The Redeeming

by Jennifer Ashley

  “No, I really meant run.” Tain pointed one of his swords at the vamp. Blue-white light shot from its tip, striking the vampire fully in the chest and sending him flying. The next burst wrapped around the vampire, picked him up, turned him around, and gave him a hard shove.

  The vampire finally got the idea and fled down the alley, the sound of his footsteps quickly swallowed by city noise. The demon girl tried to slip into the shadows in his wake.

  “Not you.” Tain wrapped white magic around her and gently held her in place. “Let’s have a look at you.”

  The woman shrank against the wall, arms crossed over her body in an attempt to cover herself. She was naked except for a pair of underwear that had seen better days, and someone had cut off her hair. Her dark eyes were haunted, the hands that cupped her shoulders brown with dried blood.

  “I left it,” she said, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I left it. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Tain sheathed his swords. He retrieved his duster and wrapped it around her shivering body, letting his healing touch close the small abrasions on her face.

  “What are you doing?” She cringed from him. “You’re life magic.”

  “I don’t pick and choose those I heal.” Tain brushed his fingers over her hair, but stopped himself from sliding his magic directly into her demon aura. Some things he still couldn’t bear to do. “What happened to you?”

  “My sister . . . I can’t leave it.”

  “Leave what?” Tain gentled his voice, his Welsh lilt pronounced, and traced his finger over the bruises on her throat the vampire had left.

  “They killed her,” she said in a choked voice. “They were supposed to kill me. I couldn’t stop them.”

  “Couldn’t stop who? Who did this?”

  She tried to wipe away her tears, but her hand shook too much. “You don’t care. You’re life magic.”

  “I do care,” Tain insisted.

  The demon woman fell silent, weeping in quiet hiccups.

  Samantha, I need you.

  The thought came out of nowhere, as though someone had put it into Tain’s mind. With it came an image of Samantha’s smooth face, her dark eyes, red lips curving into one of her sardonic smiles.

  Tain did need her, right now at least in her capacity as a detective in LAPD’s paranormal division. This was the kind of problem she could solve.

  “I’m going to summon someone who can help you,” Tain said.

  Or whatever was the jargon for telling Samantha to come. In the seven hundred years since Tain had been taken prisoner, the world had changed. Gone were buildings of stone heated by burning peat or wood, rooms that were warm only near the fire. This city had houses of brick, thin wood, and stucco, yet the buildings were cool against the summer heat and flooded with artificial light. People now cooked without fire and washed away the remains of their meals in a complicated mass of pipes.

  Seven hundred years ago, Tain might have summoned a half demon with his magic—now he pulled out a cell phone and flipped it open. Leda, who’d given him the phone, had programmed Samantha’s number into it for him.

  When Leda had handed Tain the phone, she’d smiled and said, “I’m going to teach one of you Immortals to use a cell phone if it’s the last thing I do. Keep it on you and stay in touch.”

  Tain didn’t like the annoying little devices, but he humored his new sister-in-law. It took him two or three tries to figure out which buttons to push, but soon he heard Samantha’s breathless voice. “Hello?”

  “Samantha,” he said, one hand lightly on the weeping girl’s shoulder. “I need you.”

  Samantha angled her truck across the end of the alley and stopped, letting its headlights flood the narrow passage.

  She’d been driving home when her cell phone had rung, and she’d pulled into a convenience store parking lot and answered. When she’d heard Tain say, I need you, her heart had squeezed with near pain. She’d instantly imagined him saying that to her in the darkness of a bedroom, his hand on her hair as he lay against her.

  I’m crazy, Samantha told herself as she got out of the truck. He hates demons. He’s touched me with his healing power, and I’m reacting to that. Nothing more.

  She kept her hand on the butt of her Glock as she hurried down the darkened alley to where Tain crouched on the filthy pavement, facing a young woman huddled in his duster coat. Samantha felt a brief stab of envy. She’d love to be the one wrapped in a coat that held Tain’s warmth while he gazed at her so intently

  The envy evaporated when she got a good look at the young woman. She was a demon, but her demon-beautiful face was covered with scabbed-over cuts, her hair crudely chopped off in uneven hanks.

  Samantha knelt next to Tain, gentling her voice to not startle the young woman. “What happened?”

  “Her name is Nadia,” Tain said.

  Nadia had been crying, tears streaking the dirt on her face. “I don’t know who they were.”

  Tain related in a few brief sentences how he’d followed a vamp down this alley and found her. “She won’t talk to me.”

  Samantha found that surprising. If Tain had draped his coat over Samantha’s shoulders and given her comfort, she’d be pouring her heart out to him.

  Samantha slid her ID and badge from her pocket and held them so the girl could see. “I’m paranormal police. You need to tell me what happened to you.”

  “Not here,” Nadia said, her voice hoarse. “They took me, and Bev. They killed Bev and sent me back to take it home.”

  “It?” Samantha glanced at Tain, but he shook his head. “Take what home, Nadia?”

  “I left it over there.” She pointed with a grimy finger down the alley.

  Samantha started to rise, but Tain said, “No, let me.”

  He strode swiftly through the trash-strewn alley until he stopped a few yards away. He stared at the ground a moment, then leaned down and picked up a small canvas bag.

  Tain carried the bag back to them, holding it out from his body as though it might explode. Samantha caught a stink of death and terror.

  Nadia moaned and covered her face. “I couldn’t stop them. I should have stopped them.”

  Tain unzipped the bag and pulled it open. Samantha gasped and took a step back, bile rising in her throat. A heart lay on blood-stained cloths inside, black and horrible.

  “It’s Bev’s,” the girl sobbed. “My sister. They killed her.”

  “This one is going to keep us up all night,” Lieutenant McKay said in her office. Samantha had brought Nadia and the grisly evidence back downtown, and Nadia had been given medical attention, clothes, and something to eat.

  Samantha had half expected Tain to leave as soon as they reached the paranormal division headquarters, but he’d accompanied her to McKay’s office. He’d said nothing, simply followed Samantha upstairs.

  “Forensics has the heart,” the lieutenant said. “But there isn’t much doubt that it came from a demon woman. A killing like that must have made a mess, difficult to clean up. We’ll search the buildings around there. This Nadia is from the Lamiah clan, she says, so we’ll have to question their rival clans.” McKay sighed, looking tired. Demons clans were notorious for closing ranks and being uncooperative.

  “Her sister was probably killed far from there,” Tain said. “Perhaps they teleported Nadia to the alley, choosing one at random.”

  McKay focused on him, her dark eyes no-nonsense. “And who are you exactly? First, you post yourself in Merrick’s club in time to stop an all-out gang war, and then you just happened to find this girl in an alley near MacArthur Park?”

  Tain’s gaze flicked up and down the small Sidhe woman with black skin and red-orange hair, a flash of irritation in his eyes. He was a being far stronger and more dangerous than McKay could ever understand, one who could wipe out the entire room by twitching his pinky. Samantha watched Tain tamp down the darkness inside him deliberately, burying his power under stoic grimness.

  “I’m a demon hunte
r,” he said.

  “Demon hunting is illegal,” McKay shot back.

  “Demons follow your rules because it’s to their benefit,” Tain said. “The rules let them drink the life essences of fools and live in comfort among you. But they are death magic, and when the balance shifts, they become the masters. Never forget that.”

  “I don’t,” McKay said. “Samantha is half demon, though, and pretty reliable.”

  “Even she has the potential to turn, and she’s more powerful than she understands.”

  Tain rested his full gaze on Samantha, the one that made her feel the weight of his life magic. She folded her arms, as though that would shut it out. Why did she find it harder to face him here, in her boss’s office, on her own territory, than it had been last year when he’d wrapped magic around her that could have instantly killed her?

  “Excuse me,” Samantha said, keeping her voice from shaking. “Could we make this not about me? A beaten-up demon girl found with her sister’s heart in an alley is a little more serious than my heritage.”

  McKay nodded. “You were right about the demon prostitutes who went missing around Merrick’s. Nadia admitted she was a streetwalker with her sister, but she can’t tell us who captured her or where they held her. She says her captors wore masks and black clothes, and she couldn’t tell if they were vampire, demon, or human. Their true natures were cloaked, probably with a spell.”

  “So are we looking for demon hunters?” Samantha asked.

  McKay gave Tain a pointed look. “It seems so.”

  Tain returned the look. “Not the same kind of demon hunter as I am. These young women were tortured, and neither my brothers nor I would do that. Our kills are clean.”

  McKay’s expression was carefully blank. “Maybe I should talk to your brothers.”

  “They don’t live here,” Samantha said quickly. “Well, except for Hunter and his wife. But they’re not responsible. I already know that.”

  “But they might be a good resource. Samantha, I’d like you and Logan to ask Tain’s brother about what he knows regarding demon hunters in Los Angeles. I’m going to try to set up an interview with someone in the Lamiah clan—find out if there is a clan war brewing, which we do not need. We’re still recovering from the gangs getting out of hand last year.” McKay shook her head. “The clan matriarchs are damn touchy. It’s anyone’s guess whether they’ll let any of their demons talk to me or tell me the truth.” She fixed Samantha with a look. “Samantha, you’re Lamiah clan, you say. Perhaps you could put in a good word for me?”

  Samantha lifted her hands in protest. “I have no contact with the demon side of my family—they don’t exactly like half-bloods. I’ve never met any of them except my father.”

  Even that was tricky. Samantha’s father, a demon called Fulton, had turned out to be not so bad, for a demon, but Samantha still walked on eggshells around him. She, her mother, and Fulton had made good progress this year at finally becoming a family, but it was slow going.

  McKay rubbed her hand over her close-cropped hair. “It could be another good resource, Sam. We don’t want this spiraling out of control. If your father could ask around in his family if anyone knows anything about these kidnappings, or whatever they are, I’d be grateful. Young girls disappearing from the streets is not good, demon or no.”

  Samantha let out a breath. “Got it. Ask Tain’s brother about demon hunters; ask my father to talk to the Lamiah clan.”

  McKay gave Samantha a curt nod and told her to go home and get some sleep. Tain walked out with Samantha all the way to her pickup, opened the door for her, then went around and got into the passenger seat without invitation.

  Samantha put her key in the ignition with force. “Somewhere I can drop you off?”

  “I want to make sure you get home all right.”

  “I usually do. I’m careful, I’m a cop, and I’m armed.”

  “But someone is cutting out demon hearts,” Tain pointed out. “And you happen to be a demon.”

  He had a point. Samantha had been forced to leave squeamishness behind long ago in this job, but what had been done to Nadia and her sister would stay with her for a long time.

  “All right then,” she said in a light voice. “Buckle up.”

  Samantha started the truck and shot down the ramps and out of the garage, but Tain never reached for his seatbelt. He’s an Immortal, she told herself. Why should he?

  She drove quickly through almost empty streets but slowed her truck as they hit freeway traffic, still thick even this late. “I only have half a demon heart,” she said, continuing their conversation. The half you’re never going to let me forget.

  “Not your fault,” Tain said absently. He looked out the window, his blue eyes flickering as he took in what they passed.

  “Generous of you.” Samantha swerved around a car that had come to a complete halt in front of her.

  Tain didn’t answer. Samantha’s demon side cringed from his overwhelming life magic, barely contained in her small vehicle, while the human part of her was drawn to the warmth of his hard body so close on her little pickup’s bench seat. Tain rested his arm between them, which ensured that Samantha kept both hands firmly on the wheel.

  “Where do you live?” she asked. “Or are you staying with Leda and Hunter?”

  Tain didn’t look at her. “I have my own place.”

  Samantha waited for him to tell her where that was, but he fell silent again. “I always did like cryptic men,” she said.

  “You should like me, then.”

  She shot him a sideways look. “Was that a joke? Tain the brooding Immortal warrior made a joke?”

  He lifted his brows. “You expected I’d sit home and reflect on my tragic, tortured past—what’s the expression Leda uses—twenty-four, seven?”

  The glint in his eye was half humor, half anger. At least Tain had decided to look at her fully.

  “I guess I’m just wondering if you’re all right,” Samantha said.

  Tain looked away again. “I’m not.”

  Cryptic, right. “So why did you come to Los Angeles? To be near Hunter?”

  “Here’s as good a place as any to find out what I’m supposed to be.”

  “You know who you’re supposed to be,” Samantha said nervously. “You’re a big bad Immortal warrior people call on when there’s trouble.”

  “No, that’s what I used to be.” Tain’s voice was gravel-harsh, as though it had broken along with the rest of him. “What am I now?”

  The quiet question worried her, so Samantha kept her tone light. “In other words, you’ve come here to find yourself?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Some people find themselves by going to Tibet, climbing mountains, meditating with a guru . . . “

  “Seems like a lot of work.”

  “I was joking.”

  Tain’s rare smile flashed for an instant then was gone. “No one has to go very far to find themselves. The hard part is what you do once you’ve looked in the mirror and accepted the scars.”

  She wondered if he meant the literal scars on his body or something much deeper. “So, helping figure out what’s going on with these girls is kind of a pit-stop for you?”

  He gazed at her without expression, and Samantha realized that a man who’d been hidden away for seven hundred years might not understand the reference. “I mean . . .”

  “I know what you meant.” Tain shrugged large shoulders, which rippled muscles in places Samantha shouldn’t be looking at. “It’s something to keep me busy.”

  “Bullshit,” Samantha said in a mild voice. “When you were at the club last night, you could have taken down every demon in the place—Merrick, his rivals, the bartender—everyone. If you wanted to keep busy, you could enjoy yourself destroying demons and demon clubs. You didn’t even kill Merrick when you had the chance. Why didn’t you?”

  Another shrug. “I needed to talk to him.”

  “Bullshit again. You could have questio
ned him then killed him, but you didn’t.”

  “Not worth the bother,” Tain said.

  Samantha drew a breath and asked what she really wanted to know. “Last year, you could have killed me. I was at your mercy, and I couldn’t have escaped.” Traffic had stopped, and she looked at him fully. “So why didn’t you?”

  Chapter Five

  Tain’s tone never changed as he answered. “You were innocent in that struggle. My brothers were using you, and so was my mother.”

  Samantha shivered. During the battle, the goddess Cerridwen, Tain’s mother, had briefly infused Samantha with incredible power that had helped defeat the Old One. Samantha still had troubling dreams about it. “I was happy to help. I was ready to take you down, whatever the cost.”

  Tain chuckled, a grating sound. “You couldn’t have taken me down.”

  “I was willing to die trying.”

  Samantha felt his gaze touch her though she’d resumed watching traffic, which had picked up speed. “Why?” he asked. “All you had to do was run away and save yourself.”

  Samantha made herself shrug. “I had nothing to lose. If your brothers couldn’t stop you, what was left for me?”

  “You have a home and family. I’d think that was something to lose.”

  Samantha pulled off the freeway at her exit, turning through the few blocks that led to her apartment complex. “What are you trying to get me to say? That stopping you was in my own self-interest? Well, it was. It was my butt on the line, too. Besides, Amber and the others were compelling.”

  “Yes, my brothers’ wives,” Tain said in a resigned tone. “Very compelling women.”

  “I like them.”

  “They’ve made my brooding, arrogant brothers happy,” Tain said, sounding almost human. “They’re changed men.”

  “They’re not lonely anymore.” Samantha pulled through the gates into her apartment’s parking lot and stopped. “Being alone is a hard thing, believe me. But I guess you’d know all about that.”

  “Oh, I was lonely, Samantha,” Tain said, opening the pickup’s door. “But never alone.”