males in my life.

‘I’m sorry. That came out meaner than I meant it to. But I’m not a hunter, Cain. I’m not a heroine. I’m a woman with no savings, a London mortgage and a proven track record of being unable to hold down an office job.’ He softened slightly at my conciliatory tone. ‘You and Jonesy go do whatever hunter stuff you need to, and I’ll meet you back here just before dark. Nobody is going to attack me in broad daylight.’ He opened his mouth to argue and I interrupted. ‘I’ll take the gun, and I’ll be with Medea.’

‘Medea who has no magic?’

‘Her fingers still work, I’m sure she can call the police just fine.’

He frowned, reluctant to let me go but knowing I was right. After all, if our enemies could teleport, I was as safe in one place as another.

‘You promise she’ll call me before she calls the police?’

‘You think you’ll get there faster?’

‘Babe, if I know you’re in trouble, I’ll be there before she hangs up the phone,’ he grinned, and kissed me. Though we both knew it wasn’t true – there’d been plenty of times I’d needed him and he’d been late or not there, since in some ways he was as human as the rest of us – but if that was the lie we needed to get on with our days, so be it. I leaned into his kiss, smiling.

‘OK. And I won’t take your money for my work. But I will let you buy me a new fridge and a kitchen table.’

***

I was still pretty exhausted as I headed off to work – if nothing else, I envied the angels the ability to materialise wherever they wanted to – but at least there was good news. The explosion at St Paul’s had now been put down to some drunk tourists who had thought the garden of one of the country’s best-known landmarks would be a good place to have a late night BBQ and who had been rewarded for their blasphemy with an exploding gas stove. This was obviously nonsense, but I was pleased the vampires had camouflaged their attack so well. This meant Laclos’ people could return without having to worry about police and anti-terrorism units, and, equally importantly, it meant my city wasn’t plunged into fear about another terrorist attack.

Cain hadn’t gone into any detail about what he and Jonesy were doing, or if his wife was playing any part in it, and I had been glad not to ask. While the reappearance of the two most important women – beings – from Cain’s past wasn’t exactly a chucklefest for either of us, it wasn’t sending me into the insecurity spiral I would have expected. In fact, it was having the opposite effect – it was obvious how important his wife still was to him, which made it all the more difficult to ignore his unwavering attention to me. We might fight, he might even feel for her things he’d never feel for me, but I couldn’t pretend I was just the convenient option any more, and with all the shit we had to worry about, even I couldn’t be so self-indulgent as to turn this into a crisis that was about me and my feelings. Plus, I couldn’t help recalling Katie’s stern words from a few months ago, when we’d been shopping for clothes and I’d been bemoaning the fact that every changing room mirror made me fear that any moment I’d be speared by Captain Ahab. With the no-nonsense tones of one who patches up head wounds for a living, she’d rolled her eyes at me and frowned: ‘I really think it’s time for the successful, home-owning businesswoman who has two of the hottest guys in London fighting over her to stop pretending she’s somehow being held back in life by the size of her arse,’ she’d muttered. This had earned her a reproving look from Medea and a hurt one from me, but though her reprimand had stung – and in my self-pity I’d brushed it off (at the time, neither guy was around so I wasn’t inclined to be consoled) – her words had come back to me since. I could huff about being surrounded once again by super-powered supermodels, or use my energy trying to get us all through the week alive.

The upside of this philosophy, of course, was also that I got to eat cake. Medea had beaten me to the office and had coffee bubbling away as I arrived, but I’d stopped at the patisserie on the way in, figuring we deserved a treat. Katie was right – a pot belly and a bit of an arse wasn’t going to kill me (there were plenty of other things queuing up for that privilege) and since the only thing currently bothering me about my inner thighs was the chafe marks from the scruff of Cain’s beard, I was damned well going to have cake while I could.

Medea smiled at me, gratefully, as I handed her a pastry, and kindly held off speaking until I had a mug of coffee in my hand.

‘So how are you holding up?’ I asked, sitting down to join her.

She pulled a face.

‘I’m a Wiccan without magic, my fiancée is spending half of her time as a dog, and I’m having frankly filthy thoughts about your boyfriend’s wife, so not fantastic.’

‘Mey!’ I exclaimed, shocked, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

‘Oh, Goddess’ sake, Cass, I’m engaged, I’m not blind. And she has that whole Scandinavian complete lack of inhibitions thing going. She came down to breakfast this morning stark naked!’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘I know!’

I hid my grin.

‘I thought as a Wiccan you’d be fine with all that natural nakedness, you know…dancing by moonlight in the nuddy, that sort of thing. And Katie spends a lot of her time with her kit off.’

‘Yeah, but I grew up in Glasgow. There’s a place for nudity, and that place is buried under 20 layers of vests and woolly jumpers. Except, of course, if you’re a bloke and the sun comes out or you’re a woman going drinking at the weekend, in which case near-public-nudity is the only acceptable option.’ She grinned and I smiled back: I’d grown up in a Northern town, I was familiar with the unperishable hardiness of the weekend partiers and their acres of exposed flesh.

‘Bet you’re glad she wasn’t staying at yours,’ she smirked.

‘You mean in case Cain was tempted by her beautiful soul?’

She looked puzzled and I belatedly remembered she hadn’t been there for the shape-shifting angel show and subsequent ‘it’s what’s on the inside that matters!’ only partially-convincing explanation.

‘No… I’ve seen those tits. I’m pretty sure it’s not just the inner beauty that’s the attraction.’ She cast an exaggeratedly appraising look at my own cleavage. ‘Though I think you’ve probably got her beat in that department.’

I laughed at that. It felt good to be just the two of us, sharing a joke, and I raised my mug in salute to absent, modesty-free Nordic goddesses and the distractions they offered.

‘Reassuring to know,’ I nodded, all seriousness, then the two of us chinked our mugs and dissolved into giggles.

***

Even without much vampire activity, there was plenty of work to keep us both going. My ‘B’ list – what I affectionately call the plastic fang brigade – always got plenty of interest, and I had belatedly got on board with
The Walking Dead
and acknowledged zombies weren’t going anywhere, and introduced a ‘zombie walk’ meet up. The appeal of this was totally lost on me, but I suppose if someone fancies you when you’re dressed in rags and decaying corpse make up, they probably do really like your personality, so maybe it makes sense in our increasingly shallow society. I’d also been approached by some LARPers (live action role play gamers) to set up a fake vampire hunt, which was fun to organise – mainly because I got to wheel out all my
Supernatural
jokes, whether they wanted them or not – but it was fiddly and involved a lot of organisation, not least in making sure that no real hunters or vampires ended up caught in the mix and got carried away. And, speaking of hunters, our work today was a couple of times interrupted by walk-ins who looked a little rougher round the edges than my usual clients, and who rifled through the leaflets, asked vague questions and then left, leaving the scent of cordite heavy on my Sense. Great: news of the bounty on Laclos had clearly spread, because it wasn’t like we had anything else to worry about.

All of this at least meant I was distracted from the miasma of gloom that, despite her best efforts to be cheery, hung around Medea. Only a few weeks ago, her life had been perfect: newly engaged to a woman she adores, everything to look forward to. Now – in no small part due to my interference, no matter how well-meaning I had been – that was all in disarray. She’d never blamed me (at least to my face) but I wondered if that was because she genuinely didn’t think it was my fault, or just because she realised you should wait until the flames are out before you criticise someone for playing with matches, and my personal conflagration was still burning merrily. As if reading these thoughts, she glanced up from her laptop, her expression pensive.

‘You know, once this is all… settled, we should have a conversation about the business.’

I froze. Oh, God. Was she quitting? She couldn’t quit! The very thought of it, of trying to do this without her, made me want to howl.

‘Um. OK.’

But not OK. This – whatever ‘this’ was – might never be properly settled, and I had enough on my mind without worrying about Medea’s Serious Talk.

‘Look,’ I said, fretfully. ‘You know I’m rubbish at suspense. Can’t you tell me what it is now?’

She looked taken off guard, but nodded, her expression serious. I felt tears prick in my eyes. She was going to quit!

She took a deep breath.

‘I want to be a full partner in the business.’

I stared at her, barely processing her words.

‘What?’ I gurgled, astonished.

‘Katie and I have talked it over, and we’d like to invest in the business. Which means co-ownership. Part-ownership, whatever. But something official…’

‘What?’ I repeated, uselessly. A few days ago my business was floundering, now people were queuing up to throw money at me? What was happening? But she misread my shock and hurried on, uncharacteristically nervous.

‘I’m sick of risking my life for a pay cheque, Cass. If this is going to be what it is – and I enjoy the job, and I think we’re genuinely doing something worthwhile in the community – then I want to be properly part of it.’ She took another breath, steeling herself. ‘And I love you dearly, Cass, but the more we’ve become friends, the less comfortable I am with being your assistant.’ She held up her hand to stay my protests, despite the fact there weren’t any. ‘I know this company was your idea and I’m happy to let you have the majority share or over-ruling vote, but I want a say, and I want a cut of the profits.’

I still hadn’t said anything, and she frowned at me.

‘Look, I’m really sorry if this upsets you or you think I’m being presumptuous, but…’

And then I spoke. Or I tried to, but it was mainly crying. Medea stared at me as I dissolved into ugly, heaving sobs of relief that gave way to the stresses of the week, so I wasn’t sure what I was crying about, only that I couldn’t stop. Aghast, she rushed over and put her arms around me, albeit gingerly – she’s not much of a hugger, and I imagine she was also worried about her clothes.

‘I thought you were quitting!’ I bubbled, when the worst of the deeply attractive avalanche of snot and tears had subsided and I vaguely resembled a coherent being once more.

‘So…’ she said, cautiously.

‘I think it’s a great idea! I love it!’ I managed, and she sank back into her chair, relieved. ‘You know I don’t make a lot of profit though, right?’