Strife: Hidden Book Four (26 page)

It was hard to breathe. I knew Nain had this ability to be sweet. The letters he’d written me had showed another side of him, one I hadn’t seen much of in the short time we’d been together. Now, with time and a lot of insanity behind us, he was letting me see him. And he was freaking irresistible. “You’re going to ruin my rep as a badass, saying shit like that,” I finally said. He squeezed my hip again, pressed his lips to my shoulder.

“Your secret’s safe with me.
You
are safe with me,” he said.

“We’ll see,” I said, wanting to believe him. Wanting to take that final step, back where I knew I belonged.

“Take your time, then. I’m not going anywhere.”

I put my hand over his on my hip, and we twined our fingers together. I fell asleep, and when I dreamed, I dreamed of the demon beside me.

“Molls, wake up.” Nain’s voice, his hand shaking my hip. I rolled over and looked at him. He was standing beside the bed, pulling on a shirt.

“What’s going on?” I asked, pushing the covers off of me.

“Shit just went crazy out there. There are fights breaking out all over the city. Strife’s people are attacking in broad daylight.”

I stared at him, and he pointed toward the television. It was showing a live news report of fighting in a neighborhood I knew well, East English Village. I could see shifters, demons, in their true forms, just destroying shit. It looked like there were other shifters fighting against them, and I glanced toward Nain.

“Brennan got the shifter coalition moving on it as soon as we started hearing about any weirdness.”

I got out of bed and grabbed a pair of jeans and a black top out of my dresser, went into the bathroom and got dressed. I came out, braiding my hair, to find Nain on the phone. I pulled my shoes on and we left the loft, heading down the elevator toward his truck.

He hung up. “Jones. Shit is crazy in East English Village, Hamtramck, Mexicantown, and Delray. He says Delray is the worst of it right now.”

“So that’s where we’re going,”I said, and he nodded. “I could just rematerialize us there.”

He shook his head. “Save it. We might need all your scary powers later. And I don’t want you in pain.”

“I wonder if this is organized or just the effect of her prolonged influence here,” I said. “I mean, I know the thing with Shanti last night was her. She planned that and taunted me with it. That’s what she does here. That’s her whole thing, trying to get back at me for Ares and Enyo.”

“Yeah, but didn’t you say that chaos adds to her power, the same way fear added to Terror’s power?” he asked as he maneuvered the truck through the streets. It was eerily empty; smart people had decided to stay off the streets today. Good thinking.

“Yes.” I glanced over at him. “So you don’t think this is random.”

He took a deep breath. “I know I’m a suspicious, crusty old man, but this feels like a set up. Maybe she’s trying to get herself all powered up to come at you.”

I remembered Tisiphone predicting that it would probably happen that way. “So she’s probably going to make her move against me soon.”

“I’d bet money on it. Plus word probably got back to her that she didn’t succeed in killing Shanti. That probably pissed her off.”

I nodded.

He pulled up to a red light and looked over at me. His eyes met mine. “This is going to be bad. They’re putting us out in the open. They’re attacking whoever the hell they want.”

“We’ll just have to be badder than them,” I said, and he reached over and took my hand.

“We’re pretty good at that,” he said as he started driving again.

When we reached Delray, it was obvious that there was a whole lot wrong. The Delray neighborhood was one of those places that had once been a bustling neighborhood, and then had been slowly but surely destroyed by the mess and stink that comes with manufacturing plants. It was destroyed even more over the possibility of a second bridge to Canada that would have seen most of the buildings bought up and demolished. The bridge issue just kind of lingered for a long time, and in the meantime, no one wanted to risk buying a home or business in a place where the neighborhood would cease to exist if the bridge happened. It was usually like a ghost town.

We parked the truck on Fort Street and got out. We could hear screams. Buildings were on fire. About a block down, we saw a group of demons facing off against some of our shifters. We stalked toward the group. Nain reached over and pulled me close, kissed me hard on the lips.

“Be careful,” he murmured.

“Always,” I said, and I felt a little humor from him mixed in with all the anger and excitement.

Yes, excitement. We enjoy battle. As much as we hate it, as much as we hate that it causes pain to people and makes a mess… battle is one of those things that gets our hearts pumping. Nain and I had always been the same in that way.

We dove into the fight and I lost all track of time as Strife’s people just kept coming at us. We got it mostly under control, and Stone and a few shifters showed up to take our place and tell us we were needed in Hamtramck, which had gotten progressively worse as the day had gone on.

“My way,” I said to Nain, taking his hand. I focused on a street I knew well in Hamtramck, and a few seconds later, we rematerialized there.

Right in the middle of a huge freaking fight between the vampires who’d joined the fight as night fell and our own people. E was there, using her daggers against as many vampires as she could.

The neighborhood burned. DFD couldn’t even get in to put the fires out if they’d wanted to.

“E,” I shouted.

“Yes, demon girl,” she answered, stabbing a vampire in the throat.

“Can you go tell my parents their baby girl would really appreciate their fucking help right now?”

She laughed, stabbed the vampire again.

“Should I use those words exactly?”

“Yes.” I kept fighting, noting that she’d disappeared. I hoped they’d come. This was beyond out of control. We’d been fighting since a little after eight o’clock that morning, and it seemed like the supernaturals who were hell-bent on starting trouble just kept coming. Their numbers seemed almost limitless.

I fought, my arms starting to ache with the constant swinging of my sword. I wanted to use my powers, but I knew that the way they weakened me would only make trouble for me in these conditions. Nether was raging, excited by all of the violence, and there was not a chance in hell I was giving her a chance to take control.

So I’d just have to kick ass the old-fashioned way, and be extremely annoyed by just how many enemies we had.

I mean, it was clear we had them. We all knew that. We knew that those of us who tried to keep things in control were in the minority in the supernatural community. Most supernaturals didn’t care one way or another how things fell. And those who wanted to take whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, had always outnumbered us. It was just kind of shocking to see them all at once, working together instead of alone or in small groups. They generally didn’t trust one another, constantly fighting for dominance.

Fucking Strife.

That was my most common thought as I cut my way through the group that was attacking this particular neighborhood of bungalows and mature oak trees. I could see Nain a few houses down, fighting his own group of vampires.

I felt E return, and she started fighting back to back with me.

“Do you want the good news first or the bad news?”

“Good news,” I muttered, slicing out at a werewolf.

“Your parents are fine. They are keeping busy.”

“Okay. Bad news?”

“They’re busy fighting to keep the Titans in Tartarus. They can’t come.”

I cursed.

“But they send their regards and say they’ll see you as soon as they possibly can.”

I grunted, swung the sword again. My arms felt like jelly. “Why does everything have to go insane at once?” I complained. “The universe couldn’t have scheduled this shit out better? ‘Okay, Detroit becomes a war zone on the twenty-fifth of November. The Titans try to escape on December eleventh.’ See? How hard is it really?” I muttered.

E laughed as she kicked out at a vampire. “You’ll have to fill out one of those suggestion forms I keep hearing about.”

I shook my head and kept fighting. It was all I could do. We were outnumbered and very much on our own.

Chapter Sixteen

I was taking a breather, hunkered down in one of the houses we were using as a base of operations. It had been abandoned long ago, and you could see daylight through the roof, but there was food and water stored inside, and several witches were administering first aid. I was holding a compress against a nasty wound a shifter had taken, waiting for the witch to help him, when I saw Jones come into the house. He looked around, then walked toward me.

“How are you holding up?” he asked me.

“I’m okay. This is insane.”

He nodded. The witch came over and thanked me for my help. Then she went to work cleaning and stitching him up, and Jones and I wandered away. I slugged back most of a bottle of water, and Jones grabbed a small bag of pretzels.

“I need to talk to you for a minute,” he said, and I nodded. He gestured toward the back porch, and I followed him. You could still hear sirens. The occasional booms and crashes. Screams and shouts. I glanced at Jones, and he was watching me.

“Things are a mess, Angel,” he said. He rested his hands on the rickety railing and stared out at nothing. “Times are changing.”

“We’re not hidden anymore,” I said. “There is no pretending we don’t exist.”

“Exactly,” he said, nodding. “The thing is, we weren’t all that secret to begin with. The government has apparently known we exist for a long time now.”

I watched him. “Seriously?”

He nodded, and I felt nervousness from him. This entire thing had freaked all of us out. We’d been used to a certain way of life, to living in the shadows. And because of Strife and the chaos she’d stirred up, we were out in the open. It was terrifying for us, and I could only imagine that it was even more upsetting for the Normals, who now had to face the fact that there were powerful beings out there. And that some of those powerful beings were just fine with hurting them.

“I was approached this morning by an agent. Department of Homeland Security,” he said, meeting my eyes.

“What did he want?”

He took a breath. “He wanted me to talk to you. He knows we know one another. Knows we work together.”

“How do they know that?”

“That’s what I asked him. He got all shifty on me. All he said is they know about Nain’s team. Your team. The shifter coalition. All of it. And they’re particularly interested in you.”

“Why?”

“Probably for the same reason just about everyone is. You’ve got a certain amount of fame here in the city. People believe in you. Pray to you.”

“Which is nuts,” I muttered.

“I don’t think it’s a bad way to go, for what it’s worth. You might not consider yourself a god, but I’d bet everything I have on you saving the day. And there are a whole lot of people in this city, supernatural or not, who feel the same way.”

“I was getting the feeling I made you nervous,” I said.

“You do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in you.”

“So what did they want you to talk to me about?”

He was silent a minute. “They want you to be the face of supernaturals here in the city. They want you to do a presser, talk to the people. Reassure them to try to contain the chaos.”

“They want me to give a speech?” I asked in disbelief.

He laughed a little. “Yeah. I think they want it to be a regular thing, at least until things calm down.”

“Hell no,“ I said, crossing my arms. “Not a chance in hell.”

“I think it would help, Angel,” he said, meeting my eyes again. “I think you could do some good here.”

“Did they tell you to say that?”

“They wanted me to ask you. And I did what they wanted. I’m telling you now what I feel, and think you’re exactly what this city needs right now. You always have been.”

“Oh, please,” I said.

“You gave people something to believe in. Do you have any idea how it feels to feel powerless, and then to find out there’s someone out there who will stop at nothing to kick ass on your behalf? Those who believe in you, those who are alive today because you saved them… they feel that way about you. My daughter feels that way about you. And for what it’s worth, I do, too.”

I didn’t know what to say. “I’m not a hero. I’m just a nutcase who runs into trouble instead of running away from it. And I don’t think weird, awkward me would reassure anyone.”

He shook his head. “We need something here, Angel. It can’t keep on this way. There are people getting hurt.”

“And I’ll do what I do best. I’ll go out there and try to protect them. From the shadows, the way I always have. This isn’t a comic book, chief.”

“No. This is real, and so are you. You say you love this city? Prove it.”

I glared at him. “I do. Every single day of my life. I want to know how they know so much about us. Can you try to find out?”

He nodded. “At least consider it, Molly.”