Only a Mother Could Love (Afterlife Book 3) Read online

  "A normal person wearing a party dress and carrying a masquerade mask on the side of the road?" Harper asked.

  "Fair enough," Brittney said. "Wait, why are you slowing down?"

  "We have to go stop her," Harper said.

  "We can't," Brittney said. "We have to go help Peter."

  "Brittney! She's going to kill someone!"

  "And someone's going to kill Peter! He's my brother, Harper!"

  Harper cursed. She took one last long look at the woman in her rear view mirror and then, at Brittney's urging, she put her foot to the gas and sped out of the area, heading back into the city.

  SIX

  When Brittney and Harper reached Peter's house, they struggled to find a parking space. Everywhere seemed to be taken. Finally, Harper parked in a handicap only spot across the street and the two of them got out, running towards the building.

  His house was large; larger than either of their apartments had been, and the yard was perfectly cared for, and the trim on the house was bright and fresh. Neither of them had time to admire this, though; the front door was open, and had obviously been kicked in.

  "Our guns, you reckon?" Brittney asked.

  "Yeah," Harper said, glad she hadn't been the one to suggest it. "Don't shoot right away, though. They could be human loan sharks. We don't kill humans."

  "Right," Brittney said, though she had a steely look in her eye that Harper didn't like. They both got out their sidearms, and held them tight to their chest. They walked in a police formation without even realizing it. "You go left," Brittney mouthed to her, and nodded towards the hallway, "I'll go right."

  Harper nodded, and took the left, slinking into the living room. She took a quick look around; the place was in a state of disarray. There were broken lamps shattered across the floor, and ripped paintings, and smashed pottery. She let out a low whistle as she took in the scene. Then she looked around for intruders. She saw none in the living room, and after a quick canvas, she headed further into the house, checking the kitchen and the first bedroom as she went. There was nothing in either of them except for more trashed belongings.

  She met up with Brittney at the basement stairs. "Anyone?"

  Brittney shook her head. "No, but they trashed the place really well."

  "I noticed."

  "Come on," Brittney said. She pushed open the door that led to the stairs, which was also buckled in from someone hitting it. They carefully walked down them, trying to keep their footsteps as quiet as possible.

  Near the end, though, Brittney broke formation and ran down the rest of the steps, screaming. "Peter! Peter, where are you?"

  Harper sighed, and took off after her, keeping her gun level as she ran.

  There was no answer, and Harper feared the worst. She flipped on the light when she reached the bottom, and fully expected to see a dead body sprawled on the ground, perhaps with the blood sucked out, or something similar. She tried to prepare herself for it, but Peter was like a brother to her. If something happened to him...

  Fortunately, she saw Peter kneeling in the middle of the room without a shirt, still alive. He was obviously beaten badly; he had bruises already forming on his face and upper body. There was a tall, broad shouldered man standing over him, and another one on his left.

  Brittney aimed her gun at the one on his left, and Harper dove at her before she could pull the trigger. They landed in a heap near the base of the stairs.

  "No," Harper whispered to her. "No! They're not supernatural, Brittney! They're thugs, but they're not supernatural thugs!"

  Brittney took another look at her brother, and her eyes seemed to dilate, and then clear. She got carefully to her feet, but didn't put her gun away. "Step away from him."

  Both men turned towards Brittney. The one who'd been standing directly over Peter glanced at her. "And who are you, his girlfriend?"

  "FBI, asshole," Brittney said. She put a hand in her purse and pulled out her badge.

  "Shit."

  "Shit is right," Harper said. "Back off! Now!"

  Both men put their hands in the air and stepped back from Peter. Then, in one swift moment, both had drawn their guns. They pointed them at Harper and Brittney.

  "You really want to do that?" Brittney asked. "Kill two FBI agents?"

  "If you don't get out," the man said, "then yes."

  Brittney aimed at his foot, and fired. He let out a howl of pain and dropped his gun. The other fired at Brittney, but she dove to the side, and the bullet slammed into the wall behind her. Bits of plaster flew everywhere. Harper thought she felt it knick her cheek, though she was too pumped with adrenaline to care. He was already aiming to take another shot when Harper shot at him. She missed by a few inches. Brittney leveled her gun at the man with the bleeding foot. "Next one goes in your head."

  "Okay, okay," he said. "Everyone stand down. Michael, put your gun away. Damn, this hurts!"

  "Smart move," Harper said. "Now, I'm going to count to five, If you're not as far away from our... witness as you can get, I'm going to blow your head off. One. Two. Three..."

  "You're not going to arrest us?"

  "Four..."

  Both men took off, yelling at each other in what sounded like Russian. The one with the injured foot had to lean on his comrade for support.

  Brittney went to kneel beside Peter, clicking the safety back on her gun as she went. "Goddamn it, Peter. What happened here?"

  He spit out a mouthful of blood. "I owe them money."

  "Damn it," Harper reiterated. She put her gun away, and looked around. "So what was happening here? Were they going to kill you?"

  "No," Peter said, "They were going to break my knees. I think. They kept speaking in Russian. They work with those vampires you took out. They said they didn't care if you were from Afterlife, that the vampires should have taught me a lesson when they had the chance. Are you two okay? You shot one in the foot!"

  Brittney shook her head. "We're fine."

  "So, what," Peter said. "You're vampire fighters, and you're FBI?"

  "Yes," Brittney said, after a sharp look from Harper. "We are. We're undercover agents, idiot. Why do you think we do most of our work at night? We told you we had a job to do. And you messed it up. Someone is going to die tonight because we had to come here and rescue your dumb ass."

  "I don't understand why you didn't arrest them."

  "Because we have places to be," Brittney said. "And we don't have time for this."

  "Get up," Harper said. "Get dressed. Go to the police. Tell them that you walked in on a home robbery, and that the men beat you up. Give their descriptions, and give them perfectly. If they're loan sharks, l would wager that they're involved in other crimes too. Tell them you want a police detail."

  "If the police argue, call me and I'll get it taken care of," Brittney said.

  "I'm sorry," Peter said as he stood, wobbling a bit. "I really am. I don't know what I was thinking."

  "Hey," Brittney said. "We all make mistakes, Peter. Yours are just way bigger than mine. Look, it's time to talk to mom and dad. Get the money, pay these guys off, and then stay away from the tables, alright? Is it the tables?"

  "Horses," he whispered, his face filling with color.

  "Right, well, stay away from those too," Harper said.

  "I will," he said quickly. "I've learned my lesson."

  "I hope so," Harper said.

  "Thank you," he said. "Thank you for coming. Is someone really going to die tonight? Because of me?" He looked sick to his stomach.

  Harper and Brittney exchanged a look.

  "No," Harper said. "Brittney was just trying to scare you. What we do is important, though, and you could have messed something up for us. As it stands, we're already going to be in a lot of trouble for not being where we were told to be tonight. That's what we're trying to get through to you."

  "I know," Peter said. He hung his head. "I'm sorry."

  "We know," Harper said. "Go to the police, Peter. Right now. We were
never here, okay?"

  "Why? I can tell them I called you..."

  "Because we left our post," Brittney reminded him, "and someone way higher up than us is going to be pissed about that. So if you don't want us to lose our jobs, you never saw us. Understand?"

  "Yes," Peter said.

  "Come on," Harper said. She grabbed Brittney's arm. "There might still be time..."

  Together, they ran up the stairs, through the disheveled house, and out into Harper's car. She thanked God that she hadn't gotten a ticket, turned on the ignition, and cursed. They'd left the lights on, and the battery was dead.

  "Damn it!" Brittney yelled. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes and repeated it, "Damn it."

  "Yeah," Harper said. "Damn it is right." She dug out her phone and hovered over each of her friends' names. Finally, she stopped on Sarah. She shot her a quick text, outlining what had happened and where they were.

  Almost immediately, Sarah texted back: You SAW her?

  Harper texted an affirmative and then leaned back in her own seat. Together, her and Brittney sat in silence until Chloe and Sarah arrived. They both looked as tired as Harper felt.

  "I'm sorry," Brittney said immediately. "I know we messed it up, but it wasn't Harper's fault. It was mine. My brother needed me, and we had to leave... please tell me nobody died."

  Chloe bit her lower lip and looked away. Sarah put a comforting hand on Brittney's arm. "Hey, it's not your fault."

  "If we'd been there..."

  "Yeah, but you weren't," Sarah said, "That doesn't make it your fault."

  "Who died?" Harper asked.

  "A middle-aged man," Chloe said. "We just heard it on the radio on our way over. They didn't give his name."

  Harper and Brittney both hung their heads. Harper couldn't believe it; they had to help Peter at the exact time they were needed to stop a murder? It was poor timing, that was for sure. She wanted to get angry at Peter but couldn't muscle up the emotion for it. She was too tired.

  "At least now we have some new information," Chloe said. "Look, I'm going to take you back to your apartment, Brittney. You two can get some sleep, and we'll meet back up at Afterlife in a few hours to discuss everything, alright?"

  "Sure," Brittney said, though her voice sounded hollow. They climbed into the back of Chloe's car and sat silently through the drive.

  "I'm going to sleep here," Harper said. "Brittney has a couch. She can bring me in the morning."

  "Alright," Chloe said in a falsely bright voice. "We'll see you soon, alright?"

  "Yeah," Harper said. She followed Brittney inside, grabbed some spare linen from her closet, and made up a bed on the couch. She thought she might be too upset to sleep, but she drifted off almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  Her dreams were unclear and foggy. When she woke up a few hours later, she couldn't remember them, and felt like she hadn't gotten any sleep at all. She made use of Brittney's shower, dressed in her clothes from the day before, and made coffee. By the time she was done, Brittney was up too and they sat in silence as they drank down their liquid caffeine.

  "Damn it," Brittney finally said.

  "It's not our fault," Harper said.

  "So you don't feel guilty at all?"

  "No," Harper said, but that wasn't true. She couldn't stop thinking about it; they'd been there, they'd seen the demon, they could have prevented that man from dying. "Okay, I do. Of course I do. But what is it we were supposed to do? Let your brother get killed? He needed us too, and family comes first."

  Brittney shook her head. "I don't want to think about it like that," she said. "Family first. Of course, family comes first. Except in this case, putting family first ended in a man's death."

  "And if we hadn't gone to help Peter, he could have died too," Harper said. "We can't hold it against ourselves."

  Harper gulped down the rest of her coffee and stood. "Come on. Let's get to Afterlife."

  SEVEN

  "You left your post?" Alec asked, his voice cold and surprised. "You left your posts, knowing that the demon was right there? That she was going to kill someone? You didn't even try and stop her?"

  "We couldn't," Harper said. "We had to go help Brittney's brother."

  Alec shook his head in disgust. "I can't believe it," he said. "I thought I could rely on the two of you. I thought you took this job seriously. I thought--"

  "--That's enough, Alec," Conner said. He reached over and took one of Harper's hands and one of Brittney's. "We all make mistakes. Not that it was a mistake. If it had been my brother, I probably would have left my post too. And why are we suddenly calling it our post? Are we the military now? Pretty sure none of us would look good in camo. Well, maybe Harper. She's got the complexion for it..."

  Harper resisted the urge to smile.

  "Seriously," Conner said, "People have to prioritize. When it comes down to killing a demon or saving our family's lives, of course we're going to pick family. Neither of you have anything to be ashamed of."

  Harper glanced at Alec, and was glad to see that he looked a little ashamed of himself.

  "He's right," Alec said, "I'm sorry. Now, why don't you tell us exactly what you saw?"

  "It was a woman," Harper said. "She had long dark hair, and was wearing a floor length dress. She was holding a mask to her face."

  "It looked like the mask was made especially for her face," Brittney chimed in. "I only saw it for a few seconds, but it looked very form fitting."

  Harper looked hopefully around the table. Nobody looked very excited, though. Chloe and Sarah were both shaking their heads.

  "I haven't heard of a masked demon," Chloe said. "I mean, it doesn't sound too out of the ordinary, of course. Maybe she was trying to hide her demonic features. Maybe she hasn't learned how to appear human yet."

  "That's a possibility," Alec said. "It's also a possibility that the mask is part of her attire for luring men in. Was she attractive?"

  "How could we possibly know that without seeing her face?" Brittney asked.

  "Attraction isn't all in the face," Alec said dismissively. "Did you look at her body?"

  "She had a nice one," Harper admitted. "I mean, I didn't stop to stare at it, but she looked like she was in shape at the least. Not overweight, not too skinny."

  "So what now?" Brittney asked. "Do we do another stake out?"

  Alec shrugged. "We know she hit up a road she's been down before, so we should make that our priority. This time, I'll take Harper with me, and Conner can take Brittney. We can only guard three roads that way, but I think it'll be fine. We've got them narrowed down. Do you think she realized you were there to watch her?"

  Both Harper and Brittney shook their heads.

  "Good," he said. "We don't want her to know we saw her. Okay, today, I want research done. I want to know if anyone has seen someone wearing a dress and a mask and reported it. I want to know if this has happened before, in some sort of cycle. We want to know everything we can about her before we go after her."

  Before he could continue, a phone rang. Everyone reached for theirs, but it was Sarah's. She shot an apologetic look around the table before answering. Harper watched her face slowly drain of color as she listened to the call.

  "Okay," she said, "I'll be right there."

  Alec sighed. "Another interruption?"

  "It's important," Sarah said. She stood, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door. Harper considered a moment, then leapt to her own feet, and followed. She heard both Brittney and Alec call after her, but ignored them.

  "Sarah, what is it?"

  Sarah turned to Harper. She had tears sparkling in her eyes.

  "It's Monica," she said. "Some thing's happened to her. She had me listed as her emergency contact. I have to get to the hospital."

  "You're not driving like this," Harper said. She grabbed Sarah by the arm. "Where are you parked? Or did you and Chloe come together?"

  "No, we didn't," Sarah said, "I parked on the street,
in the VIP area."

  "Alright," Harper said. "Give me your keys."

  It took Sarah several minutes to fish them out of her purse; her hands were shaking too badly. Harper waited patiently, knowing it would do more harm than good if she were to hurry her. Eventually, Sarah slapped the keys in her hand, and the two of them went to Sarah's car.

  "Buckle up," Harper instructed her. Once they were both wearing their seat belts, she took off at a high speed. "What hospital?"

  "University," Sarah supplied.

  Harper nodded and took a quick left, and sped up even more. She checked her mirrors frequently, and cursed when she saw flashing red and blue lights behind her. She slowed down and pulled over. She fished her license out of her purse, and turned to Sarah. Sarah already had her insurance papers out, and was holding them towards Harper with a trembling hand.

  The cop approached the car, and Harper rolled down her window.

  "I assume you know why I pulled you over," the woman said.

  "I was speeding," Harper said.

  "You were," the cop said, "and not just a little bit, either. You were going well over twenty more than the posted limit. That's your license and insurance? Thanks. Do you have a reason you were going so fast?"

  "Our friend is in the hospital," Harper said, glancing at Sarah.

  The cop lifted her eyebrows. "Alright..."

  "She's an abuse victim," Sarah supplied. "I'm the person who got her out of a dangerous situation, and I just got a call that she's been checked into the hospital in critical condition. I need to get to her and make sure she's going to be alright."

  "Alright," the cop said. "Let me run these real quick."

  She went back to her car, and a few minutes passed in terse silence. Then the cop joined them again. "I'm not going to give you a ticket," she said, handing back the license and insurance. "What hospital is she at?"

  "University."

  The cop went back to her car, turned her lights on, and pulled out in front of Harper and Sarah. Harper took this to mean they were getting a police escort, and turned on her hazard lights. She followed close to the cop car, keeping hardly any distance between them, so nobody could cut in or try and pass her. In less than ten minutes they'd reached the hospital, which was a record for Harper. She'd never known herself to get to anywhere in Vegas in less than thirty minutes, and more likely forty-five.