The Fire of Hestia Page 2

  The woman rose, rushing down the steps to be directly in front of Aetos. “Go to his friend, Madison. She is intelligent. She will help you find him.”

  “Cathia,” Hades said in a commanding tone.

  She whirled around to face him. “I haven’t seen my son in almost fifteen years. He was supposed to be safe in the human realm. He was supposed to be safe but I find he never was!” she shouted, clenching her hands in her hair as her shoulders shook with sobs. “He was supposed to be safe,” she whispered.

  Hades rose from his throne and walked down the steps as well. The guards all moved like they planned to surround him. Hades waved them off, though. What he did was to wrap his arms around Cathia and allow her to weep into his shoulder.

  Aetos' heart stopped. The god of the underworld had just been shouted at in his throne room and he held the woman like she was the most precious creature ever to walk the worlds. The god must truly be in love with her.

  Hades pressed his mouth to the top of Cathia’s head and made hushing noises. “I will destroy them all if a single hair on his head was damaged by them. I swear it to you,” he crooned like his declaration of war was a proclamation of love.

  Cathia sniffled and shook her head. “No, Hades. Spencer is a caring boy. He would hate you for the rest of eternity if you destroyed the place he thinks of as home.”

  Hades contemplated her for a moment before he turned his eyes to look at Aetos. “Go and find Spencer,” he commanded, turning his head again to make an odd whistling noise.

  The three-headed dog stepped over, all three tongues lolling out in delight.

  “Janus, shift into a form that will allow you to roam safely through the human world and help this fool of a guard.”

  The cerberus’ three heads disappeared, leaving a massive Rottweiler in his place.

  Aetos' skin crawled at the idea of being in the company of the cerberus, yet he had no choice. If that was his punishment, he would accept it and be grateful. He bowed to Hades and turned to leave, baffled how he had made it out of there alive.

  Hades’ voice filled the air before he’d made his escape. “Go, Janus. And if he fails in his duty, he will be your new play thing,” he finished, his voice hard and cold as steel.

  THREE

  I got out of my car, my hand in the bag slung across my body. I was NOT happy that Patrick-freaking-Beech had come to my home. I was even less happy to find him standing on my porch talking to Darlene.

  Daw pulled in behind me, getting out fast. “Please tell me your landlady isn’t going to invite the guy in for cookies or something,” he said, eyeing the man in the same wary way I was.

  I hoped she wouldn’t. Darlene was generally a good judge of character. And she did an amazing job of scaring off unwanted visitors. I had no idea why she’d talk to a guy who was such a jerk.

  Since Dawson had to get to work, our group was smaller than it probably should be. We had a plan of attack all worked out, though. Daw and I would go talk to him. Simms and Roy would be coming around the block like they were nothing more than a guy and his dog going for a walk.

  They’d stop in front of the house and allow Roy to do his sniff-test. The dog-shifter’s nose was an incredible tool. He would be able to tell us quite a bit.

  I had several different ways to scan Patrick, both to see if he was telling the truth and to see if he was a danger to us. The fact he had come to my home was a threat. It was clear as crystal.

  Patrick turned his head when I stepped onto the porch and my heart flip-flopped in my chest. There was something familiar about him. I had no idea what it was, though.

  He was neither tall or short, neither attractive or ugly. He was just an average guy . . . who was apparently the angel of death’s kid. That was a new one.

  He looked me straight in the eye and shook his head. “I’m not threatening you, Madison. I’m asking for your help,” he said in a far nicer tone than he’d used on the phone.

  I lowered my chin. “You’re not physically threatening me but you came to my home. Invading a place that is supposed to be safe is going too far,” I stated, relieved when Darlene stepped back into the house.

  Patrick huffed. “I’m running low on time here. I went to the office but no one was there, so I asked around.”

  I rolled my eyes, my hand wrapped around the handle of the extendable baton instead of the gun. I hadn’t been sure at first which would be the better weapon to use. “No one I know would have given you my address,” I contradicted, annoyed that he would lie to me.

  He pursed his lips, his eyes fixed on mine unflinchingly. “He was some pretty-boy with a poet’s name. Frost? Whitman? Something like that.”

  My jaw went hard. “Keats,” I growled, determined to indeed give reboot a whole new meaning in Keats Driscoll’s life.

  Patrick nodded. “The kid was hanging around by the door. I asked him where you were. He gave me the address,” he said, scowling at me. “I need your help. Are you going to help me or not?”

  “I might,” I replied, feeling certain the longer he stood there that if the angel of death was really missing, we were totally screwed.

  He scowled even more ferociously. It fell away when Darlene stepped back out on the porch carrying my baseball bat.

  I smiled at her and took the bat, handing it to Daw as I took out my baton. “Think you can stop being a jerk long enough to tell me the details I’ll need to find your father?” I asked, not wanting to speak about the paranormal world in front of Darlene.

  I knew she was a good Lutheran who believed in God and probably angels too. I didn’t think she believed in anything paranormal. We tended not to talk about our beliefs. The only reason I knew about her faith was because of a church program I’d seen around the house.

  Beech looked at the three of us, his arms folded as he contemplated our combative stance. “A lot has happened in the last few weeks. My father needs to be found or . . . bad things will happen.” His tone was far calmer than it was before, his eyes kind of pleading.

  Darlene cocked her hands on her hips and stared him down. “Young man, I think you missed a few crucial lessons in the manners-department. If you are asking for help, a polite request is the best way to go about it,” she stated with a nod, not waiting for him to reply before she turned to look at me. “You go on inside, Madison. And tell sweet Roy I better not find his hair on my furniture,” she said, waving as she saw Simms and Roy meandering along the sidewalk like it was a normal, evening stroll.

  I felt my lips quiver in a tiny attempt at a smile. I should have guessed it would be useless to pull that kind of ruse off with Darlene around. It didn’t matter, though. She had drawn Patrick’s attention to the fact they were with us. I had a feeling he already knew.

  Simms and I both waved at Darlene as she went off to her evening bingo game at the Y. It made me feel at home and I loved Darlene for it.

  I motioned Simms and Roy up onto the porch with us and leaned back against the rail. “How could the angel of death have been taken?” I asked, not sure just how far up the creek of crap we all were.

  He scowled deeply as he looked around at our group.

  Before he could say anything rude, I raised my hand to shut him up. “Patrick Beech, this is Daw who also works for Erkens and this is Simms who is the one that will make me investigating any of this legal. Erkens is . . . out of town,” my voice broke on the last little bit. I did my best to push back the flood of emotion that tried to wash over me. “Just answer my questions and we will have a better chance of finding your father.”

  His scowl deepened, though he didn’t argue. “I don’t know how he was taken. I do know who but I can’t say.”

  My stomach fluttered. Could it be the PSA? Could they have found a way to capture an angel?

  Daw held up his hands. “Hold on just one minute. You seem pretty human to me and you’re claiming to be a Nephilim?” he asked, his tone far harsher than I was used to hearing from him.

  Patrick tappe
d his foot on the porch as he glared at Daw. “That is what I said, isn’t it?” he demanded, something about him telling me right then that he was lying.

  There were none of the usual tells. He didn’t pause or turn his eyes away or even change the way he’d spoken. I knew he was evading the truth.

  I took out my phone and turned on the app Quinn had made. His heat signature told me he was human. Okay. Was it possible for the angel of death to have fathered a kid who wasn’t a Nephilim but just human?

  I looked up the destroying angel in one of the other menus and found it was sent by God to kill enemies of the Israelites. The information we had stated that God had forbidden seraphs and humans from making babies because of how dangerous those creatures were. The idea of a heavenly being going against God seemed like the best way for them to get dead.

  Could a desire for power be why such a mighty entity had been taken? Who would have the kind of juice to imprison one? Why would anybody take a chance like that with a being whose sole purpose was to kill?

  I glanced up, a little startled to see that Patrick was looking directly at me. Something in his eyes told me to wait, not to demand the truth. Whatever he was, he did need our help.

  It had meant something to me not so long before. I would make it mean something to me again. I would find out what was going on and maybe it would help me figure out how to get into the PSA and get the people I loved out.

  FOUR

  Since Patrick was apparently on some kind of time constraint, he had left very quickly. Simms and Daw had gone away shortly after, leaving me alone to do the work I needed to do. I was grateful, although for some reason, loneliness worked its way over me.

  I was aware how ridiculous it was. I had just gotten used to people being around me. Even if I didn’t participate in their conversations, I had still been near others.

  Being alone made the whole situation feel far worse. Ian. I had to find him. Not knowing where he was or if he was okay was tearing holes in me. I should have thought of the idea that the PSA was in another realm myself.

  It made perfect sense. What I needed to do was go back to the Chinese restaurant and scan the place from inside. That should make it possible for me to find the portal they used.

  The problem was, I was Quinn’s sister. The fact I had shown up at the restaurant was probably what had gotten her put back in disciplinary holding. They would know she had told me something about them.

  Simms had sent one of the guys on our task force to watch the place. It was a guy who no one would recognize, so we had thought it should be easier for him to see what was going on. I had to wait and waiting made me very anxious.

  I did have a lot of work to do figuring out the little mystery Patrick presented. So to distract myself, I started working on his case. The first step was to find out who his father actually was.

  He had given me almost no information at all. Since I had gotten his information off his phone, it was something I could work with. That was the hope, anyway.

  Since I had already gotten into his file, it should have been easy to find more information on him. For the first time in my life, it wasn’t. Every search I ran redirected me to a site, one for a humanitarian aid business. It was a virus. Whoever had hidden Patrick’s information had somehow gotten a virus into MY system. It was an amazing feat. It was also a challenge.

  After I’d taken care of the little problem, I decided to use my facial recognition software instead. It had served me well in a lot of cases. The only time it had failed me was in finding the guys.

  I set up the search in traffic and security cams around the city and also in police records. It usually took about two minutes for one of those searches to get me the information I needed. That evening, minutes passed into an hour, then another.

  What was slowing my search down? It should be easy.

  A crash sounded from the room next to mine before a stream of swearwords floated their way through the wall. I knew the voice all too well. I knew the anger too.

  Imogen had been just as out of sorts as I had been over the last two weeks. She and Spencer had practically been living together. Him being gone was not doing anything better for her than it was for me that Ian was gone.

  I rose, stumbling over the pile of laundry I’d been ignoring for a while. I hadn’t paid much attention to my room, myself, my friends. I had pretty much shut down.

  Guilt gnawed at me. Imogen was my best friend and she was in just as much pain as I was. I shouldn’t have ignored her. It had been very wrong of me.

  I stepped out into the hallway, startled to see that Imogen’s bedroom door was open . . . with a black haired siren in the middle of the room. I gaped for a second, seeing sleek hair and flawless, porcelain skin that made me feel like some kind of unwashed savage. No one had ever been more beautiful. Who was she?

  Something in the way she stood there told me the truth. It was Imogen. Her fluorescent green hair was gone, showing just how breathtaking my friend was under the rocker chick look she usually wore.

  I stepped closer to her and my heart broke again. In the year we had lived in the same house, I had seen her angry on many occasions. I had never seen her cry. Until right then.

  She stood there and sobbed, her shoulders shaking with the power of her emotions. I stepped in, my own tears rising as it all hit me again. Seventeen days with no word from them. It was agonizing.

  Imogen turned when she heard me and we both broke down. Every emotion I had done my best to suppress bombarded me. Pain. Loneliness. Hopelessness. Desperation. Terror. There was love as well.

  By the time we had stopped blubbering, both of us had red eyes and runny noses. The thing was, though, I felt better. Releasing the tumult of emotions had freed me from a tiny bit of the pain. It looked like Imogen felt the same way.

  I sniffled, wiping at my tear stained face. “What’s with the hair?” I croaked, wanting to talk about something with no teeth.

  Imogen’s eyes filled with tears again. “I went to my grandfather. I asked him to help me find Spencer.” She shook her head. “He said no. He didn’t even think about it. He just said he would not look for the son of Hades.”

  My heart sank. I wasn’t surprised in the least, though. Imogen’s grandpa was the king of the fae. Hades apparently had a love of capturing and torturing fae.

  From what I’d read, it had been going on for centuries. The fact Imogen was one of their royals and was dating a son of Hades, yeah. That would indeed ruffle a few feathers.

  I’d guess the fae would be doing a dance of joy if they found out Spencer had been taken. From what I’d been told, King Adair had been trying to set Imogen up with what he considered more suitable candidates. Since she had refused, their relationship had been strained for a while.

  I sniffed again. “What does he have against fluorescent green hair?” I asked, going back to that subject just to give us both a minute.

  She shrugged. “I was thinking about a change anyway but yeah. Kelton told me I should look more fae when I went to see the king.”

  I sighed, wishing it had made him more willing to help us. If King Adair had decided to cooperate, it was possible we might have been able to talk to Angelica, the one the PSA had captured twenty or more years before. She might have been able to help us since she’d gotten away.

  “What are you guys up to?” Serena called, poking her head into the room.

  She set her Yorkie down as she stepped in and Pip Squeak started his usual yapping. After a few seconds, he apparently decided to shut up, so settled himself in Imogen’s pile of laundry and went to sleep. He was downright adorable when he wasn’t barking.

  Serena stared at Imogen as the dog settled himself in, her eyes wide as saucers. “Oh, sweetie! You look amazing! You are so gorgeous!” and she rushed in, wrapping her arms around both of us.

  Serena’s sweet presence was always a comfort. She had a way of making me feel like family with a simple look. With those two around, it felt like I actua
lly had three sisters.

  Serena was one of those girls who was so hot, guys flocked to her. Her perfect mocha skin and bleached hair were an interesting combination that made her even more striking.

  She pulled both of us back after a few seconds and gave us a decisive nod. “Imogen, your hair is beautiful but it’s just not you. Will you let me play with it? I think a messy pixie cut would suit you perfectly.”

  Imogen sniffled out a small chuckle and shrugged. “Let’s do this,” she said, her eyes still red and puffy from all the tears we’d both cried.

  It was amazing to watch Serena work. She was a certified cosmetologist and had continued on for a business degree, so she did know what she was doing. It was obvious as she finished that whatever salon she worked at would be lucky to have her.

  Imogen’s hair looked amazing. Her long bangs dangled around her eyes and uneven sideburns drew attention to every feature. She still looked like the musician she was, yet her breathtaking beauty was shown off as well.

  Imogen turned her head from side to side as Serena held up a mirror, giving a slow nod. “I like it,” she said, her voice still weak.

  Serena smiled and turned to look at me. “Now, it’s your turn,” she said, holding up her hands to stop me before I could say a thing. “You’re barely sleeping. You’re barely eating. You look like you’ve gone through a war. Now I understand that both of you are going through something really hard but think about it, Madison. Think about how Ian will feel when he gets back and sees you like this. Let me fix your hair and we’ll order some food, have a good old fashioned girl’s night. You both need this,” she said bossily, her hands cocked on her hips.

  The thing was, I knew she was right. I did need to take better care of myself. I’d been snapping and snarling at Daw for telling me that mostly because I knew he was right. If I took care of myself, it would be easier for me to think clearly. Thinking clearly would make it easier for me to focus on finding them.