Blown Away Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blown Away

  Publication Information

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Also Read

  Thank You

  Blown Away

  by

  LJ Vickery

  Immortals

  Book Six

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Blown Away

  COPYRIGHT © 2016 by L J Vickery

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Angela Anderson

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com

  Publishing History

  First Scarlet Rose Edition, 2016

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-1298-9

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1299-6

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my family, friends, and beta’s

  who continue to make this all possible.

  Let’s keep the fun going!

  Prologue

  Los Angeles, California

  “Gustavo.” Sallust Demetria, or Sal as those close called him, barked out to his second in command.

  Stave heard the call and eyed his boss through the glass-partitioned door, but didn’t answer right away because his girlfriend was reaming him a new asshole over the phone.

  He watched Sal pick up an empty French Cognac bottle from his desk and launch it across his office to smash against the wall next to where Stave peered in.

  Ah, shit. He should have hung up on the bitch right away. Sal posed a far larger threat to his well-being. Understatement. He didn’t know what had crawled up his boss’s ass this time, but the man’s temper, always close to the surface, seemed poised at def-con two. He hit disconnect without another thought and beat feet into Sal’s office.

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “You just made me destroy a very rare bottle. Vicky collects them.” Sal’s voice growled.

  Stave swallowed hard. Shit. Dissing Vicky―Sal’s longtime squeeze―loomed as a supreme insult to the boss.

  “I’ll pick her up another, Sal.” Damn. That cognac cost forty grand. An expensive lesson in being available to his boss at all times, no distractions. Stave would make sure his girlfriend paid the price later, right before he dumped her ass. No bitch was worth 40K.

  “Obliged, Stave.” The dark-haired drug lord calmed, nodded assent, and straightened his already perfect tie. “Read this letter and tell me what you think.” Sal shoved a paper across his vast desk and indicated that Stave should have a seat.

  Gustavo looked sheepishly across at Sal before lowering himself into a chair and drawing small, half glasses from his pocket. He’d just turned fifty, and couldn’t read a fucking thing without them. It irked him that his boss, five years older, had yet to need the damned things.

  “Sucks to get old, doesn’t it?” Sal lamented with uncustomary solicitude. Even though Stave remained Sal’s longest-term employee, there’d always been a line drawn when it came to friendliness. The two had started out together thirty years before and seen countless of their colleagues fall by the wayside or become incarcerated for life. Neither would have believed they’d still be standing, let alone working together so late in their careers. If they had, perhaps a closer personal relationship might have been forged. Too late for that now.

  Stave slid on his glasses and quickly read the short, terse missive. His eyebrows rose in astonishment. Someone had turned informant, and Candy Lane―actually and unbelievably her real name―would now, undoubtedly, be going down. The Latino bitch had screwed Sal over royally, and they’d been handed the information they needed to find her and make her pay.

  “She must have made an enemy somewhere along the line,” Stave observed, stowing his glasses back in his pocket. “Can you believe her real name is friggin’ Candy Lane? Not typical for the Spanish-speaking population in LA. No wonder we couldn’t find her. We never considered it could be real.” He glanced quickly at Sal to see if he’d admitted to an unforgivable mistake, but blew out a relieved breath to see his boss agreeing.

  “A DEA agent posing as a stripper with the name Candy Lane. No fault of yours, Stave. I didn’t give it a second thought either.”

  “So what do you want me to do?” Stave folded the letter and slid it back across the desk. They’d been laying low after the big bust orchestrated by Candy. Everyone involved was out on a mountain of bail, including Sal, bound to his lush penthouse suite―atop the twenty-story hotel and club he owned―by an ankle monitor.

  “Find her.” The boss steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “And have a couple of the boys get our, you know, private accommodations ready for her.” Sal smiled a very toothy smile that threatened supreme evil. “Candy Lane will soon find out what it’s like to be our very unhappy guest.”

  Chapter One

  Candy stood mesmerized in the front yard of the Blue Hills compound. A god, newly visible to her, took a deep breath and sent his eyes around the group standing on the snowy lawn until he found her; the only woman who could possibly be responsible for his sudden transformation to the land of the embodied. Candy swallowed. She managed to keep her mouth from falling open as his feet took him down the steps and across the expanse of yard, where he invaded her personal space. And fuck, no. She didn’t mind one bit.

  The stunning god lifted her hand, turned it over, and kissed her palm. A shiver ran through her at the touch of his lips.

  “I’m Shamash, lovely lady.” His voice resonated, deep and caressing. “I am the all-seeing god of the sun.”

  Candy could only stare and hope she retained enough control to keep from drooling. Handsome was an understatement. Large. Blond. The enormous dude’s ringlets fairly danced with flames when he tipped his head and continued. “I am also the keeper of justice and salvation.”

  Well. Fuck me, impressive.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m Candy.” She had trouble accessing her normal voice. Some odd force drew her toward this violet eyed immortal…a connection she hadn’t gotten with any of the other gods. It hit her as damned strange.

  She became so absorbed in this visceral reaction, that i
t took her a minute to register the low growl emanating from her nemesis, Enlil. God dammit. What the fuck was his problem?

  “Excuse me.” Jake, Candy’s boss interrupted before she could turn and skewer the wind god. “It’s nice to have a little love-fest going here, but…”

  Candy rolled her eyes at his intended sarcasm. Jake, the head of the DEA unit whose members currently lined the yard across from the posturing Blue Hills’ residents, loved to give her shit.

  “Wait.” Jake did a double-take, and his jaw dropped in an entirely comical way―at least to Candy. “Let me rewind for a second,” he huffed, examining Shamash. “Did you just say you’ve been invisible?” He gestured wildly at the god who, when emerging earlier from the front door of the twenty-eight-room estate, had announced his sudden corporeality.

  Jake shook his head. “And you,” he turned his gaze to Marduk, “You mentioned your property’s protective barrier not being breached in four hundred years.” He paused again, looking thoughtful this time as he stroked his chin. “And now there’s some crazy-ass talk about gods of justice and salvation?”

  “That would be god…singular.” Marduk seemed as if he could barely keep a straight face. “Shamash has the whole redemption thing wrapped up by himself. The rest of us have our own callings.”

  Candy grunted. Clearly Marduk, head of the Blue Hills gods, had decided―on the spot―to let Jake and the rest of her DEA friends in on the Blue Hills’ secrets, which both pissed her off and made her proud. It had taken the asshole gods’ group days to fill her in on their particulars, and now Marduk would spoon-feed it to Jake in minutes? Fine. It proved he was intuitive enough to figure her fellow agents would be like her; unable to have their minds wiped clean because of their training. Candy shrugged to herself. She guessed the big guy had no alternate course of action…short of killing them all.

  “I’m Marduk, god of thunder.” The scowling leader commenced introductions by letting loose a tremendous clap overhead. Everyone ducked reflexively.

  “And this is Enlil.” Marduk waved a hand at the, yup, still enraged god. “He’s in charge of wind.”

  Enlil took that moment to whip up a particularly nasty gust. Aimed at Shamash alone, it swept the other god off his feet to end up on his ass ten feet away from Candy.

  The downed god raised an eyebrow at Enlil. What the fuck?

  Candy―privy sometimes to the head-communication the immortals practiced―held back a snicker. Let Enlil explain that one.

  We’ll talk later. Came the stoic reply.

  Shamash made a great show of rubbing his behind and sending Enlil a pissy glare.

  Marduk ignored the two as if they didn’t exist and focused on Jake. “Enten is our purveyor of winter.” He gave the go-ahead to Enten, who quickly produced a small squall several yards down the lawn from the group. “I’m sure you’re getting the picture.” He folded his arms across his chest, waiting for the agent to comment.

  Before Jake could spit out the curses Candy knew bubbled on his tongue, Tess, Marduk’s wife, made a welcome suggestion. “Why don’t we head inside where it’s warm? I’m sure we could use a refreshment while we continue this very interesting discussion.”

  Candy remembered her own freak-out when she found out these guys were gods, and readily nodded. Better that no one passed out in the snow.

  “Good idea, Tessa-mine,” Marduk concurred. He put his hand on the small of his wife’s back, turned in place, and strode toward the house.

  With very little choice, Jake gave the signal to his team, and they followed the gods. Seven agents tucked into a tight group, including Dunsky who’d picked himself off the ground where he’d earlier been beaten by Enlil. Candy sighed. There lay another fucking quagmire to get mucked out.

  Candy, with long-ingrained habit, joined the DEA formation and found herself next to her boss.

  “You buy into this shit, Candy-Land?” he spoke softly and used her nickname to let her know he didn’t intend to remain too pissed off that she’d dragged the guys into some fucked up mess.

  “I’ve come to believe it,” she mumbled, and Jake looked astonished. He considered her the most jaded of his agents and the one least likely to be duped. But what could she say? She’d been here three weeks, close to four, long enough to believe the god thing.

  They crossed the front threshold together, and he drew in an audible breath. Aware that Jake had seen some pretty impressive mansions in his pursuit of wealthy bad guys, she knew this one still boggled the mind.

  The ceiling―vaulted up fifty feet―was topped by a high, stained glass dome that, in the daylight, loomed spectacularly, sending dancing colors onto the white marble floor below. The walls were covered in brightly hued tapestries, underneath which sat incongruously aged and worn upholstered sofas that beckoned invitingly. The grand sweeping staircase to the right promised even more lavishness from the rooms above. The highly polished banister, carved in the shape of a vicious serpent, beckoned inhabitants forward with its lifelike fury. Candy wondered if any of the opulence would be enough for Jake to take the gods seriously.

  Candy’s guys barely had time to take it all in before being led down a long hall toward the back of the house and into a spacious office with an enormous boardroom table that made their workplace in California look like a principal’s office by comparison. Candy gazed around. The house’s residents shuffled about―corporeal and disembodied―finding seats.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” Marduk said out loud, then to two of the invisibles Candy heard him ask, Absu, Emesh, can you whip up some food? Big-ass sandwiches would be good…and lots of coffee.

  Candy grinned, becoming more proficient at hearing head-talk by the minute.

  If you deem the cretins worthy of your new donut shoppe blend. Absu sniffed, but departed to do Marduk’s bidding.

  “So what else would you like to know?” The thunder god leaned back in his seat at the head of the table and addressed Jake. He flexed his shoulders.

  Candy, in the meantime, tried not to freak out when both Shamash and Enlil entered the room to flank her. Marduk raised a brow and sent a brief shake of his head in her direction, which said he would attend to that problem later.

  “How about giving me your whole story, start to finish,” Jake challenged. Her boss had nothing but time now that they’d deemed her safe. She rolled her eyes, knowing the fucked-up shit about to come out of the thunder god’s mouth.

  “If you think you can handle it.” Marduk grinned. “I’ll try not to leave anything out.”

  He gleaned the attention of the agents, but the gods―having been a part of the saga―busied themselves looking over the DEA guys. To give her homeboys their due, the agents were doing a great job ignoring the scrutiny of those they could see. And thankfully, her California group was blissfully unaware of the minute examination the incorporeals performed. Candy, however, was attuned to the not-so-visible guys and wanted to bat their smug noses away from her friends.

  Marduk continued as if performing business as usual. “There are the original thirteen gods in the room, plus Huxley,” Marduk indicated his brother-in-law, “having just come on board to make fourteen.”

  Candy could sense Jake about to protest, but Marduk held up a hand to forestall him. “You can only see eight of us. The rest are invisible, but I’ll get to that in a bit.” He paused briefly to let the first piece of what-the-fuck sink in.

  “We’re all, with the exception of Huxley, Mesopotamian gods who made some errors in conduct back in the day.” He got annoyed growls from most of the gods. “Hence, we were relegated to spend eternity in the depths of the Underworld. Due to a certain uber-evil―that surpassed even the harsh hand of the ruler in that realm, King Nergal―we fought demons nightly and were torn apart on a regular basis, only to be resurrected the next day to battle again. Eventually we were saved by the kindness of our queen, Ereshkigal, who coerced the king into giving us a second chance. Because he’s an immortal who loves a good wager,
he made a bet with her about our future conduct, and we were put back on the earth…England in the year 1624 to be exact.”

  Candy looked around. Her fellow agents processed the data, looking mixed parts pissed off and skeptical, but it didn’t deter Marduk.

  “We were put on an auction block and purchased as indentured servants by a man named Thomas Morton, who brought us here to the New World, as it was then known. We helped him settle the colony of Merrymount. And our gods-given task? To keep him safe.” He looked around at his fellow immortals’ faces. Clearly, they still experienced guilt at not protecting their mentor, Morton.

  “Needless to say, we failed him, and for our subsequent punishment, we were relegated to reside on Earth without our bodies.”

  “Invisible,” Jake scoffed, and held up a palm. “Just so I get these delusions straight.”

  “Not a problem. You are correct. Invisible,” Marduk confirmed. Candy realized the god refused to take offense.

  “In the year 1628, after a particularly ribald May Day celebration, the lot of us were rendered incorporeal,” he continued.

  A slight, nonverbal cough came from the god, Ishkur.

  “Ah…with the exception of Ishkur, who you can’t see,” Marduk acknowledged. “He married one of the colonists, inexplicably produced a daughter, and got rights to his body until his wife passed on. An additional twenty years.”

  Marduk warmed to the story. “But back to our saga. After disappearing, we carved a place for ourselves here in the Blue Hills, and using one of the few powers left to us—the power to acquire material goods—we built our house. We also invested well, and over the ensuing years, kept up with the changing times.”

  “Our maze of basements looks like a time line of industrial development,” Shamash interjected from beside her, still looking freakishly gorgeous and a bit stunned he could speak with mortals after all his years in exile. Candy suppressed a sigh. “As we attain new furnishings and technology, our castoffs find their way into the subterranean archives.” He finished to give Marduk, whom he had cut off, an apology. “Sorry for the interruption.”