The Demon-Born Trilogy: (Complete Paranormal Fantasy Series)

by L. C. Hibbett

“And Jonah’s best friend. You trust him with your life, Niamh? With all of our lives?” Gabriel’s glare was unwavering as he stared at the older Demon. She nodded her head. Gabriel uncurled his fist and offered her his hand. “Then we go.”

  Niamh turned to Aza. “Can you take charge here?” Aza grunted in affirmation, and the chill around Niamh’s eyes abated slightly. “Victor and Eve will assist you, Aza. If that’s acceptable to you, Eve?”

  Eve tipped her solemnly. Niamh’s shoulders relaxed, and she turned to face Gabriel, but the silence was shattered by the sound of screaming. Dawn appeared in the doorway, wiping sleep from her eyes. Her gaze sharpened as she scanned our faces, but she asked no questions. “Eve, Lydia is awake. Cat and Cain are trying to help Frank mind her, but Cat said I should get you.”

  Eve crossed the floor before Dawn finished talking. She stroked Dawn’s silky hair as she passed her. “Thank you, Dawn. Please go check the shouting hasn’t wakened Ozzie, he’s alone in the boy’s room.”

  Brandon unfolded his limbs. “I’ll come with you, Dawn. I need to try and get some sleep, or I’ll turn into a pumpkin, right?”

  Dawn’s lips curved into a smile but her eyes darted back to my face again before she followed him down the corridor. By the time I dragged my eyes away from her retreating figure, Gabriel and Niamh had already vanished, and Aza was deep in conversation with Victor, the Shifter who seemed to be Aza’s right-hand man from what I could make out over the past few days since we returned from the lair of the Elders.

  Victor’s fingers flew over a computer keyboard in response to Aza’s commands and several more Demons filtered into the command center from the new wing of the cottage. I recognized less than half of them. My eyebrows peaked as they whipped through the room and took up places at the various screens and stations, filling the room with a buzz of activity.

  Sam grinned at my expression. “I told you, Niamh turned this place into the Tardis.” His eyes darkened, and he grabbed my hand. “Let’s get a cup of tea.”

  I started to moan about the lack of an electric kettle again, but his pointed glare silenced me. My heart began to beat a little faster as he pulled me into the kitchen and closed the door firmly behind us. I knew that face, and it always meant trouble. “Spit it out, Sam.”

  He grabbed two mugs from the press and flicked the switch on the coffee machine. It shuddered and jolted under his touch. I tapped his shoulder and raised my voice to be heard over the wail of the old machine. “Don’t use that one. Gabriel says it’s an old piece of junk that Aza insists on bringing everywhere—it howls like a banshee.”

  “That’s the whole idea,” Sam whispered in my ear, dragging me to the corner of the kitchen furthest away from the Demons in the control center. “I think I know where to find a page of that manuscript. Jonah’s dad’s one.”

  The coffee machine ground to a halt before I could answer, spewing brown liquid into one of the mugs. It smelled incredible, and I breathed in the rich aroma, in spite of the knot tightening in my stomach. Sam crossed the floor and shoved the other cup underneath the spout. The sound of clanking filled the room again.

  I followed Sam and leaned against the counter, gratefully accepting the mug of coffee he offered me. “Why didn’t you tell the others about the page?”

  Sam’s eyes darkened. “Cream and sugar, right?” I pinched my lips as he spooned them into my coffee, and he sighed. “I want to be sure before I tell them. I don’t want them to think Emmanuel has something to hide.”

  “Emmanuel has a page of the Book of—” Sam clamped his hand over my mouth.

  “Quiet!” He peeled his fingers away from my lips slowly. “Maybe. I’m not sure. He showed me a page once, in his study at Shadow Hall . . .”

  His reluctant words hung in the air between us. I took a gulp of the hot, sweet coffee. “So, how are we going to get to Shadow Hall without explaining what we’re doing?”

  Sam tilted his head to one side and gave me a wheedling grin.

  I wasn’t going to like this plan.

  Chapter Seven

  Grace

  “Samuel Hayes, I’m never letting you lead the conversation again.”

  Sam’s dimples flashed as he peered out the windshield into the darkness of the coast road. Rain pelted against the glass in sheets, driven by the wind rolling in off the Atlantic. “Don’t get pissy, you played that to a tee. It was an act of genius in fact—Hollywood needs you, Grace.”

  I aimed a closed fist at his shoulder but decided against letting my hand fly. Niamh’s swanky four-wheel drive was pretty to look at, but I wasn’t confident the car would keep us alive if Sam lost control of the wheel and sent us plummeting into the ocean. “The whole conversation was mortifying—why exactly did you have to bring my menstrual cycle into it?”

  Sam’s smirk widened. Unlike his nose, his white teeth were perfectly straight. Lucky break. I was pretty certain there was no chance the stubborn ass would have consented to braces. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “I had to say something to convince her to let us take the car. I saw Aza’s face when Cat dropped a box of tampons the other day—figured an emergency tampon run to the twenty-four-hour supermarket in Castlebar was the best shot at getting a free pass to take one of the cars. The leaking stuff was just to tighten the screws.”

  “Great. Thank you for that. Aza and her team are going to be avoiding me for the week in case they have to tell me I have stains on my pants. Awesome.” I folded my arms across my chest and sank back into the passenger seat.

  The skin around Sam’s eyes creased and he shot me an unrepentant grin. “Not sorry. Nothing else would have got us out of there without a chaperone.”

  My lips began to twist. “Her face was priceless.”

  “The blinking?” Sam widened his eyes and nailed an impression of Aza’s flustered response to my fictional crisis. I snickered, and Sam’s cheeks dimpled. “I’m not going to lie, Grace—that was one of the top five best moments in my entire life.”

  “What are the other four?” I grabbed onto the side of my seat as the road narrowed, only a low metal barrier separating the road from the rolling waves below. Sam’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. The windshield wipers swished furiously, barely clearing the glass. Sam eased his foot off the gas as we slowed to a crawl. I pressed my forehead against my window and peered through the curtain of rain as Sam eased the four-wheel drive between the towering stone gateposts. “Sam, where are the gates?”

  “There never were any. Well, not since I’ve known the place anyway.” His foot was barely touching the gas pedal. He nodded to the barren fields surrounding the grand house on three sides and the wild ocean to its front. “The house wouldn’t have attracted many visitors, even without the protection of Danu’s Heart.”

  I wrapped my arms around my waist at the mention of the charm that had protected the Irish Shadow Children for generations, remembering the crunch as I smashed it into sand under my feet to disarm Peter before he could sacrifice the members of the cell to the Spirit Demons. An unnerving sensation tugged at my mind, like the reverberation of violin strings against my brain. The building was in complete darkness as we pulled up to the front door. I grabbed Sam’s wrist before he could kill the engine. “What protects Shadow Hall now? Without Danu’s heart?”

  “Nothing. Lizzie is going to help Emmanuel sell it to fund a new cell headquarters, but in the meantime, he’s leaving it untouched.” Sam’s knuckles were white.

  I stared at the front door and back to his drawn face. “There’s magic in there, Sam. I can’t put my finger on it—”

  “There’s always residual magic, Grace. After what happened in the chapel things are bound to be unsettled. And there are still small charms protecting the belongings people left behind. The New York cell took what they could for Emmanuel . . .” Sam’s voice faded to nothing.

  The New York cell. Ozzie had been begging us to contact his mom since we escaped from the Elders, but Aza had found their cell hea
dquarters deserted. Niamh’s source of the High Council swore that he could only find a record of their Master in their prison system and that the others hadn’t been arrested by the Guardians, but people don’t just vanish. The air hummed again, and Sam’s gaze snapped toward the house. I dug my fingernails into his knee. “See!”

  The line of Sam’s jaw hardened as he clenched his back teeth and he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. The vibration hit us again, and he cursed under his breath. I leaned closer to him. “What do you think it is? I can’t sense anything that I recognize, Sam.”

  “If it can block out your Seeking, then it’s something powerful.” He punched the steering wheel. “Damn it. What if we’re too late? We need that manuscript to figure out what Jonah’s father had discovered about the Elders.”

  I squeezed the heel of my hands against my eyes and groaned. “Okay.”

  Sam tugged my elbow. “Okay what, Grace?”

  “Okay, we go in.” I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders. Sam lifted his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak, but I cut across him. “I don’t want to discuss it, Sam. We’re sitting in the driveway with our headlights on—whatever is in there knows we’re here. If they want to get us, we’re going to have to fight anyway. We use our shared power to get in, and if we’re lucky, all that’s inside is some lower level goon sent her by Peter to keep guard.”

  “Like a Hound?” Sam’s whisper was rough.

  I closed my eyes against the memory of the black clothed figures encircling Diamond and Valerie as they stood defenseless. What kind of people were prepared to hunt down children and rip them to shreds on the order of the Elder’s Circle? Sam slipped his fingers inside mine. “We can turn back now, Grace?”

  “And potentially lead whatever is in there to Hidden Cottage? No. No way.” I shook my head and leaned over Sam’s lap, yanking the key from the ignition. “We came here because we need a piece of the manuscript. That hasn’t changed. We’re going in.”

  Sam’s eyes flashed, and he began to tug at the hem of his T-shirt. I grabbed his arm. “Let’s try just holding hands. It’s getting easier every time to connect our magic, and Jonah said we shouldn’t need as much physical contact as we get stronger.”

  “Okay.” Sam let go of his shirt, but the fabric stayed bunched under his arms so that his defined abdomen was exposed. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on his hand. My magic responded immediately, and I jolted as his power collided with mine. “Grace, focus on Emmanuel’s study.”

  I drew the image of the Master’s elegant desk into my mind, and the world spun around us as Sam dragged us through space and deposited us into a pitch black room. I stood stock still and held my breath. Sam whipped his Spirit Blade from his pocket and thrust it over our heads. My heart beat wildly and I twisted to rake my stare over every corner of Emmanuel’s study, but there was no sign of danger.

  Sam lowered his hand and tossed Emmanuel’s carpet against the base of the door before turning on the small desk lamp. I searched for any sign of a press where the Master might store manuscripts or precious artifacts, but all I could see was rows of bookshelves covering every wall. I drew my brows together. “Where did Emmanuel—”

  “Here.” Sam cut me off and tipped his head toward the floorboards that had been exposed when Sam moved the carpet. He closed his eyes and whispered a charm. The outline of a trapdoor appeared in front of my eyes. Sam yanked it open with one hand and disappeared down into the darkness.

  “Sam!” I bent down and poked my head into the underfloor cubby, hissing again. “Sam?”

  “Got it!” His face emerged from the darkness, close enough that if I leaned forward anymore, I could have kissed his lips. His dimples deepened. “Hi.”

  I scooted away from the trapdoor to let him climb out. “Please don’t disappear into secret, unlit, underground rooms without warning me, okay?” The petulance in my voice grated on my own nerves. I forced a neutral tone. “The protocol exists for a reason—don’t leave your team without warning.”

  “Because we’re all about the rules tonight, right?” Sam hauled himself out through the trapdoor and slithered across the floor on his belly, sliding a carefully bound scroll in my direction. “Can you read the energy from this without opening it out? Is it from Jonah’s father?”

  I ran my fingers lightly over the thick binding concealing the rolled up parchment. Letting my seeking magic flow, I felt the cooling touch of Emmanuel’s elegant fingers, picturing them wrapping the manuscript and protecting it with charms to prevent damage or decay. I sealed my eyelids shut and peeled away the layer of presence that I could identify as Emmanuel’s, digging deeper to uncover traces of those whose hands had once lingered on the concealed piece of artwork. My eyes twitched as my mind skipped rapidly through the imprints that had been left behind—healing Human hands caressing the vellum as they painstakingly restored it, the oily touch of a money-hungry Demon, the ruthless grasp of a seafaring angel.

  The blade of my Seeking magic cut through the memory of every hand that had held the manuscript until its light pierced the base energy. I clasped my hands together as my eyes flew open and connected with Sam’s probing stare. “It’s his—Jonah’s father made it. You were right.”

  “Shit.” Sam’s jaw tightened. “Sorry. It’s good we have it—”

  “But why did Emmanuel have a stolen piece of a priceless artifact?” I squeezed my fingers between my knees and watched the doubts flicker behind Sam’s eyes.

  “Emmanuel collects old junk—” My eyebrows peaked as I glanced down at the scroll lying on the floor between us. Sam corrected himself. “Pieces of History. He has hundreds of things he’s curated over the years, that doesn’t mean . . .”

  I stared at my hands as Sam’s words faded into silence. Emmanuel’s presence lingered in every corner of his study—gentle, academic, dignified. I wanted to believe the Master, imprisoned by the High Council of Angels, possessed this page of the manuscript only by chance, but the sneering words of warning the Demon Fergus had spat at me before his death had found a home inside my brain. A viper in our bosom. A liar amongst our allies. My eyes rested on Emmanuel’s chair.

  “Grace, I know what you’re thinking, but—”

  “Shh!” I clamped my fingers around Sam’s wrists and drew his power around me to amplify my Seeking magic. Sam’s eyes widened as he felt it—the shift in energy over our heads. The being was skillfully cloaked, but with the strength of our combined power, I could sense the energy was Angelic in origin. A single person—or not? I shifted position slightly, and the floorboards squealed under my knees. A flare of panic shot from the energy up above.

  “Come on!” Sam dragged me to his feet and tucked me against his side. Our magic was still entwined and a Spirit Blade gleamed in Sam’s other hand. I focused on the energy above us, and Sam caught the projection and thrust us through space with unsettling speed. In a heartbeat, we were standing in the room above Emmanuel’s study, watching the last traces of a slip seal shut. Sam kicked a chair and sent it slamming into the opposite wall in a shower of splintered wood. “Crap!”

  I slumped down on the windowsill and watched Sam expel his frustration. His Spirit Blade whipped through the darkness, illuminating the messy stacks of books and the jumble of maps pinned to the walls. A chill ran down my spine as I realized where we were. My heart pounded as I reached for the light switch. Sam spun around to face me. “Grace, what the—”

  “What were they doing in this room?” My whisper was high-pitched. I watched the heat of rage in Sam’s eyes cool into icy fear as he ran his gaze over the cluttered study—the room where the senior students at Shadow Hall had studied history.

  “Peter’s study?” Sam stared at the open drawers of the desk and the letters littering the floor. “What would a Demon-Born want from Peter’s study?”

  “Demon-Born?” I twisted to examine his face. “Sam, it was an Angel, not a Demon-Born.”

  Sam drew his brow low and opened hi
s mouth to argue, but his focus was stolen by something on the floor under Peter’s desk. I followed his line of vision to the scattered pages. Sam’s knuckles cracked as he plucked one up and began to read, his lips moving in silent concentration.

  I crept closer and stared at the paper in his hands. He discarded it and grabbed another page, and then another, scanning the pages with a furious intensity. My heart rate slowed until each beat was a painful lurch on my chest. Sam gave me a pained glance as I sank to the floor and reached for the crisp sheets of paper. The familiar words leaped off the page and burned my eyes—Grace, Dawn, Eve, Catherine. Names of towns and cities we had lived in. Details of the places we visited, the foods we ate, the books we borrowed from libraries.

  “Everything.” I crumpled the paper in my fist and snatched another handful of letters. “Everything we did for the past few years—Peter knew it all! We thought we’d been hiding. We thought we were free, but he knew all the time. None of this was an accident, was it?”

  Sam grimaced. “Who was sending Peter the information? Who sent him the letters?”

  He rifled through the pages, ripping more pages out of opened envelopes, searching for a signature or a clue to the identity of Peter’s little pen pal. “Why is there no goddamn signature on any of these? Somebody had to write them. It wasn’t a ghost.”

  I barely heard his words. My hands were shaking as I lifted one of the discarded envelopes to my face. I dropped it, horror burning my fingertips as I read the postmark. I grabbed another envelope. And another. The ache in my chest exploded from my lips. “No!”

  Betrayal tasted like acid on my tongue. Sam ripped the envelope from my hand and stared at the envelope with an open mouth. The story he had told me in Central Park rang through my memory like an untuned piano. A Demon watching me in the library when he came to meet me for our date in Westport. A Demon following me on my runs. Unseen by me. Trusted by Emmanuel and Gabriel.

  Sam let the envelope flutter to the floor like an oversized butterfly of deceit. The postmark grinned at me with menacing truth, a replica of the mark on each other letter that Peter had received reporting my family’s movements. They had all been posted from the same picturesque village—Castletown, Ireland. A small town so beautiful that a Demon could call it home for hundreds of years and still cry each time they had to leave it.