The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,34

lifting the shot glass. It toasted Kit with the golden liquid.

“I’ll leave,” Scratch said, enunciating each syllable sharply, “when I’m damned well ready.”

And it threw back the firewater, licked its lips . . . and began to scream.

“What the hell—” Dennis grimaced and the air around them grew cold, and Kit backed up even more, but Grif just stood there, palming the glass vial he’d been concealing, now empty of its contents.

“Good-bye, you soul-stealing bastard.” Grif’s voice was so low that only another angel might hear it. Scratch howled in reply, straining against Brunk’s flesh, causing the man’s neck to pop—snap, snap—as it twisted Grif’s way.

“I know you now!” Wind and leaves whipped through every syllable. “You won this round, but I won’t forget! I never forget!”

And the fallen angel left its host body as quickly as it’d arrived. Brunk slumped forward, face slamming against the tabletop with a sick, fleshy thud.

“Jesus,” Dennis said, rubbing a hand over his face. His expression was stunned. “He looked . . .”

“Possessed,” Kit finished, swallowing hard. Grif glanced down and saw that her hands were shaking. He took one in his own and gave it a small squeeze. He’d done what he had to. Scratch wasn’t going to get to Kit.

Brunk’s gaze rolled back in place. The whites of his eyes were pristine, the irises dark as molten chocolate.

“Trey?” Kit asked gingerly, leaning forward.

Brunk took one good look at her face, glanced down at empty shot glass in front of him, and vomited all over the table.

Rearing back, Kit barely saved her bamboo handbag. Filth spewed from Brunk’s body, noxious and acidic and seemingly endless. Only Grif knew why. The liquid he’d prepared after he’d caught Scratch trying to wrangle away Jeap’s tortured soul comprised something Pure. It expelled all impurities from mortal flesh, including fallen angels . . . and the addictive matter Brunk had been poisoning his body with for years.

It took a while.

Kit was at Grif’s side, giant question marks in her gaze, but he shook his head. He’d bring her up to speed later.

“Jesus, Brunk,” Dennis said, when there was a break. “What the hell are you on?”

“He’s okay,” Grif muttered. “He’s just . . . detoxing.”

And now that he’d had a taste of real Purity, Brunk might even be able to beat his addiction. What was unholy could never exist alongside what was Pure.

Waiting until Brunk was between spasms, Grif reached out and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. Dazed, dizzy with all the fresh oxygen zinging through his every mortal cell, he took a moment to focus, but when he did, his eyes were clearer than they’d likely been in years.

“Two more tweekers, Trey,” Grif said, holding the gaze. “Just like Jeap. Where are they?”

Tears of understanding welled in Brunk’s eyes. “Oh, God.”

“Where, Trey?” Grif demanded, because Scratch had the knowledge, and he’d gotten it from this man.

But Brunk was having an extremely delayed rush of survivor’s guilt. Without the addiction as a barrier between him and his emotions, he was facing for the first time what drugs had done to him, and his friends. “I hid the last of my stash. I wouldn’t share. They didn’t have any more money, so when Jeap told them about the croc, the crocodile,” he clarified, with a shudder, “and how cheap it was, they jumped on it.”

“Who, Trey?”

“Tim and Jeannie.” He covered his face with his filthy hands. They were no longer roving, no longer tweeking, but they shook with guilt. “You gotta help ’em. They can’t stop, just like Jeap couldn’t stop. They stole his stash and left him in that flop, but they took the codeine. He’d already showed them how to make it. It’s my fault. I wouldn’t share.”

“No, it’s their choice,” Grif said, over Brunk’s blustering sobs. “But you can help them by telling us where they are.”

The distraught man lifted his head, and squinted at Grif. “They stay with Timmy’s mother mostly. She kicks them out, but they know her bingo times, and they sneak back in when she’s gone.”

“Where?”

“Shangri-La Apartments, in Meadows Village.”

Grif shook his head. It meant nothing to him.

But Dennis jerked his head toward the door. “Got it.”

Yet it was Kit who led the rush from the bar. And as the sounds of retching resumed behind them, Dennis and Grif had to run to keep pace. Meanwhile, the men at the bar—each attending to his own vice—never even looked up.

Chapter Eight

Meadows Village wasn’t far, yet rush hour was just beginning,