The Road to Helltown: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (Preternatural Affairs Book 9) Read online

  Unfortunately the patio was considered library space during daytime, and there were people trying to read books or whatever, and they all scowled like crazy whenever Suzy made the slightest peep.

  “Get the fuck back to your books, you nosy nellies,” she snapped at the people sitting nearby.

  One of them was so affronted that she stood up and went inside.

  “That’s right, you old fuck, you run away,” Suzy shouted after her.

  Cèsar tugged her into the bushes, where they were concealed by the same landscaping that protected the floating wooden box.

  The floating cube spun slowly when Suzy approached it between the rosebushes, acknowledging its maker. She only needed to touch it to enter the portal to her pocket dimension, where the rest of the resident members of the Apple were hiding out and waiting for beer, as if she’d ever share her beer with those dicks.

  She didn’t touch the anchor yet.

  “I had to sign a new contract for the OPA this morning, Suze,” Cèsar said.

  “You’re playing hooky today?”

  “Yes, I’m playing hooky, because I am going to fucking die.” He gripped her shoulders. “Suze, this contract…if they find out I’m part of the Apple, I am fired instantly.”

  “Good. You should get fired for being in a cult, you cultist.”

  “My termination will be considered a dishonorable discharge.”

  Suzy’s head was suddenly thundering with the biggest migraine she’d ever had. “Oh, fuck me against the wall.”

  “Later,” Cèsar said. “After I get over the fact I’m going to lose all my memories if they find out I’m part of the Apple!”

  “Why’d you sign a contract like that, dumbass? The old contract was fine!” Suzy had gone into hiding without signing the discharge paperwork, so she’d escaped a memory wipe. Cèsar could have done it too.

  “If I didn’t sign the contract, I’d have had to tell Fritz why. I’d have to tell him…” Cèsar trailed off, shooting an angry look at the anchor. He looked embarrassed.

  Electricity tingled along Suzy’s spine. “You don’t want him to know you’re spying on him. Cool. I get it. But being a spy for our organization means that you’ve gotta lie sometimes! You should have told Fritz that you didn’t wanna sign the contract because, I don’t know, your girlfriend gave you herpes.”

  “You don’t have herpes.” After a moment, he said, “Do you?”

  “Everyone has fucking herpes. What? You’ve never had a cold sore?” Suzy snorted. “You will now.”

  “We’re wearing condoms for the rest of forever, FYI,” he said.

  “Too late. You’ve gotten the herp from me.”

  Cèsar was laughing. He couldn’t seem to stop.

  Suzy stroked her hand down his arm reassuringly, the same way she used to reassure her horses when she was a kid. Cèsar was slightly stupider than the average horse, which said a lot because horses were idiots, but the tactic was as effective on him.

  “The contract’s signed, so you can’t take it back,” she said. “It’s not like we planned on the OPA learning of your extracurriculars. This doesn’t change anything.”

  “Except the speed at which I will lose my memory if I get caught,” Cèsar said.

  “Well, don’t get caught,” Suzy said.

  He didn’t find that piece of practical life advice very reassuring, she could tell.

  “I don’t like lying to Fritz,” he said.

  She also knew that. “We’re about to blow up everyone who goes to the Genesis Convention. You’ll be free of that stupid organization soon enough.” She’d been slaving over magical explosives for days with her mother. May was the best bomb maker that Suzy had ever known, not that she knew many bomb makers. It wasn’t a trait appropriately cherished by their society.

  “So the part where we blow people up with a bomb,” Cèsar said. “Is it a murdery bomb?”

  “All bombs are murdery bombs,” Suzy said.

  “Fritz will be at the convention.”

  Oh, so that was the problem. “What, you don’t like lying to your kopis, you don’t like murdering him… Cèsar, it’s almost like your heart isn’t in this whole evil cult thing.” Suzy set the case of beer down on the grass. It was getting heavy. “Tell you what. Maybe I’ll talk to my mom, change the kind of bomb we’re making? It’s magical anyway. Not like we need to kill anyone with it. Just gotta pull in the devastation a little bit, and maybe we’ll just knock everyone unconscious instead. That way we can choose who dies.”

  “Not Fritz,” Cèsar said.

  “Not Fritz,” she agreed. “Our real target is the angel Makael. The originator of the OPA and the Union. All the magic that gives the OPA power, all the big decisions, the ownership of it…that hinges on Makael.”

  “So he’s the only one who’s going to die.” Now Cèsar was starting to relax, his muscles softening under her palms.

  “Right,” Suzy said. “I was only making a big bomb because angels take a big explosion to die, but I’ll figure out another way to do it. All right?”

  “You’re amazing.”

  “I know,” she said.

  He kissed her again.

  Suzy was a woman who prided herself on keeping her head together at all times, but she couldn’t help but melt against him when he kissed her like that. His lips made her brain unravel. It reduced her to a groaning, needy cat in heat who just wanted to get on all fours and beg for Cèsar.

  She’d never met a guy who made her feel so stupid. Probably because Cèsar was stupid, and it was infectious. An STD much worse than herpes.

  Suzy had her hands up his shirt, spread over the ridges of his abdominal muscles, when she heard someone clear her throat.

  Cèsar went tense when he saw who had entered the grove. “Oh,” he said, “hey, Mrs. Takeuchi.”

  Suzy folded against his chest and shut her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see her mom’s disapproval. “Seriously, fuck me against the wall.”

  “Why don’t you wait until I’m in a different plane of existence?” May Takeuchi asked dryly. “I take it you’re going to miss our appointment, Suzume?”

  “Not miss it, but…” Suzy finally turned. Her mom was looking good, as usual, in a skirt suit and scarf that was wholly inappropriate for Los Angeles summertime heat. It was always cold in the pocket dimension. “I’m going to be late because I’m having wild animal sex with Cèsar.”

  Her mother was too disciplined to react to provocation. Her face remained serene. “I have another appointment in two hours, so you better not take that long.”

  May reached out a delicate hand to touch the portal, and she vanished.

  Cèsar laughed shakily when she disappeared. “Your mother is terrifying.”

  “Scarier than me?” Suzy asked, returning her hands to his stomach underneath his shirt, which was one of her favorite places on his body.

  “Nobody’s scarier than you, Suze,” Cèsar said, bending down again.

  “You’re goddamn right.”

  They kissed slowly, sensually, in the way that meant they’d soon be in their shared bedroom having mind-blowing sex. Of course, all their sex was mind blowing. Witches could do all kinds of interesting things to one another. And Cèsar’s strength meant he could lift Suzy in so many interesting ways…

  Chapter 6

  June 2015 — San Francisco, California

  “Okay, let’s skip another sex scene,” I interrupted.

  Suzy had gotten a dreamy look on her face when she’d talked about kissing her boyfriend. She’d gotten that same look before embarking on a detailed story of oral sex, too. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d tell us about every single roll in the hay if we let her.

  “It’s part of the story,” Suzy said, looking affronted.

  “Like hell it is,” I said. “How’s knowing about your sex life with this…what’d you say his name was? Julius Something?”

  “Our friend is named Julius Eagle,” Isobel supplied helpf
ully. She had taken control of the yacht again, steering us around a pier teeming with demons.

  “Right,” I said. “The details of Julius Eagle’s sex life isn’t gonna help me find him.”

  Suzy folded her arms, flinging herself onto one of the benches. “Fine. I won’t talk about our amazing sex life again.”

  “The world suffers for it.” Fritz had poured himself a snifter of brandy while the others talked, and he took a sip of it now.

  “That puts us a couple of days before he disappeared,” Isobel said.

  “Yeah,” Suzy said. “So after all the hot sex, Julius and I—“

  “He actually came home to me,” Isobel interrupted. “Later that afternoon, he came back to the mansion. Mind if I take over the story?”

  “If you let me take over the steering, sure,” Suzy said.

  Isobel stepped back, relinquishing the controls. Both of them were graceful even though the deck of the boat roiled underneath their feet. They must have spent ages on that yacht.

  “At some point that evening, he came home to me,” Isobel said. She was looking at me hard. Real hard. Like she could see past my skull to the brain matter beyond.

  And then she told her side of things.

  Chapter 7

  August 2013 — Beverly Hills, California

  Isobel awoke in bed the next morning alone, her arm flung across a cold strip of bed.

  She should have been nestled against Fritz’s chest, his nose buried in her sleek chestnut hair. Mornings belonged to the two of them on the rare occasions he was home. They would lay together, kissing, half awake, savoring nothing but the feeling of one another’s lips for hours. It was often their only private time together. Its absence ached.

  The curtains were pulled open a few inches to reveal the balcony beyond. Fritz was braced on the railing, trimmed in blazing yellow lines of sun. His hair looked like it had caught fire.

  Isobel pulled his shirt around her before going to the door.

  Fritz’s gaze was focused on the grounds below. Isobel couldn’t see what he saw, but she heard voices echoing out in the morning. One of the voices was loud but friendly, and the others were quieter, politer. Cèsar had gotten up before sunrise to chat with the household staff again. It sounded like he’d brought them a box of donuts to share, which would no doubt delight the gardeners.

  “You voyeur,” Isobel said teasingly.

  The veins on the backs of Fritz’s hands looked like relief maps of rivers over mountains of rigid tendon. “Good morning, Belle. Sorry to get up before you.”

  Her fingertips probed the knots in his back. There were more than she’d ever felt before. “No need to apologize for that,” she said, leaving the implication of what he should apologize for in the air. She rubbed her cheek against his sun-warmed shoulder. “Talk to me.”

  His fingers flexed around the balcony. “I’d rather not.”

  “Are you…shaking?” Isobel ran her hand down to his wrist, feeling the tremors within the muscle. “God, Fritz. It’s the separation sickness, isn’t it? Even though you’re back.”

  “He’s avoiding me.”

  Cèsar was indeed milling in the sea of blue shadow on trimmed grass, holding out a box that now only had two donuts in it. From above, at that angle, she couldn’t see his face, but she heard him laughing.

  “Go down there,” Isobel said. “Be with him.”

  But Fritz turned away, as if shutting a door. His eyes warmed when he finally looked at Isobel. “That’s my shirt,” he murmured, lips traveling over hers.

  She leaned her head away. Isobel didn’t feel like kissing him.

  Fritz withdrew. “I need to work on the Genesis Convention today. I’ve been asked to host. I’ll let you know if I can meet you for dinner.” His tone was empty. He walked inside, and Isobel hugged his shirt around herself, choked by helpless frustration.

  Whenever Fritz was working in Los Angeles—meaning they were both in town—Isobel usually entertained herself by picking up a few cases. Her assistant, Yelena, kept her booked with clients who wanted to speak with dead loved ones. She was always busy.

  Isobel wouldn’t work today.

  She couldn’t.

  Once she squeezed into jeans and tied Fritz’s shirt around her midriff, Isobel slipped down the hallway. Her husband’s voice echoed through the space. He was on the phone with one of the members of the Genesis Convention. Isobel understood it was important, but had little interest in politics on that level; she didn’t linger to listen in.

  Instead, Isobel went to the guesthouse on the back of the property.

  The groundskeepers kept its exterior as pristine as the rest of the manor, but Cèsar didn’t allow the maids within its walls, so it was a true bachelor pad within. One whole room was filled with VHS tapes that Cèsar refused to upgrade to DVDs. He dropped dirty socks in every corner and his counters hadn’t seen a sponge since he moved in.

  Isobel knocked twice before opening the door. The smell that washed over her was pure bachelor pad, too. Stinky potions, stinky underwear. It sounded like the shower was running. Cèsar was in the middle of his morning routine.

  “Cèsar?” she called.

  No response.

  She entered the guesthouse and raised her volume. “Cèsar!”

  The shower shut off.

  Cèsar’s head poked around the doorway. “Izzy?” His hair was soaking, stuck to his forehead. The one shoulder she could see beaded with moisture.

  “Sorry to intrude,” she said, letting her eyes wander down the arm that hung outside the door. “I need to talk with you.”

  “Sure. Let me get dressed.”

  “Why bother?” It wasn’t as though Isobel hadn’t seen Cèsar naked before. For one not-so-blissful weekend, she’d seen him naked for hours on end. And tasted that nakedness. And slept while cradled against his chest, with Cèsar’s nose buried in her hair.

  Their affair had continued after that for a while, even once Isobel remarried Fritz. Some dormant traditionalist part of her brain thought it was probably insulting to be a woman shared by a kopis and aspis, but she missed it.

  Much like his kopis, Cèsar had started going distant once the Office of Preternatural Affairs became public knowledge. They hadn’t had sex even once since he moved in to the Friederling mansion. Cèsar had never offered an explanation except, “I’m dating Suzy now. Suzy doesn’t share.”

  It seemed that Suzy also didn’t want Isobel seeing Cèsar naked, since her cajoling had no effect.

  “I’ll be right back,” Cèsar said.

  He was as good as his word. He only took the time to pull on sweat pants before emerging from the bathroom.

  Cèsar glanced around his house, and Isobel could almost see his thought process. Realizing what a trash heap the guesthouse was. Realizing that Isobel technically owned the guesthouse. Realizing that his landlord had walked in on him to find that he hadn’t cleaned since the Stone Age.

  “I was looking for something earlier.” He rushed around the room to pick everything up. His arms were soon piled with dirty laundry and books.

  Isobel put a hand over her mouth to hide a smile. “I don’t care.”

  “I care,” Cèsar said. He did a good impression of a tornado, sweeping everything off of the floor. He tossed it all into the bedroom and shut the door. “You wanna sit? Want a drink?”

  “I’m not a guest. You don’t have to cater to me. All I want is to talk.” Talk, lick his abs, etcetera. “It’s about Fritz.”

  Cèsar lifted his hands in an unmistakable stop sign. “Nope. Not talking about Fritz. I can’t have an opinion on anything you guys are arguing about.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “You guys are married. I’m not married to you and marriage fights aren’t my problem.”

  Frustration sent her plopping onto Cèsar’s couch. The upholstery was stained and smelled like chow mein. “He won’t let them go, Cèsar.”

  Cèsar all but stuck his fingers in his ears and
sang a song to tune her out. He grabbed a blender bottle from the kitchen, poured protein powder inside, and shook vigorously.

  “I just found out about Fritz’s slaves in Hell,” Cèsar said. “But that’s literally all I know about what happened there, so I can’t have an opinion on whether he should release them or not, so don’t ask me.”

  “At least half of the slaves kept by the House of Belial are my cousins,” Isobel said. “It’s within his ability to release them. The man went to Hell to save me from a contract with Ander, and he won’t go to similar lengths to save dozens of people.”

  “Your cousins.” Cèsar’s nose wrinkled. “How did you and Fritz end up together if his family owns your family?”

  “It’s a long, unflattering story. We don’t have time.”

  Cèsar sat on the other edge of the couch to finally give Isobel his full attention. It felt like the first time she’d had it in months. There was this wall between them, this distance, and it wasn’t entirely in the shape of Suzy Takeuchi.

  Much like Fritz, Cèsar was just…out of reach.

  “There’s something called an Oculus,” Isobel said. “Many of the Noble Houses of Hell have one. It’s a ball, like this…” She spread her hands to indicate the size of a sphere smaller than a bowling ball but bigger than a baseball. “It would take hours to explain the magic involved in soul links, so suffice it to say these Oculuses hold their Houses together using the souls of slaves.”

  “That sounds like something you’d want on a coffee table,” Cèsar said. He quickly followed it up with, “Sorry,” realizing how inappropriate it was to joke about slavery.

  Isobel’s mouth twitched. “Smashing the Oculus at the House of Belial would free the slaves instantly.”

  “What else would smashing the Oculus do?”

  She sighed. “Destroy the wards holding the property together. Mines would collapse, the walls would be demolished by Malebolge’s winds, and the property would quickly become unfit for human occupation. But why would Fritz want to maintain that property? He’s the last human son of the House of Belial. He hates his family. It’s trivial to cross the planes and smash that fucking Oculus.”