Dangerous Things

Angelica climbed out of bed and turned on the lamp. “How big?”

“Not sure, but I’m going to guess a level seven.” He smiled into the phone knowing that would get her attention… and he just loved getting Boo’s attention.

Angelica walked out into the living room and turned on her laptop. She typed in a few things and frowned.

“Level seven? Are you sure?” she asked. Anything over a level five was very dangerous and extremely rare.

“It’s just a guess,” Zachary answered. “It was able to trap one of our two fallen that we’ve been following and apparently another fallen had been down there with it for a long time. Since they are considered level seven then I’m assuming anything powerful enough to trap one is an equal.”

Angelica was searching her database. More than three quarters of it had been illegally obtained from the vaults of the Vatican, but no one could argue with her results. The fact that a level seven demon might have been discovered in Los Angeles was more than enough of a reason to wake up not only her, but the rest of the P.I.T. crew as well.

Each demon was placed in a class of one through ten, with level ten being the equivalent of Satan himself. She’d hate to run into anyone who possessed enough magic to seal away a level seven demon… you’d need the thunder of God to pull it off.

“I’m not finding anything on a demon named Misery in the Los Angeles area,” she said after a few minutes. “Let me hook up my external hard drive and take a look at those files.”

She heard Zachary talking to someone in the background and figured it was Trevor until she heard another voice join in the conversation.

“Who are you talking to?” she asked curiously.

“The newest member of our team, Chad,” Zachary answered. “He’s a local cop that knows a little too much, so we brought him on to protect the masses, and by the masses I mean the other idiots he works with.”

Angelica smirked, “They’re probably worse out there.”

“Not by much,” Zachary said.

“Okay,” Angelica said. “I got it hooked up, let’s take a look around and see what all I’ve got on here.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Zachary asked in surprise.

Angelica sighed, “You know how I am. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached sometimes. I’ve only had a chance to explore a fraction of this thing.”

“Yeah, you did download it in a big hurry.” Zachary said and sighed himself. “Good times, good times.”

Angelica accessed the hard drive and typed a word into her search prompt and pressed enter.

“I take it you haven’t been behaving yourself.” Angelica asked leaning back on her sofa while the computer did its thing.

“Hell no,” Zachary laughed. “You can’t take me anywhere, remember?”

Angelica winced remembering only a couple months ago when they’d gone to a big gala while chasing a four year old werewolf who had gotten lost and wasn’t very happy about it. By the end of the night, Zachary had lost his pants because the werewolf had transformed during a child’s temper tantrum and ripped them to shreds.

The funniest part was that Zackary hadn’t said a thing, just took them off and walked around in his underwear and tuxedo jacket and shirt. Angelica couldn’t make up her mind whether to be embarrassed or laugh her ass off. Seeing his legs with the knee high socks and dress shoes had nearly killed her when several of the young ladies crowded around him wanting to dance.

Her laptop beeped and she sat forward to look at what the search had found.

“Find anything?” Zachary asked.

Angelica opened a few of the files that had the word Misery located in them and started reading. Her cigarette slipped from her fingers as she read and landed on her foot.

“Ouch, damn it!” she cursed and picked her cigarette back up, quickly putting it out.

“Everything okay?” Zackary frowned worriedly and held up a hand when Trevor wanted to know what was going on.

Angelica read over the information again just to be sure. “I’m catching the next flight out,” she informed him before pulling the phone away from her ear. She hung up on Zachary’s questions and looked back at the screen. It wasn’t what she had read that made her so sure this was dangerous… it was that the head man of PIT had somehow just locked her out of the file.

If Storm was keeping secrets… then she was wanted to know why.

Chapter 2

Anthony paced relentlessly across the marble floor of his study. He ran a hand through his dark hair in frustration and anger. He knew he’d lost his temper when he killed Arthur and now he’d also lost his leverage for binding Jewel to him as his mate… not that it would stop him.

He’d meant for the situation to remain calm… but when Arthur had brought up Anthony’s father, the werewolf part of him had lost it. Now he’d be forced to use coercion of a different kind on his runaway bride. The only problem was, he had to find her first.

Someone knocked on the door and Anthony stopped pacing long enough to straighten his hair and clothing. He was the alpha, and with that came a certain measure of decorum.

“Enter,” he called out in a cold voice.

The door opened and one of his wolves stepped in, closing the door behind him.

“What did you find?” Anthony asked.

The pack member looked very nervous and cleared his throat. “I stayed behind just like you ordered to see if the priest came back to the church. I wasn’t there long when all hell broke loose at the church and in the graveyard behind it. People were showing up right and left, most of them coming out of nowhere.” He paused and swallowed nervously before adding, “That’s when I noticed Jewel was with them.”

“Then where is she?” Anthony demanded as he closed the distance between them with rapid strides. “Why didn’t you bring her back with you?”

The wolf backed away with panic in his eyes knowing bringing bad news to their alpha was never a good thing. “I couldn’t,” he shuddered.

Anthony’s hand abruptly shot out and grabbed the subordinate by the throat, lifting him into the air. “You’re a werewolf. Why didn’t you just take her?”

“She was surrounded by weres… too many of them,” the wolf explained, lifting his hands to try and alleviate some of the pressure around his throat.

Anthony’s hand tightened and his eyes changed to an eerie golden color. His brother had finally returned from Italy, he was sure of it. “Did I or did I not teach you how to fight another pack on your own? My brother should have been no match for you.” It was a lie. The wolf would have been lying in a ditch somewhere had he dared to fight Andreas Valachi.

“Wasssssn’t wooolvvesssss,” the wolf rasped out while trying to breathe.

Anthony snapped his attention back to the man he was strangling and jerked his hand away, seeing he’d almost killed him. “Who was it?” he demanded with barely suppressed fury lacing his voice.

The wolf lay prone on the floor trying to catch his breath. He scrambled up to his hands and knees before dropping his forehead to the cold marble floor. He bared the back of his neck showing submission to his leader and wishing he’d run when he’d had a chance.

“Cats… I smelled cats,” he said after a few seconds, “Cougars and jaguars... lots of them.” He lifted his head and saw Anthony’s eyes narrow threateningly. Quickly he added, “There was a cougar shadowing her every step. The place was crawling with vampires as well. Part of the church blew up, then a cop car showed up.”

Anthony stood there trying to reign in his growing anger. However, the longer he stood there, the more pissed off he became. His plan to retrieve his fugitive mate had been botched repeatedly by either his own actions or the actions of his ignorant subordinates.

He signaled his personal guards closer. “Take him down to the basement where he can simmer in his failure.”

The wolf sat up on his knees with a pleading expression on his face. He’d heard stories about the basement and what it contained. Some of the werewolves that survived the torture still had the scars on their bodies to show for it. He whined pitifully when his arms were taken up by the guards and he was pulled to his feet.

The guards didn’t look at his face nor did they say anything comforting or derogatory. If they had their way, they would have let him run. To them, Miss Jewel had every reason to run away from their Alpha. She was unhappy and, despite Anthony’s best attempts, would never love him. Living like this, thriving off the misfortune of others was not the true werewolf way… it was the Mob way.