felt the nausea rise and had to look away. Right there on the operating table lay the man’s masterpiece. He’d taken a elderly bedridden lady whose body was shutting down and replaced her insides… including brain, with parts from a young woman who had come into the emergency room with an ear ache only a couple hours ago.
Hearing a female gasp behind him Chad turned his head seeing Angelica, Zachary and Trevor coming into the room and frowned. “I was going to call you.”
Trevor shook his head, “Angelica has been tracking our demon all day and we’ve already been to your other crime scenes.”
Angelica gazed down at the young woman who had been tossed on the floor like an empty rag doll. They’d been one step behind Misery and she could feel the demon’s power growing but what disturbed her the most was the fact that even though Misery could feed off this… she couldn’t cause it to happen.
“It’s hard to believe one demon can cause this much chaos,” Trevor kept his back to the carnage. He’d never been one to mess with the demon cases and he wished now was no different. He kind of felt bad for the loss of a good doctor who had probably just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“It’s not just one demon,” Angelica tried to ignore the cold chills crawling up her spine. “And I’m afraid this is only the beginning.”
Zachary pulled out his cell phone and walked out of the room. Dialing Storm’s number, he waited until the call was directed into the PIT message system. This wasn’t the first time he’d left a message for Storm today. What was bothering him the most was that their fearless leader usually knew what he wanted before he called and often showed up before he finished even dialing the number.
*****
Micah had spent the last couple hours in Warren's office being brought up to speed on everything he’d missed. It was a lot to take in, but the fact that their families were once again united was something to be thankful for. His gaze strayed to Quinn and Kat knowing they were the ties that bind.
“It’s good to have everyone back together,” Quinn offered in Micah’s silence.
Micah rubbed his temple wondering if everyone had completely forgotten that Alicia existed. To his surprise, it was the newest family member that mentioned her.
“Where’s Alicia?” Jewel asked Steven wondering why she wasn’t here.
“Spending a couple days with a friend from boarding school,” Quinn answered then added, “It might be best if we find a college to send her to for a while.”
Michael noticed Micah’s knuckles turn white where he was gripping the arm of the chair where he was sitting. Honestly, he agreed with Micah’s anger. If they hadn’t spent all this time keeping Alicia at arm's length, then maybe she wouldn’t get in so much trouble trying to do things by herself.
“I’ve already talked to Alicia,” Micah glared at his brother. “She’s spent years waiting to come home and the last thing she wants is to be told she’s not welcome here. She got enough of that when Nathaniel was alive.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Quinn growled in self-defense. “She’s barely eighteen. Do you really think Night Light is the safest place for her right now knowing the mess we are in?”
“No, that’s why I’ve already sent her to live with Michael.” Micah smiled knowing no one would argue with his logic, “That way she’s still here and a part of the family, but hopefully out of the direct line of fire.”
Envy’s cell phone chose that moment to go off much to the relief of most of the people in the crowded room. She quickly grabbed it trying to silence the song she’d picked to let her know it was Chad calling. She elbowed Devon in the ribs when he started singing, “I fought the law and the law won.”
“Chad,” she smirked, “perfect timing as usual.”
“You might not say that when I tell you why I called.” Chad ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s been one hell of a day.”
Envy held her hand up to silence Devon’s horrible karaoke stunt. “What’s wrong?”
“I hear Devon in the background. Put the phone on speaker,” Chad sighed.
Envy clicked it on speaker phone, “Okay, but it’s not just Devon, the whole gang’s here.”
“Good,” Chad said then proceeded to give them a run-down of today’s events. Once he was done he added, “Trevor's brought in a demon expert and she wants to talk to Dean about the demon if you can get a message to him. I also thought that maybe you could get a hold of Kriss and see what you could find out.”
“I’m on it,” Envy nodded, “and Chad… be careful.”
Chad’s tone of voice changed as that reminded him of something, “Hey Devon.”
“Yeah?” Devon frowned.
“If you ever let my sister get shot at again, I swear I’ll…” Envy’s eyes widened and she snapped the phone closed, cutting her brothers voice off.
“O…Kay,” Devon gave a halfhearted smile hearing a couple chuckles from the group.
“Not to change the topic from Devon having his ass kicked but,” Warren shook his head, “I’m hiring more shifters here at Moon Dance and Quinn has agreed to do the same for Night Light. Now that we’ve cut off the head of the alpha werewolf… and the mafia…”
“We need to be ready for two to grow back in its place,” Nick finished for him.
Quinn’s cell phone went off and he smirked at Devon, “Well at least all of Kat’s relatives are within seeing distance.” Looking at the caller ID, he noticed it was from the cougar he’d left in charge. Harley could take care of about anything in his absence so he knew it was important.
Holding up his hand to hush the crowd he answered, “Yeah Harley, what is it?”
“Quinn, unless you ordered a dead cougar instead of the normal drinks we serve, then we’ve got a problem.”
*****
Boris had spent the morning with Anthony’s lawyer finishing off the paperwork that made him the new manager of one of the biggest bars in the city… Love Bites. As for whom the new owner would be… they’d both decided Anthony’s nearest of kin was the smartest way to go, legally and logically. Titus Valachi was one of the strongest and most fair-minded wolves Boris had ever met. He’d hated his uncle and refused to do anything mob related.
Boris smiled knowing he’d just helped the lawyer put over half the wolf pack holdings into Titus’s name without Titus being aware of it. Now all they had to do was convince Titus to become the new alpha before Lucca had a chance to claim it.
As for Love Bites, the previous owner had lost the club to Anthony only a couple weeks ago, and since Anthony’s lawyer was one of their pack wolves, he was taking care of as much paperwork as fast as he could in case the feds froze all of Anthony’s holdings.
Most of the clan had worked for Anthony in some way or another, but since the alpha no longer existed, it left a lot of wolves without a job. Wolves with too much time on their hands were never a good thing and Boris was already hearing talk about retaliating against the cougars for killing Anthony.
The majority of those wolves were hanging out with Lucca Romano who was Anthony’s protégé in many ways. Those were the wolves he did not want to be around.
Lucca was strong. Anthony had felt that and used Lucca for most of the mob work. That, and Anthony didn’t completely trust Lucca, so he figured keeping Lucca close and in control of a section of the mob ties would keep him busy enough not to try overthrowing him. Problem was… if Titus didn’t step up to the plate soon, then Lucca would.
With that in mind, Boris had been choosy while hiring pack members to