Forged Under Blue Fire: Indigo Knights Book VIII

  Forged Under Fire

  A.J. Downey

  Contents

  BOOK Eight

  COPYRIGHT

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Also by A.J. Downey

  About the Author

  BOOK Eight

  Published 2019 by Second Circle Press

  Text Copyright © 2019 A.J. Downey

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real except where noted and authorized. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Editing & book design by Maggie Kern

  Cover art and Indigo Knights logo by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs

  Model - Ricco Bland

  Photographer - JW Photography

  Dedication

  Happy Birthday, to the real Oz

  Prologue

  Oz…

  Pow!

  Pow-pow-pow-pow-pow!

  I looked up, a couple ‘bangers’ were trading fire in broad fuckin’ daylight in the middle of the street. One was down, the other running this way; I didn’t think – I reacted. I pulled my piece and screamed, “Indigo City P.D.! Drop your weapon!”

  Fool drew down on me, popped off a few rounds, Pop! Pop! Pop!

  I returned fire, Pow! Pow! Pow! The kick familiar, the vibration murder through my arms which I’d just finished working out.

  He went down – I didn’t. I stood there, shaking for half a heartbeat, but then my training overrode my shock; my feet carrying me up the sidewalk, gun still drawn pointed at the ground as I moved carefully around parked cars, aiming for the threat. I stepped off the curb between a Mercedes and a Lexus and kicked the dude’s piece away from his hand.

  He was staring up at me, eyes wide, teeth coated with blood, breathing way too fast. His chest rising and falling in short labored gasps before his eyes rolled back in his head and he let out a final one. There wasn’t shit I could do for him. I relaxed marginally.

  “Oz!”

  I felt sick but held it in.

  “Yeah, here, man! Over here!”

  That’s when a woman started screaming up the block and I had to turn and keep moving, keep doing the job that needed doing.

  Some of the hose boys swooped in to render aid to the dead guy, a couple more catching me up as we surged up the cracked pavement to the screaming woman, my heart sinking as she pressed her hands against another woman who was down.

  I was from the streets, but damn, I didn’t work the streets… I was so out of my element with this.

  1

  Oz…

  Community outreach wasn’t exactly my thing unless it was by way of the Knights. I kept to myself and there was a reason for that. One, while I could get along with just about anybody, a lot of the motherfuckers out here were fake as hell. Not the rest of my squad, though. The rest of my squad was here for it; here with me at Angel’s church. Not for the funeral of the banger I’d shot, but for the civilian woman he’d nailed before I could take him out.

  The other woman, her sister who’d been with her, was crying softly in one of the front pews leaning heavily into her dad’s side. I felt like shit. It’d felt like months since the shooting, but it’d been less than a damn week.

  The funeral was bought and paid for by the squad. We’d drained our charity account to do it, but the woman who’d died? She’d been young. Early thirties. Her whole life ahead of her and hadn’t had anything to cover such a big expense. Her family was at a loss, her sister couldn’t afford it, and I’d asked at the club meeting right after it’d happened, and the motion had passed with a unanimous vote.

  We could always pull in more cash. A charity ride, a fundraiser, it’s what we did… and if I couldn’t save her like I was fuckin’ supposed to, this was the next best thing… right?

  We stood up again.

  I didn’t get this whole Catholic shit. I was raised in the south. Church every Sunday, but it was a far cry from this melancholy bullshit. Of course, I got that this was a funeral – but as far as I understood it, there wasn’t much different between any of the Catholic services. Life, death, or just another Sunday – you couldn’t tell ‘em apart. Just a lot of up and down like a Yo-Yo on a string, the priest droning on and on, the message different, the delivery deadpan, and all of it the fucking same.

  All this shit made me want to do was get on the back of my bike and just ride. Let the feelings get ground beneath my tires and into the pavement rushing beneath them. To let any of the rest of my worries or cares get carried off by the wind in my face.

  I mean, this was fucking bullshit.

  We sat down. A few more minutes of the priest talking and we were up again, only this time this was it. Showtime, as much as I hated to be in the limelight. I went up along with the dead woman’s fiancé, her dad, and her uncle. Narcos and Driller taking up the rear.

  She hadn’t had enough people to be pallbearers so we’d stepped up for that, too. The weight of my failure, of her casket, of her missing brightness and soul was probably the heaviest burden I’d ever borne walking up that center aisle, all eyes trained on me – some misty, some angry, some… well at least to me, some accusing – and I deserved that.

  I should have been quicker.

  We set the gleaming casket carefully on the runners of the hearse waiting out on the street and slid Mia Köhler into the back. Her father shook my hand, then her uncle, and last her fiancé and I tried to hold my shit together, but it was hard when I felt so fuckin’ gutted, so guilty. Then it was her sister, Elka, in front of me.

  “Thank you,” she murmured and leaned in to kiss my cheek and I couldn’t help my own eyes getting wet.

  It was pure chance that she and her family belonged to the same church as Angel and had made things a lot easier for us to help. I didn’t think she was particularly religious, though. He said he’d known Mia’s pops, not Mia or Elka. That they w
ere Catholic CEO’s as in Christmas and Easter Only. Probably to make their dad happy. I guess their mom had died a while ago. Heart attack or something.

  “I’m just sorry I wasn’t quicker,” I told her, and she took my hand and gave it a squeeze.

  She was pretty. A brunette with light brown eyes, the irises kissed with bronze in the right light. Like the direct sunlight, out here on the sidewalk.

  Her dad came and collected her, and she cast her gaze back over her shoulder at me, something in her eyes. I vowed to follow up in a few days. Check and see how she was doing.

  “You okay?” Skids asked me softly and I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

  “Naw, man. I’m as far away from ‘okay’ as any dude can get, brother.”

  He nodded. “Wake is at the 10-13,” he said.

  “Yeah.” I nodded, eyes still fixed on the sister, Elka, as she spoke softly with Mia’s fiancé up the block, next to one of the town cars.

  Their family didn’t do burial, so Mia was on her way to the funeral home to be cremated. Her dad had said something about putting her with her mother and it felt like someone was cracking my chest open with a railroad spike and a sledgehammer.

  “Oz,” Skids said and I snapped out of it.

  “Yeah?”

  “You coming?”

  I nodded and glanced back up the sidewalk. Elka was looking at me.

  “Yeah, I’m comin’.”

  2

  Elka…

  Everyone was being so nice, and all I could feel was this terrible nothing. Just numb. This hole scorched in the center of my being, silence flooding my veins, the edges still smoking. It was like my sister had been shot, but the hole was in the center of my chest and I couldn’t stop the bleeding no matter how hard I tried… but nobody noticed.

  I stared, sightless and vacant out the window at the restaurant and couldn’t even drum up enough feelings to feel bad for my father. For leaving him to shake hands and deal with the murmured condolences for his dead daughter… all while his living one sat alone in the four-person booth by the front window staring out at the city street and the people and the cars going by.

  “Ms. Köhler?” I looked up at the policeman who’d been there that day. Who’d shot the man who’d shot my sister.

  “Officer Jones,” I said and hated how faded and tired my voice sounded.

  “Call me Hector,” he said and set a cup of coffee on a saucer in front of me. “Or just Oz.”

  “Oz?” I asked, pulling the cup on its saucer closer to me, reaching for the sugar. “Like the Great and Powerful?” He set down a little stainless-steel carafe of creamer and slid into the booth across from me, batting at his tie to keep it off the table, smoothing it against his broad chest.

  “Oh, ah, nah… like the T.V. show, about the prison. It’s, um, what I do.”

  “I thought you were a police officer,” I said adding creamer to the cup mechanically, stirring it in with the little spoon on the saucer for it.

  “I am, with Indigo City but I don’t work the street. I’m a jailer.”

  “Oh,” I said softly. “But you…” I bit my lips together and reached for the sweetener.

  “Yeah, I carry, but um, that’s not my usual deal.”

  “I see,” I said softly.

  A silence lapsed between us and I swallowed hard, wrapping my fingers around the coffee cup, letting the warm ceramic heat my palms even though it was summer outside, and my hands weren’t cold. I was cold. It just wasn’t the kind of cold that a blanket or a warm drink could fix.

  “I came over to check on you,” he said evenly and I liked his voice. I dragged my eyes up from the coffee lazily spinning in the mug and fixed them on his face.

  He was handsome. I didn’t usually go for bald men, but on him it worked. He had a strong jaw that was shadowed by a light dusting of stubble, a pencil-thin mustache over his top lip. A bit of ink from a tattoo peeked out of the cuff of his shirt sleeve, a nice watch gracing his wrist. A definite conversation piece but I just didn’t have it in me to comment.

  “So, uh, how are you doing?”

  “My sister was murdered right in front of me,” I murmured carefully and gave a nervous sort of laugh. “I’m, um, not really sure how I’m supposed to feel,” I confessed.

  “I get that,” he said.

  I took a sip of the coffee and winced at the strong and bitter brew. It needed more sweetener. A lot more if I wanted it to be palatable.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” I said, reaching for another yellow packet.

  “Just whatever’s on your mind works,” he said, leaning back in the booth, pulling at his suit jacket self-consciously.

  “Nothing, really,” I said. “It’s like nothing will stick.”

  “I get that,” he said with a nod and I stared at his blunt fingers pressed against the tabletop. He was light skinned for a black man, but I couldn’t tell what he was mixed with offhand. His skin holding warm, golden undertones, genuinely like coffee lightened to medium with good cream. He moved again, adjusting his seat uncomfortably and l flinched, my gaze flickering back to his face which I rather decided was handsome, his brow slightly creased with a line of worry between his eyes. His darker freckles standing out in a scatter across his nose and cheeks.

  “Nothing’s gonna hurt you here,” he said gently, and I gave a wan smile.

  “There’s really nothing left to hurt,” I said gently, and I don’t know where that had come from, but I didn’t take it back. It was the truth. I let my eyes drift back out the window and kept them there, suddenly very disinterested in talking anymore.

  Eventually, he slid a card across the table and said, “Do me a favor and call me if you need anything. Anytime. Day or night. Cell number is on the back.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I just stared out the window, fresh tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes and wished this was over and that I could go home. Back to my paints and my little studio.

  3

  Oz…

  “Hey, oh, thank you…” Her dad took the card from my hand and I looked back towards the window booth and Elka. She stared sightlessly out onto the sunlit street, there but not really there and it bothered me.

  “Do me a favor, anything seems off or you worry about her at all, call me first. Anytime, day or night. I’ll drop what I’m doing and come out and check on her.”

  Her father followed my gaze and he nodded and put a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

  “Thank you.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded and got out the way, more people hovering on the periphery waiting their turn to talk to him.

  I went over to the bar, Skids behind it, and he wordlessly brought down the bottle of Hennessy and poured me a double, neat.

  “How you doin’, Oz?”

  I let my gaze drift back to Elka, sitting alone with her barely touched coffee, gaze troubled and a million miles away and jerked my head that way. Skids followed the motion and gave a nod and a sigh.

  “I didn’t ask about her. I asked about you.”

  “I’m fine,” I lied easily.

  He gave me a frank look and an unconvincing “Uh huh,” as he reached over and clapped me on the shoulder before moving down the bar to where the coffee service was set up. I watched him check it over and contemplated talking about it but then he put another pot of decaf on and I suddenly felt like I was in enemy territory or some shit. Decaf? Really?

  I shook my head and took a healthy mouthful of the booze in my glass in silent misery, my contemplation switching back to Elka’s somber silence from across the room.

  I just had a feeling that something was on the horizon. A meltdown, a downward spiral, and I somehow wished I could spare her from it when really, I knew the only thing I could do was be there to mop up.

  It was a commitment I was surprised to find I was willing to make. I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe it had something to do with the first look I got of her, blood spattered
and screaming, kneeling on the sidewalk next to her dead sister.

  I was beginning to wonder if it was what I was going to see every time I looked at her.

  I sure hope not.

  “You know, I hear you talk about this chick by like a metric fuckton since the shit went down – what I don’t hear a lot is how are you doing, Hombre.” I scowled at Golden.

  “I didn’t lose a sister,” I said and he rolled his eyes at me.

  “You just shot a kid,” Narcos said and my gaze swung in his direction. “Watched him die in front of you.”

  “I realize that, genius.” I almost felt bad for snarling but not quite. He put up his hands in surrender and leaned way back in his seat.

  “Then how come you don’t talk about it?” Driller asked smoothly and arched an eyebrow at me. I scowled and spun my dart between my fingers, stepping up to the line of tape on the carpet and taking aim at the board.

  “What’s there to talk about?” I demanded.

  “How you’re feeling, for one,” Golden stated simply, and I brought my hand back, lined shit up and let fly. One, two, and three. I eyed my spread critically and turned, Narcos at the tall table our beers sat on, etching my score into the notebook Skids kept behind the bar for scoring. He nodded and tossed the midget pencil between the pages as a bookmark and gathered his set of darts off the table in one fist. I got the hell out of his way.