“A couple messages came through your inbox. I thought you might want to know about them.” Her voice sounded unnatural through the speakerphone.
“Go ahead,” Jonas said.
“The vampire councilman has been unsuccessful in reaching the demon councilman. He’s left several urgent messages and received no reply. He said if he doesn’t get a response in the next twenty-four hours, he’s calling a meeting and asking for a declaration of missing.”
“It’s standard procedure. The council has to meet and officially declare him missing. Then they fill the spot immediately and send investigators to search for him,” Boss explained.
“Anything else?” Jonas asked.
“Yeah, one more thing, and you’re not going to like it.” Tabby paused. “Salvatore says he is unable to reach his leader and will continue to try. In the meantime, he is concerned about Stephanie’s safety and on his leader’s behalf he demands you deliver her to him at once or he will file a formal complaint with the council.”
Chapter 14
Jonas gripped the steering wheel as we passed a large semi at a speed far above the posted limit. We were back on the interstate, heading home. Boss sat quietly in the front passenger seat. He flipped through charts in the folder and studied them under the soft light from above his head. I peered between the front seats at the unusual graphs.
“What happens if Sal makes a complaint?” I asked.
“It starts an investigation,” Jonas answered.
Boss glanced up at him. “Sal is threatening because that’s what he does best. He won’t file a complaint because then she’ll be known publicly.”
“You think he knows something about me?” I asked.
“Yes.” Boss's eyes jumped from me to Jonas. ”And I think he knows he can’t reach his leader. That’s why he’s threatening to go to the council. He won’t do it.”
“I don’t like his games,” Jonas said.
I agreed with him. “How could Sal know anything about me? We exchanged a few words in the store and a handshake. Nothing more.”
“I’m not sure. When we get back, I’m going to ask him about Senator Galluzzi. Maybe he'll take the hint and quiet down for a while.” Boss lowered his gaze to the papers on his lap.
My head ached. As if I didn't have enough problems. Could my crazy life get any worse?
I stared at the graphs in Boss's hands. “Are you finding anything in those charts?”
Boss flipped the stack over and held up the first page. Lines extended up from the bottom with descriptions underneath each column. “This is your DNA.”
“It looks like a bunch of lines to me.”
He handed me the paper and picked up the next one. “This is the DNA of a demon.”
I compared the charts. “Ok, there are some similarities.”
He handed me another piece of paper. “Vampire DNA.”
“How did you get these?” I asked.
“I logged into the council’s database. I know where they keep certain records.”
I compared the vampire DNA with mine. Again, some lines matched, though not as many as with the demon chart. “So this proves I am part vampire and demon. What about angel DNA?”
Boss handed me another chart.
Jonas veered his eyes from the road. “You found angel DNA in the database?”
“A few from half-breeds. They are very old.”
I studied the lines with those of my DNA. Many columns matched, nearly the same amount as the demon chart.
“Any chance you can get an exact match of my DNA with my parents?” I handed the papers back to him.
Boss tucked the papers inside the folder. “If they were in the database, I could have found a match.”
“So you checked then,” I said.
“Yes, but I didn't have time to run a check with other clans. When we get back, I’ll start with the local ones and then branch out if I need to.”
“Since the angel and demon DNA came closest to matching mine, one of my parents must have been an angel and the other a demon. Right?”
“Vampires can’t procreate. Therefore, you could not have a vampire as mother or father,” Boss said.
Hurray, we agreed on something. “So which would be my mother? The demon or the angel?”
“If I had to guess, your mother was a half-breed angel.”
I leaned back in my seat, thinking about his words. They made sense. A demon would not have searched for weaker species to procreate with. And an angel wanting to have sex with a demon seemed even more unthinkable. Yet, temptation was real. Every day, people gave in to a lure they normally wouldn’t. I hated to think that a half-breed would fall victim, but it seemed a more likely answer.
For a change, we'd gained an answer about me, or at least come closer to one. My mother was part angel and my father part demon. Now the difficult part would be trying to find them.
Jonas turned into our neighborhood. The street was bare except for a few cars parked on the street. Dogs barked. My thoughts jumped back to my parents. Could either of them have come from a similar area?
Jonas turned the car into onto the driveway, and then parked in the garage.
“Do you really think you can find out who my mother is in the database?” I asked, excited by this new development. The news seemed too good to be true.
Boss turned to face me. “There are no records of true angels. Our database only had a few half-breeds. Because they are rare, there are no other records.”
“So you don’t have to check up on them like you do with the other breeds?” I asked.
“We can’t. Few half-breeds exist and they are hidden,” Boss replied.
“What about Benny?” I asked. “Maybe he can help track down my mother.”
Boss and Jonas exchanged gazes.
Jonas shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt.”
“Let’s see where we get with Sal and let me do some more research first,” Boss said.
I nodded. Sure. Why not? I had nowhere else to go and plenty of time on my hands.
We strolled inside the house and the aroma of the spaghetti from dinner lingered in the air. Soft light from upstairs spilled out into the hall.
“Tabby?” Jonas called.
“I’m upstairs.”
Boss headed straight to the basement with the folder in hand.
Jonas leaped up the steps two at a time. I followed behind him at a slower pace. By the time I reached his room, he was already sitting in front of the computer. Tabby stood next to him. She smiled as I walked in.
“Where’s Boss?” she asked. She had on a pair of pink sweatpants and a thin cotton shirt with a cat on the front.
“He had to do some research downstairs,” Jonas said as he typed.
Tabby turned to face Jonas. “The vampire councilman sent another message. He wants Boss to call him right away. The phone rang a few times, but there are no messages.”
I sat on the bed and leaned back, pressing my palms into the soft blanket. “Would Sal call here?”
“He has Boss’s cell phone. Only council members have the house phone,” Jonas replied.
Tabby sat next to me. Her light weight barely moved the bed. “What did you find out at the bookstore?”
I told her about the journal, my brief flashback, and the discoveries at the lab.
“You have two uteruses?” she asked, her eyes bulging.
“The doctor said some women have two,” I said with a shrug.
Jonas stopped typing and swiveled around in his chair. “I think someone implanted it. There’s a small pink scar on her.”
“You saw it?” Tabby asked. “What were you doing looking at her naked body?”
“Hey, I’m a man,” he said, and turned back around.
Tabby reached over and smacked him on the back of his head.
“Hey! She let me watch.”
Tabby turned to me. “You let him see you naked?”
I shrugged. “No big deal. I figured he’d seen naked women before. Besides, I didn’t want to be alone with the doctor.”
Jonas's fingers tapped away on the keyboard. “I think you owe me an apology, Tabby.”
“Keep thinking,” she said.
I chuckled. They truly acted like brother and sister.
Jonas stopped typing and stared at the screen. “Well, this is interesting.”
I rose and stood behind him. Tabby stood at my side and we both peered at the monitor.
“Woman almost killed in car crash,” I said, reading the headline.
Two pictures appeared on the screen. One showed mangled cars and an emergency unit. The other was a photograph of a younger Senator Galluzzi.
“According to the article, a young woman pulled Galluzzi out of the wreckage,” Jonas said.
“You think Galluzzi had a near death experience?” I asked.
“Maybe. It says here Alison Baxter, who saved Galluzzi’s life, happened to be in the neighborhood at the time of the accident.”
“A Good Samaritan,” Tabby said.
“That name sounds familiar,” Jonas said as he typed in the name in the blank row at the top. He hit a key and a new list of search results appeared.
Jonas scrolled down and clicked on one of the links. A newspaper article popped up on the screen. I skimmed through it and one line caught my attention.
“Chief assistant Alison Baxter on behalf of the Attorney General?” I asked.
“Galluzzi started out in the Prosecutor’s office. She later advanced to Attorney General, Governor, and then Senator,” Jonas said.
“It appears Alison followed along,” I said.
“Maybe Galluzzi wanted to repay her for saving her life,” Tabby said.
I paced the room. “It all seems odd.”
“How so?” Tabby asked.
“First of all, we believe Galluzzi is a half-demon. Let’s assume she is. One night, she almost dies from a wreck, but a young woman happens to save her. In the years following, as she advances in her career, the same female works alongside her.”
“I can tell you right now, a demon would not keep the same person under their employment all those years without a good reason. Something would have to motivate the demon to retain the same person.” Jonas said.
Jonas confirmed what my instincts were telling me. It was strange how Alison worked for Galluzzi for so long.
He clicked on another link. “Take a look at this.”
I stood behind him. Another article covered the screen. This one was from over fifteen years ago. “Chief assistant dead.” I skimmed over the article. Alison died in a two a.m. house fire. She was alone in her house. She had no family or children.
Jonas swiveled in his chair to face me. “You were on to something a minute ago. What were you thinking?”
“I'd like to know more about Alison. What reason would Galluzzi have had to keep her on her staff?”
Jonas tapped his finger to his lips. “It's possible Alison was a demon and Galluzzi felt indebted to her for saving her life.”
“Is there a way you can check the local clan records for her name?” I asked.
“That I can do.” He spun around and began to type.
I crossed my arms and walked around the room, thinking. People sometimes did heroic things like saving lives. Maybe Galluzzi wanted to show her appreciation to Alison by keeping her employed on her staff. It made sense. And if Alison were a demon, the two would’ve worked together well. Hell, it might explain why Galluzzi advanced.
“All right, I’m logged into the local demon clan’s database,” Jonas said.
I stood at his side and stared down at the monitor.
“Oh, what’s this?” he asked right before he clicked a link.
A picture of me standing in the pawnshop appeared on the screen. “What…how?”
The computer beeped loudly, and then the screen flashed. A warning box popped up in the middle. In the center were two letters, I and P, and a bunch of numbers changed randomly.
“Shit!” Jonas jumped out of his chair.
Sensing something wrong, Tabby and I stepped back, out of his way.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” he said.
“What are those numbers?” I asked.
“Boss!” Jonas yelled, then faced me. “My security wall was breached. It's searching for our IP address.”
I looked at Tabby. She backed away slowly, eyes wide.
“I don’t fucking believe it!” Jonas ran his fingers through his hair
Boss appeared in a blur. “What is it?” He looked down at the monitor.
“Someone is tracking our location.”
Chapter 15
My heart raced as I stared at the picture of myself on the screen. How did it end up on the demon clan's website?
“Grab all laptops, phones, identification, whatever you can get. I want to be out of this house in five minutes.” Boss turned to Tabby. “You will go with Jonas and take the Lexus. Go.”
She nodded and left. Boss looked at me. “Meet me in the basement.”
Before I could reply, he was gone.
Jonas slapped the laptop shut. “You better hurry. They’re coming.”
Who? I wanted to ask, but clearly we didn't have a second to spare.
I ran out of the room and straight to Boss’s office in the basement. He was packing up his laptop and a few books. Seeing me, he stopped.
“Come here.” He pulled out the drawer containing my dagger and picked up the cloth-covered blade. “You need to hold onto this.” He delicately handed the weapon to me.
I took the dagger out of the cloth and slid it into my boot.
He removed a set of keys from another drawer and handed them to me. “There’s a large bag in my closet. I want you to get it and come back here. The cabinet over there–” He pointed his eyes behind me. “It’s full of weapons and ammunition. Put as much as you can in the bag. Then take it upstairs to the SUV.”
I darted into the bedroom. Shoving the closet door aside, I found two bags sitting on the top shelf. I grabbed both and rushed back into the office, dropping the bags in front of the large metal cabinet.
“The key has a red dot on it,” Boss said as he whizzed by me.
I found the key among the set in my hand and unlocked the doors. I nearly gasped at the number of guns and knives crammed in the cabinet. I reached for the guns first.
As fast as I could, I loaded the first bag. Boss flew past me again, picking up the extra bag. I didn’t stop to see what he was doing. When my bag was full, I zipped it up and put the strap over my arm. The damn thing weighed at least fifty pounds, but I managed to carry it with ease.