Something Wicked

by Michelle Rowen

  “You’re better,” he said, looking relieved. “I’m glad. I was worried after . . . after this morning.”

  He took a step toward her, and she moved away from him.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she said firmly. “What do you want? Are you following me?”

  He glanced at his companion, then back at Eden. “I said some things today that I regret. I wanted to apologize.”

  Her shoulders relaxed a little. “Apology cautiously accepted.”

  Ben smiled. He did look great when he smiled.

  Residue of her earlier stress still tingled under her skin, but she tried to push it away. The evening had been a bust with Stanley. She’d learned some unpleasant things about what Darrak did when she was asleep. But at least Ben seemed to have himself together again. It was a strange relief.

  “I don’t feel good about this,” Darrak said. “I sense something strange, but I’m not sure what it is.”

  Ben nodded at his date. “This is Sandy. Sandy, this is Eden.”

  Eden’s eyes shifted to the woman.

  “Nice to meet you, Sandy,” she said.

  “You, too,” Sandy replied, smiling. She drew closer and extended her hand.

  Eden reached out to shake it.

  “No, Eden—” Darrak’s voice turned panicked. “Don’t touch her. She’s a wi—”

  But it was too late. Sandy’s fingers wrapped around Eden’s and an ice-cold wave rippled through her body. Darrak’s presence disappeared like a lamp had been flicked off, leaving only a dark room behind.

  Her eyes widened as she looked down at the blonde’s hand. The red stone set into the ring on her index finger glowed.

  “What—?” she managed before the woman let go of her hand. “Ben, what the hell’s going on here?”

  Ben cleared his throat. His arms were crossed firmly over his chest. “Sandy’s a witch. And she just dampened your inner demon. Hope you don’t mind. He’ll just get in the way of what we need to do right now.”

  Eden could barely speak, she was so shocked. “But—but why are you—?”

  Before she could say another word, Ben had moved toward her with something in his hand. A syringe. She felt a sharp pain as he jabbed the needle into her upper arm and injected her with the contents.

  His expression was grim.

  Immediately, the world began to darken at the edges.

  “I’m sorry it has to be like this,” he whispered. “But . . . I said I’d help you, and I meant it.”

  A moment later, the world disappeared completely.

  NINE

  “Hand me the smelling salts.”

  Eden heard the voice as if it was a long way away. The next moment, a sharp, pungent scent assaulted her nostrils, and she gasped, her eyes snapping wide open. She was in an unfamiliar living room seated on a leather sofa.

  “Eden.” She felt a warm hand on her arm, and she looked to her left, where Ben sat next to her. Sandy stood a few feet away with her arms crossed over her chest. “Please, don’t panic.”

  Eden licked her dry lips, her thoughts cloudy and jumbled. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.” Her voice croaked as if she’d been unconscious for a while.

  “I want to help you.”

  “You have a funny way of showing it.” Her throat hurt and anger and confusion flowed inside her. “Tranquilizers and kidnapping aren’t exactly things that sound very helpful.”

  Eden tried to sense Darrak’s presence, but there was nothing there. Was he okay? Had the witch hurt him? The thought filled her with fear. Only moments before she’d been wishing he was gone forever, and now she was desperately concerned that he’d been harmed.

  “What were you doing at Luxuria tonight?” Ben asked.

  “None of your damn business. Where the hell am I?” The longer she was conscious, the more the fog was lifting, and the more pissed off she was getting.

  “My place,” Ben said.

  “As a cop, you should know kidnapping is a crime.”

  “I wish there was another way. But you’re not thinking straight right now.”

  “I’m thinking fine.”

  “You’re possessed by a demon,” Sandy said.

  Another worrying reminder that Darrak was currently AWOL.

  “What did you do to him?” Eden snapped.

  “Exactly what Ben told you I did. I dampened him.”

  Eden quickly scanned her surroundings. It was exactly the kind of house she would have expected Ben to own. Empty. The few pieces of furniture were practical. Hardwood flooring, cream-colored walls. There were no paintings or knickknacks to clutter things up or add some well-needed warmth. No framed pictures, either. However, he did have a wide-screen television with an Xbox hooked up to it. So Ben wasn’t all business.

  There was sweat on the witch’s brow. The room was too cool to account for that. Eden guessed she was concentrating on keeping Darrak’s presence dampened.

  “Hard work?” Eden asked dryly.

  Sandy gave her a tight smile. “For a good cause, hard work is worthwhile.”

  “And what cause would that be?” Eden glared at the both of them in turn. The black sofa was hard, with no give, and smelled new. The leather squeaked as she tried to move.

  “Saving your life,” Ben said.

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “Which is exactly why we had to take extreme measures.” Ben stood up and paced the length of the living room, his brow furrowed. “I saw that thing, Eden. It’s horrible and it’s destroying you.”

  “You don’t know anything about this.”

  “And yet you defend it. And you slept with it, too?” His lips curled with disgust.

  Eden repressed a grimace. “First of all, he’s not an it, he’s a he, and his name is Darrak. Second of all, what I do with my life or my body is none of your damn business.”

  “Did he force you?” he persisted. “Was it rape?”

  “No,” she said firmly. He gave her a sour look. “Would you prefer me to say it was?”

  “I just don’t understand how you could let a demon touch you.”

  “I think it’s obvious that you don’t understand.”

  His jaw set. “You know the way he looks in human form isn’t who he really is, right? It’s a trap. A way to get women like you to trust him, to defend him like this.”

  “Women like me?” Eden repeated. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  “Women who would risk their own lives to help him. Demons are deceitful and will do anything in their power to manipulate the free will of others.”

  She wasn’t stupid. She understood why Ben was having trouble with this. Like he said, Darrak was a demon. And Ben had seen him in his demon form. Not exactly rainbows and happy faces there.

  Did he think she’d simply been seduced by a good-looking man with a bit of a dark side?

  She wasn’t that easy. Her trust wasn’t totally blind. There were still many questions she had about Darrak, and she was certain she wouldn’t be happy with all the answers.

  Despite her doubts and worries, Eden believed Darrak was good, and Ben believed him to be evil.

  One of them was right.

  “So the demon can take solid form during daylight hours?” Sandy mused aloud. “I’ve never heard of that kind of possession before.”

  “What kind of a witch are you?” Eden asked sharply, turning her attention from the frustrating cop to the blonde.

  “A gray witch.”

  Eden had heard of black and white—evil and good—but she hadn’t heard of gray before. “So that means you can do both black and white magic?”

  “Yes. But I only delve into the darker arts when it’s for a good cause.”

  “Doesn’t using black magic damage your soul?”

  Sandy wasn’t wearing an amulet like Eden’s. She was surprised the witch hadn’t noticed it. Eden’s dress was too low cut to hide anything tonight. Maybe it wasn’t common knowledge that amulets lik
e the one she wore helped pinpoint who’s who in the world of black witches.

  The witch shook her head. “My magic was born in me and developed over time, so my soul remains untouched. My black magic isn’t as strong as my white, but for the Malleus, I’ll be whatever they need me to be.”

  “The Malleus?” Eden recognized that name and it scared her. It was a group that had existed for centuries to combat the darkness that seeped into the human world. The slayers and executioners of the supernatural—of witches and demons and other things that went bump in the night. Eden could see how they could serve a purpose to fight against true evil. But she knew the Malleus had also been instrumental during the Salem witch trials. They’d tortured and put to death a great many innocent men and women all in the name of good versus evil.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Who’s here?” Eden asked, panic welling inside her again.

  “Just relax,” Ben told her. “It’s somebody who can help you.”

  “I don’t want your help.” She fought to stand, but a wave of magic pressed her farther back into the sofa. Sandy was keeping her magically restrained.

  Ben went to the door and returned with a short man who wore glasses. His hair was white. He looked like somebody’s grandfather.

  “Eden Riley,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the coffee table in front of her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  She regarded him tensely. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Oliver Gale. I represent the Malleus organization, and I wanted to meet you personally.”

  Eden’s gaze flicked to Ben, who stood next to Oliver. Ben had rolled up his sleeves and for the first time she noticed the raw-looking wound on his inner forearm. It was a brand of a fleur-de-lis enclosed in a circle.

  She gasped in shock. “Ben! You’re part of the Malleus now?”

  Ben opened his mouth to answer, but Oliver spoke first.

  “He is. We’re very happy to welcome Ben into our ranks.”

  She was stunned by this, and it made her feel sick to her stomach. She’d thought Ben was one of her lesser problems to deal with, but she’d been wrong.

  Oliver studied her carefully. “I’m told you’re infected with a demon, Eden.”

  She opened her mouth to deny it, but she knew it would be in vain. “You make it sound like I have a virus.”

  He continued to study her. “On a basic level, it’s very similar. A parasitic entity that requires a host in order to survive. Something that will poison your body and make you very ill.” He cocked his head to the side. “Tell me about your demon. Darrak is it?”

  She pressed her lips together and shot a look at Ben.

  “It’s okay,” Ben said confidently. “Oliver’s here to help you.”

  She had a hard time believing that.

  “Why would you join the Malleus, Ben?” she asked, not liking how weak her voice sounded.

  He looked down at his brand and stroked his fingers over the healing wound. “I can help people, even more than I could being with the police.”

  “Even if they don’t want your help. Like me.”

  His jaw tightened. “Sometimes the people who need help the most are the ones who resist the hardest. Like you.”

  Damn his sincerity.

  She struggled to breathe and make sense of this. She’d been told the Malleus were bad. She’d also witnessed a power-hungry Malleus member try to take Darrak away from her and use his power for her own gain. But maybe it was a case of one rotten apple spoiling the bunch. Oliver seemed legitimately concerned. Ben was definitely worried about her safety. And Sandy was completely willing to dip into her natural-born darker magic in order to help out.

  That didn’t sound like a triad of evil to her.

  “He was cursed,” Eden said simply, deciding to be helpful instead of continuing to resist. It could make all the difference in the world.

  “Your demon?” Oliver replied.

  She nodded. “A long time ago a witch cast a death curse on him, but it only destroyed his body. We’re searching for a way to break that curse so he’ll be whole again and won’t need to rely on me or anyone else for survival.”

  “How long has he been cursed?”

  “Over three hundred years.”

  “Do you know his true name?”

  “No,” she said. But she did. It was Darrakayiis, but to give that information to anyone else would give them power over him, which is why Darrak went by the short form. Plus, it was much easier to pronounce properly.

  “She’s lying,” Ben said. “I heard her use his true name before.”

  She sent a fierce look his way. He couldn’t be less helpful if he tried.

  “And what is it?” Oliver asked.

  Ben frowned. “I don’t remember. At—at the time I didn’t think it was important.”

  Eden noticed the clock on the wall for the first time and was surprised to see it was after three a.m. She’d been unconscious for more than five hours. She had to get out of here. Even if their goal was to help her, they’d drugged and kidnapped her, and that wasn’t right. She was at a distinct disadvantage. They had all the power, and she was feeling like a victim who didn’t have any say in what was going to happen next.

  She shivered.

  “Tell me about the pain, Eden,” Oliver said.

  She looked at him with surprise. “What?”

  “Ben told me what happened earlier today. Was it a tearing sensation? Did it feel as though you were being pulled in two different directions?”

  She threw another fierce look at Ben, who’d obviously told his new boss everything he knew about her.

  He didn’t flinch. “You were in a bad way this morning. I thought you were dying.”

  Eden exhaled shakily. She never wanted to feel pain like that again if she could do anything to prevent it. “Yeah. It was a tearing pain. Really bad. How do you know how it felt?”

  Oliver crossed his arms. “Tell me about your father, Eden.”

  That question seemed to come out of left field. She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “I never knew him. He was just some random guy my mother hooked up with.”

  “Your mother, Caroline Riley. She’s recently deceased?”

  Eden hesitated a moment before she answered. “She died two months ago. She fell down a flight of stairs at a casino in Las Vegas and broke her neck.” Her throat thickened without warning. The grief at losing her mother came in patches, always unexpected and never appreciated.

  “And she never told you about your father?”

  “Nothing other than the fact that she met him when he was hitchhiking, they had a wild affair over one weekend, and that was that.”

  “Did she see him again?”

  “No. But once when I was about five years old, he came by for a quick visit when I was playing in the backyard. That was the only time I ever saw him.”

  Why was she answering his questions so willingly? A glance at Sandy showed the witch’s thin eyebrows were drawn together to show the strain of her fierce concentration.

  Then it dawned on her. Eden was being forced magically to tell the truth. The thought only made her angrier, which helped to push away some of the fear that filled her.

  “So you don’t know who he really was,” Oliver continued.

  “No.”

  “Just tell her,” Ben said tightly. “Eden needs to know the truth about her father.”

  “What about my father?” she demanded.

  Oliver crossed his arms and leaned closer, looking into her eyes. “Your mother never knew who she met that night on the road. Daniel was finishing his stay here in the human world as a Cerberus. Do you know what a Cerberus is?”

  “I’m not sure.” The word sounded familiar. Maybe she’d heard it in one of her paranormal tutorials from Darrak.

  “It’s a guardian sent here from Heaven to watch over the gateways to the Netherworld,” Oliver explained.

  “Cerberus,” she said. Like the thre
e-headed dog of Greek mythology who guarded the entrance to Hades. “And my father was one of these guardians?”

  “Yes.” Oliver smiled. “Your father is an angel.”

  TEN

  That was funny. Eden could have sworn that he’d just said her father was an angel.

  Obviously she’d misheard him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said after a long moment of silence. “But could you repeat that?”

  “Your father is an angel.”

  Maybe she hadn’t misheard him.

  She laughed nervously. “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s true,” Ben said very seriously. “You’re part angel. The proper term is nephilim . . . and it’s very rare.”

  Eden gaped at him. She felt cold and pale as if all the blood had drained from her face. “How do you know all this?”

  He shifted his feet, his hands clasped in front of him. “I’ve been studying up.”

  “I’m part angel,” she repeated. It sounded completely and totally ludicrous.

  “You’re mostly human,” Ben told her. “But there is a part of you that is . . . Other.”

  Her head was spinning out of control and she had the urge to throw up, but instead she pressed back farther into the hard leather and just tried to breathe.

  Oliver reached for her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “There is a ribbon of celestial energy inside of you. We think this is what the demon has been drawing energy from. And this, Eden, this is what is causing your complications.”

  She needed a time-out. A chance to get her head together. It was one thing to accept that Darrak had been dampened and Ben had drugged and kidnapped her. But it was another thing to be told her mother had a fling with a being from Heaven.

  Her mother had been touched by an angel? Like, literally?

  She finally had her answer. This was why she could hear Darrak when none of his other hosts could. This was why he could take form during the day. It was because she was human enough to be his host, just not completely human. She had a hidden bonus.

  She finally heard what Oliver had said. “What do you mean by my complications?”

  “The pain you’ve begun to feel—it’s a war within your body, Eden. The darkness from the demon is fighting against the light from your nephilim side. Each is trying to claim dominion.”