Burned (8 page)

“No.” Ricky shook her head. “The angel was about as helpful as a snow cone in a blizzard.”

“Awesome,” I muttered, gritting my teeth in frustration. I wasn’t sure how Gabe had saved me from Baal’s clutches, but would it have been too much to get a little 411 on the demon’s whereabouts? It didn’t seem like it would be. I shut my eyes and tried to get past my sudden anger. It didn’t work. “Like always, I guess I’m doing all the heavy lifting. I mean, it makes sense since I have fucking amnesia, but you know, whatever.”

Danton sighed and gestured at me with one hand. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, Mac. It isn’t like we’re all just pawns for your amusement. People have shit to do. There are powers that be.”

“If that’s your way of apologizing for being totally useless, I accept. Besides, we both know if this was my story, I’d have way better one-liners,” I said, reaching down and taking Ricky’s hand so we could leave the bathroom.

All and all, I felt like I’d spent way too much time in this particular laundromat over the course of the last few days. I wasn’t quite sure how much time my family had left, but I was betting it wasn’t a lot, especially if Baal really didn’t have them. That meant they might be on their way to getting disposed of, if they hadn’t been disposed of already. I had to hurry.

Ricky rolled her eyes at me. “Did you learn anything from Baal?” Ricky asked, leaning her head on my shoulder as she did so. “You have that ‘I’ve got a really bad plan’ gleam in your bloodshot eyes.”

“Yes, actually. He said he doesn’t have my family. Apparently, one of his minions did have them, but they don’t now. He might be lying about that, but either way I’m going to find said minion and break his kneecaps.” I smiled. “Which is good because I’m particularly good at breaking kneecaps. I find a nine iron works surprisingly well.”

“When in doubt, break stuff. I like the way you think,” Ricky said, a sinister smile spreading across her lips. We walked back into the laundromat. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been unconscious or dealing with Baal, but it must have been a while because the old guy was gone and his dryer was no longer running. Maybe I could get some new clothes after all. Then again, what would be the point? I’d just get them wrecked, and I’d waste time.

“So where do we find this minion?” Danton asked, not having taken one step toward us. Instead, he hung back by the bathroom like he was afraid to step into the room and be discovered. It seemed weird because who the hell was going to come looking for a demon hunter here? The fashion police?

“I don’t know.” I let out a long sigh. “I remember a guy from some flashes of memory, but otherwise, I have no idea. I was figuring on stopping by Jack’s bar and seeing if the vamp could maybe look into my mind and see if he’d recognize the guy. I’m not sure if that’s a real vampire power, but it was in Vampire Diaries, and as far as I’m concerned, that shit is canon.”

“Bad idea,” Danton said, glancing away from me as he said it. “Just because Jack doesn’t eat people often, doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy.”

“Yeah, well, Jack also helped me save Sera from Van after she’d been kidnapped.” I pointed one finger accusingly at him. “All you’ve done is brain me with a steel chair.”

“And save you from a werewolf harbinger,” he added, still not looking at me. “And a helicopter full of zombies.”

“Fuck a helicopter. I punched a helicopter out of the sky with my bare hand.” I curled my right hand into a fist and waved it in front of me. “Unless you start being more useful than the guy who installs turn signals on police cars, I’m going to end our partnership.”

“Mac, calm down,” Ricky said, her nails biting into my arm even through the tough fabric of my bulletproof trench coat. It felt like my arm was trapped in a vice. “I’m sure Danton isn’t totally useless.”

“Ricky,” Danton said, ignoring my outburst and walking over to us. “Do you think you would recognize the people from Mac’s memory if you saw them? Because if you can, we might be able to figure out who that Cursed is. I have some ideas, but admittedly, Baal isn’t as selective as some other demons. I can think of several of his Cursed who live within this state.” He waved his hand dismissively before continuing. “Not that I’m opposed to visiting each of them until we find out who has your family, but that will take a while, and each one we get will make the others flee like rats.”

“If he’s been around in the last year or so, I might be able to recognize him.” Ricky gave me a hopeful look. “If not, I can probably sketch him out. I’m no police sketch artist, but I’m fairly handy with a pencil and paper.”

“What does it matter? How can Ricky see someone from my memories?” I asked, glancing from her to Danton. “If you haven’t noticed most memories exist inside my head.”

“But she’s imprinted on you. That means there’s a mental link. Who knows how much of your feelings and thoughts are bleeding together.” He rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and held out his hands to us palms up. “But if you’re willing to try, I bet I can bridge it so she can look at what you’re remembering if you call up the memory.”

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that since I had no idea what Ricky would find when she reached into my mind. What if she saw something that sent her running in the other direction? Still, if it would really help me save my family, I was willing to try. I’d just have to trust in what we had, whatever that was.

“Will that work?” Ricky asked, looking at him dubiously. “That seems super dangerous.”

“It isn’t without risk—” Danton started to say before I interrupted him.

“Okay, better Ricky than Jack. Let’s do it,” I said, holding my hand out to him. He took it and looked at Ricky.

“You too, doll,” he smirked. “And be patient. I haven’t done this in a while. So if it hurts, just wait. Eventually, it will start to feel good.”

“Why do I think you’re mixing things up,” Ricky said, taking his other hand so the three of us were standing in a circle facing each other.

“Hush,” Danton said, shutting his eyes. “I need to concentrate.” Then he began to hum the melody to Funky Town.

I was about to make a snide remark when everything in front of me vanished, leaving me standing in my living room. The Cursed from before stood there, cigar in one hand while the Frankenstein-looking motherfucker who had taken my nephew was on the lawn, dragging the kid toward the open door of the car. Ricky’s hand tensed in mine, and I turned to see her standing there next to me.

“I know who that is,” she whispered, and as she was about to say more, the entire scene burst into scarlet flames.

“No!” the word exploded across my brain with such force I was flung backward, losing my grip on both Danton and Ricky. I smacked into a bench, and as my reality struggled to reorient itself back to the laundromat, the cat’s voice was very clear in my brain.

“If you allow the demon hunter into your mind one more time, not only will I melt your brain into slag, but I’ll kill your girlfriend too. Are we clear?” Gnashing teeth appeared in my mind’s eye. “You may think he’s trying to help, but while you and the wolf were searching for answers, he was trying to delve deeper. He cannot be trusted, Mac.”

“What the hell happened?” Ricky cried, turning away from Danton and coming toward me.

“Jackass pissed off the demon who gave me my arm,” I said through gritted teeth. “She says he was looking for things he wasn’t supposed to look for.”

“Ah, hell, Mac. You can’t be serious,” Danton said, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes which seemed like answer enough. It wasn’t like he was the most trustworthy source to begin with, but then again, he hadn’t actually killed me yet either.

“It doesn’t matter. I know who that guy is. He’s Big Sal.” Ricky shook her head as I stared at her blank faced because the name meant nothing to me. “He’s a gangster who lives in the Upper East Side. Bad dude. Lots of supernatural minions but mostly keeps to himself. He actually keeps his area pretty safe for the normal people who live within his territory since most people don’t want to piss him off.”

“Well, that’s about to change because Sal is about to have a very bad day,” I said, getting to my feet. Part of me felt a little bad because taking out Sal might allow an even worse guy to take his place, but somehow I doubted it. I’d heard the whole “better the devil you know” spiel before, and you know what, if you’re getting screwed, you always have to try for a better outcome. Sure, you might wind up in a worse situation, but sometimes the only way out of a hole was to keep digging until you struck oil.

Though, to be fair, most of me didn’t care about those people. My sole driving ambition at the moment was to recover my family, and if some faceless, nameless people got a worse taskmaster because of it, well, it wasn’t my concern. Right now, I just needed to get my family back before they slipped away like grains of sand in an hour glass.

“Assuming he’s home, which he isn’t usually.” Ricky gave me a pained look. “Let me call my people and find out where he is. With any luck, we won’t have to storm his heavily-defended castle.” She shot me a grin. “Not that you are opposed to storming gates, but if we can pull him out of a limo or a coffee shop, that’d be a lot easier.”

“That sounds like a lot less fun, but I see your point,” I grumbled, gesturing for her to get on with it. “Call your people. I’ll just sit here twiddling my thumbs.” Frustration leaked into my voice as I spoke. Waiting for her people to bumble around looking for Sal seemed a lot less expedient than going to Sal’s place and roughing up his people until he showed up. Maybe I could do both?

Ricky shot me a look I couldn’t quite interpret. It was definitely angry. I just wasn’t sure why. Then, without another word, she glanced at Danton and held out her hand. “Can I borrow your phone?”

“Only if you don’t make any international calls,” Danton said, fishing out a pink-gold colored smart phone and offering it to her. “Or use a bunch of data because I pay by the gig.”

“I’ll write you a check,” Ricky said, frustration spilling into her voice as she took the phone and punched in some numbers. “I wouldn’t want all those little old ladies’ tithes to go to waste, now would I?” Without waiting for Danton to respond, she turned away from us and put it to her ear.

“Ricky here,” she said after a moment, and then her face went drawn and tight. Her pale skin somehow became ever paler making her freckles stand out on her cheeks and nose like spots of flame. “Holy fuck. You can’t be serious?”

“What’s wrong?” I asked as a bad feeling welled up in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what the person on the other end of that phone call had told her, but it didn’t seem like Easter eggs and jelly beans.

She exhaled hard into the phone and turned her eyes on me. “Apparently, killing Pierce Ambrose has thrown the shifter world into a tailspin.” She swallowed hard as guilt filled her eyes. “I need to go take care of some things, Mac. They can’t wait.”

“But what about my family?” I cried, taking an angry step toward her, and as I did so, a wave of guilt and sadness washed over me. Was I feeling what Ricky felt right now?

Before she could respond, the voice on the phone started talking. I couldn’t quite hear what was being said, but the tone of it sounded bad. Still, my family. I had helped her! She couldn’t leave me, not now.

“Mac…” she trailed off as her face hardened. “No, we can’t let them do that!” she cried into the phone, and a wave of rage wafted off of her, hitting me so hard I staggered backward. She cupped the phone to her shoulder and stared hard at me. “I… I can’t help you right now. I am Alpha. I need to tend to my pack.” She swallowed hard and the look in her eyes begged me not to make her choose between me and her pack. “I’m sorry.” The phone was already going back toward her ear as she turned and walked out of the laundromat.

Chapter 13

I sprinted out the door of the laundromat. Ricky was only a few feet away, walking purposely toward the street. I wasn’t quite sure where she was heading, but there was no way I was letting her go without a fight. It wasn’t just because I wanted her to help me rescue my family from Baal. While it would have been nice to have her help, I’m almost ashamed to say it, I chased after her because I was worried about her, and not because there was a magnetic force pulling me toward her because she’d imprinted on me.

Whatever was going on in her neck of the shifter woods, seemed pretty pressing, especially since she’d been willing to bail on me so easily. It didn’t seem like something she’d normally do, but then again, how well did I really know her? For all I knew, everything about our relationship was colored by the imprint. Maybe this was how she was? Maybe she’d always drop me at the first sign of trouble?

Even if that was the case, if she went off on her own and wound up getting herself killed, I was going to be pissed. I already had enough people I needed to kill in the name of revenge and not enough time to do it in.

“Ricky, stop!” I called, waving at her for all the good it would do because she had her back to me.

She must have heard me because she turned and looked at me with hard, amber eyes. If her eyes were
that
color, she was close to shifting. That wasn’t good. It meant she probably wasn’t thinking clearly, and as someone who almost never got past the “shoot it in the face” part of the plan, I knew it didn’t generally lead to the best decisions.

“What do you want, Mac? I already said I can’t help you right now.” She was already turning away as she spoke, and her voice carried an air of finality I had to try very hard to ignore. “And you don’t have time to wait for me.”

“I want to know what you’re doing,” I replied, still running after her. “I want to know that you aren’t going to go do something stupid because you’re pissed off.” I huffed out a breath as I caught up to her. “I want to know that you’ll be safe.”

I touched her shoulder, and as I did, she whirled, grabbing hold of my wrist and jerking my hand away from her with no more effort than it’d take me to swat away a cobweb. I took a step backward, caught off guard by her reaction. The look in her face was so hostile, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Normally, when things looked at me like that, I shot them, and she did heal quickly…