The Devil Is a Gentleman by J. L. Murray Read Free Book Online Page B

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    “Be careful,” he said.
    The ghosts weren’t as thick as the ones on my street, and I managed to slip into the back door of the warehouse with only a few murmurings and formless gropings. I shook myself as I entered, trying to rid myself of the slimy feeling of their touch. I walked through the aisles of lashed-together forty-gallon drums to the loading dock. The place where Sasha had disappeared.
    Naz was pacing back and forth across the floor when I entered. Everything was eerily the same as the last time I’d been here, except for the view of the sky through the gigantic hole in the roof. Naz stopped pacing when he saw me. He was disheveled and unshaven and alone. I looked around for henchmen or cronies, or whatever the strange men in expensive suits that went everywhere with Naz were called. No one.
    “Don’t you have some lackeys around here somewhere?” I said. I walked toward him, but when I saw his pained expression and wild eyes my smile faded. “What is it?” I said. “What’s happened?”
    He motioned us over to some overturned crates and we sat down. Naz looked hard at me. “You look well,” he said.
    “Knock it off,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
    He nodded and ran a shaky hand through his hair. I could see the faded tattoos peeking out from his leather jacket, crawling up his neck through his button-up shirt. He stamped a foot on the cement. “You know I love you like family, Nikita. You know this.”
    “I know you left me to die when Sasha showed up with Abaddon,” I said.
    He waved a dismissive hand. “He would never hurt you,” he said. He raised an eyebrow. “But he had every reason in the world to tell that demon to rip my heart out, just like the others.”
    “What are you talking about?” I said. “You were his closest friend. Why would he want to kill you? You took over his business when he got arrested.”
    “Yes,” he said. “I took it over.” He shook his head. He spread his hands out on his knees and looked down at them, then turned them to look at his palms. “I have done things I am not proud of, Nikita. Terrible, terrible things. I have been greedy. And a coward. But I will not do this thing.”
    “What thing?” I said. “What the hell are you talking about? Jesus, Naz, you’re scaring me. Just tell me what’s going on.”
    He looked at me and smiled, but the warmth didn’t reach his pale eyes. They had always seemed cold to me: pale and cool, like ice. He looked away. “Your father and I, we worked for some people. Bad people. But they had so much money. More than they knew what to do with. Nothing is more dangerous than a man with too much money. He gets bored, yeah? Does things no sane man would do. And he laughs. These men, they laugh often. They give us money. And we do terrible things for them.”
    I remembered the pictures from Bradley’s office. Pictures of laughing men and women, smiling with Naz. I was afraid that if I spoke it would break the spell, and Naz would stop telling me what he wanted to tell me. But I couldn’t help it, I had to know. “Who are they?” I said quietly.
    Naz took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, looking at me. He blew out a cloud of smoke. “They call themselves The Blood,” he said. “I thought it was funny at first. I was young and stupid. I thought everything was funny. A bunch of rich old men calling themselves a scary name. Later, I did not think it so funny.”
    “The Blood,” I said. “I’ve heard that name before.”
    “Yes?” he said, surprised. “Then you are lucky you are still walking around, breathing. They do not like to be known. They make people disappear.”
    “Like Frank Bradley,” I said.
    “Yes, like him,” said Naz. “Bradley was different, though. It will be useful for him to be found, I think. Useful to Dorrance, anyway. There were other disappearances, though. I ordered many of these.”
    “Did you burn down his house last night?” I