Nightfall (Nightfall Book 1)

James was surprised with himself. He hadn’t thought he’d like the little guy. He’d been planning on just being overly pleasant to get him to calm down and tell him what had happened since their bosses wanted to know if the demon knew anything that could help their investigation. But James really liked talking to him. It did always seem to take a bit to get Arkie to talk, but his constant scowling and huffing were frankly too adorable for James to care all that much.

“Why would I drink this?” he asked, peering into the hole in the cola can with suspicion. Since not all employees of Aegis were vampires, there were a few vending machines at the HQ, so James had thought that buying Arkemoz a soda might improve the demon’s mood. “I don’t like water. And this looks much worse.”

“You’ll like it. It tastes good. I mean, I think it does.” Was it stupid to feel sad about not knowing how cola tastes? There was no point to it, that was for sure. James would always be a vampire, and a vampire’s sense of taste was practically nonexistent when it came to normal food, so there was nothing to be done about it.

Arkemoz looked back down at the can, narrowing his eyes at it. While it was a bit tiresome that he was so suspicious of everything, it was kind of funny, too. But James couldn’t laugh because that would definitely not help things.

They were sitting in the corner of the lounge area on the headquarters, which James had been a bit dubious about at first, but there hadn’t been much foot traffic here so far. Arkie clearly didn’t trust any of them, and James doubted that people gawking at him would do much to change that.

And it was hard not to. The guy had horns growing out of his head, and a lot of the people here had never seen a demon, which was why he’d made sure that Arkemoz would be sitting opposite him, against the wall. That was the best they could do in terms of hiding him.

James would have taken him outside to talk, but he couldn’t do that right now without bursting into flames. At least the open space seemed to have made Arkie feel more comfortable. He wasn’t as jumpy anymore.

The vampire watched him take a careful sip of the cola, almost chuckling as the demon’s eyes went wide.

“See? Told ya.”

The demon kept his eyes firmly trained on the can. “It’s...okay. Though I still don’t know what’s in it. It doesn’t look natural.”

“Maybe. But there’s a ton of sugar.”

Arkemoz gave the drink another distrustful look before taking another, much larger sip. James grinned. God, he was cute. For some reason, James even liked the horns. They freaked him out with Azralis, but Arkie’s worked somehow, and he doubted it was because his were smaller. Maybe it was because of the messy black hair since it looked much softer and fluffier than Azralis’.

“So...I’m free to leave?”

James resisted the urge to sigh. He had sort of been hoping Arkie would stick around for a while, but he’d implied he wanted to leave as soon as possible before now already. James probably shouldn’t get too attached, but it was turning out to be pretty damn hard not to. He couldn’t remember the last time he actually met someone he found interesting, so this was difficult.

“Yeah. I mean, there’s some paperwork to get through, but yeah. As soon as we get those cuffs off.” James shrugged. “I mean you can leave before then, but I assume you want those off.”

He watched Arkemoz glare at the cuffs. James could see that his wrists were still bruised under them, and it made him angry. And he’d already killed the people who’d done this, so there wasn’t much else he could do here aside from trying to help to get them off.

“And you’ll help me do that?”

“Yep, that’s right.”

Arkie stared at him with narrowed eyes for a while, as if he was trying to figure something out, his hands playing with the cola can on the table. After a few more seconds James was about to ask what was up when the demon spoke again.

“Why are you being nice to me?”

James blinked, surprised by the question, feeling a blush creeping up his neck. But before he could make an idiot out of himself, Arkemoz continued.

“I don’t have anything to give Aegis in return.”

Oh. By you, Arkie had meant Aegis, not James. Right, that made more sense. But for some reason, he couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed. But that was fine.

“Yeah, don’t worry about that. I don’t know where Aegis gets money, but I’m assuming either drugs or witchcraft.”

James had meant that as a joke, but that was his working theory either way. Aegis didn’t pay him aside from some pocket change, and the powder, but the equipment they had had to cost something. And so did that powder, even though James didn’t know where it came from.

“They might have a few questions concerning the people who kidnapped you, though,” James added. And they might not be as nice about it. “That’s actually something I wanted to ask you about. See, demons have been disappearing left and right, apparently.”

“They have?” Arkemoz looked surprisingly conflicted about this. Shouldn’t he just get angry? Azralis sure had been. “Why?”

James let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, that’s what Aegis would like to find out.”

Arkie frowned down at the table. “I don’t know anything.”

He actually looked sad about it, which was the first time James had seen him make that face. He didn’t like it one bit. “They didn’t let anything slip, huh?”

The demon shook his head. “They mostly talked a lot about nothing.”

James sniggered, reaching out to pat Arkie’s shoulder before he even thought about it. The demon tensed up but relaxed right after, staring at James closely with his big, orange eyes. They looked unnatural, but without good lighting and direct eye contact, James doubted anyone would notice the color. He himself hadn’t until sitting this close to him.

“Okay, I’ll tell the bosses, I guess.”

Though they were going to question the demon anyway, no matter what James said, and it wouldn’t be because they didn’t trust James’ word—even though they probably didn’t—but because of how desperate they were for any clues at all.

He turned around when he heard Denise call his name and nodded at her when she waved him over.

“One sec,” he told the demon, who nodded too and continued to sip his cola with a thoughtful scowl on his face. James forced himself to tear his eyes away from that image and made his way over to Denise, who was watching him with a smirk.

“You know, we don’t get a bonus for extra work,” she teased him, now grinning. James scoffed, unable to hide his own smile completely.

“He’s cute. What do you want me to say?”

Denise chuckled. “Black wants to talk to you. And that van we put a tracker on moved. I’m supposed to go check out the place it’s at now with a few other people, so I’ll see you later.”

She lazily saluted with a grin and with a wave walked away, only briefly looking back at Arkemoz with something akin to concern. The demon didn’t seem to notice, though, and kept staring down at the table with a blank expression, running his finger over the wooden surface.

James supposed he should go see the boss immediately just to get it over with. But he didn’t like the idea of leaving Arkemoz by himself. He wasn’t even sure why, though. James had never spent more than ten minutes talking to Black, so how long could this take? And Arkie was also an immortal, God-knew-how-old demon despite how confused he seemed about everything. He could handle himself for a few minutes.

The demon didn’t seem concerned about being left alone when James told him as much, but the vampire couldn’t help but notice that Arkie drew his tail up and over his legs. It made him wonder just how much demons tended to express themselves with their tails. In retrospect, Arkie had been moving it around a lot.

As James made his way to Black’s office, he greeted a few people he passed by with a nod. He didn’t really talk to anyone here except Denise, mostly because they worked together a lot, but some people liked to pretend they knew each other. James was pretty sure it was only because he was one of the oldest vampires here, and some liked to idealize that on principle. It was still better than having to work with someone he used to hang out with back in his murderous days, though.

Reaching the office door, James sighed and knocked, opening it as he immediately heard Black tell him to enter.

“Ah, James, wonderful,” the man said as soon as he saw him. While Black’s insistence to call everyone by their first name was annoying, whenever James saw him, it never failed to amuse him that despite his surname, Black was about as white as a person could be, including platinum blonde hair. Given that Black didn’t seem like the kind of person to dye his hair, James really wondered if it was natural. It didn’t look like it.

“I hear you’ve been getting along with Arkemoz,” he said casually, making James frown. Who the hell had come to that conclusion? They’d hung out for two hours at most, and he’d definitely not seen Black even passing by during that time, so who could have told him?

James sighed to himself. It had been Denise, hadn’t it?

Apparently Black was waiting for a confirmation because he just kept looking at James eagerly, so James shrugged in an I guess way. He didn’t feel like talking about this at all, and frankly, it was a little unprofessional.

“Well, I’m just asking because he seems very…distrustful of everyone. So I was going to ask you if you wouldn’t mind driving him to a warlock to get those handcuffs removed.”

“You found someone?” Well, that was some good news then. Hopefully, the guy would actually know how to do it, but Black seemed confident in what he’d said.

Black hummed, picking up a folder off his desk and handing it to James. “This should have all the information you’ll need. Probably much more than you’ll need, actually. Just drive Arkemoz to the address. Qironin, the warlock, already knows what we want from him.”

That sounded simple enough. James opened the folder, raising his eyebrow at the headshot of the guy. He had tattoos on his face, because of course he did, but beyond that, he looked incredibly ordinary. A very simple, short haircut, black-framed glasses, a freaking sweater vest…. And basically, all his file said about him was his name. Well, that was not suspicious at all.

“Oh, and if during the trip you could not paint Aegis in a negative light, that would be wonderful.”

James scowled. “What?” Then, for once, something in his brain clicked. “Wait, are you trying to get Arkie to join?”

Black sighed, giving James an abashed smile. “While not as fast, demons are much stronger than vampires, and they have knowledge of certain magics. I don’t think anyone would mind if he decided to help. And also, unlike most creatures, a demon’s blood doesn’t cause…accidents.”

Yeah, James had already noticed that the blood didn’t smell good, but that was still weird. James did like the idea of Arkie hanging around here, but for once he wasn’t going to be a selfish asshole and would point out how shady this was. “You’re really gonna take advantage of the fact that the guy doesn’t know any better?”

Black sighed. “Well, no, I just want him to make his own opinion about us. That’s all.”

That sounded reasonable on the surface, but James was staying dubious. He didn’t think Black was a bad guy, but he did tend to do whatever he wanted as long as he saw it as right. And as long as the higher management approved or didn’t find out, of course.

Like pairing up James and Denise for missions, in an effort to make James not absolutely hate working for Aegis. That had gotten very transparent in retrospect.

“Fine. I’ll try very hard not to bitch and moan about Aegis, then.” Despite his words, James truly doubted he would be able to keep that promise. Complaining about Aegis just came naturally to him.

Black grinned, looking very pleased. “Splendid.”

James took that as a sign that he could leave, but Black stopped him before he could open the door.

“Oh, and please do remember to report back before you set out to drive back here.”

James resisted telling Black that there was no need to be so passive-aggressive about this. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t used to having a phone, or really realizing how much they could do these days.

“You got it.”

Finally leaving the office, James let out a long breath and looked down at the folder in his hand. A road trip with Arkie to meet up with a strange, yet normal-looking warlock it was, then.