Avenging Angel (The Fallen 4)

Her nails—blood-red and wicked sharp—tapped on the bar. Then her gaze slid from Marna to Tanner. The bartender stiffened, but did a good job of keeping any emotion from slipping across her face.

“I’m sure you see all sorts here,” Tanner said, voice thickening a bit with a drawl that seemed to come and go as he pleased.

Tricky shifter. Was that slow drawl supposed to make him seem harmless? Nothing could pull off that lie. Maybe it was just supposed to make him seem a little less lethal? More good old boy?

“Right now,” Tanner continued quietly, “I’m wanting to know if you can give me some information on those . . . sorts . . . that you might see.” He kept his hold on Marna, but he leaned toward the bartender.

The redhead lifted a brow. “Information ain’t cheap. You know that, cop.”

So she realized who and what Tanner was? Marna didn’t know if that was good or bad. But either way, Marna decided she needed to step up her game. She wasn’t just going to stand there. “What kind of payment do you want?” Marna demanded. Not that she had any money on her . . .

The woman’s dark eyes glanced her way. “The kind that will get me out of this shithole before I turn up dead in a dark alley.”

Dead—like the shifters?

“You know,” Tanner said.

A little shrug lifted the bartender’s shoulders as she grabbed for a glass and began to fill it with a gleaming, gold liquid. “I know two shifters got to meet the devil the other night. Just a few streets away . . .” Her gaze was back on Tanner, but she said, voice whispering now, “And from what I hear, that devil looked a whole lot like the lady you’re holding so tight.” She shoved the glass toward him.

He didn’t drink.

“It wasn’t me,” Marna said. They weren’t going to pay the demon bartender just for telling them a story that was pure bull.

“A lost, blond angel, with shadow wings streaking from her back . . .” The bartender sighed. “Yeah, because there are so many folks like you running around the Quarter.”

Shadow wings streaking from her back. Marna stiffened. “I don’t have wings.” Was that hard, angry voice really hers?

The lady poured another drink. This time, she pushed the glass toward Marna. “Not the real thing. Not anymore.” She smirked. “What’d you do to fall?”

Marna leapt up, ready to jump right across that bar. Nothing. I shouldn’t have been forced here. I—

Tanner pulled her back even as the bartender let out a little gasp and slammed back against the glasses on the wall. “Don’t touch me!” the redhead cried out and this time, she didn’t keep the blank mask on her face.

Fear.

So someone was finally afraid. And it isn’t me. Right then, Marna was too angry—too pissed, as Sammael would have said—to be afraid. I didn’t fall. I didn’t break the rules.

But she was still in hell.

Pissed. Being angry was much better than being afraid. Fear was for the weak. She didn’t want to be weak. “Better watch it,” Marna said to the redhead as she shook off Tanner’s hold. “I hear the monsters in this place love the scent of fear.”

The bartender swallowed as she pried herself off the wall of glasses. She glanced around and flushed when she realized that others had seen her.

Even in Hell, it was hard to miss a scream.

“Meet me out back,” she told them, grabbing up another glass and a bottle of gold liquid before turning away. “You can tell me what you’ll pay, and maybe I’ll tell you what I know.”

“There’s no maybe,” Tanner said.

The redhead kept walking away from them. “Then make the price high enough.” She disappeared through a pair of swinging, double doors.

And she left them in Hell.

Cadence LaVert kept a smirk on her face until she entered the back room of Hell. Then she tightened her fist around the glass in her hand, and it shattered.

Sonofabitch.

That angel had almost touched her.

No f**king way. Cadence wasn’t ready for death. She’d screwed up too many times. Nothing good waited for her on the other side.

Before she bit the dust, she had to make some kind of amends.

Maybe for the lover she’d murdered.

But he’d had it coming. Trying to beat her, trying to hurt her. Bill hadn’t realized just what he’d been dealing with.

Before he’d died, he’d known. She’d made sure of it.

Cadence lifted the bottle to her lips and gulped. She barely felt the burn as the liquid rolled down her throat.

Ten thousand? Would that be enough cash? She knew about the cop shifter. The guy who tried to play good with the humans but who was really just as f**ked up as the rest of the supernaturals in New Orleans.

He had some cash, she was sure of it. He could give her the money. She could split town, and the world would keep right on going.

As if she’d never even existed.

A sweet scent teased her nose. Freaking flowers. That angel.

“I told you to meet me outside!” Cadence swung around.

No one was there.

Just boxes. A rat scurrying around. Dust.

Her heart was racing. She’d made a mistake. Been in the wrong place, at the wrong time. But when she’d gone to that alley, she’d never known what was going to happen. She’d just needed to make a purchase. Needed to buy a few drugs to get her through the night.

Demons needed drugs. As far as Cadence was concerned, that was a simple fact. She had to use her drugs. Otherwise, she couldn’t shut out the voices in her head.

One of those voices had made her kill her father when she was twelve. The voice had told her that daddy wanted to do bad things to her. Such very, very bad things.

She’d stopped him. He hadn’t been able to hurt her.

The same voice had told her about Bill’s dark side. How he liked to hurt women. To hit until you couldn’t move. She’d ignored the voice at first.

But the voice had been right. Her bruises and broken bones had proved its truth soon enough.

The voice was quiet tonight. The drugs were still in her system. The drugs muted all the voices that wanted to whisper to her about the wicked things in the world.

I’m wicked.

She’d gotten the drugs from the alley. Seen the death that waited for those two panther shifters.

I saw what you did. She’d never be able to forget that night.

Now it was time to collect and get out of there. The shifter and his angel should have made it around to the back of Hell by now. She could slip out, make her deal, and get away.