Awaken (Divine Hunter Series) (23 page)

And now,
not only had he succeeded in making her feel sorry for him, with a moment of complete madness he’d just made things even worse.

God, that kiss had damn near torn him apart. He closed his eyes
for a second and allowed himself to remember it. Her lips had been so soft; her sweet floral scent had made his head spin with desire for her. He was surprised that he could feel all of those sensations given his situation, but feel them he had. The buzz of desire had run through his very core lighting him up, making him feel as real as he had before he’d died. In fact more real than he’d ever felt.

He inhaled deeply and let his breath out in a long drawn out sigh. He had to get his head together. It had been lovely, had exhilarated him, but it was a moment of weakness that he couldn
’t, and wouldn’t, allow to happen again.

He flushed the chain for effect and went through to the kitchen where Evo and L
acy were playfully arguing over what looked like egg rolls?

“
You’ve got the extra bit of shrimp toast so it’s only fair that I get that extra roll.” Lacy snagged it from Evo’s plate before he could argue back.

“
You, woman, are a pain in my ass,” he grumbled. “You’re−HEY, buddy.”

Michael managed a smile.
“Hey.” He went over to the counter where all the plating up was happening.

“
We’ve shared it out equally.” That last word was said with gritted teeth and a look towards Lacy, who shrugged her shoulder at him as she sat down at the dining table with her plate piled high. “Yours is over there,” he gestured. “I just shoved a bit of everything on your plate.”

Michael wasn
’t really in the mood, but he grabbed the food anyway. “Cheers, man.” He went over and sat opposite Lacy, who glanced at him briefly and gave him an awkward smile. She’d obviously sensed something was off with him. Not surprising since he’d practically run away from her just now. Better that she did. It was time for him to stop this nonsense. He would apologize to her for what happened and then move on. He had much more important things to do right now than battle with himself over a woman. Yes, he’d made up his mind and was determined to stick to it.

Evo sat down next to him and before he spoke, his friend glanced at Lacy then back to him. He knew something was
up, but to Michael’s surprise, he didn’t mention it. “So. . . You going to tell me what the hell happened over there?”

* * *

A
fter they’d eaten and Michael had filled Evo in with all the details from Lacy’s rescue, Michael decided he needed to go back to his place. It wasn’t going to help his situation hanging around Lacy when he didn’t have to, so he and Evo had left pretty much straight away. Besides, he had something else he needed to do.

Alethia
had agreed to stay behind. Going by what he’d seen so far Lacy would be very well protected by the deity should anything happen. There was no need to continue staking out the hospital because Lacy’s friend had informed her that an officer was now watching her room in case Jake returned, and the chances of Varesh or his sidekick bothering her now were very slim.

Michael
knew Evo wasn’t going to be happy when he found out what he was about to do, but he had no choice, and had no idea how to do it on his own, which was the only reason he had to involve his friend, as much as he hated to.

After retrieving Evo’s MERC−after the guy had insisted−and Lacy’s Focus from the breaker’s yard, they were now
at Michael’s apartment. He grabbed a clean shirt from his closet and did a quick change, throwing the ripped and bloodied one in the trash. He returned to the sitting room where Evo was sat on the sofa fiddling with one of his guns. “So, what now?” his friend asked as he flicked the safety on one of his SIG SAUER pistols.

“
You help me,” Michael said as he watched Evo’s eyes narrow towards him.

Evo placed his pistol on the table in front of him without looking away.
“Help you with what?” His voice was thick with suspicion.

Michael held his gaze.
“First, I want you to promise you’ll hear me out before you say anything, okay?”

Now he frowned.
“What is it?”

“Evo,” h
e pressed.

“I promise,” he said through gritted teeth. “What do you need me for
, man?”

Michael
paused. “I need your help. . . to get into Hell.”

“O
h no. No! No way. . . Not happenin’ my man.” Evo said as he began to pace the length of the small living room.

Michael wasn
’t at all surprised by his reaction and the least he could do after dropping such a bombshell on him was keep quiet until he’d finished his rant. Not that Michael was paying much attention.

“. . .
only thing you’ll succeed in doing is being skinned alive,” he went on. “And I, for one, am not going to play any part in helping you get there. You got me?”

Silence.

“Have you finished?” Michael asked as he leaned his back against the apartment door.

“
Well, that depends. . . Have you changed your mind?”

“
No. And I’m not going to either.”

“
Then no. Have I
fuck
finished!” Evo scrubbed at the stubble on his chin. He stopped to face Michael placing both his fisted hands on his hips. “Okay. So. . . let’s say I did help you, what is it that you plan on doing when you get there?”

“
Talking with Lucifer.”

Evo
’s eyes widened before he began to laugh until he saw Michael’s stoic expression and realized he was deadly serious. The laughing ceased and his face paled. “You’re out of your goddamn fucking mind.”

Michael brushed past
him. Maybe it was a dumb idea. Maybe he would be facing a fate worse than death. But the way he saw it, he had to do something about Varesh and maybe speaking to Lucifer was the only way.

“
Think about it. He’s after that demon piece of shit just as much as we are, remember. What if we can help each other?”

Evo was looking at him like he’d lost his mind, t
he horror at the fact that Michael had even suggested looking for Lucifer clear on his face. “Can you hear what you’re saying right now? You’re suggesting teaming up with the king of Hell, and you expect me not to have a fucking issue with that?”

“
No. I’m not expecting that. I understand why you do, but you need to understand that this might be the only way. I’ve already seen some of Varesh’s power, hell. . . even his demon minion was more powerful than any other we’ve encountered. For whatever reason he wants me to team up with him or he wants me dead, I mean
really
dead. I’m not joining him, so do you think he’s going to stop until he gets his wish? We don’t stand a chance against him on our own Evo.”

Evo dropped his head and let out a sigh.
His voice had calmed and the weight of his friend’s grave expression was evidence of how dangerous Michael’s plan actually was. “There has to be another way, Mike. This has to be the stupidest. . . Jeez, I don’t think even I would have come up with something as crazy as this.”

“
I told you what Alethia said. It’s not going to be long until he returns and he’s going to be more pissed than before. We have to try this.”

“
What about Alethia’s ring? The one her father gave to her. I thought it was supposed to capture demons.”

Michael sat on the sofa and rested his foot on his knee.
“She tried. He was too powerful. All she could do was send him away and that nearly killed her.”

“
But it
will
work on other demons right?”

“
Apparently so.”

Evo didn’t
speak. Instead, he sat staring at the coffee table for a moment until he eventually looked back up at Michael with a smirk. “Then we’re not going down there without that ring. There will be plenty of other things in that place to worry about besides Lucifer.”

* * *

A
fter about an hour of trying to convince his stubborn jackass of a friend that he wouldn’t be going with him, Michael had finally given up. Evo was a determined SOB and when he decided he was going to do something, there was nothing Michael could ever do to stop him. This time was no exception. Evo was going with him to find Lucifer and that was that.

Meanwhile, after his friend had gone out for some supplies, Michael played back the answering machine message that he’d just listened to. It was from Lacy. She’d called twice since he’d returned to his apartment and both times he hadn’t answered.

Fucking coward!

The second time she’d left a message:
“Hi, it’s Lacy. I. . . I was hoping you’d be back home by now. I just wanted to speak to you about earlier. I figured that’s the reason you left so quickly but. . . Michael I. . . ”
Pause.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Call me if you want to.”

Michael stood with his finger on the delete button.
Shit!
She had no reason to be sorry. He should have called her back. Damn! He really wanted to, at least to tell her that everything was okay. But he didn’t. When he heard the key turn in the lock he knew Evo was back. He pressed the button and erased the message. They would talk and he would tell her that nothing could happen between them, but it would have to wait.

Evo walked through the door looking like he’d had a fight with a mud wrestler and the mud wrestler had clearly won. His coat was covered in
dirt, but that wasn’t all, he had smears of the stuff all over his face too.

Michael shot him a quizzical look. “If this is your attempt at camouflage. . . Well, I can still see you.”

Evo’s responding smile was full of sarcasm. He dropped a small backpack, which was just as dirty as he was, onto the floor in front of the coffee table. “I hope you’ve got plenty of Jack,” he said as he removed his coat and slung it onto the chair in the corner of the room.

Michael didn’t even bother to ask where he’d been and instead, retrieved two glasses from the cupboard and a large bottle of whiskey from on the unit. He walked over to where Evo had now placed a pile of items on the floor and watched as he grabbed his Bowie knife from his ankle and began to cut away at what looked like a tree branch. Again, Michael didn’t ask. He’d seen his friend do this kind of thing many times before and never really understood any of it.

He poured them both a glass of Jack Daniels and sat quietly on the sofa watching Evo go to work on the branch. Finally, after about twenty minutes or so, it resembled some kind of. . . wand? Evo held it up and studied it for a moment. “It’s a branch from one of the trees in the cemetery. Has to be from sacred ground.”

Michael nodded and took another swig of whiskey. “Y
ou gonna drink that?”

His friend
didn’t answer and got back to work. Now he was carving something into the thicker end. Some symbols, four of them. When he was done, he took a swig of his drink and looked at Michael, eyes narrowed. “I’ve no chance of talking you out of this have I?”

“No,” was all Michael said as he put his glass to his mouth and took another large sip of Jack.

Evo chewed on the inside of his cheek and nodded his head. He picked up a dirty piece of cloth and ripped it into two pieces.

“What’s that?” Looked like something he’d grabbed from a dumpster.

“Part of a shroud.” Evo answered.

Michael frowned. “Please don’t tell me that was wrapped around someone at some point.”

His buddy’s eyebrows rose. “Then I won’t. But it won’t change the fact that it was”

Nice
. Just what the hell else was he going to produce from that bag? His answer came next when Evo pulled out a dirty bone. Michael guessed it hadn’t belonged to an animal. That would just be too acceptable. “Human?” he asked, not surprised when his buddy replied, “Yup.” before cutting through it. “I need two small bowls.”

After Michael retrieved what he’d asked for from the kitchen, he poured himself another whiskey and resumed his place on the sofa.

“Make sure you save some of that.” Evo said, nodding towards the now half empty bottle. He then placed the small portion of bone he’d cut into one of the bowls.

“I’ve poured you one, remember?
Ain't my fault if you don’t keep up.”

Next Evo pulled a lighter from his shirt pocket and lit the bone on fire, watching the flame crackle and burn before placing a piece of the shroud inside. “Not to drink. We’re gonna need it for something else shortly.” He then pulled out a clear bag, which looked to have dirt in it, and placed it on the table next to him. When he blew the flame out
of the bowl, he crushed the charred remains with the back end of his knife, and then added the contents from the bag. He reached into the backpack again and this time pulled out a hip flask, unscrewed the top and emptied what was inside into the same bowl. “Holy water.”

Of course it was. The main ingredient for most of the rituals he’d seen Evo perform.

“I need your arm.” Evo said as he rolled up his own sleeve. “And bring the whiskey.”

As soon as Michael handed him the bottle, Evo poured some of the stuff onto his own
forearm, then without hesitation, he sliced through his skin and held it over the other empty bowl. Shit, it was deep. He clenched his fist and watched as a steady stream of dark crimson dripped from his arm, a stark contrast against the bright white porcelain of the bowl. When he was satisfied, he wiped at the wound and then the blade with a piece of torn cloth and handed the knife to Michael, hilt first. “Make sure it's deep,” he ordered.

As he took a hold of his friend’s blade Michael felt a pang of uncertainty rush through him when he thought about all Evo was willing to do to help him. He knew he was loyal through and
through, but this was worse than anything they’d ever encountered. Michael’s decision to confront the most powerful being known to man, and. . . everything else, to ask for his help was most likely a suicide mission, but one that he was willing to partake in to see that that bastard demon got what he deserved. His own life had already been taken from him, but he wasn’t happy about being the cause of Evo losing his.

Nothing could be
done, though. Once Evo set his mind to something, there was no talking him out of it, even something as stupid and dangerous as this.

As he held his arm over the bowl, Michael glanced over at Evo, placed the blade on his forearm and began to draw it deep through his skin. No pain. Just a strange pulling sensation as his flesh parted and blood that wasn’t his own began to drip from the wound and into the bowl, merging with Evo’s.

He had no clue what his friend was doing and quite frankly he didn’t care. He was focused and willing to do what he must. A vision of Lacy popped into his head, her smile lighting up her face as she sat across from him in the restaurant. Then that nice vision quickly changed into the grim sight of her cowering away in the junkyard, her face bloodied. Her fear had almost broken him apart. She was the reason he was determined to see this through. No matter what became of him he had to make sure she was safe and getting rid of that son of a bitch and his minion was priority one. The rest would follow.

After enough blood had left Michael’s vein, Evo passed him a torn piece of cloth to hold over his wound to stop the bleeding and continued with his ritual. Next he combined the ground bone, earth and holy water to the blood and mixed it together until it became a paste. Michael screwed his nose up. It was pretty gross.

Evo retrieved the make shift wand from the table, looked at it for a second and sighed. “This is the final part of the ritual,” he said still looking down at the thing. “There’s no going back from this. I can give you more time to think about it before we do it. Just so you’re sure.” Evo’s eyes flicked up to meet his. The intense stare from his friend cut deeply, knowing they may not return from this yet, selflessly, Evo was ready to go in guns blazing. The concern on his face wasn’t for himself though.

Michael closed his eyes for
a second and again, his mind was filled with more visions of Lacy. Her pale green eyes staring back at him full of concern. Then his vision shifted to her flushed cheeks and hooded lids just after they’d kissed. He tried desperately to fight away her image, to pretend that she meant nothing to him and get his mind fully focused on what lay ahead but it was impossible. His feelings for her were more than he’d anticipated and the thought of leaving her without saying a word and throwing himself into certain danger was proving too difficult.

He heard her voice echoing over and over through his head.
“You are real to me.” “I’m sorry.”
“You’re not evil. I can feel your compassion. . . ”

Evo’s voice brought Michael
back from his thoughts. “Look buddy, if you’ve changed your mind, I’ll gladly burn all this sh−”

“No.” Michael said harshly. “I haven’t. I just. . . I just need to go out. There’s something I have to do first.”

He got to his feet and headed for the door. He had to tell Lacy what he was about to do even though he didn’t want her to worry about him. He had to let her know how he truly felt.

“Oh. . . I’ll just hang here then.” Michael heard Evo shout in a derisive tone as he pulled the door closed behind him.