Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(21)

“Oh, yeah, no. I mean, no particular reason.”

He was very careful to lock eyes with the tip of the cigarette. And ignore the soft chuckle that came back at him, said sound suggesting that the Brother had taken one look at the woman spotlit in that row of windows and guessed precisely why no-particular-reason meant this very specific kiosk.

“I’m not talking about it,” Balz muttered.

“You’re right to stay away from her, too.”

Fuck you, Vishous. Even though the guy was spot-on and then some.

The Brother rotated his right shoulder like it was stiff, his black leather jacket creaking. “I want you to call me if you need anything, ’kay? In the meantime, I’m going to find out what we can do for you. The Scribe Virgin’s library on the Other Side has all kinds of information in it, and there’s no way that demon doesn’t have a weakness. We’re going to find it, and exploit it without using the Book—”

“Vishous.”

The Brother frowned and tilted his head, the tattoos at his temple highlighted by illumination from the security lights. “Funny tone in your voice there, Bastard.”

Balz stood up and stared at his detective—not that she was his. When he finally spoke, his words were slow and steady. “If we can’t get the demon out, I want you to take care of the problem.” He glanced over at V. “And don’t pretend you’re missing my drift. If something… needs to be done, I want you to put a bullet in my head. Don’t let my cousins or Xcor be the one. I don’t want them having to live with that kind of thing on their conscience for the rest of their lives. For you, there’s enough distance so it’ll just be another shit job you got stuck with, instead of something that eats you alive.”

“Don’t have much faith, do you.”

“Life has trained me to be realistic. So promise me, here and now. You’ll do what has to be done. You’re the only one who’ll walk away clean. And if I do it, no Fade, right?”

“Not to throw a wrench in your grave, but your death might not be your salvation. It might keep you with that demon forever, a little commitment ceremony that has no divorce court, feel me?”

Balz closed his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Give me some time.” There was a pause. “And yeah, if there’s no other way… I’ll take care of you.”

The Brother extended his dagger hand, and as they shook, Balz nearly cursed in relief. A moment later, V dematerialized into thin air, nothing remaining of him but the exhale of smoke that left his lips and drifted off.

Left to his own devices again, Balz smoked his cigarette down to his fingertips and enjoyed the view of the human woman, soaking in the planes and angles of her profile and the way her hair was so sensibly pulled back and her frown of concentration as she checked her phone as if she were expecting a text or a call.

There were probably no more than fifty yards between them, as the crow flew. And considering he could dematerialize through glass, even if it was perma-thamed—

Thermopaned, he corrected.

“What am I doing here,” he muttered. Other than increasing the likelihood of Devina finding the woman.

In which case, the Brotherhood wasn’t going to have to worry about what to do with that demon. Balz was going to drag her to Dhunhd his damned self.

Dropping the stub of the hand-rolled on the tin roof, he crushed the last little bit of the Turkish tobacco with the treads of his shitkicker. Then he stared at the woman in the window for a moment longer.

He could be by her side in the blink of an eye. He could calm her down by controlling her fight-or-flight response. He could insert into her brain things that were true about him: He wasn’t going to hurt her. He didn’t want to scare her. He only wanted to protect her.

“Yeah, and then what. You going to take her out to dinner?”

Well, there was that 24-hour diner that had the good pie…

Balz stayed a little longer, playing out a fantasy that involved the kind of insanity that he was embarrassed to admit to himself. He was no prince, and paying for some woman’s dinner and holding some doors open for her was not going to turn this thief into anything charming. Besides, he came with one hell of a caboose, at least until V figured out how to file eviction papers with the Department of Goodbye Demons.

But God, he hated to leave the woman. He really did. And it wasn’t all about the protection thing.

He just liked looking at her. She calmed him down, focused him, made him stop chasing the inanimate objects of other people.

Closing his eyes, he took a couple of deep breaths and willed himself to dematerialize to the closest bridge. When nothing happened, he tried again. And a third time.

Great. All this shit was turning him into a pedestrian.

With a mutter, he jump-of-shame’d it off the kiosk’s roof and landed on the pavement with a clap of his boots. After a jack-up of his leathers, he got to hoofing it—and chilled his bad mood by pointing out that at least she didn’t have to know he was skulking off like his Kia Soul had run out of gas.

Not that there was anything wrong with a Soul.

As he went along, passing by dark office buildings, restaurants that were closing up, and ghost town surface lots and parking garages, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d walked anywhere, except for when he was on rotation and patrolling the field.