The stranger stops walking when Terrance snarls a warning at him. He takes one look at the troll, and his mouth pops open and his eyebrows climb his forehead. His eyes rake curiously over me, stopping on my face. I’m sure it’s bruised and swollen all to hell and a trickle of blood is streaking from my nose.
The man looks at Terrance again and smirks. “Interesting.”
I snort a laugh at the casual understatement and then curse when my face explodes in more pain.
The stranger’s lips twitch, and his eyes spark with humor. I’m torn between laughing again and flipping the man off. I settle for giving him the finger because it hurts less. The man bursts into laughter and heads for the bar. “I like her, Terrance.”
The endless pools of nothingness that used to be Terrance’s eyes track the new guy’s movement across the room. The troll growls again and hovers on his toes as if readying to pounce. Terrance is on the brink of ripping the stranger apart limb by limb, but the guy does nothing more than grin at him and grab one of the few bottles still in tact behind the bar. No one else has dared to move yet.
I stare, bewildered, as the man pours himself a shot of something with a bluish glow, and kicks it back in one gulp. I can’t look away. I mean, a scary-looking black cowboy-rock star with a baby face and dimples? Really? Strangely enough, it works for him. Though, with the amount of confidence he’s radiating, I’d bet anything would work for him. But who the hell is this guy that he can walk in like he owns the place and pour himself a drink while Henry’s a bloody mess on the floor and Terrance is…whatever he is.
The man scans the room again, taking in every detail this time, and cocks his eyebrow when he notices Henry. He reaches for the bloody stake and looks at me. “I take it this was your handiwork?”
I slowly pull myself into a sit. If this guy can move around without Terrance going berserk, then so can I. Once I’m upright and the room has stopped spinning, I shrug at the new guy. “He was going to turn me.”
The stranger grins. “Nice aim, but a word to the wise. Next time use an ash-wood stake. It’s the only kind that’ll get the job done. That, or cut off his head. Fire works with vamps, too. That’s about it.”
I smirk, even though it hurts my face. “Good to know.”
The man winks at me, then turns his playful smile on Terrance. “How you doing, buddy? Calming down yet? Your little charge there looks like she’s not feeling too good. Enzo’s on call right now. You rein it in a bit, and we can meet him over at the Agency and get her all patched up.”
“Stay out of this, Gorgeous,” Henry snaps suddenly. Parker helps him sit up and Terrance growls again, but it’s not quite as menacing as before. He must be calming down a little.
“Nora is my responsibility. I’ll take her to my own healer—”
Henry’s cut off by another vicious snarl, and I’m scooped up into Terrance’s arms so fast I lose my breath.
“Yeah…” Gorgeous says to Henry. “Doesn’t look to me like that’s happening.” If his smugness wasn’t directed at Henry, I might find his arrogance annoying. Instead, the guy is my hero.
“She’s still mine. I’ve claimed her for a mate.”
Gorgeous chews on this new bit of information. He holds up the blood-soaked stake to examine it in the light and then points the tip at Henry. “Seems to me she’s not too interested in becoming your mate.”
“Not at all,” I clarify cheerfully. “He’s holding me against my will.”
Henry glares at me, then scowls so hard at Gorgeous his eyes start to turn red again. Whether he doesn’t like what Gorgeous said or he simply doesn’t like the man himself, I can’t tell. But it’s clear Mr. Gorgeous loves to irk Henry.
“She’s human,” Henry says indignantly. “Claiming her is my right. I don’t care if she triggered Terrance’s protective instincts. He can’t just take what is mine.”
“Well, I’m sure as hell not going to argue with him while he’s in that state, so why don’t we all head down to the Agency, get the pretty human all healed up, and sort this mess out with the director?”
“What agency?” I ask. “Director of what? Who are you? And…is your name seriously Gorgeous?”
Gorgeous grins at me like I’ve just made his entire day. “Can you think of a more appropriate name?”
I snort again and then wince. The guy needs to stop making me laugh. “Conceited much?”
“And proud of it.” He pulls a leather ID wallet from his pocket and tosses it to me. I’m still cradled like a baby in Terrance’s arms, but I manage to catch the ID.
“Nick Gorgeous, at your service. I work for the Federal Underworld Agency. The F U Agency for short.”
I roll my eyes at his stupid acronym—though it’s admittedly more entertaining than S.H.I.E.L.D.—and focus on the more important fact. This guy’s a cop. An underworld cop. Like an FBI agent or something. I didn’t even know that existed.
And, I’ll be damned, his name really is Nick Gorgeous.
“And you are?” he asks when I toss his badge back to him.
“Nora Jacobs. Psychic human kidnapped by that asshole”—I point to Henry—“and now a major witness in your missing underworlders case. Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
The cool and calm federal agent raises his eyebrows in surprise again. “A witness, you say? In my missing persons investigation?”
“A strong eyewitness,” I tell him. “I saw Shandra get abducted. I can describe the men involved and the car, and I’m the one who got the license plate.”
Slowly, a shit-eating grin spreads across his face. “Well, well, well. It sounds like I need to take you in for questioning.”
I can’t help matching his grin. “Definitely.”
“And maybe some protective custody is in order, too.”
“Sounds fabulous.”
“Well then, Miss Jacobs, follow me.”
“Gorgeous!” Henry snaps. “You can’t just take her!”
Nick—I refuse to call him Gorgeous—whirls on Henry, and for the first time tonight I understand how he might not be afraid of a pissed off troll. He pulls his shoulders back, and when he stands up straight, something about him changes. It’s almost as if the air around him somehow shifts. The man radiates a frightening power. It’s like he has an aura made of fear and anyone in its radius will be brought to their knees. The pupils of his eyes transform into long, thin slits and a wave of heat sweeps through the room. When he speaks, it’s terrifying. “Try and stop me, Henry. I would love an excuse to end you.”
Henry glowers but wisely shuts up. Parker places a hand on Henry’s shoulder and softly says, “We’ll follow you to the Agency.”
What in the world is Nick Gorgeous? I’ve never seen anything like that. Never even heard of anything like that. I don’t really know what just happened. Whatever it is, I do know one thing. You do not mess with that man.
The Detroit Division of the FUA is right downtown on the riverfront a few blocks East of the Ren Center. It sits directly across the street from a plaza that was renovated a few years back. Over the last decade or two, the city of Detroit has done a lot to try and revitalize its life, but the results on that have been bleak at best. I’m rooting for the turnaround, but I don’t really have any faith that it’ll succeed. The city as a whole is a big cesspit that sucks away your soul if you stay long enough. A few pockets of cleaned up landscape isn’t going to change enough.
As I climb out of Terrance’s beautiful fully-loaded candy-apple red Cadillac, I glance across the street toward the park. I can hear the river and see the dark outline of the Cullen Family Carousel. It makes me shudder. In the day, the plaza is a little sad—a city revitalization project that just doesn’t get a lot of traffic, because as much as you pretty up an area, if you have to travel through a war zone to get to it, you’re not going to bother. This time of night, the empty park with the carousel down on the water’s edge is downright creepy.
Nick rolls into the parking spot beside Terrance’s car and climbs off his beautiful, expensive motorcycle. “I know the feeling,” he says, having seen my shiver of unease. “I’m not a big fan of the fey folk, either.”