Demon's Embrace

by Devereaux, V. J.

He was also strangely familiar. As if she knew him in some way, as if he were a kindred spirit. Or had been. Once upon a time.

  The thought of the traditional beginning to old fairy tales made the connection.

  Suddenly she understood.

  He was a kindred spirit.

  Not all those like her died of their curiosity or went mad at what they saw on the other planes – or whatever name they gave for what they saw.

  As she’d told Asmodeus, Gabriel and the others once upon a time in centuries past there had been tales of children folk came to call ‘changelings’, children who suddenly seemed ‘other’ or different, overnight. Once this man had been just a curious child. The kind of child that pulled the wings off flies. Now he was…something else. What that something else was, she didn’t know. But it frightened her to the depths of her soul.

  She was reminded of Nietzsche’s quote before he went mad. ‘Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster and if you gaze into the abyss, know the abyss gazes also into you’.

  Looking into that man’s black eyes, she knew he had looked into the abyss, and liked what he saw there.

  Templeton nodded in response to the other man’s statement.

  “You did,” Templeton acknowledged, evenly.

  Looking at Templeton, with a shock Miri realized that on some level he knew exactly what his companion was. He’d made his choice, his deal with the ‘devil’, as it were. The loss of his soul, whatever soul he’d had. Not that he cared. In exchange for power.

  For the first time Gordon Templeton looked at her.

  She looked into his piercing dark eyes, eyes she’d seen on TV and the covers of a dozen financial magazines. Her lips parted on a soft intake of breath.

  Perhaps the camera hadn’t been able to capture it, to show it, but there was madness in that sharp avid stare, and a terrible craving. Darkness moved in those eyes. Just a touch, but it was a kind of madness all the same. Alarm shrilled through her. However well hidden it was, Gordon Templeton was as mad as a hatter, thoroughly and completely insane.

  That mad gaze turned to Ash and something in Templeton’s eyes made her shiver, made her want to throw herself between him and her beloved Ash.

  Instinctively an even deeper terror shot through her.

  Smiling thinly, Templeton let his gaze wander over them.

  “Just in case you anticipated help,” he said, with grim satisfaction and gestured, “from your friends.”

  In a corner, his dark Daemonae skin nearly blending with the shadows, was Ba’al, clearly unconscious, his limbs shackled and chained as Ash’s were, although he was secured by one ankle to the bolt sunk deep in the floor.

  A bolt he and Ash shared.

  His heat signature gave him away.”

  Ash’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing, instead swearing silently at seeing Ba’al bound.

  His eyes went to Miri and saw the same question in her eyes.

  Where was Mal? Where was he? Not for the first time Ash wished he had Asmodeus’ ability to speak to all of the Daemonae. But that was part of what made Asmodeus Prince. Part, but not all.

  Ash didn’t dare call to Asmodeus now. Not until he knew more. Templeton learned from his mistakes, he wouldn’t make the same mistake a second time. He’d be prepared for a rescue.

  Mal was free or unconscious where they couldn’t see him.

  There was still hope. It was a chance.

  Without looking, Templeton held his hand out to someone behind him in the shadows.

  “So,” he said, conversationally, “Dr. Reynolds, let’s talk.”

  From those shadows, someone stepped forward to place something in that outstretched hand.

  Miri’s stomach went cold at the sight of it.

  It was an ugly thing, an object of thin twined strips of leather with nasty coarse little iron beads at the ends and a thick but flexible braided handle. Just the sight of it made her want to cringe.

  Templeton’s dark gaze fixed on her. “I see you recognize this, Dr. Reynolds. It’s an old but effective method of punishment. You really should have accepted my original offer.”

  He shook out the cat o’ nine tails. The braided leather strips slithered around each other, the iron beads clacked against each other unmusically.

  “I suspect that if I used these on you, you wouldn’t last long,” he said. “but then you’d be no good to me.”

  Templeton walked toward Ash. “He, on the other hand, can clearly take a great deal of punishment. I want my Book.”

  Miri wanted to weep. She couldn’t do this.

  “I need you to fetch it for me,” Templeton said.

  No, a part of her cried, horrified. Ash.

  She looked at him.

  This hadn’t been part of the plan, either.

  Where was Mal?

  She thought of the scars on Ash’s body, of the suffering he’d already endured. Tears, unbidden and all too revealing, sprang to her eyes.

  Looking at Templeton, at the cat o’ nine tails in his hand and the anticipation in his gaze, Ash went still inside. Templeton was going to enjoy this, he could see it in the man’s eyes, as he’d seen it in the eyes of the priests. A chance too, finally, to take out on him the punishment he hadn’t been able to inflict on Asmodeus.

  Ash knew that ancient whip of old, having felt its bite many times in the past. There were those who claimed it could strip a man’s back of his flesh in mere moments. It had taken longer than moments to rip through Daemonae flesh but Ash could attest to its effectiveness.

  A part of his heart sank but another strengthened, tightened even as he swore silently, softly, to himself. He steeled himself, his mouth and his jaw tightening. It wasn’t the first time he’d faced this. They would get nothing from him. And somehow he would keep Miri, his heart and his life, safe.

  Wherever Mal was, whatever he was doing, Ash knew there was no possible way to avoid this, there wasn’t time.

  Miri, he said, keeping his mental voice even. He could take whatever torment they offered, save one – Miri retrieving the Book.

  Her head turned to look at him. Those ethereal green eyes were wide with horror as they met his. Her breath caught in her throat audibly, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He saw that she knew what the whip would do to him and it pained him that she would have to witness it.

  Her face, her voice, those incredible eyes, revealed too much to those around them but Ash couldn’t find it in himself to be sorry for it. Her heart was in those uncanny eyes.

  There was a sharp crack and then the cat o’ nine tails stroked across his back.

  It wasn’t unexpected and yet Ash’s breath still snagged in his chest. Pain was reflected across his features before he could lock his expression down. His body arched automatically in response to the assault on his flesh. Even knowing what was coming, even having felt it before, there was no preparation for the reality, a searing agony so great, so sharp, that for a moment it took his breath away.

  An echo of that pain streaked across Miri’s skin like a lick of fire.

  It was too much to watch Ash being tortured as she’d seen in vision, only this time before her eyes. In the back of her mind she could hear his voice when he’d spoken about what had been done to him. Had it been only last night? His voice had been so expressionless, so dispassionate, as he talked about what had been done to him. She’d run her hands over those terrible scars, had traced them with her fingertips.

  “No!”

  She cried out in pain and fury of her own and spun. She grabbed at the chain, ripped at it viciously, the suddenness of her movement catching Hargrove off guard. She tore the leash free and ran for Ash.

  If she could just reach him…if she could open the ethereal planes she could take them both there. The creatures of this plane would remain on this one. No one could touch them then, they would be free. Then they would come back for Ba’al and Mal.

  She could do it. Especially here in this place where the walls of time an
d space were so thin.

  So she ran.

  For a moment, Ash felt a leap of hope as Miri broke free, as she raced toward him, her sudden action catching them off guard.

  There was a chance, if she could get to him, if she could touch him, if they could shift to another plane… That had been the plan if things went wrong.

  A half dozen of Templeton’s men leapt out of the shadows to intercept her. She spun away from one, her foot lashed out at another to drive him back but the rest wrestled her to her knees.

  She fought them wildly even as Ash threw himself against his chains to reach her, to help her.

  “Bring her. You can stop it, Dr. Reynolds,” Templeton said, looking at Miri as his men wrenched her wrists up behind her back, forced her back to bend, to arch.

  Forced her to look at what he did to Ash.

  With an idle but forceful flick of his wrist, he sent the cat o’ nine tails with their wicked little iron balls once more across Ash’s back to rip and tear. Blood flowed even as Ash folded his wings close to try to save them. Thin stripes appeared across his skin, his blood beading even darker than the crimson of his skin.

  It ran, dripped down his sides.

  This time Ash had been prepared for it, for the sharp, breathtaking burn of pain as he had all those years ago. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing his pain, nor torment Miri by making her listen to it. He bore it in stoic silence, his jaw locked, although he couldn’t keep his body from reacting to the agonizing assault.

  Miri saw it, though. She saw the pain in his eyes, in the hideous slashes that striped his back. It was in the blood, Ash’s blood, that beaded along those terrible marks before it slid over his skin to drip to the floor. It was there in the tightness of his features, in the way he held his wings so tight and close, in the tension that strained each hard, curved muscle.

  There was only one power she had here and that was the Book. All she had to do was open the temporal planes and find it. Something she’d never done. All her life she’d fought against that temptation, fought the voices that had called to her, that whispered in the night.

  If she had the Book, though, how could she use it?

  “Even a demon can only take so much. How long can he take it before he subsides into unconsciousness?” Templeton asked rhetorically, turning to Ash as he shook out the cat-o-nine tails once again.

  He looked at Ash speculatively and then her.

  “How long can you bear to watch, Dr. Reynolds?”

  The little iron balls clinked dully against each other as he eyed her with a cold dispassionate gaze.

  She was sharply aware of the tears cold on her lashes.

  Not long. And he knew it. It was in his eyes.

  Miri looked to Ash and her heart wrenched.

  He could look so intimidating, so fierce and he did now.

  His stern handsome features were set, his mouth tight, his jaw clenched and his glowing eyes steady. His body was braced for the next assault, ready to endure the next stroke of the cat tails across his back, across the fragile membranes of his wings. Blood trickled over his ribs, along with his sweat, to drip to the floor. The sound of the droplets was surprising loud in the echoing silence.

  Miri closed her eyes, but that terrible sound was still there.

  She opened them again.

  The muscles of Ash’s abdomen were drawn tight against the pain and the ones in his arms were taut. They flexed as he gripped the chains with his strong, long-fingered hands. Hands that had touched her, stroked her, held her safe. Ash had put himself between her and harm more than once already.

  Could she do any less?

  Another voice broke in unexpectedly, deep and almost inhumanly modulated.

  “There’s no need for such crude methods of persuasion,” that voice said.

  Somehow, those simple seemingly nonthreatening words cut through the haze of pain to send a frisson of alarm down Ash’s spine. He’d braced himself against the lash of pain but now he gripped the chains and drew himself up, fought the sudden inexplicable urge to wrench at them again, to try to rip them free.

  It was Templeton’s companion. The third man.

  The man smiled. At Miri. And walked toward her.

  Ash’s blood ran cold.

  Those dark eyes were empty, the man’s face expressionless.

  Ash had the sudden sharp impression of a mask put on for those who observed, a cloak that concealed the man’s reality. He’d never seen anything like it.

  Even with her clothing wrinkled and stained, to his eyes Miri was beautiful. Her hair glowed like fire in the cold light of the emergency lights and gas lanterns that were the only light in this place.

  His heart caught to see it.

  Despite her fear, her chin lifted as she faced the Stranger warily. She didn’t flinch, didn’t turn away from that terrible empty gaze, her ethereal eyes watchful, courage in every line of her lovely body.

  It tore him apart. He should be there defending her. Protecting her.

  His hands tightened reflexively on the chains, every muscle in his body locked as he pulled on them.

  All eyes were on the two at the edge of the circle.

  Suddenly he felt a familiar presence at his side. Warmth where warmth shouldn’t be.

  Mal. Ash glanced over at where Ba’al had been lying. He was no longer there.

  Relief took his breath away.

  They might have a chance.

  Closing his eyes, Ash bowed his head slightly to listen.

  His voice low, his body invisible, Mal said, “Look around carefully.”

  From the corner of his eye, Ash scanned the room.

  There was a swift movement, nearly silent. Darkness enveloped one of the Guards, Daemonae hands and wings. Ba’al.

  “Ba’al’s eliminating the guards,” Mal said. “I think he’s enjoying himself. Keep watching while I try to break these shackles.”

  Every line of Ash’s body tensed even further. He nodded.

  “Hurry,” he said, softly.

  Whatever was going to happen would happen soon, he sensed it.

  At his side, he felt Mal nod in return, his own tension evident in the tightness of his voice. “I know, I feel it, too.”

  Watching, Ash saw the Stranger approach Miri.

  If Miri had had hackles to rise, they would have risen as the man drew close. As it was, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Her stomach clenched.

  With Templeton’s men ringed around them and nowhere to run even if she could flee, she was helpless and she knew it. After all, where could she go? Not that she would have abandoned Ash.

  In one of those odd moments of awareness, she suddenly noticed that Ba’al no longer lay in the corner. He’d disappeared. And Mal?

  Were it not for the Stranger stalking slowly toward her, she would have felt a breath of hope but instead for some reason she prayed they were somewhere else, that they wouldn’t try to attack this man to protect her.

  She looked into the man’s eyes and something inside her shivered.

  He wasn’t a man, not really, and not any longer. His eyes were empty. Hollow. He was a depthless void ready to swallow her up, to drown her in darkness, to drag her down into the shadows inside him. A voice deep inside her shrilled in terror.

  She had no time to feel more than that flash of fear as he struck. His hand lashed out to close around her throat with speed that likened to Ash.

  So fast. So stunningly fast.

  To her astonishment, she felt her feet leave the ground. Power punched into her and she cried out as pain exploded through her.

  “You see,” she heard him say, as if from down a long dark tunnel, “if she is the Doorway then I am the Key.”

  Visions exploded through her, a thousand possible outcomes from this moment in time, from the decisions made here in this moment.

  Pain ripped through her as the ethereal planes burst open from within her.

  There was a brilliant flash, blue-whi
te, the stinging smell of ozone and then every hair on her body stood on end.

  With a sharp crack, Miri suddenly found herself blown free of him, sliding backwards along the marble floor. She scrambled to her knees, feeling something odd quiver beneath one hand.

  Looking up, she froze.

  The Stranger, the man she now knew had once been named Daniel, stood looking furiously at his blackened, burned and shriveled hand.

  Ash’s magic, another gift of the venom. His lightning.

  So long as Ash lived, the Stranger couldn’t touch her. She couldn’t direct it, but he couldn’t touch her.

  She looked at Ash. His golden eyes burned with fury.

  Mine, his mental voice roared.

  She swallowed hard and prayed the Stranger couldn’t guess, wouldn’t understand as she looked at the pure, cold and dark fury that crossed his face. If he did he’d kill Ash without a second thought.

  Her mouth went dry.

  Darkness shimmered beneath the Stranger’s skin much as Ash’s golden glimmers did, as visible evidence of the truth of him, as rifts in his surface.

  Those dark eyes lifted to look at her.

  Her breath froze in her throat at what she saw in that flat gaze.

  In the back of her mind, those visions replayed, the ones from the brief moment when the Stranger, the creature who had once been a boy named Daniel, had touched her. Once, he’d been like her. When he’d been Daniel. Now he was the Stranger and it had taken the explosion to set him free.

  Visions flashed through her mind of death, destruction and darkness. A thousand different outcomes that all depended on what happened, on what was done, in these next few moments.

  She could see all the myriad possibilities.

  If she failed.

  And only one if she succeeded.

  Like a snake shedding its skin, this oddly urbane man – Daniel the Stranger – stood. His skin sloughed off, peeled away as what lay within broke free of its constraining human form.

  This was the true reflection of itself on the other planes, vaguely reptilian, vaguely insectoid. Its faceted eyes reflected the cold emergency lights like gemstones. Its skin was mottled, thick, in places it was almost a carapace. Yet the features, weirdly, remained the same, oddly and coldly handsome.