Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(22)

On that note, he wasn’t sure when he was going to be back at work.

His real life seemed a thousand miles away. Maybe that was why the fifty yards between him and that woman had struck him as a painfully close divide he desperately wanted to cross.

After a number of blocks, he caught sight of the first of the bridges, the span lit up with multicolored lights, the four lanes lightly traveled on account of the late hour. As he closed in, he made quick work of the sidewalk, pulling a Saturday Night Fever without the platform shoes. Or John Travolta’s dance moves.

Also no Bee Gees soundtrack, although, yes, he would like to stay alive, thank you very much.

When he arrived at the bridge, he went around the base of an on-ramp and entered an underworld that had its own rules. The stink of the place instantly registered, the combination of river mud, burning trash, and human waste burrowing into his sinuses. He was too tired to sneeze as he checked out the shadowed, littered landscape for things that went bump in the night.

No threats anywhere, but that didn’t mean there was nobody around. A couple dozen humans in ragged clothes were shuffling between tents and cardboard pallets, and little groups of like individuals circled around trash can fires. Lit joints, cigarettes, and liquor bottles were out in the open; the meth and crack pipes were generally kept hidden.

Putting his hands in his pockets, he strode forward with a lowered head and eyes that tracked everything. The man he’d come to see was nearly a quarter mile away, stationed all the way across at the brick wall boundary created by the start of the warehouse district. On the approach, the dealer didn’t look Balz’s way, but his hand ducked inside his bomber jacket. With his hoodie up and the darkness surrounding him, he was a sentient shadow in gray clothes.

Or he better be. Drug dealers didn’t last long in Caldwell if they weren’t halfway decent in the noggin department.

“I want something,” Balz said by way of introduction.

“I don’t know you.”

“I’m looking for a bump.”

The dealer glanced left. Glanced right. What little of his hair showed was dark, clean, and gelled, and his beard was trimmed tight. That bomber jacket of his was battered, but in a store-bought way, not from the authentic wear-and-tear that came from being homeless. He even had fresh kicks on, those sneakers the only thing on him that was white.

Not that great an idea if he were trying to stay hidden in the darkness.

Also not so hot in a bad part of town.

So clearly he was armed.

“I don’t have anything. Sorry.”

Balz casually put a hand out. “I got three hundred.”

There was a pause. Then a pair of heavy-lidded eyes shifted in his direction. As they swept up and down his full height, it was like getting scanned at an airport, a beam penetrating through Balz’s outer layers and skin to the bone structure underneath. The dealer wasn’t looking for metal in the form of weapons. No doubt he knew Balz was carrying. Nah, he was looking for a badge—and naturally, he was going to miss the real story.

The vampire shit probably wouldn’t have been relevant to him, however. Long as the cash was good.

“Nice jacket,” the dealer said. “Better’n mine.”

“I didn’t know we were competing.”

“Nice boots.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t covet your Nikes.” Balz looked to where a couple of hard-luck humans were walking away. “So are you helping me out or am I going somewhere—”

As he turned his head back, he got a gun in his face.

“Gimme your money and your coat.”

Balz let out a curse. All he needed was a little cocaine—okay, fine, an 8 ball. And instead, he was going to have to dance with this fucker.

“You do not want to do this,” he told the guy.

“Fuck you. Gimme your money and that jacket.”

“I’ll give you one chance to lower your weapon.”

As Balz drawled out the words, he was so tired of the whole world, especially as he had no faith that the reasonable advice he was offering would be taken—

The muzzle pushed into his nose, shoving it off-center, and a whiff of gunpowder cut through the bridge funk. “I’ll kill you right where you stand.”

As an undercurrent of Taco Bell registered—because clearly the guy had just had a Doritos Locos combo meal—Balz stared into the eyes that were only about eighteen inches from his own. FFS, if he hadn’t fallen asleep at the house site, he wouldn’t be here. Hell, if he hadn’t been electrocuted on the side of the Brotherhood mansion back in December, and provided the demon with the keys to his existential Airbnb, he wouldn’t be here.

Or maybe this had been his fate all along.

“I’ll pull this fucking trig—”

Annnnd that was as far as Mr. Nine Millimeter who didn’t wash his hands after eating got with the yapping. Balz entered the man’s mind, intending to accomplish with mental manipulation that which conversation was failing at: A quick reholster, a completed transaction, both going about their merry ways. That shit got sidelined quick, though.

The guy had had a busy night, and not when it came to the drug trade.

“You miserable asshole,” Balz growled. “Why the fuck you do that to her, huh? Pretending you’re the big man? Connie didn’t cheat. She’s never cheated and you know it. You frickin’ know this.”