Fallen Angel of Mine (34 page)

"She has never failed to detect a lie
before," Bella said. "Though it is very exhausting."

"How does this work?" I asked
Maria.

"I will bind us together and when you
tell your story, I will feel the truth."

"Bind us? With rope?"

She giggled. "No, with
magic."

"Um, didn't you guys want to talk about
something else besides my love life?"

"Oh, no, absolutely not," Bella said.
"We must get to the bottom of this and help you solve your
problems."

Great. The magical equivalent of Oprah
and Dr. Phil were about to tag team my ass.

Maria didn't waste another second,
drawing a circle around the chairs and sealing it, infusing our
small area with the static sensation of magic. She sat facing me
and gripped my hands in hers. A knot of panic grew tighter and
tighter in my chest. I saw Elyssa sitting forward in her chair,
hands clenched in white-knuckled fists. Beck flirted with Bella who
kept trying to shush him.

The door opened and Lina entered. Red
rimmed her large dark eyes. She had changed from the revealing red
dress into a tank top and khaki shorts that seemed pale next to the
copper of her skin. She slipped into a chair against the
wall.

I thought back to the
conversations I'd had with her trying to pinpoint a moment where
I'd given her any sort of hint I liked her like
that
. I'd told her from the beginning
I had a girlfriend. Had I somehow increased her desire when I'd fed
on her? Guilt became roommates with the butterflies in my stomach
and I looked away from her. Somehow, it had to be my fault. I was
still a newbie when it came to feeding and if I'd damaged her or
made her feel more strongly about me because of it, I didn't know
how to set it right.

"I am ready," Maria said, releasing my
hands and sitting back in her chair.

I nodded. I felt sweat beading on my
forehead and wiped it away with the back of my hand. "What
now?"

"First, I ask you to lie."

That seemed pretty standard, given what
little I knew about lie-detector tests. "I am Zargon, master of the
universe."

She smiled. "And now tell me a
truth."

"I am not a bad person."

Another smile. "You do not believe
yourself to be a bad person, but tell me something more
concrete."

"I have ten fingers."

She nodded. "I believe I am in sync."
She looked to the side. "Bella?"

The dhampyr's eyes lit up like
Christmas ornaments. "Please, Justin, start at the
beginning."

"Beginning of what?"

"Your association with this pretty
young woman."

Elyssa blushed.

"Um, well, that might take all
day."

"Please, Justin, the television
reception in this town is terrible, and Colombian TV is even worse.
Allow us to enjoy a good story. Hopefully, a true
story."

The rest of the council seemed to lean
forward in unison.

"Good lord, you people must be
deprived."

I sighed and rewound events in my head
all the way back to what seemed like the beginning. "It all started
with a girl named Katie, a big ape named Nathan, and a Goth girl
named Crye Rayne."

Elyssa's eyes widened. She fell back in
her chair as though I'd slapped her.

"Little did I know this girl named Crye
would be my princess bride and I would be her Westley."

Even more shock mounted on her face and
I could tell it was taking everything she had to keep from blurting
out a response.

I told them just about everything I
could remember, giving them every gory detail about how grossed out
I'd been initially by Elyssa's Goth dress code and how I'd grown to
regard her, Ash, and Nyte as friends. How suddenly one day, I felt
a connection click between the two of us. I kept things somewhat
sterile, however, because I knew if I expressed my emotions, I'd
probably lose it in front of everyone and break out in girly tears.
So I told my story—our story—about how we'd met and the crap we'd
been through since then.

When I reached the part
where I'd first met Elyssa's father, I caught her nodding as I
recounted how he'd responded to me, and tried not to smile despite
the negative emotions associated with the incident. What an awful
night
that
had
been. I'd saved Stacey from hellhounds later and nearly died for
it.

By the time I hit the part about
running from shadows in El Dorado, everyone seemed entranced by the
story even though I'd already told the council most of this. I
decided to end the recitation of events at the part where I
discovered the Templar I'd saved from the aircraft was, in fact,
Elyssa.

"The end," I said with a croak and
slumped back into the chair. My dry throat ached for
water.

"Hopefully to be continued," Bella said
to murmurs of agreement from around the room.

"And it was true," Maria said. "I only
detected minor falsehoods. For example, he really did think the
felycan, Stacey, was very attractive and it took far more effort
than he admitted to not take her up on her offer of
sex."

My entire body went white hot with
embarrassment.

She patted my hand. "And there were
other sexual encounters with random women that he barely avoided.
Not just the one with the woman in the grocery store."

Beck burst into laughter. "Dude, you
are the worst incubus ever."

"Shut up," I said, unable to force my
eyes off the floor.

"Sexual super powers and you want to
stay a virgin?"

"I said, shut up."

"That's just sad, man."

I stood so abruptly that my chair
almost toppled over.

I gave Beck my meanest glare. "Guys
like you don't understand, Beck. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic.
Maybe I'm a loser virgin in your eyes. Frankly, I don't give a damn
what you think. All I know is that none of my carnal urges for
other women meant a thing. There's only one truth that matters to
me." I glared at the faces around the room. "I only want to be with
one woman and she's sitting right there." I stepped toward
Elyssa.

"No!" Maria said. "I haven't unbound
myself. You must not break the circle."

My foot brushed the circle and the
magic escaped in a tidal wave through the gap. "I love you,
Elyssa."

Gasps went up around the room. Elyssa
pressed a hand to her heart and sucked in a breath as she stared at
me. Beck's forehead wrinkled in absolute befuddlement. Maria loosed
a string of angry Spanish and grabbed me.

"You shouldn't have broken the
circle."

"I felt that," Bella said, a tear
trickling down her cheek. "Oh my, I have not felt such young love
for so long." She wiped away the tear. "How I miss that
innocence."

"It felt beautiful. So pure," another
woman said in a thick Spanish accent. "Even better than the romance
novel I am reading."

"Even better than
El Diablo Del Mi Amor
?"
asked another woman in a shocked voice.

"I would not go that far."

Elyssa jumped from her chair, shaking
her head as if she could fling away an unpleasant memory. She gave
me a look bordering on anger and contempt.

Then she stormed from the room and
slammed the door behind her.

Beck sauntered over to me, a smirk on
his handsome face.

"Dude, that's really sweet how you feel
for her and all, but I have bad news."

"Yeah, what's that?" I
growled.

"Taking the White is permanent. She
won't ever remember any of the stuff you talked about. To her,
it'll just be a story."

"Thanks for giving me hope."

He rested a hand on my shoulder, his
eyes full of malicious amusement. "I grew up with Elyssa. She
wanted to be a Templar since we were like three. And since her dad
wiped you away like bleach on a skidder, she won't ever come back
to you. Especially now that she knows what her father went through
to get you out of her life. You're trouble, man."

I resisted the urge to
snatch his arm off my shoulder and break his fingers one by one.
The odd thing was, mean as he sounded, I could actually
feel
in my guts he was
being sincere with me. "She almost died on me once, Beck. I don't
intend to let our love die either."

He shrugged. "She's like a sister to
me, man."

"Yeah, right. You're sick in the head
if you'd look at your sister's ass like you look at
hers."

He laughed. "Okay, I admit it. She's
hot. I've liked her since we were kids. If I ever saw myself
settling for one woman, it would be her."

"Please don't take this the wrong way,
Beck, but I would do my absolute best to cut off your daddy-bags if
you ever tried anything with her."

He held out his hands in a half-shrug
and said, "Dude, if she doesn't want you, she doesn't want you. You
have to let go."

Maria gripped my hands all of a sudden
and, after an intense moment of furrowing her brow and muttering
incantations, let go. "Finally, I have cleared the air."

A conflicting knot of emotions I hadn't
even realized was crowding my insides faded. "What
happened?"

"The circle kept the spell
limited to you. When you opened the circle I was interpreting the
truth of all feelings in the room and sharing them." She shook her
head and slumped back into her chair. "
Madre de dios
, I really need a
drink."

"Justin, I gotta ask you about
something else from your story," Beck said, motioning me away from
Maria.

I followed him, wary about whatever
subject he was interested in. He probably wanted the hookup with
Stacey. I'd enjoy letting him meet her werewolf boyfriend, Ryland,
also a Templar and undoubtedly more qualified to kick this punk's
ass.

"What is it?"

"You talked about that vampire,
Maximus, the one who kidnapped your dad."

I shrugged. "And?"

"He's the same one who's organizing
here in Colombia. The one we were supposed to take down before our
mission changed to apprehend you."

I remembered the conversation I'd had
with Underborn about Maximus. He wanted me to take the rogue
vampire out. I shivered with the realization of just how far the
malignant cancer called Maximus was spreading. How many other drug
lords did he have ties to? How many new recruits had he added to
his army of brainwashed kids? I had a feeling Underborn didn't know
the half of it. Or maybe he did and had no compunctions about
throwing me into the fire.

"What about vamplings? Have there been
any reports of those here?"

He shook his head. "Not that I know
of."

"Good lord, do you even know where his
headquarters are? He might have a basement or something crawling
with the things."

"He's in Bogota, or at least a splinter
cell is. They're organizing in the old section of town."

"I hope you guys are planning to put a
stop to that."

Beck nodded. "Christian plans to
proceed with the operation soon. It might help if you came back
with us and gave him the details on your encounters with this
guy."

I thought back to what Bella had told
me about El Dorado and seeing Vadaemos. Maximus was a major player,
but finding the demon spawn who'd brewed the bad blood between my
kind and the Templars was even more important. A very clear flow
chart existed in my brain. It started with finding Vadaemos and
ended with me striking peace with Thomas Borathen. Well,
technically, it ended with me enjoying some intimate time with
Elyssa, but that all relied upon her father fixing the mind wipe.
Everything else could wait.

"Tell you what, Beck. If you help me,
I'll help you."

He folded his arms and raised an
eyebrow. "This should be good." He looked around conspiratorially.
"Well, what do you want? You know I can't make Elyssa like you—not
that I would if I could." He winked.

I resisted yet another powerful urge to
punch him in the face. "I don't expect you to. I want you to enter
El Dorado with me to capture a fugitive."

"A fugitive?"

"Yeah."

Fausta came up behind Beck. "What are
you conspiring about over here?"

Bella appeared from somewhere, gripped
my arm, and tried to pull me to the side. I resisted. "Justin, you
should not do this. Even without El Dorado to worry about,
you-know-who is extremely dangerous."

"Everything and everyone is dangerous,"
I countered and glanced at Fausta. "You look like you think you're
a badass. Maybe you can help me if Beck is too scared."

Fire danced in Beck's eyes. "Me
scared?" He snorted. "Count me in."