A human lifetime of total freedom—from hell, pain, the Devil himself. Shit yeah, it was a temptation, but there was a balance to be maintained. For every thing and every being—immortals were no exception.
“I will never return to hell.”
“Too bad, buddy—no returns, refunds, or exchanges allowed. You steal it, but you end up paying for it anyway. Eternally. On the bright side, you’d get to meet up with Lamere down in Nine. Because that’s where I’m sending him.” When he heard a bone snap, he glanced over to the asshole in question, just in time to see the vampire’s unlucky human shield slump to the ground with a broken neck. The guy had a huge set of balls, that’s for sure. “Oh no! Were you feeling ignored? I can’t believe your friend and I were so rude. Just talking about you as if you weren’t even here. Or important. Or not hell-bait.”
“Home is where the heart resides, demon.”
“You’re not going to have either for very much longer, vamp.”
The vampire’s grin grew at the sound of footsteps no human could’ve heard. Running. Someone who moved quietly and quickly. Someone who knew how to shield their mind.
Davyn silently thanked himself for not killing the hunter outright, because she was beautifully distracting—enough to make Lamere forget what demons were famous for. Never one to miss an opportunity to fuck around inside someone’s head, he pressed into the vamp’s mind. It was like a garbage heap, random crap all over the place but nothing useful or not covered in filth. Davyn grabbed what he could: images of an apartment somewhere snowy—figured, demons hate the snow—a set of stairs outside the building leading up to the second floor. Next, he saw a grotesquely suburban house and a wall with blood splatter on it. Then he ran into a different kind of wall. The mental kind—a block Davyn couldn’t get through.
What the fuck? Out of countless minds of every kind of being, he’d never encountered anything like this before. No one could block off half their brain without a very specific, very rare type of magic.
Treaty magic. I knew it. That’s why the bastard had been so hard to find. That stupid Treaty wish the Champion won. Pride slightly mollified, Davyn shoved the wall, asking more of his power. Come on, come on, come on.
“Such a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” the vamp asked quietly.
Davyn glanced behind him and saw the hunter stumble as she took the corner too wide. Her upper arms practically doubled in size when the muscles engaged to straighten her little body out. She threw out her other hand to steady herself, obviously still feeling the effect of the wall Davyn had sent her into. She flicked her short hair off her face, but it dropped right back over one eye.
“Meh. I prefer my pets a little bigger actually, less breakable.” She was tougher than he’d given her credit for though. He’d expected that toss to knock her out for a few hours at least.
“She is far from breakable, demon.”
When your body temp can reach the boiling point, you’ve spent millennia fighting through nine layers of hell, and you’re immortal, not a lot surprises you. Surprisingly, Davyn felt a whole bunch of it at Lamere’s comment.
When the hunter saw them, her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t slow down, even while heading directly towards a vamp and two demons. Yep, she was either much tougher or much stupider than he’d given her credit for.
She slid to a stop about twenty feet away, her gaze trailing from Drinod to the dead human on the floor to Davyn, and then stayed put. Even though Davyn had been following her for a week and a half, she’d never seen him before. Although with the hoofed, ugly-ass hell-spawn next to him and the pretty-boy vampire to his left, he wasn’t sure why she was staring at only him.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I meant to call,” he mocked. “I lost your number, swear.” He turned towards Lamere—not that vampires have a sense of humor—and saw nothing. Well, there was an empty space where a vampire used to be. “Motherfucker.” Boy did that time pass quickly. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“Well, that’s a wrap, people,” he said to the remaining two. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow, right where we left off, except next time”—his voice raised in volume until he was shouting—“stay out of my fucking way!”
Drinod made a guttural gurgling noise—could’ve been anger-related, could also have been because he skipped breakfast. “Do not speak to me that way.”
“Okay, next time I’ll start with an insult.” He stepped forward, wondering if it was worth all the cleanup afterwards. “You and I both know I could take you in a fair fight. And in an unfair fight.”
“You are wrong. And soft.”
“Soft is something I’ve never been.” He sighed. “You’ve been through a few of the gauntlets, right? Well, I made it through all of them. You still want to call me soft?”
As soon as the other demon paused, Davyn knew he’d won without any blood spatter at all. Now it was just a matter of how much he wanted to rub the other’s face in it. “Is it me or is it hot in here?” With all the male posturing the two of them were doing in their corporeal forms, the paint might start peeling off the walls any second. “I’ve always found the best way to relax after a long chase is to kick someone’s ass. Who’s with me?” He looked around and saw nobody except that little human who didn’t count.
Davyn didn’t see the ball, just the throw, but he knew what it was. Demon fire. Which meant—
Aw, hell. He jumped to intercept it, stretching his body all the way out, still cursing. It slammed into the center of his chest with all the power of the butt-ugly demon behind it, so shit yeah, it hurt. He curled inward to absorb its heat. When he hit the ground, his entire body weight landed on one shoulder. Thankfully, he was neither easily breakable nor mortal.
He should’ve anticipated Drinod would cheat—he was, after all, a demon. When Davyn rolled over to show the prick exactly how cheating worked, the fucker had already run away. The only one left was the hunter, staring at him in disbelief, because evidently, the fireball had been aimed at her and he’d just saved her life.
“Soft, my ass,” he grumbled. “And my ass ain’t the least bit soft.”
The fireball would’ve taken her down along with everything she was touching, and everything that was touching and so on, until it ran out of stuff to burn or the angels arrived to put it out. So Davyn considered accidentally saving the human’s life as the biggest failure of the day.
“I think you’ve screwed things up enough already, so now it’s time for you to either die or back the fuck off.” He helped her out by shoving her into another wall. She grunted when she hit but didn’t stay down.
“Wow,” she said, getting to her feet. “So…um…that was fun. Is that ugly guy a friend of yours?”
Davyn should’ve thrown her into a harder wall. He’d get it right next time. If there was one.
Two
A demon would never help a seer, let alone a seer from the Rising. So this one had obviously jumped in front of Keira just to make sure the whole place didn’t burn to the ground. Any time a human saw glimpses into their world, it was dangerous for both worlds. That’s where seers came in—to clean up and make sure minds that needed to be wiped got wiped.
Of course, as a hunter for the Rising, all Keira usually left was dust and that was pretty easy to kick around and get rid of. Scorch marks and bodies were tougher.
“So are you, like, calling it in to get cleaned up?” she said to the demon’s back. Damn, he was huge and very hard not to stare at. Which she needed to stop doing stat. “Cool. Because I’m going to—”
“Don’t thank me,” the demon said, shoving his phone back into his pocket.
“Actually, I wasn’t going to.” She was going to walk away slowly and hope he didn’t chase her.
“You still being alive was a complete accident, I promise.”
“I know.”
“Good,” he snapped. “Then from now on, stay out of my way. Got it, human?” The way he said ‘human’ was th
e verbal equivalent of wiping dog shit off the bottom of your shoe. “I think I can handle it from here.” Shaking his head, he glanced to the spot where Lamere had been standing.
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to work together on this?”
“Did you actually speak to me?” When he finally made eye contact, it was with a glare, his dark eyes practically glowing with intensity. Or maybe that was the way they always looked—Keira didn’t know enough about demons to know for sure. And she’d never seen one that looked like him, like something out of a fantasy movie—a male-model-slash-evil-incarnate hybrid.
“If we…” You’re not going to wuss out now. Not after getting that close to Lamere, that close to vengeance. “If we worked together, teamed up, we could—”
“Do you know what I am?”
“Yes.”
“Then you may have heard that we don’t share well, don’t ‘team up,’ and don’t like it when idiots talk to us.”
“Nor do you know where Lamere is going.”
He laughed. “And you’re saying you do?”
“I’m not saying anything. Because evidently I’m an idiot, and I would hate to hurt your sensibilities by talking to you.”
“You’re an idiot because you got in my way. If you hadn’t, I would’ve had him.”
“Ditto, demon.”
He stepped into her space. Waaay into her space, the heat of his body forcing her backwards until she hit the wall again. It was better than third-degree burns. Damn human weakness.
“Even if there was a chance of that being true,” he purred, “I don’t give a fuck about your problems. So I’ll keep focusing on mine. And my biggest problem right now is you.” He rubbed his chin. “What could I do about that?”
“Back off and let me take Lamere down alone.”
“Demons don’t back off. Especially when a far, far, far lesser life form forgets her place and demands it. So let’s talk options here. I could hurt you so badly that you run back to Mommy. Or I end you right now. Or… Nah, that’s it. I can’t think of more than the two.”
“Doesn’t matter. Neither is going to happen.”
He smiled. “No Mommy? That’s tragic. I’ll be sure to cry about it later.”
“I’m not going away, and you’re not going to kill me.”
“As incredibly misplaced as your confidence is, puppet, it amuses me. Not enough to want you to follow me around, though. So…option B it is. Option B was the one where I kill you, right? Or was it A?” He shrugged. “Whichever one ends with you dead.”
“It wouldn’t be a sanctioned kill! You’d be executed.”
“They’d probably cheer me in the streets if I killed a member of the Rising. But even if they didn’t, you might want to brush up on your demon facts when you get to the Great Beyond—which is going to be really soon, in case you were wondering. When demons are ‘executed,’ we’re sent back to hell. Sure, the heat and humidity take some getting used to, but I’m alumni so there are perks.”
When he raised his hand and held it a few inches from her chest, she clenched her eyes shut, happy for once that she didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to. Weren’t you supposed to feel horrific pain when a demon killed you? Burning or blood boiling or something?
“Is something wrong?” She opened her eyes.
His brow was tight with disappointment. “Hell yeah, something’s wrong. You’re not begging. Marks always beg—always—and give me a stupid reason not to kill them. Then I pretend like I’m listening for a while and nod my head a few times. Sometimes I tilt my head like this.” He showed her, as if he were giving a class. “It’s a great technique to use with humans, by the way. They completely buy it, which makes the look on their faces ten times funnier when I finally take them out.” He pantomimed what one of his victims might do. “‘Eek, a demon is going to kill me. I know I sold my soul, but I’m so shocked that the Devil would send someone to collect. He seemed like such a nice guy.’”
“I can tell you like your job.”
“Love it. But if you’re not going to make the face, how about we go with the more theatrical thing where I rub my hands together and laugh wickedly while you beg for your life. It’s a classic for a reason.” Was he actually waiting for that to happen? “Why aren’t you playing along, puppet?”
“I don’t beg,” she said.
“Suit yourself. I’m tired and hungry anyway, so let’s jump to the end.”
Her knee jerked up and slammed into his balls. The skin on her hands sizzled as she shoved him back as hard as she could, knowing he might budge a whole inch if she was lucky. When he grabbed her arm, she fell sideways and heard something snap in her shoulder. But the movement—as painful as it was—screwed with his grip. As soon as she realized he no longer held her, she bolted.
“I came here to kill something,” he shouted, “and kill something I shall.”
She shouldn’t have glanced back. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have crashed into whatever she crashed into. As soon as she landed, facedown, she pushed off the ground, food scattered around her and squishing under her hands, her feet slipping out from under her. She hauled ass and ran towards the emergency exit. If there was ever a time she needed an emergency exit, it was now, because she wasn’t moving nearly fast enough to escape a demon. She looked down at her leg to see what was making her limp so badly and saw a fork sticking out of her thigh, blood running down her leg.
Motherfucker! With a big thanks to the adrenaline rushing through her veins, she yanked it out with the hand she’d already messed up. A metal utensil would barely do any damage to a demon, but it was better than a fist. At least she’d make him bleed a little before he killed her. She heard him land behind her—probably after a graceful leap over the dinner trays.
She held out her good arm at the level of the release bar on the exit door and plowed into the thing. It didn’t even creak, but she sure as hell did. Solid, locked metal door equals at least a few broken fingers. Plus another painful shoulder and a big step closer to the Great Beyond.
I’m going to die. Before she could kill Lamere. Before she could look into his eyes and remind him who she was as she shoved the stake into his heart. That’s pretty damn pathetic.
Her arms hung limply at her side, still gripping the fork as if that was going to do anything at all. Then she turned to face the demon.
Bastard. “Stop smiling!” she shouted.
“People say I have a nice smile.”
“Not people you’re about to murder.”
“No, probably not.” He shrugged as he leisurely came to her. “What am I supposed to do? Look sad at the tragic loss of a human life?”
She nodded. “That’d be nice.”
“And that’s one reason why it’ll never happen.” His gaze swept down and then up again. “How about I look sad at the tragic loss of a truly hot body?” Then his smirk disappeared, and he looked up. “What are you?” His voice was bitterly cold in a way she’d never imagined a demon’s could be.
“I’m a hunter.”
“Not a very good one, but that’s not what I meant. What kind of being are you?”
“I’m a seer.”
“No.” He looked down at her leg again. One pant leg was gone from her upper thigh down, as if she’d put on short-shorts today. As if she’d ever wear short-shorts. The edges of the fabric looked melted and lines of blood ran down her leg, but the holes the fork tongs had made were closed and the skin where he’d burned her was already healing. “Seers don’t heal like that.”
She sighed. “Does it matter? No one can heal from death.”
“Tell me what you are.” Each word was clipped, impatient. Why tell him anything? It wouldn’t keep her alive. “There are a number of ways to die, puppet. Some much less pleasant than others.”
She knew all too well, having done it as often as she had. But both times she’d come back. This time she wouldn’t. “I’m a seer but I’m…altered.”
“Go on. Quickly, bec
ause I have a very short attention span and zero patience.”
“I’ve had a lot of vamp blood.”
He tsked her. “Sharing enough blood to make you heal like that borders on turning. And considering the reason we’re both hunting the same bastard, you know making brand new baby vampires isn’t allowed. In fact, I think it’s cause for execution—for you and your owner.”
“No one owns me.”
He laughed. “Everyone is owned.”
“Not anymore.”
“Right,” he mocked. “The infamous Rising. Led by a great, all-powerful hermit lady.”
Keira seethed. How dare he talk about Addison like that? “Yeah, a hermit who could put a demon down with a single drop of her blood.”
Addison had a million reasons not to wander around the city. The least of which being that the dat vitae was still just a rumor to most people in the Heights, and those who knew she existed believed that she’d died in the fire a few months ago.
“Not from six feet under, she can’t,” he said. So he didn’t know Addison was still alive. Good. The fewer supers who knew, the better. “Seers who fight for freedom without realizing all they’re doing is trading one Master for another.”
“That’s not true.”
The demon ignored her completely, too lost in his own bullshit probably. “A prophecy foretold by a couple blind bitches who live in rabbit burrows.”
She shook her head, hating that she was letting him get under her skin. “The oracles have magic. Prophecies are what they do. How do you know what the catacombs are like, anyway? Just a guess, but I doubt demons are allowed in there.”
Unearthed Page 3
