Bane (The Devil's Roses 2)

"Wait here for them okay." She winked herself gone instantly.

She watched from across the street as Ari stood alone at the bus stop under a lonely yellow light.

"She looks like bait."

Lydia nodded, "That’s good, she is."

They didn’t wait long before a tall thin man in dark jeans and a sweater walked up to her. He was alone, which made Aimee nervous. They never traveled alone.

He spoke softly to Ari, she smiled sweetly.

Aimee looked at Lydia who shrugged.

Aimee crept along the building she had parked beside to listen. She lifted her face into the wind. She could smell Lucas but no one else.

"Are you ready to go?" His voice was familiar.

Ari spoke softly, "Yeah."

He took his first step and with a flash was behind Ari holding one of his fingers to her throat. Aimee winced knowing his finger would be as deadly as a knife.

"Don't move Aimee or I will kill her. Tell Lydia to get out here where we can see her too."

Aimee knew she didn’t need to tell Lydia anything.

"Andy told me about your little friend here. She figured eventually you would remember some how."

Aimee frowned walking forward holding her hands out, "Andy was untouched by it all?"

He smirked, "The first time Ari erased her memory but it came back in odd flashes. Andy came to me and had me glamour her against Ari's special gifts. That’s far enough Aimee. I know exactly what those hands of yours do. You killed my brother last year."

Aimee smiled, "Right, that’s why your voice is familiar. You sound exactly like him." Aimee snapped her fingers at him making sparks in the air.

He poked a small slit in Ari's neck sniffing her blood.

Ari winced.

"Oh demon blood. Dorian if I'm not mistaken. You're a real full blooded Nephilim."

Aimee looked back at Lydia who was walking forward along side her. Ari didn’t look fazed by the information, she must have known who her father was.

"She'll make an excellent acquisition. I understand her talents are incredibly unique, one or two born every five or six hundred years what with full blooded angels not mating as they used to."

As Ari's blood began to waft through the air a large brown wolf leapt down from the roof above the bus stop knocking the thin man and Ari.

Ari turned as the thin man turned on Lucas to grab him. Ari froze them both as a light shot from her hands hitting the thin man.

A huge black panther dashed across the parking lot grabbing Ari as she knocked the thin man out. The cat ripped at her arm. Aimee winked herself across the lot letting the hunger in her hands have the cat. He changed back into a man as he died.

Aimee looked out at the parking lot as Aleks threw a man across it and Lydia held a man frozen gripping his head. She crippled him with one of her migraine of doom moves. Aimee cringed knowing the pain he was in. She winked to the man killing him instantly.

She winked behind one of the men picking himself up off the ground, he spun punching her in the face. She tried blocking but he was stronger than she expected. He was on top of her choking her with his knee holding her hands down with his. The world spun as the air left her. His grip froze as he fell to his side passing out. Ari stood over her smiling. Aimee laughed and put her hand to the man on the ground. She took his life from him feeling badly for the fact he was unconscious but not bad enough to let him live. She knew he would not have offered her that fate.

The large brown wolf walked up nuzzling against Ari licking her wounds on her hands and neck. Ari laughed putting her hands around him.

"Demon blood will make you sick Lucas stop it."

Aimee laughed, "Not when he's a wolfie. He isn’t like us, shifters are something completely different. They are like mother natures warriors. He could eat a demon and not even get a little heartburn."

Aimee looked around wondering where Lorri had gotten.

Lydia spoke looking haunted, "She will be here in a moment."

A black car drove up making a horrid squeal, smoke billowed from its hood and bullet holes riddled its doors. The car came to a screeching stop and the driver door nearly ripped off its hinges as Lorri climbed out looking particularly badass. She dragged a bleeding and weak looking Andy Cromwell.

Lorri threw Andy, rolling the woman along the pavement to Lydia's feet.

She coughed and turned her battered face up to Lydia as tears of blood rolled down her face, "Lydia please spare me. I didn’t mean it. I was trying to help you all. Save you."

Aimee looked horrified as Lydia's face crumpled, "You're my oldest and dearest friend Andy how could you?"

Andy spat viciously, "She erased my memory once. I had spent a full year of my life trying to find the mole in our organization. I met someone in my journey into the dark ones, I fell in love Lydia. She erased it all. All my time and all my effort. I started to remember, my heartbreak was real. My depression was because she stole a year of my life, all our lives. I told the dark ones about her. It seemed like a smart idea. What better way to destroy them than give them something that will destroy them all without them being aware of it just as we weren’t."

Lorri leaned down and ripped Andy's head off suddenly. She picked up one of Andy's arms and dragged her walking away from the small group of them, "Enough of that bullshit." She muttered like a psychopath.

Ari threw up, Lucas turned his face away and Aimee shivered at the sight of the violence.

Lydia shrunk to her knees sobbing for her loss.

Chapter Twenty-Nine- Angels and Demons

Ari

The words were truth, she didn’t want them to be but she truly was the best weapon the good had against the bad. She had systematically destroyed all of their lives without even trying. Her chest felt empty.

Lydia looked at her, Ari knew the older woman was reading her but she didn’t even try to consol Ari. She knew Lydia agreed with her thoughts. She watched Lucas walk away, she knew he was going to shift and put clothes on.

She walked to Aimee putting a hand to her arm, "I need you to do something for me."

Her grey eyes sparkled with the tears that floated in her eyes, "What?"

"I need you to take me somewhere."

"Now?"

Ari looked around, "Quickly. Think of New York City, the Roses."

Aimee frowned and took her hand thinking of Daniel and the institution.

The sick feeling she already had from Lorri ripping Andy's head off increase as they stood in the entryway of the Roses. She turned to Aimee, "Thanks, don’t bring Lucas here. Just let me be here alone for a while please."

Aimee looked at her confused, "I don’t understand. Andy is dead."

Ari felt tears pouring from her eyes, "I know but she was right. I'm a natural disaster. Who knows who I'll touch next, who I'll send back and mess with everyone's life."

Aimee nodded, "I'll tell him. See you soon?"

Ari shrugged, "If you want to. If not I get it."

Aimee was gone in an instant leaving Ari standing alone in the hallway. She walked up and pressed the doorbell to the institution for after hours.

Daniel answered the door looking exhausted, "Ari, uhm how, well what's going on?"

Ari nearly walked inside to embrace but then it dawned on her she had never been to Roses since she'd been sent back. Daniel shouldn’t know her. She stepped back but Daniel took a step forward, "You okay?"

She gulped and reached out for him tears streaming down her face even harder. Her hands brushed his before he could get away. She pushed watching his body drop to the floor. She turned and ran to the elevator. She looked up at the camera and decided the stairs were a safer bet. She had walked into the trap that had been set to put her down. She knew she was a danger to everyone but she wanted to live. She wanted a life. She turned and ran through the emergency stairwell and sprinted the eight floors.

She heard the doors open at the top of the hall, she knew there would be more waiting at the bottom if she didn’t beat the elevator. She ran past the main floor remembering about the underground parking. She burst through the door on the second parking level. She ran toward the light. Her legs started to fill with the sweet adrenaline. Her instincts from being angry Ari filled her like muscle memory, she weaved through cars and trucks, jumping levels and running as fast as she could.

She leapt through the gate at the end jumping it like a hurdle. She sprinted out into the dark night in New York City feeling the cold October Rain hitting her in her shorts and t-shirt. She pumped her legs hard. Again all she wished for was Lucas. She knew he would come for her. She needed to reach him before they used him as bait to bring her in.

Her brain worked still like Angry Ari, she sensed the conspiracies and traitors in her midst.

She ran until she reached the area where the shifter bar she'd heard about many times was supposed to be. She looked around desperate and soaked. The entrance was a red door, she remembered that much.

Unfortunately the number of red doors on the street was unbelievable.

She walked trying to smell and see if she could get a scent of the shifters, they did smell differently than regular humans.

She walked up and down the street twice and gave up turning down an alleyway. She looked at a man watching her. She felt her fingers heat instantly as he followed her into the alley. She kept her head down assuming he was one of Daniels rogue Roses. She couldn’t believe he was the Mole in the organization. Lorri was going to rip his head off if Ari could ever get word to her.

"Look girl you don't want to do this."

He spoke softly looking behind himself.

She turned to see his face better, he wasn’t a shifter that was certain. He wasn’t nearly attractive enough to be one. He could be a demon but she wracked her brains to think of an unattractive demon or vampire. This man was skinny to the point of starvation and homely.

"Please don’t go down this alley. Just go. Turn around before anyone else sees you."

She frowned looking back at him, "Leave me alone."