When Dahlia climbed off his dick and headed to the restroom, Thane wanted to follow. When she came back out and whispered something to the Asian girl she'd come with, he almost stopped them, hoping for some excuse to learn more. When the pair left the club, he reached over for the cheap beer Dahlia had left on his table and drank it back.
She didn't feel evil. He'd watched her shove her hand into a priest's chest, and yet she felt as normal as he did. While he stared at the mass of bodies writhing on the dance floor below, Thane tried to decide if he was wrong, or if it was the Church who'd messed up so badly. Why did this one woman - if he could even call her that - get to him in a way that not even a human girl could?
She had to be following him, though. That was the only reason she'd come here. Of all the places in the DFW metroplex for her to visit, it was the same club where he'd come to find someone to take his mind off the bullshit at church? More than that, why did he fucking care if she was starving?
If the demons weren't fed, then they grew weak. When they were weak, they were easy to kill. They couldn't use their tricks on men, they couldn't take advantage of innocents, and they couldn't spread evil across the Earth. They had to feed to use their demonic powers, or so the Church said.
Dahlia said she wasn't a demon. He couldn't remember the word she'd used instead, but she'd been clear that she wasn't a vampire. She acted more like a succubus, in all honesty. Then again, that might be his post-coital afterglow. Damn, that woman felt good. The way she'd just sat on his dick and took what she wanted? Watching her chest heave as she tried to ignore what he was doing to her?
Fuck. Now he was getting hard again. The thought of her sprawled across his bed, wrapped around him? Yeah, that was a mental image he'd file away for later. And of course, she had to be gorgeous. Thane had a weakness for blondes. Not the fake platinum kind, though. He liked the ones with honeyed locks and ivory skin to match. That she had those blue eyes only made her more memorable.
Not that he'd turn down her Asian friend, either. He liked most women, but blondes always caught his eye first. They reminded him of some Viking warrior woman. Some heroine from times long past. The problem was that he also knew she wasn't real. Dahlia was not a woman. She was a ghost at best and a demon at worst. If the Church was right, then everything she'd just told him had been a lie.
But if she was right, then the lore of the Church was nothing but bullshit. Oddly, he had a feeling she was the one telling the truth. Her kind couldn't possess humans. His mother had been staked and simply died. She hadn't dissolved. There'd been no rush of power like with a true death. Her body hadn't faded away like a demon's body in death. The woman had simply died, and he hadn't even been allowed to cry.
Stuart hadn't been able to stop himself. Granted, he hadn't even been ten at the time. Laird had blinked his tears away before they fell. Their father had beat them all for the weakness, saying his boys had shamed him before the church elders. Even thinking about it made Thane chuckle. It was almost like the asshole had cursed himself. When Laird had ascended into the priesthood, their old man had been so proud. When Thane had been found to be sterile, his dad had smacked him around a bit, calling him a failure.
As if Thane had asked for his balls to be broken. Granted, he also didn't care. At the time, he'd been horrified, but only because he'd been raised to think that his purpose was to make a lot of little babies for the faith. He'd planned out how he'd date a girl from the Church, taking her roller skating - which only proved how naive he'd been - and then they'd get married in the biggest ceremony ever. He'd thought he'd make his father so proud that day.
Now that his junk was proven not to work, marriage wasn't expected. Sure, he was allowed to get married, but only if his wife was willing to convert to his faith. The priests didn't want him to "waste" a woman who already believed, because she should be producing the next generation with a man of the blood - and he was ok with that. By the time Thane was old enough to drink, he'd already figured out that the women he wanted to spend time with weren't the ones who went to his church. Mostly because he did like sex, and a lot of it.
Although, the Church of the Holy Inquisition wasn't about believing in God. It was about obeying the priests. Women were supposed to be dutiful. Men were supposed to run their households. Priests were the be-all and end-all of a conversation. Their faith felt like nothing more than a tool to force people to obey the strongest man in the room, and that man was always a priest.
And if they dared to step out of line, someone would speak the Words of God. If he showed defiance, those Words would erase the thoughts from his mind. It was why some of the hunters were so devout. It was what kept Thane from speaking up half the time. It was why Laird had been denied promotions in the ranks of the priesthood: because the higher a priest rose, the more Words he learned. Some of them even worked against other priests.
Or so he'd been told.
They all worked against the demons of Hell, though. Or idle-things. Whatever Dahlia and Mei were. In theory, their religion was about fighting against the forces of evil. The hunters were a secret division who pretended to simply be devoted members of the congregation. Their purpose was to fight until the world was once again filled with nothing but the glory of God. They protected the flock by hiding the horrors of Hell from them.
It was all fucking bullshit.
Eventually, Thane felt he'd waited long enough that Dahlia wouldn't feel like she was being followed. He no longer felt like dancing. The cute little brunette who'd been hitting on him certainly wouldn't talk to him again. All he wanted was to go home and fall into his bed for a nice, long sleep.
Leaving the last of Dahlia's warm beer, he made his way back to his truck. Clearly that woman had taken more out of him than he'd realized. Sure, he'd felt her draining him, but it was oddly nice. It was a gentle suction, kinda like a woman's mouth on his dick. The kind he didn't want to stop.
Maybe that was why he kept letting her have another taste? And yet, he was more worn out than exhausted. Half of it felt mental from the bullshit he'd been dodging at work lately. Dale seemed to still trust him, but the priests had called him in for a few more rounds of questions.
Why hadn't he staked her, how had she gotten away, and what did she do to the priests in the alley? Those were their favorites. They weren't the only ones, though, and each time he talked to someone, it felt a little more like they were trying to catch him in a lie. On his last shift, they'd tried to catch a ghost, only to find a group of homeless teens in an abandoned building. That was the closest he'd come to a hunt since chasing Dahlia, and he really needed to get a good kill so they'd start trusting him again.
He slept hard that night, and late into the next day. When he went to work the morning after, he'd almost put Dahlia out of his mind. Dale gave them the operation briefing from the previous team's shift. Nothing at all had happened. That wasn't normal, but it seemed the priests had all of their attention on finding the two that had gotten away.
Thane debated saying something about seeing them at the club, but he knew that would only bring more suspicion. And if they had any idea what he'd done? Yeah, definitely not worth the risk. So, the morning was spent waiting for an assignment. For lunch, Thane offered to pick up food for everyone. He was headed out to his truck with a list of orders when a man in a black robe fell in beside him.
"Going somewhere?" The sound of his brother's voice made Thane relax.
"Yeah, lunch. Seems the demon activity is down lately." He looked over. "Know anything about that?"
"They can't find her," Laird said, tipping his head at the truck. "Need someone to help hold? I'm not expected back for an hour."
"Lunch break?" Thane asked.
"The closest we get," Laird agreed. "I'm about to take up smoking just to get a little peace and quiet."
So Thane unlocked his truck, gesturing for Laird to hop in the passenger side. Silently, they both buckled themselves in, and then Thane pulled out of the parking lot. It took a bit before his brother decided to talk about what was really on his mind.
"She's gone. They found the dead man's truck in Denton, and got a two-second clip of the blonde walking past a security camera on Fry Street, but that's all. Nothing since."
"Did you follow the money?" Thane asked.