Devil Inside (57 page)

Harley nodded absently.  Landon was based in Las Vegas.  He hadn’t particularly been happy that Nya and her crew were encroaching on his territory but his offense was only obvious in the fact that he hadn’t offered any back up for them.  The only local support they had were a few L. A. based Nocte who had volunteered to help.  Harley had been surprised by the mild hostility but she had decided to let her General handle it.

After his report Castor left to sleep, but before he left he made Harley promise him that she would call if they found anything important and urgent.  He looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her before he left but with a quick glance at Levi, he refrained from doing so.  Levi said nothing during their exchange and continued to stand quietly near the door with his arms crossed. 

The night sky was a solid, murky purple when they stepped onto the street.  Harley liked the mild weather but she couldn’t get used to the fog that covered the sky.  A part of her missed Kentucky.  Even in the city you could still see a clear night sky and some stars.  Here, you couldn’t even see a single star in the sky.  The L. A. smog blurred out everything and left the city feeling like it was hiding under a blanket.  She followed behind Levi and Nya as they walked down Sunset Blvd.  People milled about on the streets but, thankfully, it wasn’t as overwhelming as New York.  Here the people created small puddles instead of roaring streams. 
I could get used to this part of L. A. for sure.
  Her Nocte agreed with her.

Cassandra, Evie and Rafe, along with the local Nocte, were covering the southern side of the city.  At the same time Harley, Nya and Levi covered west L. A.  They didn’t talk much as they walked.  Instead, they focused their attention on the people around them as they searched for Ignis.  Harley opened her mind and “listened” to the city.  Eventually, Harley picked up on the hum of an Ignis nearby.  It tugged at her focus like a fish testing a line.  She stopped in mid stride and Nya, who was now behind her, nearly walked into her back.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A Burner.”

“Where?” Levi asked, going on alert.

Harley spun slowly with her ear tilted to the wind.  “There,” she said, pointing south.  “Maybe a block or two away?”

“How can you tell?” Levi asked her.

She gave Levi and Nya her full attention.  “Um…have I forgotten to mention that?”  Nya and Levi waited for her to go on with curiosity written over their faces.  “Yeah, well, I can kind of sense Burners when they are close enough.  It depends on how strong the Ignis is though.  An old one I can find them from about a mile out, I guess.  A new one, I need to be pretty close to locate them.”

Nya laughed and clapped her hands.  Levi shook his head in amazement.  “Ooo a spidey sense!  OK, so—follow Harley’s nose,” Nya said cheerfully.  Harley could tell that half-mad Nocte was enjoying being out of the Den.

Harley looked at Levi.  “You sense Burners too, don’t you?  Isn’t that your job?”

Levi considered her carefully.  “Yeah.  But I don’t think in the same way.  It takes me longer to get a feel for the area.  And I don’t feel individual Ignis like you seem to be doing.  It’s more of a sense of the balance of things than that.

“Oh,” Harley responded.  She didn’t know what else to say.  Nya just continued to grin at them both.

“Can you identify individual Burners?”

“No,” she shook her head.  I can just tell it’s an Ignis and their level of strength sometimes.”

“Oh.”  Levi studied her for a moment before giving her a slight smirk of appreciation.

Shrugging off the discovery of, yet again, how different she was from everyone else, Harley led her small group south and away from the main tourist route.  She knew that they were getting closer because the hum became stronger the longer they walked.  Levi and Nya followed behind her silently.  As soon as she spotted the man leaning against the chain link fence surrounding a shady looking house, Harley knew that she had found the one she was looking for.  He was wearing a hood pulled low over his face and a pair of baggy jeans.  She ducked into the shadows and the other two followed her lead.  They were still far enough away and silent enough that the Burner hadn’t seen them yet.  She took a deep breath and studied the house behind him.

“There are a few humans inside the house.  I’m pretty sure that there are drugs of some kind in there.  I’m can’t get a fix on what though.  I am pretty sure he,” she nodded towards the man leaning against the fence, “is a dealer.”  Harley kept her voice barely above a whisper.

“More spidey sense?” Nya whispered back. 

Harley looked at them both sheepishly before nodding.  She met Levi’s eyes and the look he was giving her made her and her Nocte shiver in excitement.  It was a look of admiration and amazement.  The flutter they felt was from pride as much as passion.  It meant a lot to her that someone like Levi, and Nya, were both impressed by her. 

Some of that dissipated though when Levi cracked a small smile and nodded towards the man.  “Then again, he is standing outside alone at night in front of a drug den.”  Nya laughed softly and Harley rolled her eyes.

Harley studied the surrounding neighborhood.  “If we can get him to that empty garage there we should be able to interrogate him.”  She nodded towards the run down detached garage behind a house that looked abandoned.

Levi and Nya agreed with her.  “I’m pretty sure that I can convince him to follow me,” Nya smiled pulling her hood over her head.  Levi and Harley agreed to Nya’s plan and cut through a yard to circle around to approach the garage from the west and out of the line of sight of the Ignis.  Nya sauntered off towards the man, already in character.

Harley and Levi quickly and quietly strode up to the garage, keeping their eyes and ears out for humans and Burners lurking in the shadows.  But the neighborhood was quiet except for the normal barking dogs and music thumping through nearby walls.  The garage had a side door that had at one time been bolted shut, but long ago the bolt had been pried away from the wooden frame.  Levi gave the door a push and it swung open with a high pitched squeak.  They both held their breaths and hoped that the Burner wouldn’t notice the noise.  Harley could hear Nya and the man talking and it sounded like they were drawing closer.  The smell from the building slapped Harley in the face.  She could smell mildew, human waste and something dying but there was nothing alive inside the small space.  When there was no indication of alarm from Nya or the dealer Harley and Levi slipped inside the building to wait.

Moments later Nya stepped swiftly inside and out of the way.  The Ignis came in behind her unzipping his jacket and not paying enough attention to his surroundings.  He was pulling his jacket off and realized what was happening when Harley stepped from the shadows.  With his arms tied up in his sleeves he didn’t even have a chance to try to block Harley’s elbow from slamming into the side of his head.  He crumpled to the floor and Nya worked quickly to tie his arms and legs with a silver wire she pulled out of her jacket.  They propped him against the wall and waited for him to come to.

“Sometimes I wonder how Burners survive at all,” Levi stated, rolling his eyes.

Nya chuckled.  “Ignis or not, he’s male.  It’s not hard to distract a guy if you have the right assets.”

“I resent that,” Levi said good-naturedly.

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” Harley snickered.

The Ignis was already starting to come to Harley crouched in front of him.  She pulled her knife out and spun it while she waited for him to regain clarity.  Levi and Nya stayed back out of the way and kept watch through the dirty windows to make sure no one wandered by.  The Burner blinked himself awake to meet Harley’s smiling face.

“Hi,” she said brightly.

“Fuck,” he growled.

“What’s your name?”

“Fuck off,” he spat at her.

“Well, that’s a stupid name,” she laughed.  He simply glared at her.  She could smell the flesh beginning to burn around the wire on his wrists and ankles.  She let out an exaggerated sigh.  “You know, it gets hard to keep coming up with creative ways to torture information out of you guys.”  He continued to glare at her with animal eye shine flashing into her black eyes.  “OK, then,” she shrugged.  “Can I see that wire?”  She held her hand out behind her and without taking her eyes off the Ignis.  She felt Nya place the cold wire in her hand.

Harley quickly used her Bowie to cut a handful of short, sharp pieces of wire from the bundle and held them in her mouth so that her hands would be free.  Then she pulled the Ignis by the feet until he  was squirming flat on his back on the floor.  She placed a knee on his chest and he tried to roll away from her.  Before he could dislodge her she, stuffed his jacket sleeve into his mouth and repositioned her knee so that her weight pressed down on his mouth and neck.  It left him in the position of not being able to move enough to throw her off without breaking his own neck and/or choking himself.  She looked up to see Nya and Levi watching her intently.  She was somewhat worried about their reactions—but they were after information and they needed it fast, so she was sure that they wouldn’t hold what she needed to do against her.  Her stomach clenched as she caught hold of his bound hands.  He tried to pull them away but she had too much leverage.  Harley took a deep breath and pushed aside her squeamishness.  She could feel her Nocte’s excitement growing.

Once she had a good grip on the Ignis’ hand Harley pulled one of the wires from her mouth.  It took some positioning and struggling to get the wire in the right place.  Once it was, with a quick thrust she shoved the wire underneath the man’s fingernail.  The Burner began thrashing worse and making a squealing sound.  When she looked at Nya and Levi she was surprised to see Nya on the verge of laughing.  Levi was smirking and both of the Nocte’s eyes burned black with excitement.  There was a hunger in both their eyes that Harley realized that Castor must have seen in hers.  It was the look that a tiger gives a gazelle before it pounces.  Harley stopped feeling guilty.

Two more wires later the Ignis had finally stopped writhing and simply laid still screaming into the jacket shoved into his mouth.  Harley nodded towards the man’s hands and Levi crouched beside and gripped the bound wrists tightly.  His and Harley’s faces were only inches apart and she could feel his warm breath on her skin.  His eyes were a bottomless black and as she stared into them she felt herself being pulled forward and into him.  She broke away with a gasp realizing that if she didn’t she would be taken to a place where she would forget all about the task at hand.

Holding the gag in place Harley leaned into the Burner’s ear and hushed him until he stopped screaming.  Slowly she pulled the rag from his mouth.

“Do you know Franklin?”

The Burner looked at her bewildered for a minute.  “Y-yeah.”

“Where is he?”

“He-he’s dead, man.”  The Burner’s flashing and angry eyes rolled between the three of them.

“Who killed him?”

“How should I know?  I just know the word is he’s dead.”

“OK,” she said.  She knew the truth when she heard it.  “What about Cutter?”

The Ignis paused just briefly.  That name got a reaction from him.  “Wh-what about him?  I know who he is.”

“How do I find him?”

“How the fuck should I know?  I’ve never met or talked to the guy.”

“Where do you get your supply?”  The Burner didn’t answer at first.  Harley pulled a wire from the stack she had laid to the side.  She handed the wire to Levi with a smile, a smile that he returned as if she had handed him a cookie.  Harley pressed the gag back over his mouth as Levi jabbed the wire under the nail of the Burner’s ring finger.  He began thrashing again and Levi and Harley held him down until he stopped struggling.  When she removed the gag he panted for breath with his jaws clenched.

“You aren’t getting out of here alive,” Harley told him soothingly.  “Just answer my fucking questions and get this over with.”

The Burner sagged.  “From an Ignis named Amber.  She lives in an apartment off Sunset somewhere.  I normally meet her at The Whiskey so I don’t know exactly where she lives.”

“See,” she patted him on the cheek.  “Was that so hard?”

“I hope Cutter cuts your fucking heart out,” the Burner grumbled looking away from them all.

Harley smiled at Levi and Nya.  “Anyone hungry?”

Nya and Levi both shook their heads.  Harley shrugged.  “Suit yourself.”  She knew Levi was watching her as she fed from the Burner.  Nya left the two of them in the garage to keep watch from outside.  When Harley pulled away she flopped onto her butt ignoring the filth on the floor.  She was dazed and took a moment to enjoy the exhilarating buzz flowing throughout her body.  Finally, Levi pulled her off the floor and kissed her.  As he pulled away he ran his tongue across her lip to catch the blood that had smeared around her mouth.  Her heart slammed in her chest and fire flashed through her body.  The look in Levi’s eye was so intense that it made her mouth go dry.  Had Nya not been waiting outside she would have been tempted to rip his clothes off right inside the filthy garage.  Her Nocte was practically begging for the chance to get a taste of Levi.  Literally and figuratively.

Moments later they managed to break the spell that had come over the both of them and they left the run down building.  Nya turned to look at them with a smirk.  “I figured I would be out here for a while,” she laughed.