Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5)

by Pippa Dacosta

  That was my promise to him.

  Chapter 14

  I left the fortress at sunbirth—dawn—walked right on through the gates with demon gazes clawing across my flesh. They’d never seen a half blood walk freely in the netherworld. Half bloods were chained, always escorted. Most were dragged behind their owners. I walked down the charred-earth path, wing relaxed behind me, and didn’t so much as glance back.

  I strode down the fortress pathway toward the burned forest. The blush red sky to the east was my only guide. And I knew there were beasts between Jerry and me that would indeed chew me up and spit me out. Half-blood deceiver, I’d been called by numerous princes. They were right. I was a walking trap. The demons wouldn’t be able to help themselves. I looked and smelled like weakness. Until I exploded. I’d have to keep my wits about me. I hoped to make it to Jerry’s sanctum before nightfall. Not even the princes willingly roamed the netherworld after sundeath.

  I wove between the naked trees, head up, footfalls light, wing tucked close. I would get to Jerry. But not for Asmodeus. The King of Hell would soon be my ally. At least, I hoped he would. The walk left room for my thoughts to churn and doubts to creep in. What if Jerry was all demon? What if he had no interest in restoring the veil? The princes had said he was trying, but I’d never trusted the words of a Prince of Hell, and I wasn’t about to start then.

  My only battle during that netherworld day, as I traveled on foot toward the east plains, was with myself. Human and demon, complete for the first time, I warred with human emotion while in my demon skin. It was…strange. Until the veil had fallen, I’d been two creatures, but now I was one. The demon was me. I’d always referred to her as a separate entity, but she wasn’t. Maybe she never had been. It was all me. It had taken the fall of the veil, my attempt to kill Stefan, and Akil’s death, for me to finally realize what and who I was. The sum of my parts was deadly. Li’el had doubted if I knew who I really was. I knew. I was the half-blood deceiver who could massacre a battlefield of demons.

  Sundeath came too soon, heralded by distant demon cries. Night crept over the netherworld, and with it, the land drew in a breath. I’d walked all day, only stopping to scoop water from a stream. My feet were sore from the harsh terrain, and my muscles protested. I kept an eye on the darkening skies, wishing I had both wings so I could at least try to fly. What a feeling that must be: the freedom of flight. I pined for my lost wing. I’d lived in a human world, doing human things, with human thoughts. I hadn’t needed my wing in Boston. Being back in the netherworld reminded me of what I’d lost.

  The forest changed to open grassland. Between me and the plains where Jerry’s sanctum was supposed to be, lay miles of savannah. As the light faded and sprites began to dance in the sky above, I knew I should find a hollow and curl myself into it to wait out the night. I swept my gaze over the sea of grass. To begin with, I ignored the ripples in the reeds, assuming the wind riffled through them. But there was no wind. Snakes in the grass… Rivulets of movement cut the grass down ahead of them, coming closer. Six, no, seven… Demons. It had to be. Breath held, pulse fluttering, I watched the veins slither and weave, converging and then pulling apart again. Whatever they were, they were smaller than me. If I reached out with my element, they’d know I was there. Perhaps they’d pass me by and disappear into the trees behind me. I glanced back and saw more veins opening in the grass, weaving toward me. How many? Ten? More? And they were definitely headed for me. I couldn’t stall any longer. I reached inside and surged my element outward in an invisible halo. Fifteen heat sources pinged on my mental map. Fifteen demons burning hot. At the battle of Boston, I’d incinerated more with a flicker of thought. They’d been in my city. And I protected what was mine with everything I had. But here…the netherworld was their home. I had no right to slaughter demons here. I wasn’t like Adam. I’d never be like Adam.

  One exploded out of the grass, all fangs, claws, scales and armor. I lifted a hand, pushed my element into its body, and blasted a narrow shot of heat into it. The beast— whatever it was—turned to ash the second before it would have slammed into me. An ash cloud of its remains puffed over my body, sticking to my skin, lips, and eyes.

  Another beast sprang up from my left. I spun and thrust flame through its flesh, turning it into a cloud as I had the first one. Another. Flash. Gone. It was a pointless assault, but even as they saw their kin fall, they didn’t stop. They couldn’t. I was a weak thing. Their instincts told them to tear me apart.

  A battle cry from above was all the warning I received before the hunter struck. Cold talons tore into my shoulder and chest as we tumbled to the earth. Its wings fluttered and beat. An elongated jaw with needle teeth snapped toward my throat. I punched it aside, slammed my hand into its neck, and burned the thing from the inside out. More cries echoed above. Hunters spiraled above like vultures, and all around me the demons crowded closer.

  I draped myself in flame and flexed elemental muscle, sending out a beat of rippling heat that repelled the demons enough for me to stand, but they weren’t going to flee. I spread my wing and my stance, bolstering my size, and sneered. “I am not what you see. I am killer. I am destroyer, but I will let you live. Just leave me be.”

  Hunter cries barreled through the night, and the beasts surrounding me snarled. I had them all pegged and could blast them to bits in the next heartbeat. Liquid fire dripped from my claws. We stood in that moment, the beasts and me, eyeing one another. More demons spilled in from the fringes of the savanna. A crowd of lessers bore down on me, and a sky full of demons spiraled above. I shone like a star in their center, a star ready to swallow them all. “Don’t make me kill you,” I hissed. They were just lessers, just demons. They didn’t know any better, which was why they wouldn’t back down. Akil had once deterred them with a growl, but not this many, not when bloodlust rode them.

  I spread my arms and breathed in a world’s worth of heat. Don’t make me do this. I’d killed enough. Wasn’t it time for the killing to stop? The beasts snarled. Tails twitched. Claws clicked. Moments dragged on until I realized they weren’t attacking. I still blazed, a thing of flame, but they neither attacked nor withdrew. They watched, almost as though waiting. What the fu—

  One of the cat-like beasts with scaled skin hunched down on its forepaws and planted its three heads between its legs. Eyeless and blind, it sniffed around my feet, seeking…permission? Another dropped down onto its belly, tail flicking. A rippling prrp from the back of its throat seemed almost…playful. I’d seen one of those beasts before at Blackstone. Akil’d had one in the kitchen while playing poker with the King of Hell.

  I’d controlled lessers the night I’d discovered who I was and ordered them to guard Stefan. Was that what this was on a much larger scale? I turned slowly, not wanting to spook the herd into jumping me. They might still kill me with their countless numbers. Tails danced and entwined. Haunches rolled. They wanted to play? A smile tugged at the tight corner of my mouth, revealing a hint of fang. Just demon… But I’d been wrong. There was more going on here than instinct. They knew me. They accepted me. Did the lesser demons of the netherworld—beasts feared by prince and higher elemental alike—want to play?

  Slowly—so damn slowly—I reached a hand toward the nearest catbeast. One of its heads easily dwarfed my hand. Any moment, it could snap its jaws around my arm and rip it clean off. It sniffed at my hand. I couldn’t touch the creature. My skin would burn it. But I did sweep a hand over its face, gently pushing warmth over its scaled feline features. Three heads purred as one, and a tiny bark of laughter slipped from me. Oh, if Akil could see me now…

  The circle of catbeasts dissipated as they flowed back in to the grass. Some stayed and seemed to deliberately trample the grass down. Hunters caterwauled and sailed off into the night, leaving me with a pair of huge three-headed demon cats for company.

  I released my hold on the heat. “Okay then, I guess we’re buddies.” They circled around and around and dropped their huge bulks
onto makeshift beds, heads between their paws, eyes on me. The message was clear. We ain’t movin’, so get your fiery hide over here and sit with us. I obliged with a hand touched to my heart.

  Be all you can be. Demon and human.

  I curled up between my catbeast companions, pulling my wing close, and listened to their bellows-like breathing. Tiny diamond-lighted sprites danced in the starless netherworld sky.

  The netherworld had accepted me as its own.

  Chapter 15

  “A meńage á trois is not how I envisaged finding you.”

  I snapped awake as did my cat guardians. The three-headed demon kitties hunched, ready to spring, and growled so low the sound tickled my skin.

  “Li’el.” I sneered, and then, remembering where I was, looked for enemies. A cool newmorn breeze riffled through the grass. Bright light spilled over the distant mountains: the sunbirth about to breach the horizon. The Prince of Pride appeared to be alone. His image shivered and blurred, but the smile on his lips was solid. “Where’s Stefan?” I asked.

  “Safe. As I said he would be.” He ruffled his wings and drew them close against his back. “Where did you find the neko?” He gestured toward my crowd.

  “They found me.”

  Pride’s pupil-less eyes narrowed with suspicion, but a smile softened the effect. “The princes even now assume you will die out here. Most hope it to be the case so they can put their trust in some other creature. All but Asmodeus. There is a change in him. I am neither surprised you have survived, nor am I surprised you have tamed the neko. They are the kings companions.”

  I was surprised. And I wasn’t sure tamed was the right word, but I wasn’t about to tell Pride that. “What do you want?”

  “I am your escort.” He said it with far too much delight in his eyes for my liking.

  “Well, as you can see, I don’t need an escort.”

  The neko grumbled and growled then proceeded to pad off through the grass, sniffing and shuffling with all the stealth of cattle.

  Li’el arched a brow. “No, you do not, but ventores will have to drag me from your side. You are far too intriguing to be left alone out here.”

  “Fine, tag along if you must, but don’t expect me to save your ass should the neko need a princely sized snack.” I turned my back on him but not before seeing his smile grow. We fell into an easy stride. The neko wandered off, but when I thought them gone, a rustle in the grass gave them away. Occasionally, they’d veer back in and give me a playful nudge, almost knocking me off my feet. They had all the cat-like attributes of Jonesy plus several hundred pounds of demon flesh. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d bounded back and dropped a lesser’s head at my feet. Pride watched all of this with a slight incline of his blurred brow, not least because the neko growled whenever he ventured within five strides of them. Had Jerry sent them for me? Pride had said they belonged to the king.

  What had begun as a gentle breeze grew into something of a mischievous gale that would gust, fall away, and then sweep across the savannah like waves on an ocean. The wind brought spicy scents, summoning fragments of memories I long ago thought I’d forgotten. I’d been raised in the netherworld, albeit locked away behind one owner or another. What my mind had forgotten, my body hadn’t. I breathed the netherworld in and let it infuse forgotten demon muscles and habits.

  “You wear demon well.” Pride wove through the grass a stride beside me. He solidified his being into the glorious black-skinned man and trailed his feathered wings behind him.

  “She is me. I am her.”

  “Half bloods… Only a handful of elementals were aware of their potential. When I first traveled to the human world, I rucked with human females—all smooth skin and curves.” He gazed ahead and trailed his hands over tufty grass heads. “One produced a half blood. The thing was quite the curiosity. Human elders burned it alive.” He didn’t see the trip in my stride. I’d perfected my mask, so nothing of my alarm showed on my face. But he did see the flare of fire in my veins, a mere throb, but it was enough. “Mammon’s fury is no trivial thing.”

  A thousand questions burst in my head, but I voiced none. He knew Mammon in the human world. This was huge, and he knew it, hence the dramatic pause, giving me room to reveal my shock. I strode on, heat wilting the grass as I brushed through it.

  “Was Mammon angry the child was killed or angry that you produced a half blood?” I asked, successfully barring the intrigue and disgust from my voice.

  “He did not like to draw attention to our existence in the human realm, whereas I enjoyed the attention. The half blood was too…unnatural for them. Once, I revealed myself in full view of a gathering. I became air, a mighty storm. I am beautiful. Why would they not want to see this perfection?”

  I hadn’t thought it possible, but I’d met a prince with a bigger ego than Akil. “Indeed.”

  “They worshipped me like a god, and what am I really if not a god?”

  “Demon?”

  “Elemental. We are their gods, their angels, their devils, and their dreams. We could rule them. They see us, and they see the divine. I had followers, those devoted to my contentment. My every whim, they provided for. Mammon did not share my perspective. He believed the truth of us would corrupt them. He wanted to observe, to be embroiled in their lives, to be part of their existence. He wanted to live as they live. Why, I asked him, when we are better in every way?”

  “Not every way.” I found the ghost of Akil’s words in my mind. “Demons do not dream. They do not reach for the stars or strive to better themselves. Demons simply are.”

  Pride grumbled a foreign word. “I hear him in you.” He snagged his hand on one of the peculiar turquoise flowers that had started peppering the savannah and plucked off its head. With a flourish, he turned and presented the bloom to me.

  I stopped and scowled. From somewhere nearby, the neko growled. “Flowers? For me?” He didn’t recognize the sarcasm, which made the fracturing of his smile all the more delightful when I plucked the bloom from his hand, popped it in my mouth, and ate it.

  He blinked. “Human females like flowers. I have proven this to be the case.”

  “Do you see any human females here?” He looked so sorry with his big black eyes and pouting lips. “Don’t try to manipulate me. The biggest most badass manipulator was my teacher. Your little”— I swept my claws at him— “act, is pitiful in comparison.”

  When he smiled this time, his fangs gleamed. “You are so like him.”

  “Okay, what’s the deal with you and Mammon?”

  Pride rolled his shoulders back and lifted his chin. “Mammon’s jaunts through the veil did not go unnoticed. Most of our kin dismiss the humans as weak and worthless. But I wanted to know why Mammon always returned to their world. I followed and found it to my liking. I stayed. He deemed my visitations too obscene, too public. The humans there worshipped me as the light-bringer. We rucked and feasted and killed. It was glorious. Mammon sought to end all of that.” Li’el’s stormy eyes churned. “He had no authority over my choices. He could have had everything, could have been worshipped as a god. You would think Greed, such as he was, would want everything. But no.” Pride’s wings ruffled. “We fought. They still tell the tale of the battle where I became the fallen one. He turned my humans against me, manipulated their pliable minds so that I became the enemy, the dark one, the opposer, the demon. I had no choice but to return.” Li’el traced a finger down the scar on his lip and chin.

  I now knew who’d given him that mark. “So what is this? You can’t get your revenge on him because he’s gone, so you thought you’d pick on his half blood?”

  Li’el barked a laugh that startled the neko and brought them bounding back to my side. “No. You are not his. You never were. You have always been your father’s bloodspawn. I am here because I believe you can stop Asmodeus.”

  A Prince of Hell believed in me. That was a chilling revelation. “Why did my father sire a half blood?”

  “
Your brother Valenti witnessed in your father’s flesh a one-winged half-blood, who would rain fire from the skies and slaughter an army in a single breath.”

  “Did he know that army was demon?”

  “Yes, Valenti warned him, but Asmodeus believed you could be controlled, as all half bloods must be. He immediately sought a human female so that he might fulfill the prophecy, enlisting Mammon’s help.”

  “What?”

  “Enlisting Mammon’s help,” Li’el repeated, louder.

  “No, I heard you. I mean… Mammon helped Asmodeus find a human female?”

  “Asmodeus asked Mammon to assist. He was the only demon with widespread knowledge of the human world, more so than even I. Mammon initially refused. We princes do not often seek help. We simply…twist desires, utilize leverage, and so it was with Asmodeus.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Asmodeus threatened to expose Mammon’s existence beyond the veil. His pantomime life would have been ended.” Li’el traced a fingertip down the tip of his scar.

  “Mammon knew my mother,” I whispered.

  “Mammon chose your mother.”

  I’d asked Akil if he knew her. I distinctly remembered the conversation in my apartment. He was being nice at the time. ‘Who was my mother?’ and his answer, ‘I don’t know. I suspect she succumbed during your birth or was killed soon after.’ He’d picked her! He may not have technically known her, but he’d damn well selected her. How? Luck? Did she catch his eye? Did something she said, something she did, incite his distaste? Eeny-meeny-miny-moe, come with me, nobody will know… The bastard had sidestepped the truth. ‘If she was anything like you, she’d have rained hell down on them all.’ The heat within throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I wanted to kill him all over again. I wanted to resurrect his Armani-suit clad ass and then murder him to death with my clawed hands.