“Because he hasn’t,” Carla chirped.
“Not even Sera?”
Carla shook her head, avoiding his glare. “Not even her, and he was in love with her for years. I was kind of relieved to see someone else, actually.”
“Why is that?” Kira asked, clearly relishing his discomfort.
“Unrequited love is never fun.”
“That’s enough,” he ground out, and this time Carla took heed. “I’m going to take a shower,” he mumbled.
“But the food will get cold,” she protested. “Eat. It’s not like you haven’t ever eaten without showering first. In fact, just last week you went three days—”
“Carla,” he growled.
She smiled at him, waving a hand. “If I promise to stop talking, will you eat your breakfast?”
“Yeah.” Burning with embarrassment, Kyle sat and shoved a forkful of pancake into his mouth, meeting Kira’s amused gaze over the rim of her coffee cup. Her dark hair was damp, as if she’d had a shower, and she was wearing one of his sweatshirts over her jeans. She saw the direction of his stare.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she whispered. “My shirt had blood on it.”
“No problem,” he muttered, shoveling more food into his mouth.
He didn’t know why he felt so tongue-tied around her. He’d opened up a lot the night before, telling her about his life with Carla and his past in the foster home. Though, like Darika, she would have already known most of his sordid history, it had felt good talking. She’d asked him about the Preta and he’d told her everything—about Azrath and Ra’al, and what he’d felt when he’d found out who he really was. He’d never shared any of that with anyone, not even Sera. It’d been liberating—a weight off his chest. But now, he felt vulnerable, as if he’d made some kind of dumb mistake.
“I’m going to get the paper. You two behave yourselves,” Carla said in a voice so cheery it made Kyle cringe. Could she be any more obvious about his lame love life? “And eat up.”
When they were alone, Kira’s hand slid across the table to brush his. The touch was light, but sent a live wire of electricity ricocheting through his veins. The unwelcome weight in his belly didn’t mean the attraction between them wasn’t alive and well. Clearly. Kira was Kira.
“Thanks for letting me crash,” she said. “I know it was hard to talk about all that stuff last night.”
He blinked at her. “It was good to get it out.”
“How’s your wound?” she asked.
Kyle sucked in a sharp breath as she reached forward to lift the hem of his sweat-soaked T-shirt. She peered intently at his torso and nodded, her fingers lingering slightly before she leaned back in her seat. He knew that the flesh there was completely healed, with no sign of external injury.
“Immortal genes,” he said with a shrug and took another bite.
“I think you have Nate to thank for this one,” she said, squinting at him. “That sword would have killed you otherwise.”
He stopped chewing at the thought. Kyle wondered how close he’d actually come to Mordas finishing him off. If he had died, the blade would have returned to Ra’al. But he hadn’t.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the ugly, black blade materialized in his open palm. Kira hissed at its sudden appearance, scooting her chair back as Kyle hefted the blade.
“It won’t hurt you,” he murmured.
Its thin red spine burned along its length like a hot ember, as if it’d been fed to bursting. It had been, Kyle realized—with his blood. The pulse in his palm leapt against the hilt of solid bone, the black metal of the sword’s blade glittering in response.
“You trust that thing, even after what happened?” Kira asked, her mouth curling in distaste.
“It belongs to me.”
She glared daggers at him. “It tried to kill you.”
“No, you’re mistaken,” he said slowly, feeling the solid, comforting weight of it in his palm. Even now, it felt like an extension of his own arm. “I allowed it to strike me, to get rid of the pishacha. There is a difference. Mordas’s allegiance is to me. And I keep it sated.” He pursed his lips grimly. “If that wasn’t the case, it never would have reappeared for me now.”
“That thing is dangerous,” she insisted. “You should get rid of it. It is a threat to you and everyone around you.”
Kyle could have sworn he saw fear flicker across her face as she spoke, her eyes darting to the blade in his palm. She was right to be disconcerted. Over time, Mordas had been wielded in terrible ways, razing deifyre from wings and killing gods. But he understood it. He understood what motivated it. Kyle drew a breath and watched as the blade dematerialized.
“Mordas is mine.”
“It’s born of Xibalba,” she shot back.
Kyle met her stare coolly. “As am I.” Something hot and angry swelled inside of him at the disapproving look on her face. “Isn’t that what you liked about me in the first place? That bad-boy spark that appealed to your destructive nature?” He hesitated for a beat. “Or was it all an act?”
Her eyes narrowed, glittering dangerously at the sardonic tone of his voice. “Tread carefully, Kyle. Do not mock me.”
“Or what?”
Her human avatar shimmered hazily for a second, making his stomach lurch. “Or you will not like the outcome, I promise you.”
“I don’t do well with threats.” Kyle cleared his throat, growing warm with unease as he squared off against the goddess opposite him. He crossed his arms over his chest, then exhaled, watching her. “Why are you even here, Kira?”
Her lips compressed, dark eyes flashing. “You needed a friend.”
“I have enough friends.”
He knew he was being cruel, but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt exposed. Confused. And he didn’t like it. The way she looked at him as if she could see all his fears and doubts made his defenses go up. Kira was exciting and fearless. He liked being with her, but the truth was, he was panicking.
“Maybe you should—”
Then a terrified yelp rent the air, cutting his words short as he shot to his feet. It sounded like Carla. Mordas appeared in Kyle’s hand as he took off running in the direction of the scream. The smell of sulfur assaulted his nostrils as he neared the door leading into the garage.
“Demon,” he muttered to Kira, who had followed him. A heavy, golden staff materialized in her hands. The perturbed look was gone from her face, replaced by grim resolve. She nodded.
“Stay here,” he said over his shoulder as he kicked open the door. “In case there’re more.”
He didn’t miss her scowl as she ignored him and followed. The scene that greeted them was gruesome. Kyle gritted his teeth at the sight of the hideous demon with engorged veins near the rear of the garage, hovering over his foster mother. The garage door was half open. His lip curled. He was getting sick of Temlucus’s pishachas. They were like cockroaches—get rid of one and three more showed up.
Kyle’s eyes flicked to where Carla’s body lay at the thing’s feet, the newspaper still clutched in her grasp. Her eyes were closed, but her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. What appeared to be a tire iron was lodged in the demon’s guts. The fiend hadn’t killed her, and it looked like she hadn’t gone down without a fight. His mouth curled in an approving grin. Pishachas were fast and clever, but Carla had somehow managed to get a solid strike in. She was hardcore.
“Hey, Ugly, how about you pick on someone your own size,” he said, waving his sword and drawing the creature’s attention.
The pishacha leered at him, its bulbous eyes pitching backward in their sockets. It gripped the end of the tire iron and flung it to the ground, green ichor pooling from the wound. The demon’s body went hazy, and for a moment Kyle thought it would vanish. But then a long, red tongue snaked from its mouth to lick Carla’s face. And before Kyle could move, the demon flickered once more to an indistinct haze and slithered into her body. Kyle’s eyes widened as his foster mother rose on shaky legs
, her unseeing eyes glazed as the pishacha claimed possession of her mortal body.
Hell.
“Mine,” it hissed through Carla’s lips, a wash of foul steam blowing into Kyle’s face as it ambled toward him.
“She is not yours to take.”
“Eye for an eye.”
Kyle blinked. Was the demon referring to the pishacha he had killed? He hoisted Mordas high. “The rules of Xibalba do not apply here.”
“But Master was in Xibalba.” A rictus smile pulled Carla’s mouth from ear to ear, making Kyle’s stomach sour. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“I’m not your master,” he growled.
“You have to kill it, Kyle.” The command was from Kira. “You can’t help her now.”
“No,” he said through clenched teeth. “I can banish it and save her.” He pointed his empty fist to the floor to create the portal that would send that thing right back to the sixth. The ground shimmered like an oil stain as the portal began to form.
“No, Kyle.” Kira stepped to his side, a restraining hand on his arm. The shimmer of the portal winked out as he lost his focus. “No more portals. You know what the Trimurtas decreed.”
“I know what they said,” he grunted. “But I can’t let her die. She’s the only mother I’ve ever known.”
He didn’t want to think about the Azura female that had been his biological mother, the one that Ra’al had impregnated. No, Carla was more of a mother than that thing had ever been.
Kira bared her teeth in frustration. “Even as you speak, the pishacha is eating away at her brain, stealing her sanity. There may not be anything left of her to save. And we can’t risk it.”
“I don’t care,” he snarled. “She deserves more than this . . . than that thing sucking her soul dry. I’m going to send it back in pieces to Temlucus.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Kira said, putting her body between him and Carla. “I am bound to the laws of the Trimurtas, just as you are.”
He turned to stare at her, unmoved by her ruthless expression or her fighting stance. “You just ate in Carla’s kitchen, talked with her, laughed with her. She’s not disposable. She’s a person.”
“You’re emotionally compromised.”
“And you’re heartless.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her, but Kyle knew that Kira didn’t really feel anything. The hardwired emotional response was the human response that could only be expected of her mortal form. The goddess within would not be subject to such trifling feelings.
He’d been a distraction to her, nothing more. And Carla was a blip—a human soul that could be discarded as easily as a piece of trash. His mouth tightened as his eyes flicked from the goddess to the demon. He couldn’t tell which one he resented more—the one that was bound to do what it was born for, or the one that was choosing to take the easy route.
“Do what you must,” he said, Mordas like lead in his palms.
“Kyle, you have to understand what’s at stake. I—”
He cut her off with a scowl. “Save it. If I have to fight you, I will, but I’m not letting the only decent mom I’ve had die. Not when I was the one to bring that thing here.”
They stared at each other in a silent battle of wills. Kyle drew a shattered breath, clutching Mordas in a death grip. He squared his shoulders and lifted the sword. He had no chance, he knew, if she went into full goddess mode. But he couldn’t stand there and do nothing.
He didn’t want to have to fight her. Not now. Not ever, if he could help it. Not because of his feelings for her, not because he thought he would lose (and he definitely would), but because this was what Temlucus wanted. The Demon Lord wanted war among the gods and those who protected the Mortal Realm. If they were fighting among themselves, no one would be paying attention to whatever they were doing.
“You won’t reconsider?” she asked.
“No.”
After a tense beat, she nodded and lowered her staff. Kyle could feel the relief sweeping through his body. “I hope you know what you are doing,” she said, standing aside. “Do what you must, but I can have no part of this. I am bound to the oaths I have taken.”
Kyle nodded, but his thanks were lost as Carla lurched toward him in a drunken movement. The fact that she’d been unconscious when the pishacha possessed her made it harder for the demon to control her. And Kyle hoped that it meant the thing would be more focused on commanding her unresponsive body than devouring her mind. He didn’t want to consider the possibility that Kira had been right and it was already too late.
He knelt and pressed his fist to the floor, calling forth the portal. Closing his eyes, he compelled the essence of the pishacha, drawing it out of Carla’s body as if pulling a worm from her flesh. It fought him, of course, howling as it came, but it could not resist the call of Xibalba. The demon solidified as it tore free from Carla, and Kyle grasped it around its slimy neck.
He lifted Mordas high in his free hand. “Why did Temlucus send you? What does he want?”
“Lord Temlucus did not send me. Lord Ra’al did.”
Kyle’s teeth snapped together. “Why?”
“Lord Ra’al wants Master’s return.”
“I will never return,” Kyle growled. “And I’m not your goddamned master.”
The pishacha cackled, a wild, maniacal laugh, even as the sword descended in a swift arc. “Master will have no choice.”
It was still laughing when the sword cleaved it in two and Kyle banished both halves to the bowels of Xibalba. He sealed the portal and rocked back on his heels, cradling Carla’s body to him. She was safe.
His head spun with what the pishacha had said—that Ra’al was the one who had sent it. Kyle rubbed his arms. He felt dirty, sullied. Once more, it seemed he was some pawn in a game he did not understand. Why would his cursed father want him back? Demon Lords did not easily forgive, and when he became what he was Kyle’s ties to Xibalba had been renounced.
Hadn’t they?
His eyes drifted to Kira where she stood at the door, watching him gather Carla in his arms. Her face was unreadable, her posture rigid. If anything, the altercation with the pishacha had showed him how different they were. Kira would have killed Carla in a heartbeat, not for any other reason than for the protection of the Mortal Realm. The greater good.
A small voice argued that she hadn’t.
But how long would that last? Her threat to purge the Mortal Realm still hung over him. And with the pishacha’s threat about his ties to Xibalba, he couldn’t take the chance.
This was it—the crossroads of who he wanted to be. The old Kyle would have chosen Kira in a heartbeat. She embodied everything he used to be. But now he was different. And he needed to walk a different path—a less reckless, less damaging kind of path.
Kyle swallowed hard. “Look, Kira,” he said slowly, not looking at her, though he could feel her attention. “It’s obvious that this was a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Her voice was soft, but the air around her fairly crackled, raising the hairs on Kyle’s arms. The light in the garage flickered.
“You and me. We’re like oil and water.”
“What are you saying, Kyle?”
Here it was—his chance to end it before it got any worse. He had to choose.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, exhaling hard. “But maybe this—whatever this is—isn’t the best idea right now, with everything going on.”
“You’re breaking up with me now?”
“I . . . think it’s the right thing for everyone.”
“For everyone? Or just you?”
The silence was interminable, the gulf between them broadening with each heartbeat. With a hollow laugh, Kira turned to go, but paused at the door. “I’m not heartless. I know you think I’m not like Darika. But what you don’t realize is that we are one and the same.”
Kyle frowned, but couldn’t dwell on her cryptic words as Carla moaned, drawing his attention. She stirred in his arms, her eye
s opening.
“Hey,” he said gently. “You okay?”
“What . . . happened?”
“You fell and hit your head on the edge of the car,” he said, watching her closely. Her eyes seemed dilated, but she didn’t seem to be confused, or like she was suffering any maladies from the possession. “Can you move? Hear me okay?”
Nodding, she blinked and shuddered. “Horrible . . . dream.”
“Let’s get you inside,” he said.
As he helped her up, he kept his body carefully angled so that she wouldn’t see the tire iron coated in green muck lying on the garage floor. If she did, she’d realize that her dream had been no dream at all, and that reality was, in fact, the stuff of nightmares.
KEEP YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER
“So, is Carla okay?” Sera asked Kyle, squinting at him with concern from across the dull peeling plastic of the booth’s table. Sal’s was the only place he’d felt he could talk freely, so they’d decided to skip the school cafeteria for lunch. Sera hadn’t minded. She’d been on edge at school ever since their escapade in the basement, and the knowledge that the vetala were still there only added to her growing unease.
He’d just finished explaining what had happened with the pishacha demon. She quieted as the waitress brought them their food.
“Yeah, I think so,” Kyle said. “She took the day off today from work because she said she felt tired, but she seemed like herself. Time will tell, I guess.”
“That’s good.” Sera took a sip of her soda, drumming her fingers nervously on the table. “And the demon said that Ra’al sent it?”
Kyle nodded with a huge bite of his burrito. “Mhmm.”
“That’s disturbing that he’s targeting your foster mom. He must want your attention pretty badly.”
Kyle stopped chewing and eyed her. “Well, it worked. I asked Micah to ask one of the Yoddha to stay with her, just in case Ra’al decides to send another.”
“Mara?”
“No, someone else. Mara is . . .” he trailed off, closing his eyes for a second. “She’s here. With us. She’s your guardian, after all.”
Dark Goddess Page 18
