Her Black Heart (The Dark Amulet Series Book 2) (4 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Bryant

Bryant rotated in his shower stall fully clothed. Water beat down on his head. Splashes of blood spattered on the tile beneath his feet. He peeled his black t-shirt off and wrung it out, then threw the shirt on the floor outside the stall where it landed with a
smack
. His jeans were the next to come off. Halfway down, they stuck to his legs. He tugged and wound up turning them inside out to get them completely off.

He pushed the pinkish water toward the drain with his foot and let it swirl until all the blood disappeared. Bryant didn’t think about the girl whose life he’d ended earlier. The murder itself, while it was happening, played out like a movie where the audience sees the act from the killer’s point of view, through the character eyes. It may seem odd, but he couldn’t recall how the knife felt in his hand as the blade sliced through Julia’s throat. He did remember how deep he’d made the slash. She wouldn’t have lived long. For some inexplicable reason, Bryant didn’t like to torture his victims. Delving into his past may explain how he became a murder-for-hire for Maurice, but that nightmare didn’t need to be relived.

Bryant turned the water off and beat the single handle valve faucet to stop the drip. One day he’d remember to bug his roommate, Chad, about calling the landlord about it, not that the cheap fucker would fix anything.

Leaning over the pedestal sink, he gaped at his features in the mirror. His gaunt face made his cheekbones stick out. He pulled down one of his lower lids. His eyes were bloodshot. He grabbed his roommate’s brush off the toilet tank lid and dragged it through his hair, the bristles snagging on the ends. Strands of hair snapped as he broke through the snarls.              

Jangling keys hit the table by the front door.

Bryant relaxed when he heard Chad’s familiar sigh. He finished in the bathroom, including using his roommate’s deodorant and toothbrush before wrapping a towel around his waist. He gathered his soaked clothes and tossed them onto his bedroom floor next to a pile of clean clothes he hadn’t bothered to put away, not that he ever took the time. After getting dressed, he went into the living room.

Chad was hunched over the kitchen table and looked at Bryant with a wrinkled forehead for a second. “Hey.”

Bryant jerked his chin as a way of greeting. He suspected Chad only tolerated his presence, not that he cared. “What’re you doing? That’s mine!” he barked. Chad had the amulet he’d carelessly left in the kitchen laid out on the table, his eyes wide as he studied the markings. The guy collected old artifacts on the side and would likely steal the thing for the “greater good of all,” and sell it to a museum for posterity.

“Yeah?”

“Yep.” Bryant turned his head so his roommate wouldn’t see his sneer. “Put it down, all right?”

And back off.

Fucking Chad and his high ideals, although he wasn’t above stealing when it came down to it, and Bryant knew this.

“I think this is Druidic.”

In other words, a museum would pay money to own the pendant. “You don’t know that,” Bryant snapped and snatched the necklace out of Chad’s fingers.

Chad hands retreated up out of the way. “Hey, take it easy. That piece needs to be on display in     a—”

Bryant narrowed his eyes. “It does not. You don’t even know what it is.”

“Then what is it? Where did you get it?” 

He balled the leather cord and amulet in his fist. “That’s none of your goddamn business!”

Chad’s eyes darted around. “Okay, okay. Maybe we could work out a deal where we both profit.”

“I don’t think so.” Bryant stuffed the amulet into his jeans pocket.

“Oh, I gotcha. You already made a deal.” He paused for a moment. “With who?”

“Christ,
Chad
. Will you leave it alone? You’re not getting a cut of this.”

CHAPTER NINE

Bryant rolled up the storage locker bay door. The space was cluttered with dusty furniture. A large oak dresser sat in the corner near the front. He removed the amulet from his pocket and placed the necklace inside the top drawer, nestled between her grandmother’s sweaters. The “her” was an old girlfriend who had inherited the antiques. Tiffany wouldn’t mind him using the storage facility, and if anyone ever found her, they could ask her. He continued to pay the rent.

Footsteps echoed around the corner of the corridor, advancing toward him. He held his breath and listened until they stopped. A door squeaked and trundled upward. In the other direction, a gate slammed down. He blew his breath out. It was damn noisy in this bitch. Bryant pulled the door down and set the padlock. He looked to his left and right. The exit was toward the left, and on his right, a shadow of a figure painted the concrete. Whoever made the shadow was hiding on the other side of the wall. Bryant waited for the person to leave. The asshole stayed where they were.

Christ!

Like he had time for this.

He palmed his throwaway cell and dialed Maurice’s number on the way toward the exit.

“Tell me you have good news,” his boss said. The man spoke with a British accent.

“Job’s done.” Bryant opened the door to the outside. The sky was beginning to lighten over the low-rise buildings up the street. The smell of the earlier rain mixed with the city’s ambient scent of car fumes and breakfast from the McDonald’s on the corner.

“Good. And the thing I asked for? You do have it?”

“Yeah, ‘bout that…” Bryant sniffed.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’d like to collect first, if you know what I mean?” Bryant grinned. His plan to make sure he got full payment this time was brilliant.

“I do. Hmm. I’m not sure you’re in the position you think you are in to be making this type of demand.”

“Well, seeing how I got what you want—”

“What I want is irrelevant.”

Bryant’s eyebrows came together tightly and he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Only thirty yards stood between Bryant and his Egg McMuffin.

“You see, my associate, I’ve been watching you.”

“Bullshit.” The English bastard had to be bluffing. Bryant was always careful.

Maurice chuckled. “I’m sorry you feel that way. Here’s what you’re going to do; you’re going to bring me what I asked for and I might decide to honor our agreement.”

“And if I don’t play by your rules?”

Another stuffy laugh assaulted Bryant’s ear before the line went dead. He lost his appetite.

CHAPTER TEN

Julia

Why am I still running?

No one had followed Julia out of the restaurant. Aza was running next her. With his fists clenched, he pumped his arms. She tried not to think about him as anything other than a demon, but the girly girl in her spied the bulky biceps that filled out and stretched the t-shirt he wore. The cotton clung tightly to his body. Where had he found those clothes?

She slowed to a walk at the corner of Woodward and Nine. They needed a place to crash for the rest of the night and possibly the whole entire next day. Julia deduced Bryant wouldn’t have left town knowing she’d died without any witnesses who cared to point accusations at him. By now, the idiot may have already handed off her necklace to Maurice for payment anyway. She hated Maurice. He’d tried to have her killed once before and failed. Aza had saved her at that campsite her family used to vacation at every summer. Julia knew those woods and felt safe there.

“We are stopping now?” the demon asked.

“Uh…tired…I need to sleep…am I…?”

I’m dead, why do I need sleep…or food?

Julia doubled over at the waist and panted. Her hand came up to point at the motel across the street.

Aza looked where she pointed. “What is it? What do you see?”

“A…motel,” she said between gasps.

Julia paid the fifty-five dollars for the room, cash up front. Her feet and lungs hurt too much to care. They trudged up the stairs to the second floor room. A hot shower followed by a massive snooze-fest awaited her beyond the door. She opened the door, stepped inside, and was rewarded with a shocking vomit-inducing mismatched color scheme—red, orange, green, and oh-my-God-mauve.

Aza sat on the edge of the double bed and bounced up and down, smoothing his hands over the ugly striped bedspread.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Why not?” He picked his hands up and examined the palms, turning them from side to side, this way and that.

She snorted quietly. “It’s just, I’m not sure they always wash the comforter every time they change the sheets.”

“Sheets?”

Oh, for God’s sakes, really?

She ripped the corner of the bedspread out from under the mattress and flipped the burgundy and green rag over. “See? Sheets. Got it? I’m taking a shower.”

“By shower, do you mean falling water?”

Julia’s eyes glazed over.

Jesus. Christ.

She stomped to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

The metal rings screeched against the rod when she pulled the shower curtain over. She leaned in and turned on the water. Her clothes weren’t as dirty as she’d thought. She’d managed to avoid the spilled blood out in the back of the Senior Center. There was a slight old egg smell, but nothing too toxic. Shoplifting some new clothes would happen sometime tomorrow. She took her clothes off and laid them on the puke yellow laminate countertop, next to the sink with a metal beauty ring around the perimeter. Clear plastic bottles that looked like they were filled with Pert shampoo and cheap bar soap samples sat in the corner of the vanity. She set them on the lip of the tub and stepped in the shower with her panties on so she could wash them.

Julia was amazed by the water pressure. She cleaned every inch and her underwear before getting out of the tub. Would the demon like a shower? Or would he freak again if something touched his skin? She shook her body. “Don’t touch me,” she mocked him under her breath
. Gawd.

After wrapping a towel around her body and securing the corner, she ran her fingers through her wet hair. Julia emerged from the steamy bathroom. Aza was pacing the floor.

“What are you doing now?” she asked. He stopped and looked at his feet. She skated past him, careful not to come into contact with him. “I’m done in the bathroom, if you want to take a shower. There’s soap and—”

Aza grunted and disappeared into the bathroom. She held her breath and waited for him to ask for help. When the shower came on, the volume of her exhale surprised her. First she was annoyed with everything he didn’t understand or know about Earth and now she was irritated he knew how to do something. She made a note to ask him how he knew how to turn on the shower.

Julia yanked the rest of the covers out from underneath the mattress—hospital corners were so constricting. The towel dropped to the floor next to the side of the bed near her feet. She sat on the edge of the bed and turned on the lamp attached to the headboard. The digital clock read 2:12 AM.

Jeez, no wonder I’m so tired.

Her murder and all the jogging she’d done tonight was enough to exhaust even a marathon runner. She yawned and pulled the sheet over her body. As soon as she laid her head down on the pillow, her eyes drooped. A change in the ambient sound in the room made her eyes snap open. The bedside lamp still shone.

Good! Lord!

Aza came out of the bathroom. Naked.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Aza’zel

“You know there are more towels in the bathroom?” Julia asked.

“I know. I used one to dry off.” Aza glanced at the floor next to the side of the bed she laid on. He knew she was naked because the clothes she’d worn were hung on the hook behind the bathroom door. He pictured her creamy skin underneath the thin bed covering. Her breasts created white mounds under the sheet. The demon licked and parted his lips. He tried conjuring up images of her as the innocent child in the meadow, but all he could think about was her rounded hips.

No. No.
No.
Stupid goat.

Blood surged below his waist and Julia’s eyes popped. His face flushed and he pivoted away from her gaze. He wanted to kick Deus’ ass the next time he saw the Creator. The state his body was in didn’t make him feel badly but his chest ached. He brushed his hand over his heart then looked down at what he was doing. He dropped his hand.

“Um, what are you doing?”

His breath came out in short bursts. “Noth…ing.”

“Okay, good, because I could’ve sworn you had an erection.”

Gaaah.

Aza pushed his penis down but the bastard bobbed. Why wouldn’t the thing go away? He shoved hard this time; it wouldn’t stay down. He grabbed at himself, crushed his fist around the genitalia, and wound up on the floor with his hands on his groin. He coughed and nearly puked a couple of times. “Fuck!” How had he gotten on the floor so quickly?

Julia giggled. “Did you hurt yourself there?”

He moaned.

“You’re so weird,” she said, shaking her head.

Aza vowed to never mess with his testicles again no matter what was going on down there.

She sighed. “Did that honestly hurt that much?”

“Yes,” he groaned.

“Well, seems like you guys make that shit up. Try having menstrual cramps or giving birth. I hear that’s some real pain…”

She rattled on and on about the sensitive subject while Aza struggled to his knees. He managed to get over to the edge of the bed and rested his elbows on the mattress, his reddened face buried in his hands.

“I’ve heard men have a lower threshold for pain than women. I had my throat slashed and I didn’t get all crazy and act like I was going to throw up.”

Aza snorted. She’d obviously never experienced the kind of agony
he
just went through. He’d believe it if someone told him that he’d fainted.

“Throat slit? Please. Try having your horns snapped off at the bone.”

“Ouch, that sounds painful.”

“It was.”

“Always wondered what happened to them. I remember them being really short when we first met.”

Aza lifted his head and saw Julia had laid her head back on the bed, her hair splayed out on the pillow. He finally found he could stand and rose to his full height. The slender column of her throat came into view. He swallowed hard and opened his mouth. And his damn penis went rigid again. He huffed out a breath and swore under his breath.

“What now?” Her head lolled to the side. “Oh, that’s right, nothing,” she muttered and rolled onto her side toward the middle of the bed.

He could feel her eyes on him so he pivoted and faced the wall. Gently this time, he tapped himself, willing the bastard to calm the hell down.

Julia chuckled. “What are you,
playing
with yourself now? Lay down and quit being silly.”

His penis jumped from a surge of blood. She wanted him to lay down with her? Maybe he should sleep on the floor. “I’m, I’m just gonna stay down here. On the floor.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. Aza caught the pillow she tossed at him.

The floor was covered in an orange abrasive fuzz, similar to fur though not pleasurable on the skin. He couldn’t get comfortable and rolled around until he found a position on his side. He laid his head on the edge of the pillow and took a deep breath.

“Oh, what is, ewww,” he grumbled. The scent reminded him of a sweaty asshole. While the demon had smelled some disgusting odors in his lifetime, he’d never been forced to sleep in it. Hmm…this was as much a surprise to him as the revelation. He’d actually been treated decently for a goat demon in Netherworld.

“Floor stinks, huh?”

Aza coughed and sat up. “Yeah,” he eked out.

“You can sleep up here if you don’t mind the smell of bleach.” She patted the bed next to her.

Anything would better than the stench of the floor. After he settled on the mattress, Aza stared up at the ceiling. The light was switched off. Julia sighed softly a few times then her breathing changed, an indication she’d fallen asleep. They never discussed their next move, only that she knew where Bryant lived.

He turned onto his side and faced Julia. The sheet around her had shifted down some, revealing the tops of her breasts. The demon could see well in the dark. His quarters in Netherworld were dimly lit. As out of place as he felt, he preferred Earth to his home realm. To say he didn’t miss it would be an understatement. He never wanted to go back there.

He ran his fingers through his hair. Most of the goats left their hair long. Aza had been yanked into Abaddon’s harem room once by the hair. The Demon Ruler’s females groped him, pulled on his body parts, making them grow larger. He’d felt so out of control. A part of him liked the pleasure and the other part of him was scared. Afterward, he ran to his sleeping chamber and scrubbed his skin raw with porous lava rocks. And cut his hair.

Julia rolled over to her other side. The sheet rode down so he could see most of her backside. A low groan left his throat. He clamped his hand over his mouth. He had to stop looking at her. He put the pillow at the other end of the bed and curled his body around it.