“I swear I thought I saw a woman here…”
“It’s all in your head, Kev,” the taller cop grunted. “No woman in her right mind would hang around this dump at this time of the night. Probably a ghost.”
“Fuck, man!” the shorter one grumbled as they passed her. “Now I’ll see spooks in every dark flippin’ corner. This place gives me the creeps.”
She couldn’t blame them for feeling that way. The Bowery was a known area for demonic activity, not that humans knew this.
“We have to patrol these damn places now,” the tall cop muttered. “With the women and children disappearing—”
A rattling sound echoed eerily, the chains demarking a loading zone squeaking in the chilly breeze. A cat screeched nearby.
“Shit!” they both cursed, wheeled around, and practically sprinted back up the alley, bypassing Ely’s hiding place. Frowning, she followed, keeping a safe distance behind them. So, the human authorities were aware of mortal women and children vanishing?
The Guardians had shut down a part of the trafficking ring—one her friend Shadow had nearly been a victim of several months ago. Those scourges from the Dark Realm were either laying low for now, or they’d found another way to escape the Guardians’ notice and continue their heinous crimes elsewhere.
Her mind slipped back to another missing child, the one always in her thoughts. After her dismal failure to locate his whereabouts earlier, she knew Shadow was right. The little boy would be a little older now and hopefully still with the kind older couple she’d left him with.
Moonlight filtered through the passing black clouds, underscoring the dank alley and dirty snow. She cut through another backstreet and headed toward Club Anarchy. As she passed the queue waiting to get into the club, a pair in a lusty clench had amusement threading through her.
That sure was one way to keep warm in this freezing December weather. But it made her aware, too, of just how empty that part of her life was.
“Slow night, eh?”
Ely glanced toward the club’s entrance. And Tagg, who stood guard there, smiled.
“Something like that,” she said, stopping at his side. “You’re busy tonight.” She nodded to the line trailing down the alley.
“Every night,” he drawled. “Come hell or high water.”
Ely laughed. She liked the half-human, half-demon cop who moonlighted as a bouncer, and had become friendly with him in the passing months. With his deeply tanned features and close-cropped dark hair, Tagg was easy on the eyes. And he didn’t hit on women or her, unlike some of the human men and Otium demons she came across in clubs or bars.
But more, he was the Guardians’ go-to man, handling the murky side of business when humans sometimes encroached on the Guardians’ job—
A shiver coasted through her, and she pushed her icy hands into her coat pockets and upped her body warmth, hoping it wasn’t a portent of things to come.
“Why don’t you do some watching inside the club?” Tagg murmured.
Either he didn’t know she could raise her body temperature when required, or something suspicious was happening there.
“Demonii?” she asked.
The heavens knew those curs who gave in to their dark side and first stole a human soul for that elusive light, losing their own dark one as a result, were the bane of humanity. Mortal souls were never meant for demons and didn’t last. It became a never-ending cycle, reaping human souls to live. And the reason the Guardians existed.
Tagg hesitated, then shook his head. “No. Just thought you might like to step out of the cold for a while.”
Vae, she stifled an exasperated groan. Not only did she have her brother, who would hover given a chance, and her fellow Guardians who were just as bad, but now Tagg, too?
Seriously? She cast him a gimlet stare. “You know what I am, right?”
“I know.”
But the way he watched her…and then it whacked her upside the head.Oooh…boy! How did she miss the signs of how he felt?
While she did like him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted yet. Maybe…
Her thoughts drifted to the other demon she’d seen earlier with the wonderful scent. Ugh. What was it with her being drawn to the darkest of species? Tagg would be better. He was nice…nice? Man!
“How about coffee when you’re free?” he asked.
