by Sierra Dean
I felt like I was being punished for every awful, painful thing I’d wished on Gabriel after he left me. Seeing him now with tears pouring down his cheeks and pitiful, mewling pants coming from his lips, I wanted to take it all back. Be careful what you wish for, they always warn you. Who knew my vindictive fantasies could come so cruelly to life?
Mercedes had apparently been answering my question, but I hadn’t heard a damn thing she’d said. “…you went for the door before I could stop you. By the time Tyler and I got here, well…” Her gaze drifted to the macabre tableau outside the door. “It was too late.”
Mayhew’s face was splattered with blood, making the whites of his eyes shine impressively.
“Drop the act,” I told him. “I bet you’re plenty impressive in your true form.”
He clucked his tongue at me and yanked back on Gabriel’s arms, the heel of my favorite boot jammed in his spine. Even though they were a demonic approximation, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to wear the real thing again. And my leather pants were going in an incinerator when I got home.
If I got home.
Gabriel’s head lolled forward. His body had finally given up, and he’d passed out. It meant he was worse off than I wanted to think about, but it also meant he wasn’t feeling it when the stiletto heel punctured his spinal column.
The killer instinct told me to dive through the open cell door and make a grab for him. A much stronger survivor instinct forced me not to move. Mayhew wanted a reaction out of me. He was trying to goad me into acting stupidly, and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I’d done enough stupid shit this past week to last a lifetime. If I added to the list now, more people would die, and I’d never forgive myself.
“Who was Oliver Mayhew?” I asked.
Mayhew let up on Gabriel’s arms, and the unconscious man slumped forward, collapsing into a heap on the floor like a broken mannequin. Obviously unable to resist showing off for a captive audience, the demon’s eyes glowed red, and he demonstrated his remarkable ability to shift forms. One moment we were looking at a blood-spattered Secret McQueen, the next Mayhew was a tweed-clad professor without a drop of crimson on him.
The detectives inhaled sharply in unison.
Mayhew must have loved shock and awe, because he shifted into a few other forms for good measure. Trish, Angie, poor Ellory from Lincoln, Nebraska. It was enough. If we walked away from this, Professor Oliver Mayhew would be the obvious culprit in the investigation. How we would spin it so the mundane public would believe it was too much for me to think about right then. But I knew it would be easier to sell the story if Mayhew was dead and gone.
He shifted from Ellory back to the professor form and grinned at Mercedes.
“O formosa, te volo gustare.”
I looked at her. “Do you know what he said?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t even know what language that was.”
“It was Latin.” Holden came through the door. “And you don’t want to know what he said.”
“Oh, you brought your corpse,” Mayhew sneered. “Did he bring the girl with him?”
“You’re never getting Lucy,” Holden said flatly. “She’s safe now.”
“We’ll see.” He straightened the lapels of his tweed blazer and adjusted the silk pocket square. “The night is young. And I have many more visits to make.” His twinkling eyes pivoted towards me, and when he smiled again it was with the shark teeth he’d displayed in the basement. “I’m almost done here.”
Three vampire wardens had come to stand behind Holden. One was whispering animatedly on a cell phone and pointing to the mess behind him as if the person on the other end could see what he was looking at. The wardens stared past Holden and at me, each bobbing their head in a half-bow as was proper when in the presence of a Tribunal leader.
“Take care of this,” I told them. “But no one touches these two.” Cedes and Tyler seemed puzzled. “They belong to me.”
Well fuck, now I had two more humans I was responsible for. Was I ready to give my life for Tyler? I looked at him—his gun still trained on Mayhew—and reminded myself I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for him.
“As charming as this is,” Mayhew cut in, his British accent at odds with his pointy teeth and coal-red eyes, “I’ve got work to finish.” He dove at Gabriel with speed even a vampire couldn’t match. Before anyone in the room had a chance to respond, there was a fleshy rending noise and something white and glistening dangled from Mayhew’s bloodied hands.
Gabriel’s spine.
In a better time, it would have made for a great one-liner about my spineless ex-boyfriend. Instead I fought against a new wave of bile threatening to become vomit. Tyler lost his own battle, turning away from the scene to throw up behind us. Cedes had more presence of mind than both of us. In spite of my promise that bullets wouldn’t harm the demon, she emptied her clip into Mayhew’s head.
Had he been a vampire or some other kind of paranormal, he’d be dead as a doornail. There was a hole clean through the middle of his forehead that showed light from the other side. Instead of falling down dead next to Gabriel’s mutilated corpse, Mayhew stuck a finger into the open hole in his head and prodded around, seemingly amused by the new air circulation in his skull.
“In the Middle Ages, doctors would cut holes in the skulls of patients if they believed a demon was trapped within. Trepanation, it’s called. Your system is much faster.” He grinned at Cedes and plucked one of the bullets out of his gray matter, before flicking it back at her. “Too bad neither method kills demons.”
In a flash he was on the run again, knocking Cedes against Tyler, both detectives hitting the floor in a heap. I was on the demon’s heels, but I’d never seen anything move this fast. Another group of wardens dodged out of my way as I bounded up the stairs. When I reached the main work floor, all the detectives were staring forward at their desks in a mutual trance thanks to the efficient work of my wardens. Asking the detectives which way the wicked professor had gone wouldn’t do me any good.
I needed a weapon, and I needed a shot in hell.
I knew where to find both.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Desmond met me at the corner of West 52nd and 8th with a sword and an apparent willingness to turn it on me. When I ran up to him, instead of an open-armed embrace, he bashed me in the sternum with the sheathed blade and stepped back.
“Fucking hell,” I cursed, rubbing my bruised breastbone.
“Say the word.”
“Asshole?” I muttered.
He prepared to draw out the blade.
“Dracula. Dracula. Jesus, Des. Couldn’t you have asked before hitting me?”
“Your message was pretty adamant I shoot first, ask questions later.”
“Well thank goodness you didn’t bring a gun.” I held out my hand, and he passed my sword over. The katana seemed to warm up the moment my fingers brushed the hilt, like it knew it was in proper hands again.
“Where are we going?”
“You are going home. Locking the doors and not coming out again until I say so.”
“Like fucking hell I am.”
“Desmond—”
“No, shut up for a second, please,” he interrupted. I was too stupefied to counter, so he continued undeterred, “I’ve let you run off like some gung-ho warrior samurai one too many times. When you fought Marcus, you almost died. When you went to fight the vampire out in Rhinebeck last summer, you almost died. When you saved Penny at Christmas, you almost—”
“Almost doesn’t count.”
“Well for me, it does. And I’m not letting you run off without me again.”
“This isn’t some rogue vampire. This is a demon with a vendetta against me who has promised to kill everyone I love. I can’t let you come with me.”
“All the more reason you should let me come with you.”
“I can’t—”
“I am an alpha werewolf. I’m not some weak, helpl
ess human boyfriend you need to protect. You need help.”
“And what, you’re going to turn into a wolf and bite him?”
“No.” He stepped away and disappeared next to the coffee shop. I heard a car door slam, then a moment later he returned holding my antique broadsword. “You seemed to think only serious metal would work against this thing, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me to bring you the sword. I figure swords are like heads. Two are better than one.”
I gaped at him. “If anything happens to you…”
“You think I don’t feel the same way about you risking your life?”
That I couldn’t argue with. It was grossly unfair for me to expect him to sit at home and twiddle his thumbs while I ran off to what would likely be my death. If he wanted to come, who was I to stop him? And frankly, an extra sword would come in pretty handy.
“I don’t know how this is going to work with you along for the ride,” I confessed.
“How so?”
I nodded to the door of the Starbucks we stood in front of. Thankfully winter traffic at midnight was at an all-time low that night. No one had noticed a couple wielding heavy weaponry in front of the twenty-four-hour coffee shop yet. I wanted to get inside before we drew any unwanted attention.
Problem was, I wanted to cross into Calliope’s realm, and I couldn’t do that with a werewolf. Rules were rules. She’d once explained that shifters couldn’t come into her reality because time didn’t function the same there. No one could guarantee how a werewolf would react in her world, and the last thing anyone needed on their hands was an out-of-control shapeshifter.
This was going to go over swimmingly. If it went over at all.
“Give me the sword,” I said. I’d never tried to ferry someone across with me who wasn’t a vampire, and I didn’t know if I could force Desmond across the barrier with me. He looked like he was going to protest until I explained. “If you don’t make it through, I don’t want you standing in there carrying a fucking sword.”
He accepted my explanation and handed the broadsword over. I grasped both cumbersome weapons in one hand and held my other out for him.
“Whatever you do, don’t let go.”
Desmond nodded, and together we crossed the threshold. It didn’t feel like any other crossing I’d previously made into Calliope’s realm. Whenever I went through the doors it was a smooth transition from one plane to the next, like walking through a chilly air-compressed doorway. With Desmond clinging to my hand, the dimensional gate didn’t know what to do with us.
There was a struggle between the worlds as to where we belonged, and which plane would accept us. A strong force pulled Desmond back in the direction we’d come from, and I clung to his hand. His fingers dug into my wrist as supernatural forces fought to tear us apart.
With him being pulled backwards and me trying to move us forward, we were stuck in a void between worlds. I’d never noticed before how cold the air was, or how little of it there was to breathe. I sucked in a deep breath, but it felt like swallowing ashes.
“Desmond,” I choked.
His eyes were shut tight, tears welling at the corners, and then he began to dig his fingers harder into my arm. The pain shocked me into action and, after a breathless tug threatened to yank us back once and for all, I forced us onward.
The entrance to Starbucks vanished, and the Oracle’s waiting room appeared.
When I turned, Desmond was still with me, wide-eyed, holding my hand tighter than ever. I looked down at his fingers and swallowed hard. His hand had partially shifted, just like my own earlier that week. His nails were dark with my blood and buried a half-inch deep in my skin. When I looked back at his eyes the pupils were shifting, changing from human to wolf even as I watched.
I’d managed to break Calliope’s no-werewolves-allowed rule, and now I was getting an in-your-face visual on why she’d made it in the first place.
I could only think of one thing to do.
I slapped him as hard as I could and, doing my best Cher impression, demanded, “Snap out of it.”
He shuddered, but his hand dropped from my wrist and his eyes shifted back to normal. Barely through the door and we were already in way over our heads. Story of my life.
I had to find Calliope and get what we needed so we could get out of here tout suite.
The Oracle in question was nestled in the lap of a young man who was eighteen, give or take a year. I knew she had a tendency to feed off teenagers, but I’d never witnessed her in the process of doing it. Calliope fed on two things: fresh blood and aura energy. Since there didn’t appear to be any open wounds on the entranced minor, I gathered she was stealing bits of his aura.
It was a hell of a thing to see, and it seemed to pull Desmond more into the here and now.
The kid’s head was haloed in a purplish light, and Calliope was drinking it in from his open mouth. Her aura was a radiant blend of color, different bits and pieces stolen from a variety of pizza-delivery boys and lost coffee-shop patrons. Extending out from her aura were two nearly transparent wings, more like a dragonfly’s than a butterfly’s, but unmistakably fairy in origin. I’d never seen any evidence of the Oracle’s fairy half before and had long believed it was manifested only in her immortality and general lack of concern for humans.
Apparently I was wrong.
“Should we be helping him?” Desmond asked, stirring Calliope from her feeding trance. Desmond got his first good look at the immortal’s famous face and whispered, “Holy shit.” Guess he was feeling a bit better.
“I know. It’s a little off-putting the first time.”
He looked around the room, his traveling gaze lighting upon the Andy Warhol portrait, then back to Calliope, who appeared none too pleased. “Wow.”
“Secret, what is this?”
“You’re the Oracle, Cal. Didn’t see this one coming?”
She rose from the stunned boy’s lap, and he stared straight ahead like the enthralled detectives back at the police station. Ignoring me, she fixed her attention on Desmond. “Give me your hands, wolf,” she demanded.
Guess she was allowed to be a little cranky when I showed up unannounced, breaking one of her cardinal rules and interrupting her midnight snack. Desmond looked at me for help, but I nodded. It wasn’t that long ago Calliope had my own hands in hers and told me a truth I wasn’t willing to hear. I glanced at my left palm, my right hand still occupied with the swords, and wondered if I was making a huge mistake by accepting Lucas’s proposal. The shortened lifeline stared back at me, giving me no answers, just mocking me with its presence.
“You must never come here again,” Calliope warned Desmond, but she wasn’t focused on him. Instead she was running her fingernails over the werewolf’s palms, occasionally sniffing or quirking a brow. “Interesting,” she said at last, dropping his hands. She turned from him to me and then back again. “Very interesting.” This time she smiled.
“What?” he asked.
“Never you mind,” she said, winking at him, all of her former grumpiness fading and her usual carefree, no-worries self shining back through, then she turned her full attention to me. “I told you you’d be back.”
“Who am I to argue with fate?”
“Fates,” she corrected. “And don’t. They never forget a slight.”
“I gather you don’t know why I’m here.”
“I was a little preoccupied.” She gave the dozing boy a mournful glance. “He tasted like grape Kool-Aid. Delightful.”
Instead of letting her wax poetic about her young visitor’s youthful flavor, I cut to the chase. “What do you know about a demon who can steal identities?”
She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “All demons can to some extent, though most do it by necessity.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Most demons can’t manifest on Earth without a host. Like how some diseases won’t function in the body until they attach to cells. Demons can’t maintain a presence
on earth without a carrier. And usually the carrier is the person who summoned them. A sorcerer or a witch in most cases.”
“How long does the…manifestation last?”
“Depends on the strength of the summoner. Some of the weaker ones will invoke a low-level demon for a half-hour, sort of like an adrenaline rush or a drug high. If a practitioner were to invoke a demon outside their capacity for control, though? The consequences could be disastrous.”
“Could a demon ever manifest as multiple humans?”
“A really old, powerful one might be able to, given enough time.”
“How long would a demon have to be earthbound in order to manifest, say…six or seven different forms?”
Calliope let out a low whistle. “If it were possible?”
“Trust me. It is.”
The Oracle shook her head. “Centuries. If it can shift manifestations easily? Possibly a thousand years or more.” She gave me a serious look. “Are you hunting an old one?”
“The oldest,” I agreed with a nod.
“No wonder I couldn’t see you coming tonight,” she said with a sigh.
“Why?” Desmond asked, breaking his silence.
“I can only see those with a certain future.” Calliope took my hand and squeezed it. “The minute you crossed a demon, your future went out the window.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Tell me something I don’t already know.” I forced a smile, but it must have come out wrong because Calliope didn’t look impressed. “I need your help finding the demon. I’ll take care of my own uncertain future after that.”
Desmond took the broadsword out of my hand, lightening my burden considerably.
Calliope sighed again. “Do you have anything to connect you to the demon?”
“I’ll say. Damn thing sucked out a whack of my memories and walked around Midtown Manhattan wearing my face.”
