Eternal Flame (Night Watch 3)

Yeah, she could run now. Run, and never look back. Maybe she’d even head to Mexico. Get some sun.

It was the smart thing to do.

He told me to leave.

The exit doors waited for her. A few more steps, and they swished open silently, giving her easy access to the night. Run.

She wasn’t perfect. Far from it and, in that instant, she was tempted. After all, she’d run plenty of times in her life. An EMT bumped into her, his shoulder clipping her arm. Running was easy.

She took three steps back. The doors slid closed before her. The demon had saved her twice now. She’d always thought it was important to pay your debts.

Besides … she really owed the folks at Perseus an ass-kicking.

Don’t worry, Zane. I’ve got your back.

Chapter 10

They blindfolded him and, because Zane was playing the game, he let them do it. Nancy crawled into the car with him and sat to his right. He could smell her-the antiseptic scent of the hospital, stale cigarettes, and vanilla body lotion.

A man drove him. The same guy who had smiled apologetically and said he’d need to blindfold him. The guy barely looked older than eighteen, and he had sun-streaked blond hair, a little too long, and blue eyes.

The car snaked through the city. Turning left, right. At first, Zane tried to keep track of the turns, but the kid was fast. The car’s engine growled as he sped through New Orleans, taking them deeper into the heart of the Big Easy.

“When did you know what you were?” the kid asked, and the kid, he was a demon. Zane had caught a glimpse of his eyes, too. Before he blindfolded me.

“When I was sixteen.” Zane figured keeping as close as he could to the real truth about his past was the easiest way to go. Less chance of screwing things up that way. That was why he’d given Florence Nightingale the real deal about his past.

“I always knew,” the kid said. The car slowed, then stopped. Probably at a red light. “My dad never let me forget, not even for a moment, that I was different. He loved telling me how I was just like her.”

Behind the blindfold, Zane blinked. “Your mom was a demon?”

“Ummm…” The car picked up speed again. “She seduced my dad, then dropped me off and cut out of town. She left us both.” Bitterness. Pain.

Zane eased out a slow breath. “Maybe you were better off without her.”

The kid didn’t speak and Zane didn’t know what the hell else he was supposed to say.

“Why did you kill your father?” Nancy asked and the question fired right at his gut.

Can’t forget about her. “Because he deserved it.”

“When did you kill him?”

The truth. “When I was sixteen years old.”

The silence in the car grew thicker then. Darker. He could feel the tension, so thick it bore down on him like a lead weight until not-so-sweet Nancy said, “Good for you.”

The car braked again, but it wasn’t a slow stop. The demon up front killed the engine. “Welcome home,” the guy said.

Home? Not likely. More like welcome to hell.

If she wasn’t so good at hotwiring cars, Jana would have been shit out of luck. But if her correctional time had done anything for her, well, it had introduced her to a new group of friends.

Some of those friends had come from homes that were too much like her own. Homes where the mothers or fathers liked to use fists every night on their kids. Or they liked to touch … when and where they shouldn’t.

Once she’d gotten out of juvie, she’d made sure she helped her friends. Nothing lethal. They’d just wanted to send some messages. They hadn’t believed that she could start the fire with her mind. No, they’d just thought she was one world-class pyro, and they’d wanted her to use her skills to keep their monsters away.

Monsters. Sometimes, you just couldn’t escape them.

So she’d done her part. She’d watched out for them. When Lillie McGill-her “roommate” from juvie-had gotten out and headed home, Jana had tailed her. The first time Lillie’s father had come at Lillie with his fists, Jana used the fire to write STOP on the wall next to him.

She hadn’t killed him. Hadn’t even touched him with her flames. Her fiery message had been enough to send the guy scrambling to church and to rehab.

No, she hadn’t needed to let the flames lick his skin. Besides, back then, she’d been too scared to kill again.

Not that the fear had lasted long. Not once Perseus got ahold of her.

Lillie’s father found Jesus, though he didn’t realize the devil had been the one to send the message. He’d never touched his girl again, and Lillie had made sure that Jana had a first-class education on boosting cars.

Fair trade. Sure seemed like that now.

Jana kept the PT Cruiser in sight as it weaved through the streets. Since she’d been gone, Perseus had changed their location. They did that as part of their protection strategy. They changed locations every few months. Tricky bastards.

She kept a few cars between her and the other car. Not so many that she would lose sight of the Cruiser, and not too few because she didn’t want the folks in the Cruiser to see her.

They swept past the St. Louis cemetery and the white tombstones rose up past the wrought-iron fence, ghostly markers to map the trail to Perseus.

Her fingers tightened on the wheel as a shiver skated down her spine. She’d never been too fond of the cemeteries in New Orleans. Because she knew, unlike most of the tourists, that some of the dead could really come out and take a bite out of their unsuspecting prey. And with all those folks out there working their summoning spells-spells they thought were simply harmless games they’d read about in books-well, she knew better. Nothing harmless about them. She’d seen her share of walking nightmares.

More miles passed. They shot through a neighborhood. Looked so normal. Things always looked normal.

Then the houses began to disappear. The storm a few years ago had destroyed a lot here, and folks hadn’t rebuilt. Not that she blamed them, not one damn bit.

Where are we going? The car ate up more road. Some factories dotted the street now. Warehouses.

Finally, finally, the Cruiser pulled into the lot near a warehouse. Above the wooden doors, two white masks had been painted onto the red wood. One smiling, animated face; the other crying, with a tear drop sliding down the white cheek. Mardi Gras masks.

She drove past the building and made sure not to let her car slow for even a second. In her rearview mirror, she saw the driver climb out of the vehicle. Looked like a young guy. Perseus did like to recruit them young.