The officer lumbered up to Darien’s door. The beam of the flashlight the man carried at his side stung Darien’s eyes as he lifted it, pointing it right at his face. Darien briefly held up a hand to block the glare; those who were gifted with the Sight and used it on a regular basis were prone to having sensitive eyes.
“I’m sorry, folks,” the officer began, “but I’m afraid you’re going to have to turn—” He choked on the rest of his sentence as he beheld the Devils in the car. And upon registering the tattoos marking each of their necks, he lowered the flashlight, the beam wobbling from his shaking hand. It took him a moment to speak, and when he did, his voice was a rasp. “What brings you to Stone’s End?” The rain nearly drowned out his question.
“We have business with Cain Nash,” Darien stated.
The officer—E. Baxter, the gleaming nametag pinned to his pristine uniform read—glanced over his shoulder, at the peace commissioner stationed by the squad cars up ahead. The commissioner—no more than a silhouette in the rain—looked to Baxter in question but made no move to come any closer.
When Baxter faced Darien again, he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “Are you here to collect?” There was a curious undertone to his question—one that made Darien certain the law enforcement had become desperate for any sort of help, even if it wasn’t done by the book. Even if it came in the form of one criminal cleaning up another’s mistakes.
“Depends on why you’re asking.”
Baxter studied the Devils one by one, though it was Darien he spent the most time sizing up. Finally, after making his decision, Baxter spoke. “One of Cain’s feuds crossed a line tonight. We don’t have the evidence needed to make an arrest, but we have reason to believe it was his men who blew up the Starlight Mall. There was a Blood Potions dealer operating on the premises, using an ice cream parlour for a front.” He paused, and lines of grief deepened his expression. “Innocent lives were lost in the explosion.”
“Burning Ignis,” Darien swore.
It was no secret that Cain was a walking, talking piece of shit, but to blow up a mall…Burning Igniswas right, kids went to malls, families—especially ice cream parlours. If killing Cain wouldn’t start a war they couldn’t afford to deal with right now, Darien would personally bag his head tonight and leave it as a gift on the front steps of the holding centre.
Darien drew a breath. “If you’re making a request—”
“I’m not making any request,” Baxter said, holding up his hands slightly. “I just want you to know that I can talk to the commissioner. If he gives me the okay to let you guys through, we’ll look the other way. No matter what you do to him.”
Darien assessed the officer for a long minute. “Something tells me this tragedy is personal for you.”
Baxter didn’t say anything, but his expression told Darien enough: this man had lost someone tonight. In his years working as a Darkslayer, Darien had been approached several times by the kinds of people he never expected to see. Peace officers, lawyers, people who worked for the Magical Protections Unit. Men and women who’d lost someone close to them and had become desperate for retaliation. So desperate, in fact, that they were willing to hire a Devil to do their dirty work for them, so they could sleep at night without the hand of guilt squeezing their airways shut.
“Let your boss know we’d like to get through,” Darien said. “But we make no promises, and our business is our own.”
Baxter gave one sharp nod before jogging over to the huddle of squad cars, the beam of his flashlight bouncing with every step. When he reached the cars, he conversed quietly with the peace commissioner for several minutes, the rain drowning out every trace of their conversation.
In the backseat, Max murmured, “Sounds like Cain’s become a problem even the commissioner can’t handle.”
“I’m banking on that,” Darien replied. He didn’t allow himself to feel sorry for the fact that he and his Devils had no plans to fix the problems Baxter was hoping they’d fix. They weren’t here tonight to make right the deaths of those innocent people, but to get answers to help Sabrine and Loren. Cain would be dealt with eventually—of that, he had no doubt. But it wouldn’t be tonight.
The hand of guilt would have to suffocate this officer a little while longer.
Baxter returned to the vehicle a moment later. “You’re free to go in,” he told them. “Once you get through the exit, take the eastern backroads to Cain’s residence. Keep away from Crescent Street.”
Darien gave a sharp nod. The officer backed away from the car, and Darien was just about to push the gearshift into drive when something in the rear-view mirror caught his eye.
Two young women—a blonde and a redhead, roughly two dozen feet behind his car. Grappling with each other over what to do with the lone electric scooter they were both standing on. The scooter that appeared to have run out of battery life.
The other Devils turned around in their seats to follow his line of sight just as Darien snarled, “You’vegotto be kidding me.”
—
Loren stopped pulling on the handlebars of the electric scooter the moment she heard a car door swing open. And Dallas fell silent beside her, her own hands stilling as she took in the Devil striding toward them, a look that promised death in his eyes. The peace officers merely watched with vigilance from where they were turning away vehicles at the roadblock as Darien closed in on them.
The Devil did not stop until he was a terrifying force of nature looming over Loren and Dallas.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”he snarled in Loren’s face, raindrops flying from his lips.
Before Dallas could make the situation worse by saying the wrong thing, Loren stepped off the scooter. “It was my idea,” she said. Her legs felt like jelly, and her fingers ached from grasping the handlebars. “And I’m sorry. We should’ve listened to you, but we wanted to help—”
“You’re not helping by following us into a goddamn warzone on a scooter that hasn’t been turned on since Ivyana was twelve fucking years old.”
“I said I’m sorry,” Loren bit out, teeth chattering. She was soaked to the bone. Dallas mumbled her own apology as she stepped off the scooter.
Darien shot them both a look of daggers before ripping the handlebars out of Dallas’s grip and carrying the scooter toward his car. “Get in the backseat,” he called over his shoulder.“Now.”
