And you’re all still alive.
‘I’ll take her to bed for you, if it helps out,’ Taxi jokingly offered.
‘Remind me why you’re called Taxi again?’ I asked.
He smiled so widely it was impossible not to smile in return. Turk had given him the nickname about forty years ago. They’d been living in apartments next door to one another in Islington – the same ones where they still lived now – and whenever Taxi picked up a girl Turk would know about it because he’d hear some poor now-sober woman hailing a taxi at the top of her lungs at the crack of dawn the following day.
‘Violet, I promise I’ll give you a ride home in the morning myself.’ Taxi waggled his eyebrows.
Ryan hit Taxi on the head. ‘Leave her be,’ he said, giving me a nod.
Apart from me, Ryan, at thirty-three, was the youngest of the group – though like everyone else he looked barely a couple of years out of his teens. He was also the one whose dimples gave him a look of innocence, which was the exact opposite of Taxi and Carter, whose more angular features and lack of care towards personal maintenance made them seen menacing.
But it was Milo who always caught my eye and reluctant curiosity. While looking Grigori-young, he had a darkness surrounding him that was more than just his tall, slim figure, always-black attire and long jet-black hair. His eyes told a haunting tale, one that as a Rogue he had every right to never share. But we all knew that it had something to do with his particular gift. He was a Darkener – he had the ability to plunge someone into darkness, momentarily blinding them before launching his attack. It was a great defensive weapon against exiles, but it had left its mark on him in the depths of his sad eyes.
Like me.
Looking away from Milo and back to Taxi and Ryan, I recognised their slightly bloodshot eyes and lazy smiles. They had clearly been at the bar for a while and looked as if they had passed the one-too-many point a few drinks back. For Taxi, this meant crudeness. For Ryan, it meant genuine flirting.
I glanced at Gray and caught his subtle wink of understanding. Then he got on with business. And this was the way it was with Rogues. We didn’t sit around rehashing the events of the night – we moved on to the next job. Gray had already reported to our employer about tonight’s events at the meat market. The money had been transferred to us and the clients were having their own people deliver the news to the human in charge. Fine by us.
The Academy Grigori had stayed behind at the construction site to help the humans who had survived, bring in the clean-up crew and mourn the loss of Clive and Annette. We’d done our job, scouted the immediate area and cleared the rooftop, then taken our payment, shaken hands and bailed.
Now Gray had moved on to the details of the new job that had come in from his contact in Rome. An exile they’d been trying to find had fled Italy after taking out an entire church load of people during a single Sunday Mass in a small village just outside Florence.
The exile had posed as a priest.
I was still undecided when it came to my beliefs. I knew there was a place where souls were sent to suffer – my mother had been locked in the pits of Hell since the day she gave birth to me until the day I unwittingly freed her – and there were definitely stories out there with elements of truth. But God? One entity responsible for it all? Heaven? Peace? No, I wasn’t sure about that.
What I did know was that dressing up in a priest’s outfit and betraying people’s faith and trust that way was very, very wrong. No way was I about to miss this hunt.
‘They think he’s in London and asked us to follow up.’
‘Paying?’ Carter asked.
Gray sniffed. ‘Not a lot. If anything.’
Normally, Carter would argue to go back and settle terms before agreeing to take on the job but one look at my fingers drumming on the table told him it wouldn’t work. If he wanted in on the fight, he’d have to get in on the ground level. So he settled for glaring at me and said nothing.
Ryan finished his drink. Karen had already delivered the final round to everyone.
‘Taxi and I can start checking in with the London churches,’ Ryan offered. ‘See if there are any new clergy around or, you know, if there have been any massacres lately.’
Gray nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s start with that.’
Ryan looked at me and motioned to my empty glass. ‘What’re you having?’ he asked, standing up.
I shook my head. ‘A hot shower and bed,’ I said, standing up as well.
He smiled, showing his dimples. ‘I can work with that.’
Gray was suddenly beside me, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close. I fought the instinctive urge to throw him into the far wall and kept breathing.
‘Won’t be any room for you, mate.’ He glanced at the rest of the guys briefly. ‘We’ll talk more tomorrow.’
With that, Gray walked me through the back door and up the narrow staircase to my tiny apartment.