Battle With Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

It was a very long-winded way of telling me to go work for the family business.

“Thanks again,” I said, to cut it short. Honestly, what did this guy know? His world was still closed off, last I heard. They might come down to meddle, but it wasn’t a two-way street. Not yet, anyway.

I wondered what my father would have to say about that.

“You are welcome.” Michael bowed, and so I did the same. “We are family, in a way. Don’t believe all the things your father tells you. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer.”

I nodded because I didn’t want to thank him again. I sounded like a broken record.

“Until next time.” His wings snapped out, and he lifted into the sky.

What a crazy life I was living. Angels were real and I was the princess of the Underworld. What in the holy fuck??

Clearing my mind, I straightened my back and headed for the door. Freaking out could go on my to-do list.

Epilogue

The shadows lengthened across the cracked pavement and crawled up the walls of the cemetery. Smokey waited in his usual spot, watching the goings-on in the street. His gaze swung right, and he tensed. Confused, he looked at me.

The door opened in the house next door. Mikey stepped out and closed it behind him, his shirt freshly pressed, his jeans new, and a great-smelling aftershave wafting toward me. He glanced my way and scowled so hard I nearly warned him that his face would get stuck like that. Though I didn’t want to give him ideas.

“When are you moving?” I asked as Smokey went back to watching something down the street.

“Fuck you,” Mikey spat, leaning against his freshly replaced railing. A gold watch glittered on his wrist—a Rolex.

“Millionaires do not live in this neighborhood, Mikey. You’re in the wrong place.”

“You’re a millionaire and you’re still here,” he said.

“No, my boyfriend is a millionaire. He doesn’t live here.”

He pointed at me with perfectly clipped and buffed nails. “I’m still not talking to you. You’re dead to me.”

“Why are you blaming me? The Red Prophet told you to invest in those stocks, not me.”

“I bet she told you I’d have the cops swarming all over me, didn’t she?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I bet she told you that I’d spend a month worried I’d go to prison for a white-collar crime. Do you know what they do to guys like me who get pinched for white-collar shit?”

“Nothing, because you’d beat them senseless if they tried.”

He huffed and looked over at Smokey, who had taken the whole thing much better. He’d endured the investigation into insider trading with few words and a habitually pale face. But they’d made it, just as the Red Prophet had said they would, and now they were filthy rich. The guys who were actually guilty of insider trading were currently awaiting trial.

“Where’d she go, anyway?” Mikey asked. “She brought the heat on me and then disappeared, is that it?”

I shrugged, watching the quiet street. It had been three months now since the battle, but no one had heard from her. Romulus was still looking, as a matter of fact. He didn’t like that she’d been missing for so long. Karen refused to use her Sight to track her down.

“It was hell, but…I guess I should at least say thanks, know what I’m saying?” He scratched his head. “I don’t like talking about it, because it’s nobody’s business, but I heard Smokey tell you, so I’ll just say it…” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m set for life. I don’t never have to work again. If I have kids, they probably won’t have to work, neither. Though they will, because they need to learn that life ain’t easy. But still…” He turned his face away and then put his hands on his hips. “I should at least say thanks, you know?”

“If I ever see her, I’ll tell her to stop by. If you’re gone by then, I’ll tell her for you, how’s that?”

He nodded and leaned against the railing. “What’s your plan?”

“I don’t know.” The words rode a sigh. “Probably go meet my dad tomorrow.”

He pointed downward and lifted his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” I said.

He nodded. “I liked that guy better than the fanged fuckers. He seemed more like one of us. More down to earth, you know?”

A slight figure sauntered into view, all hips and breasts, even with her dainty frame. I squinted at the sky, the last of the sun’s rays finally disappearing. That was why Smokey was confused, most likely. A vampire, walking in the failing sun.

“Did you turn back into a human or something?” I asked Ja as she stopped in front of my house.

“At my age, the dying sun is merely an aggravation.”

She was aiming for dramatics, then.

She was wasting her efforts on me.