Between HeVan and Hell (3 page)

She added some bath salts to the water
when the tub was half full. Then she walked into the bedroom to
take off her clothes. She pulled off her shirt and jeans, tossing
them into a hamper.

“Jalen’s coming. Woo-hoo. Can’t wait
to see my baby,” she sang for anyone listening.

She picked up her alarm clock, it had
the appearance of a cheap wind-up, in actuality it was a listening
device detector. As she wound and set it, she saw that it also
indicated bugs in the room.

Damn!

She grabbed her sleep shirt, a plain,
white men’s, Double X T-shirt and went back into the bathroom in
her bra and panties; she’d have to risk it. She shut the door, took
off the remainder of her clothes, and climbed into the tub. As she
lay back in the warm water, she tried to figure out what to do
next.

Okay, Detective Anthony
has been busted for sure. My super-girl power tells me that. Addie
can call hers truth-seek, but super-girl power is way cooler. Now
that I’m nearly thirty, though, I should probably change it.
Unfortunately, the Captain doesn’t know about that, so I’ll have to
come up with something to explain how I know Anthony’s cover was
blown. And I’ll have to tell him about Mr. Kadyrov’s pointed
questions about my so-called boyfriend slash fiancé. We thought
seeing me with Detective Anthony would pave the way to bringing in
a more experienced undercover operative to be my partner and
back-up, now we have to think of something else.

And that brings me to
another problem. Why did I give Mr. Kadyrov the name of those three
aliens that Addie is hiding out at her place? Sure, their names are
burned in my brain, and I’ve been having those hot and steamy
dreams about them every night since they got here. But, damn it;
I’m a trained detective. It was stupid of me to blurt out their
names and descriptions like that. Especially since I’m going by how
they looked in the dream and haven’t actually met them. Damn! Could
I be any more stupid? I’m going to get my ass killed for
sure.

My house is bugged. The
biggest Russian Mafioso this side of the Mississippi is probably
watching me bathe, and somehow I’ve got to convince the Captain to
use three unknown men in his undercover operation.

Grace let herself sink beneath the
water as she mentally went over everything. The entire time she’d
been thinking she stayed in character and continued to hum and
bathe as if nothing were out of the ordinary. She pulled the plug,
letting the water drain and climbed out of the tub. Grabbing some
towels, she quickly wrapped a towel around her body and another
around her hair. She got out her cleaning supplies. Using the
hand-held shower attachment and a long scrub brush, she cleaned the
tub. Using the cleaning as an excuse, she looked all around the
room and spotted the bug. As she dried off and then put on her body
lotion, she considered what to do.

Okay, I know where the
bugs are, so it’s only sound in here. Thank God I don’t have those
assholes ogling me in the tub. I feel dirty just thinking about it.
I’m going to need to contact Becky soon; she’s up at all hours, so
I may risk contacting her tonight. If, and that’s a big if, I can
do it without blowing my cover or letting Kadyrov know who she
is.

All this time, Addie never knew that
Becky sometimes worked for law enforcement. Many years ago when
she’d first started hacking, another older and more experienced
hacker who worked for the government had caught her. He liked her
style and knew the government would be better off making her the
same deal they’d made him. Ever since then, she worked a certain
number of hours for the government as a freelance contractor for
free. Any hours over and she got a nice fat consulting
fee.

The only stipulation to avoid
prosecution was that no one could know she worked for the
government and she had to continue to do the work until she’d
equaled the number of hours she would have spent in prison for the
original hack job. As a scared high school senior, she accepted all
stipulations. Since then she’d grown savvy and had long since
negotiated her own deal. That’s how she was able to do so much now;
she already had authorized access to every database she could
need.

Addie still thinks her
friend is a rebellious hacker and risk-taker, thought Grace.
Actually, she’s a full-time programmer and part-time government
contractor. Even I probably don’t know everyone she works for. I’d
be surprised if she didn’t also work for the CIA or NSA or
something. She got those IDs for Addie’s guys pretty damn
quick.

Wait a minute! I still
have that burner cell Addie gave me in my purse. I can use that to
send a text. Before I try, I really need to find out if they have
more eyes and ears on me. Plus there is definitely something on my
jacket or in my purse. Damn, I’ll have to wait until morning. And
just in case, I’ll go without a jacket and change purses, as it’s
likely a tracking device and not a bug.

After she finished putting on her
lotion, she went into the tiny kitchen to make some tea. She was
shocked to discover that there were no bugs in range of her
kitchen. So she casually took her tea, still humming and singing
along with the radio into her small living room. The short counter
that separated the kitchen from the living room was just long
enough for two stools to fit. She’d never actually sat in them,
preferring to eat at the couch in front of the TV. She thought it
was more in character.

She turned off the radio and put her
tea down on the end table. Then she curled up in the corner of the
couch and pulled the t-shirt over her knees. She picked up her tea
with one hand and the remote in the other, turning on the TV. The
green light on the DVR told her the living room was free of bugs,
too.

Damn, those
perverts!
My bedroom and bathroom and not
the living room or kitchen!

While she was flipping through the DVR
to see what recorded while she was at work, she jacked up her power
to see if that felt right. She couldn’t help a frown from showing
so she made it work with what she was seeing on the TV. She shut it
off and threw down the remote.

Whatever they placed out
here, and I have no doubt there’s something, it’s ducking all my
electronics from finding it. But my super-girl power says there’s
something and that has never failed me. I really need a new
name—psychic gift? —Oh well, I’ll think more on that
later.

So she did the only thing she could
do. She picked up a romance novel and her tea and then went to bed
and read for an hour.

Addie Perez was in her kitchen showing
her Ankida how to make pancakes. She could hardly believe it had
only been a little over two weeks since she met them. They’d
married her within an hour of meeting her in person. She’d had a
hard time understanding how the three of them had gotten her into
bed so fast until they explained. Now the three of them were her
husbands or, as they called them on HeVan, her Ankida.

They had also explained that she was
the new Queen of their planet and was expected to use her special
Queen’s powers to help re-populate their planet. Supposedly just
being around her made others fertile and influenced the sex of the
baby. This meant she was aptly named. Addie was her nickname. Her
full name was Aditya, which meant Goddess of Wisdom and Fertility.
She’d proven the fertility part, at least. The night before she had
announced her pregnancy, one of her visitors, Valerie, a
science-fiction writer with the power of sight, told her she was
actually carrying three sets of twins. All she could think of was
that she was glad she had three husbands—she was going to need them
for diaper duty.

Another few things had also happened
last night. Susan, the government agent masquerading as a forest
ranger or something, turned out to be a genuine ‘man in black,’ or
in this case, ‘woman in khaki’ and her name was Suzanna. Addie’s
Queenly powers had heavily influenced Suzanna because it turned out
that Suzanna was also a Nephilim. She was one of the many
descendants of those long-ago aliens who had crash-landed on Earth.
Her inborn instincts had her protecting Addie before she understood
why she felt that she had to, even while she was still
investigating her.

Suzanna was a medium—medium sized
five-five, medium brown hair, medium brown eyes, just your average,
every day, overlook-them-in-a-crowd woman. She said it made her
ideal for government work because she could blend in anywhere.
Addie felt that with a makeover, she’d be a whole new woman. But
since they’d only known each other for a day, she’d wait a week or
so to suggest it.

Miranda had whispered in her ear last
night that Suzanna was a perfect match for the two navigator/pilot
brothers: Jeze and Tyr. Sometime this morning, she would have to
tell her everything.

That should be an
interesting conversation,
she thought, as
she mixed the batter.

A few days ago, her college friend,
Becky, had introduced her to Miranda, the pint-sized Venus blonde
matchmaker. Her first official match for them was actually a
personal friend of hers named Heidi and not a client. Heidi had
been a friend of hers whom she met at a nursery buying plants.
Miranda was the type that made friends and then kept them even when
they tried to push her away. She was the one that helped Heidi get
away from her abusive ex-husband.

It was a shame when she had to give up
working with plants because her ex kept finding her. Miranda had
gotten Heidi a job in an office building and just yesterday he’d
actually found her again, though it had taken nearly a year.
Luckily, he’d acted out in front of Security, so Miranda had
whisked her here as a last minute dinner guest. Of course, Addie
had invited her to stay.

Heidi was a few inches taller than
Miranda, but she seemed shorter. Thin and pale with dishwater blond
hair, a short nose slightly turned up at the end. Her bones stuck
out at the shoulders and wrists, though Miranda said she looked
loads better now than when she had first gotten her away from her
ex. When the men first saw her, they had wanted to look after her
as if she were a child. They soon realized, however, that her fear
of their large size was palpable, and kept their
distance.

It was Addie’s gentle giants, the two
oldest of her Great Danes, who won Heidi over. They’d adopted her
for the frail girl she had become and didn’t leave her alone for a
minute. Addie heard the squeal last night when they followed Heidi
into the bathroom. Last night they’d also told Heidi about the two
men she was matched with. Heidi believed they were on an island in
Greece. This morning Addie was going to have to tell her the truth
at the same time she told Suzanna.

It was a good thing they
were sleeping in, she would have this time alone with her guys, and
she could think of the words to tell them they were part alien from
a distant planet.

On that thought, Jalen, the head of
her Royal Guard, entered the kitchen.

“Lady Addie, My Lords. May I beg a
favor from you all?” he asked.

The four of them—Addie, Arjun, Rune
and Kylan—all turned to where he was standing in the
doorway.

“What’s wrong, Jalen?” Addie asked
immediately.

“Last night before she
left, Miranda, the vision-matcher, said she knows who is to
be
Joined
to me
and my brothers.”

Rune and Kylan immediately started
congratulating him. Arjun was watching Addie and she was watching
Jalen.

“I repeat. What’s wrong, Jalen?” asked
Addie. “I can see you’re upset.”

Jalen looked at Addie. “Valerie, that
writer who’s going to try and find more of our women, said she’s in
Hell and in great danger. This is her picture, Addie,” he said,
holding up the picture Miranda had told him about.

“Is this your sister Grace, the
detective who’s currently working in secret in the criminal’s place
of business?”

Addie stepped over and took the
frame.

“Yes, this is Grace. Is she
your
Join
? She’s
the one in danger? She’s working an undercover assignment, and I
don’t know how to get in touch with her.” She turned to her
husbands with tears in her eyes.

“We can’t let anything happen to
Grace. She and Granny Mac are all the family I’ve got left,” she
cried out.

“Don’t worry. We won’t let anything
happen to her. Sit down, Addie,” said Rune, helping her to a
chair.

Just as she sat down, she looked up at
Rune with a light in her eyes. “Rune, please go out to the car and
bring me the maps. Kylan, please get some dried sage from the
pantry and bring it here. Arjun, would you please hand me a plate
and matches from the drawer next to the stove?”

Once she had all the things together
on the table, she opened the map of Chicago. Then she lit the sage;
after a few moments, she blew out the flame to create smoke from
the embers, letting it curl over the table from the
plate.

She took off her worry stone necklace.
This had never worked for finding lost children or people in the
past, but this situation was related to a Nephilim of
HeVan.

I’m bringing two Joins
together.