Fractured Souls by Ava Marie Salinger
4
“Asshole!”Cassius snarled at the empty living room, his dick throbbing.
He marched into the kitchen, made himself another coffee, and stared at it mutinously before walking over to the liquor cabinet and pouring a generous shot of whiskey into it.
It took a while for his lower half to quieten down again. Cursing his neighbor helped. He’d just finished his drink and was pondering his grim findings last night in the sewers when the demon cat ran out of the bedroom and came over to where he paced the floor by the couch. It leapt onto his shoulder, its claws sinking into his T-shirt, and stared unblinkingly at the front door of the apartment. Cassius stiffened as a warning growl rumbled from the creature’s belly.
“What is it?”
The cat’s growl intensified.
Cassius’s gaze darted to the bedroom door. Damn it!
He’d left his gun and dagger on the nightstand. He frowned, took a shallow breath, and sent out a faint pulse of energy.
It took but a moment for him to detect the heavily armed group gathered outside his apartment. There was another group on the rooftop. They smashed through the front door and the terrace doors and stormed inside seconds later, the trigger-mounted laser beams on their guns lighting up his body in a macabre dance of red dots.
“Cassius Black? This is the Argonaut Agency! Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your head!” someone yelled.
The demon cat hissed, its eyes flashing red and an aura of crimson energy flaring from its body as it arched its back threateningly.
One of the agents in the hallway fired.
Cassius swore, snatched the cat from his shoulder with lightning speed, and twisted around, his wings sprouting defensively from his back. Heat flared on one of his right pinions as the bullet punctured it and passed right through.
Shock reverberated through Cassius. He stared at the crumpled projectile where it had lodged itself in the wall of his living room, his heart thundering where he held the trembling demon cat to his chest. Hot blood dripped onto the floor from his wound.
An ordinary bullet would never have pierced his flesh.
Anger surged through Cassius when he realized what was in the slug. He lowered his wings and glared at the agents surrounding him.
“Stark Steel and electrum?! Are you fucking kidding me? That shit is illegal!”
An agent standing by the door pushed her tactical goggles up on her head. She was a tall blonde with hazel eyes, a hard expression, and the faintest whiff of magic about her.
“I’m sorry about what just happened.” Her cold gaze shifted to the man who’d discharged his weapon. “I’m sure Agent Driscoll didn’t mean to accidentally fire on a suspect.”
Driscoll hunched his shoulders at her tone. Somehow, Cassius had the feeling he was in for a serious ass-whooping later.
“But you’ll understand when I say we can’t exactly use standard ammo on someone like you,” the woman added, her gaze flitting to Cassius’s feathers.
Cassius gritted his teeth and retracted his wings, conscious of the distrustful stares the other agents were directing at him.
Of all the angels and demons who had fallen to Earth when the Nether tore open five hundred years ago, he was the only one who had wings as black as night and as red as blood. That fact had contributed to him becoming the most feared and ostracized supernatural being to walk the planet since that fateful day, the grim colors a dark portent that both humans and otherwordly associated with bad luck. Cassius scowled.
Still, it doesn’t give these assholes the right to barge into my home and shoot at me and my cat!
The demon cat had gone still in his arms, its instincts evidently telling it it needed to lie low for the time being.
“Are you the person in charge?” he asked the blonde icily. “On whose authority are you trying to arrest me?”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “You know very well who we are. You are a suspect in the murder of a man whose body was discovered in the sewers under Bayview Park eight hours ago. You were seen fleeing the scene of the crime.”
Cassius drew himself to his full height.
“So, you decided to come in here and gun me down?” he snarled. “Is that the modus operandi of the San Francisco branch of the Argonaut Agency? Kill first and ask fucking questions later?!”
The blonde frowned. “Like I said, that was an unfortunate accident. Now, how about you—?”
“What’s going on here?” someone said behind Cassius.
He whirled around.
Glass crunched under Morgan’s bare feet as he stepped inside the apartment from the terrace. He was wearing jeans, an almighty scowl, and little else.
Cassius stilled. The glass was not cutting Morgan’s skin.
Alarm had Cassius’s pulse spiking. He hadn’t sensed anything unusual about his neighbor when they’d just spoken out on the terrace. His stomach dropped.
Except for the fact that he knew I was there when I’d deliberately masked my aura.
“Morgan?” The blonde gaped. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
Cassius’s heart stuttered. Wait? They know each other?!
“I live next door,” Morgan replied irritably.
Cassius registered the expressions on the other Argonaut agents’ faces with a sinking feeling. It was clear they knew Morgan too. Not just knew him, but regarded him as their superior.
Shit. He’s an Argonaut agent.
Cassius fisted his hands. The demon cat protested with a soft meow when his fingers sank into its hide.
“Since when?” the blonde asked Morgan, still shocked.
“Since a month ago,” Morgan snapped. “Now, how about you tell me what the hell you’re doing in this guy’s apartment, Adrianne?”
“I should renegotiate my salary,” the blonde muttered, looking around the luxurious penthouse. Her gaze focused on Morgan and Cassius once more. “Your neighbor is a suspect in a murder,” she told Morgan. “FYI, your neighbor is Cassius Black.”
Morgan visibly stiffened. He observed Cassius with an inscrutable expression before turning to Adrianne. “That still doesn’t justify you guys coming in here in full tactical gear and shooting at him, Adrianne.”
Cassius blinked. That’s a first.
It wasn’t every day an Argonaut agent came to his defense.
He clenched his jaw. “I happened to be looking for this cat. That’s why I was in those sewers. My client is a woman called Joyce Almeda. Her phone number is on my cell phone.” Cassius studied Morgan and Adrianne coldly. “Seeing as your agency appears to be as biased against me as every other one on this planet, you’ll excuse me for not having stuck around long enough for you assholes to pin the blame on me for something I had nothing to do with.”
Adrianne frowned at Cassius.
“We found another victim,” she told Morgan, a muscle jumping in her cheek.
Morgan froze. “What?”
“We found another human sacrifice. It was a man this time. Your neighbor was at the scene of the crime when our agents got there.” Suspicion glittered in Adrianne’s eyes as she glanced at Cassius. “And yes, before you ask, it was a magic circle made from Dark Blight and human—”
Wind exploded inside Cassius’s apartment. It wrapped tightly around his body in overlapping bands, locking his limbs in place and robbing him of his breath. Cassius gasped as he was lifted bodily into the air, his wings straining uselessly against his back where he sought to spread them and escape.
Morgan’s pupils glowed with blinding-white light as he wielded his powers, imprisoning Cassius in a painful tempest of seraphic energy. The demon cat leapt onto the floor and hissed angrily at the angel who was glaring at Cassius as if he’d committed a grave sin.
Black spots burst across Cassius’s vision as the constraints squeezed his ribs to near breaking point.
He thought he heard Adrianne shout Morgan’s name.
Darkness encroached upon his world as his consciousness faded.