Hear No (Hidden Evil, #1) Read online

  “Troy.” Nathan kicked his booted foot.

  The spirit guide groaned.

  “C’mon. Wake up.”

  Troy sprawled onto his back.

  Nathan barely made out his eyes in the mass of hair covering his face.

  “Is this what I have to look forward to when I retire?” he asked, pulling an ottoman away from a chair in the corner closer to the bed. Nathan sat down. “Hey. Come on. Wake up.” He slapped Troy’s cheek.

  “Get … the fuck out,” Troy muttered, swatting at his hand.

  “Get the fuck up,” Nathan repeated. “I need help.”

  “I’m retired.”

  “I’m calling in a favor.”

  Troy sighed. “I’m enjoying my new life.”

  “Right.” Nathan looked around the disaster of a room. Clothes, shoes and trash littered the master bedroom. “You owe me. Remember? Something about saving your sorry ass a few times.”

  “Once!” Troy grumbled. He wiped his face and struggled to sit.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Nathan demanded, almost concerned for his friend. “You try to drink yourself to death?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t work. I quit, but Pedro won’t let me go. Approval rating dropped below zero, and I still can’t retire. You believe that shit?”

  “Pedro does what Pedro wants. Anyway, get up. I’ve got a gig for you,” Nathan said.

  “I don’t want a gig.”

  “It’s a girl.”

  Silence.

  Nathan leaned back. From the same era, they’d spent thousands of years together, enough time for Nathan to know about Troy’s soft spot for women. Whatever he was going through, he’d never walk out on a damsel in distress.

  “She’s in trouble,” Nathan added.

  Troy was quiet for a second then swung his legs off the bed and faced Nathan. He was unrecognizable. Nathan pointed toward the bathroom off the side of the master bedroom.

  “And gorgeous.”

  Nathan sat back as Troy stood. The stinky, furry man made his way towards the bathroom and slammed the door. Nathan rose and crossed to the hallway. Amira was wringing her hands in the hallway, pacing. She looked up when he appeared.

  “Nate, I don’t like it here,” she said, distraught.

  “If I remember correctly, the guest bedroom is down here.” He started down the hall.

  She trailed.

  Nathan opened a door leading to a guest bedroom in need of a good cleaning. Dust was thick on all the flat surfaces and even managed to coat the moonstones lining the windowsill. He doubted anyone had been in there since he last saw it five years before.

  Unimpressed, Amira regarded the room critically.

  He touched her arm, waiting for her to look at him before speaking.

  “You’ve heard of Troy, the guide who trained me?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “That was Troy.” He pointed towards the master bedroom.

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “I’m leaving you with him. He’s the best there is.”

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  “He hit a rough patch, but he’ll take care of you. Trust me.”

  Amira grudgingly crossed to the bed and set her backpack on it. A puff of dust drifted upward. She sneezed.

  Nathan’s phone rang, and he glanced down to see Maggy’s number cross the screen. He silenced the call before moving into the hallway and returning to Troy’s bedroom. The sound of a shower came from behind the closed bathroom door.

  “Troy!” Nathan called, pounding on it.

  “Yeah!”

  He cracked it open. Steam rolled out. “I gotta go. She’s in the guest bedroom.”

  There was a pause then a reluctant, “All right.”

  “You got my number.” Nathan closed the door and strode from the bedroom towards the stairs. Pulling his phone free, he hesitated then texted Kaylee.

  Hey – can we talk?

  He didn’t expect an immediate answer but hoped she’d eventually respond.

  Then again, she got attacked by Amira and suspected him of kidnapping. Was his insight about Shadowman enough to pull her back in?

  Maggy called again.

  Nathan trotted outside, closing the front door behind him before he answered.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “We really need to figure this out,” she said. “If this guy isn’t the anchor, then we gotta find him.”

  “I did,” Nathan reported. He opened the door to his rental car and dropped in.

  “Good. Then you can … take care of this.”

  He was quiet.

  “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts,” she groaned.

  “I am. I don’t know why,” he admitted. “The easiest solution is usually the best. Just pull the trigger.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I think I need to talk to Pedro.”

  “What? Why?”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose between his eyes.

  “Wait, is his anchor a girl?” Maggy asked.

  “Talk later, Mags.” Nathan hung up. He started the car and then lit a cigar.

  Even after three thousand years, dealing with Pedro wasn’t something he looked forward to. But right now, he was feeling … conflicted. There had to be another solution to just killing Kaylee, one that let everyone live.

  He drove to downtown DC and parked under a familiar office building. The Other Side was a dimension within a dimension, a world easily accessed by those who knew how. There were several main portals, and the office building in central DC was one. It looked no different from any other building in the city. Only those with permission to visit the Other Side would walk through the front doors and end up somewhere else. Everyone else ended up in the office building.

  Nathan walked in. The shift to the Other Side was barely noticeable, a subtle drop in temperature and the sudden glitter of angels in their energy forms moving around the room. He walked a familiar path to Pedro’s office.

  “Pedro,” he said, knocking on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Nathan entered. Pedro, an archangel and the oldest of the guardian angels, was moving a fax machine the size of his torso. Nathan crossed to him and lifted it with ease. The dark-skinned angel grunted and pointed to where he wanted it.

  “I need some advice,” Nathan began.

  “Left.”

  “It’s about the Shadowman you all sent me to DC to handle.“

  “It’s not centered.”

  “Are you listening, Pedro?”

  “Don’t they teach humans right from left?” Pedro asked. He stepped forward and pushed the fax machine into place.

  “No one uses these things anymore, Pedro,” Nathan told him.

  “I do.”

  Pedro’s office was an eclectic mix of technology and toys he collected over the course of his lifetime. The thirty-year-old fax machine was a recent acquisition, something Nathan found at a yard sale at Pedro’s request. It sat between an urn from Sumeria and an Egyptian pair of sandals. His rug was made from mammoth skin, the chairs carved from the bones of the generation of dinosaurs that existed before those the humans knew about.

  “You are the best spirit guide ever,” Pedro said and sat at his desk. “Well, as far as you know.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Nathan said, ignoring the familiar reminder that he was a babe in Pedro’s ancient eyes. “There’s an issue.”

  Pedro waited curiously, as if this was the first problem he’d encountered in an eternity as an angel.

  “Shadowman is after Amira because of the gateway to Hell. And before you tell me there’s no such thing as a fallen guardian, I call bullshit. You got it?”

  Pedro was quiet.

  “Good,” Nathan continued. “The fallen guardian is after her. I’m after him. To take him out, I have to get rid of his host.”

  “Oh, no, Nathan!” Pedro exclaimed. “You cannot take an innocent life. It’s forbidden.”

  “I was getting
to that.”

  “Well then you must think of a different way.” Pedro smiled, pleased that he solved the problem.

  There are days I really hate angels, Nathan thought to himself. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted to see if you have any advice or information about Shadowman.”

  Pedro appeared contemplative for a moment. He dug through his desk and pulled out a file.

  Nathan accepted it and flipped through it. He stared at it for a minute then tossed it.

  Pedro laughed.

  “Why do you do that?” Nathan asked with tried patience. “Humans can’t read angel script.”

  “It never gets old to see you try. You should work on being happy, Nathan. Angels are never like … this.” Pedro waved at Nathan. “Tense.” Pedro handed him a new file, this one written in English.

  Nathan opened it to the first page. It was clearly written on a typewriter whose ribbons were not the best. Pedro was a fan of antiquated technology, adopting new methods of doing things only after they went out of style for the rest of the world. Nathan squinted to read some of the faint words.

  “This is the spirit guides’ credo,” he said, tossing it back. “I know it by heart. Why are you showing it to me?”

  “To remind you that you cannot kill an innocent.”

  Nathan began to think it was a mistake coming to Pedro. Angels really did make the worst bosses. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. Who else did he turn to when he was troubled, if not the head of the guardian angels?

  “You want to break protocol,” Pedro guessed. “The rules are clear.”

  “I can’t take a life in the course of my official …” Nathan trailed off. “Wait, Pedro. It says take a life. What if I just borrow her life long enough to sever what keeps Shadowman anchored in the human world? Then return her life to her?”

  Pedro steepled his fingers, deep in thought.

  “Maybe,” he answered. “But Nathan, you should never kill an innocent, even if only for the few minutes you need to send her angels back.”

  “How many minutes?”

  “Five-ish.”

  Nathan studied Pedro. Of all the angels, Pedro was the hardest to read. There were days Nathan thought him truly scatter-brained and other days – like this one – where he suspected Pedro was smarter than he seemed. Did he provide the timeframe on purpose or not?

  Pedro held out a catalog. “I want one of these.”

  Nathan took it. One of the items in the music catalogue had been circled.

  Just when I think Pedro has a clue … Nathan flipped the catalogue closed to see the date. While pristine, it was almost forty years old.

  “Did you look on eBay?” he asked.

  “Too expensive,” Pedro said. “You can find one at a flea market or yard sale for half that.”

  “Do you know how long it’ll take me to find a functioning eight track player at a yard sale?”

  “We’ve got time. If it’s more than on eBay, don’t buy it.”

  “I’ll look,” Nathan said. If nothing else, it was an even exchange: Pedro’s information for an eight-track player.

  “Something is bothering you, Nathan,” Pedro said wisely. “What is it?”

  “Aside from you asking me to go to yard sales when Shadowman is hunting down an innocent first gen so he can open the portal to Hell?” Nathan asked. “Nothing.”

  “You are worried. It’s not normal for you. You are normally very sure of yourself.”

  Born during the Roman Empire, Nathan retained the unfaltering confidence and physical prowess of the warrior race that bred him. He also had the emotional depths and temper of a Scorpio who never backed down from a challenge and the patience of a man who had lived one too many lifetimes. There were days when it took all of this to keep him from snapping when he dealt with Pedro.

  “Yeah, well, got a lot on my mind,” Nathan said. “By the way, Pedro. What comes out of the portal if it does get opened?”

  Pedro’s gaze saddened. “Death,” he whispered.

  Nathan had never seen the head of the guardian angel corps distraught. Uncertain how to respond, he changed the subject.

  “I called in a favor to Troy, too.”

  “I told him he has much good to do in this world yet.”

  Of course. It’s always about the greater good. Never about us. Nathan rose.

  “Here are some yard sales.” Pedro held out a newspaper, folded to display the classified ads. He’d gone to the trouble of circling two ads in yellow.

  Nathan took it. “This is for Tucson, five years ago.” He’d long since stopped getting angry with the angels who were trying to relate to him in a human way. They meant well, even if they drove him crazy at times. “Pedro, one of these is at my house. I know I’m not having a yard sale.”

  “I have faith. Maybe you will and someone brings you my eight track player. Or maybe the other address will have one,” Pedro suggested. “You know the way of the universe. If you ask for something or need something, eventually it comes to you.”

  “It’s never quite that easy. I’ll let you know when I find your treasure.” Nathan pocketed the newspaper.

  “It was good to see you, Nathan.”

  “You, too, Pedro.”

  Nathan left Pedro’s office and the building, reemerging into the mortal world.

  He sighed on his way to the car. Accustomed to the bizarre exchanges, he still left each interaction with Pedro wishing for a little more effort on the angel’s part.

  In any case, he now had a back-up plan. It still involved killing Kaylee, but at least it wasn’t going to be permanent. He’d do whatever it took to convince Maggy to do things his way.

  Maybe, by the end of the day tomorrow, the issue of Shadowman would be resolved.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Amira explored the caveman’s house twice, more puzzled as she did so. There was a general trail through the house indicating where the spirit guide routinely went. Front door, kitchen, upstairs. The rest of the house was covered in dust, from the wooden floors to the windowsills and every other open surface. She followed her own footprints through the formal living and dining rooms for a second time.

  The house had been professionally decorated. It was too stylish and comfortable for the barbaric man upstairs to have done himself. His room was trashed, his floor covered with more bottles of alcohol than the formal bar contained. Moonstones lined every windowsill and hovered around every doorway, a sign the spirit guide had the sense to protect his home, even if he appeared to be surviving off alcohol alone.

  She returned to the kitchen again. Her nose wrinkled when she opened the fridge. Small containers of delivery and fast food smelled way too old for her to consider eating. The pantry was mostly empty, aside from cracker boxes and cans of liquid cheese.

  “Ewww!” she muttered.

  She was hungry, but there was nothing in the house that was remotely edible.

  Why did Nathan leave her here? Yes, she’d heard of Troy, who, like Nathan, was a legend among angels and spirit guides alike. But she’s also heard that Troy was fired.

  Of course, if that was true, he’d be dead, based on the lack of food in the house.

  She closed the pantry door and stood in the middle of his kitchen, thoughtful. She wanted to know more about the stranger she was supposed to trust. She went back to the front door and traced his steps.

  “Keys.” She pretended to dump her keys in the bowl on top of the sofa table near the door. “Wallet?” Sifting through the bowl, she didn’t see his wallet. She walked by the open door of the formal living room then paused and stepped back. There were a few footprints into this room that weren’t hers, leading to a chaise.

  She went to it and saw his wallet sprawled on a cushion, as if it had been tossed there and forgotten. Picking it up, Amira opened it and sifted through it.

  One debit card and cash. Nothing else.

  Disappointed, she replaced it on the chaise, not at all certain why his wallet was so far from his key
s or anything else. Nothing about the man made sense.

  Turning, she jumped.

  Troy stood in the doorway, arms crossed and dark gaze penetrating. She didn’t recognize him at first without the bushy beard and hair. He’d clipped his facial hair down to a goatee, and his hair was slicked back. He hadn’t seemed nearly this big or imposing when he was slung drunk across his bed.

  Where Nathan was lean, Troy was thick and muscular, standing a head taller than her, which was no easy feat given she was right at six feet tall. There was no sign of the caveman in the man before her, and she could believe the legends about his unmatched strength.

  He spoke, and she read his lips.

  “Why are you going through my wallet?” he asked. It was one of those times when she wished she could hear his tone. Was he angry? From his stance, he wasn’t happy, but she didn’t know where he was on the spectrum from irritated to infuriated.

  “I’m curious,” she replied honestly.

  His eyes narrowed.

  “My name is Amira,” she said somewhat nervously. She took a few steps and held out her hand. “I’m deaf, but I can read lips, so don’t talk to me if I’m not looking.”

  For a moment, he was still, studying her. Finally, he responded. “Troy. Don’t talk to me before nine in the morning, and we’ll get along fine.”

  “Okay. Nice to meet you, Troy.” She smiled and shook his hand. His was large, thick and strong, his grip firm. “Why don’t you have any real food?”

  “I’ve been trying to kill myself, but it’s not working.”

  She gasped, searching his gaze. “No, Troy! Life is sacred! You should view yours as a blessing.”

  “Damn first gen.” He rolled his eyes and walked away.

  Was he still talking to her? She trailed, hoping not. Troubled by his confession, Amira looked at her surroundings with a new perspective.

  He had a beautiful house and a big truck, the means to keep buying high-end booze, and a job helping others.

  What made him suicidal?

  Her heart ached for him without even knowing why he felt so desolate. Maybe Nathan hadn’t just dropped her off here to protect her. Maybe she was meant to help Troy. If Pedro wasn’t going to let him retire, it meant he had a future doing good. She understood that spirits guides were very different from angels, but they still fought for the greater good, just in a different way.