Night Magic: A Wing Slayer Novel

by Jennifer Lyon

  The smell of sulfur grew.

  The handfast binding on her left wrist began to throw off sparks, causing electrical pulses that fired her nerve endings until her nipples ached and it was all she could do not to squeeze her thighs together and sob. Aching, desperate need coiled tight inside her, and a small part of her mind pleaded for the release the demon offered, even though she knew she would damn herself forever if she surrendered.

  Gathering her strength, she silenced that beseeching voice within and stood still under the onslaught, keeping her powers flowing from the earth through her to banish Asmodeus back to the Underworld and free the spirit of the mortal man the demon had possessed. Her head pounded, sweat coated her skin, and her hands shook.

  The mortal on the ground thrashed and muttered in a guttural language.

  Then the scent of sulfur bloomed thick and heavy, almost stealing her breath. It felt as though the battle went on forever, Ailish matching her powers against a demon lord. Five seconds later, she had won and the stench vanished.

  “What happened?” a confused male voice asked.

  Drained, tired, and still aching for the touch she could never have, Ailish realized that now this voice sounded nothing like the Kyle Whaling of her dreams. That had been a trick of Asmodeus. Another reason to hate that three-headed bastard. “Maybe you had too much to drink and the cab dropped you off at the wrong house?”

  He climbed to his feet. “I don’t remember.…”

  The man sounded confused and disoriented. “How about I call you another cab?” she suggested.

  “But my car is here,” he said, as if trying to understand what was happening and coming up empty. “Right here in front of your house. I guess I drove it here?”

  Wonderful, he drove under the influence of a demon. Never mind the drugs given to him by the demon witches before they did their summoning. But the upside was that her magic should have cleared the toxins from his body. Using a magical push behind her words, she said, “Go straight home and to bed.” He’d wake up tomorrow and be fine, if a little vague about what had happened.

  She heard him turn and walk away. Her damaged eyes could make out the shadow moving across the grass toward another, dimmer shadow at the curb. Finally, she heard the car start up and pull away.

  She was alone. Slowly, she turned and walked up the two steps, the four steps across the porch, and inside the house. She closed the door and locked it. Leaning back against the door, she shuddered.

  She’d won this round. With the demon freshly banished, she should have a window of time. It would be very dangerous if she used her voice power when the demon was near her in a mortal’s body. It had been risky enough to sing to escape the dream. When she sang, her voice enhanced all magic regardless of its source. If she used that power again while Asmodeus was nearby in a mortal’s body, she might enhance his power enough that he could gain control of her will and make her submit to the Claiming Rite.

  She wasn’t willing to take that chance.

  She would try using her voice power to break the handfast binding now, while Asmodeus was recently banished.

  Phoenix Torq downed the whiskey in his glass, swung around on the stool in the dive biker bar, and zeroed in on the two rogues he was tracking. Their rank copper stink had led him right to them. They’d slaughtered a witch just an hour ago. He’d found her husk of a body drained of blood.

  Damn, that pissed him off. A witch alone, without protection, butchered to feed a sick blood addiction. He’d needed the whiskey to get the taste of innocent death out of his throat.

  Not much he could do about the smell of her blood lurking in his head, whispering promises to him like crack to a junkie. But hell, at least he wasn’t hearing that singing shit tonight. That was a damned fine bonus.

  The two rogues were talking to a woman. Her body language started off stiff and uninterested, then confusion crossed her hard face before she started walking with them toward the back of the bar, no doubt heading out to the alley.

  The soulless bastards had used the witch hunter ability to shift the human woman’s memory and make her believe she wanted sex.

  He pulled out his cell and texted that he had the two rogues in sight and was taking them down. He sent the text to the other Wing Slayer Hunters out hunting tonight and shoved his phone back into his pocket. Then he slid silently off the bar stool, his leathers barely making a whisper. The chain hanging from his waist clinked, but no one paid any attention. The wood floor was grimy and littered with peanut shells and trash. Sweat and perfume assaulted him as he walked past the pool table.

  “What’s your hurry?” A woman with blond hair, blue eye shadow, and a denim jacket opened over a tank top reached for his arm.

  He turned his gaze on her. “Sorry, sugar, got some business.”

  She sighed and dropped her hand.

  He went past the restrooms and slipped quietly out the door to the alley.

  The cool air was blighted by the combined stench of rotting food, copper, and urine. Scanning the narrow street lined with weak light that spilled from the streetlights and buildings, he looked left and spotted the tops of the rogues’ heads on the other side of the blue Dumpster.

  The woman said, “Not here, can’t we—”

  A man laughed. “No one asked you, honey.”

  Palming his knife from the holster at his back, Phoenix shielded his presence to appear invisible and moved silent and fast. Rounding the Dumpster, he saw the woman with her face shoved into the wall, her skirt up and the first rogue unzipping his pants. The rogue grabbed his dick, so jacked up from the witch kill that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings.

  “Please …” She sounded confused.

  The second rogue leaned against the wall, facing the woman. “Shut up and do what you’re told.” He shifted to look at his buddy. “Hurry up, I’m—” His eyes widened.

  Phoenix materialized, grabbed the man off the woman, and threw him across the alley. He heard the guy crash into the wall. Phoenix caught the woman’s arm, pushed her down between the Dumpster and the wall, then spun around. With her safely behind him, he could do his job.

  Send these two rogues to their eternity as shades.

  The one on his left had his knife out and aimed his strike for Phoenix’s heart.

  He didn’t want to move and expose the woman. He ripped off his chain, snapped it around the knife hand, and jerked. The rogue fell to the ground, and Phoenix flipped his knife to stab the blade through the rogue’s back—

  A song exploded inside his head. So sudden and loud, he stumbled.

  The rogue rolled, grabbed the chain, and yanked him to the ground.

  The two of them jumped him. He tried to fight, but the voice in his head was blaring. The intensity of it rattled his brain. The cadence increased as the singer implored and commanded so powerfully that he was nearly entranced by it.

  Pain of a knife cut sliced across his chest, breaking the song’s hold on him, and he slammed his elbow into the face of the rogue trying to stab him. It caused the knife to bounce off his breastbone. He grabbed the neck of one of the rogues, brought his knife up to stab him in the heart …

  The singing in his head crested until even his cells shivered in response. His biceps started to twitch and burn. He couldn’t get his arm to move, and realized he was being held down by the force moving through him. Did he smell … coconut? “What the fuck?”

  One rogue held his shoulders while the other raised his knife for the death strike to Phoenix’s heart. He commanded his muscles to move, fight, do something!

  But trapped by the power of the voice invading his mind, Phoenix could only lie there and wait for the death blow, all the while wondering if that was coconut he smelled. Strange that it had come to this. He would die not to save a witch, but in saving a human woman. Did it matter? No. At least he’d finally be free of the bloodlust.

  The sound of feet pounding on the asphalt broke through the voice radiating in his mind and
body. Two more witch hunters arrived, pulling the rogues off Phoenix and killing them in seconds.

  Kieran DeMicca stood over him, blood spattering his T-shirt and disgust in his gray eyes. “What? Are you sleeping on the job?”

  The voice vanished from his head, taking the faint tropical scent with it. Gone. He lifted his hands, seeing he still held the chain in one and a knife in the other. Wait, what happened to the woman? “Key, there’s a civilian woman—”

  “Got her secured,” Ramsey Virtos said. “She’s not hurt, just scared.”

  Phoenix rolled to his feet and took stock. The cut on his chest was already starting to close. Both rogues were dead, lying in heaps on the ground. They’d have to get rid of the bodies. But first, he had to pull his head out of his ass. He’d almost been killed because of that damn voice. He couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  Key stared at him. “Two? You let two rogues get you on the ground?”

  He was starting to get his equilibrium back. “I had them. But then that …” He trailed off, not wanting to say it. He’d taken enough shit about it.

  “You’re shitting me,” Key said. “The voice? The singing only you can hear?”

  He shook his head, disgusted to admit it. “Worse this time. Before it was distant. This was like an explosion in my head. Then I was pinned under the force of it, unable to move, but I could feel something happening. My arms burned.” He stowed his chain and knife, then shook his arms, trying to get that tingling burn to stop.

  Ram shifted around him, moving like a breeze. “Looks like an asphalt burn around your tat.”

  He glanced down at the angry red welts. All the Wing Slayer Hunters had wings of the bird they chose tattooed on their bodies as a symbol of their commitment to their Wing Slayer god. He’d chosen a phoenix wing on each biceps. Strange that the knife wound on his chest was healing faster than the little welts. He shrugged it off and looked up.

  Ram lasered him with a steel blue stare. “You’re distracted, and you’re off rotation.”

  “I don’t take orders.” His nerves were on fire, licking through his veins with the craving for witch blood. “No one controls me.”

  “That right?” Key’s tone was cold and violent. “So you just fucking lay down and let the rogues try to skewer you like a leather-and-meat shish kebab? Yeah, you’re the master of control.”

  He was so done with them ripping him a new asshole. “I’d have gotten control and killed them if you two hadn’t shown up.”

  “Bullshit!” Key roared, and shoved up in his face. “This how you want to die? Like your mom?”

  Like your mom. Brain-freeze agony speared his head. The old guilt twisted his guts. He whipped around and stalked away.

  Truth was, he didn’t much give a shit how he died as long as he had his soul. But his mother?

  She had deserved better.

  Fury rode him like a bad sunburn, every movement making it worse. He stormed into the Axel of Evil nightclub, the strobe lights pulsing hellish red and purple, fires burning in the two caged pits, and the bartenders serving last call. The music pounded so loud, he wouldn’t be able to hear that fucking voice if it used a bullhorn in his head.

  What he needed was sex. Feeding the sex part of the blood and sex curse helped ice the blood-craving. Right now, that need boiled. He’d need a hell of a lot of sex to cool it.

  He strode through the club, the other witch hunters eyeing him warily. The women were all mortals, all there with their own needs, their own demons to feed. Heading straight for the first black-lacquered dance floor, he spotted a few women standing around the edge.

  One looked directly at him. Wavy blond hair, jaded brown eyes, expensive jeans, and a ready-when-you-are pose.

  Need pounded through him, the edge so sharp, it felt as if he were being shredded internally. He lengthened his stride and nearly collided with a six-foot-plus Axel Locke. He owned the club, but more important, he had the tattoo of the hawk on his back that signified him as the leader of the Wing Slayer Hunters.

  “What?” Phoenix snarled. “Club off-limits? Women off-limits? Need your permission to get laid?”

  Axel’s square jaw twitched. “Carla wants to talk to you.”

  “Need sex, not a shrink or a witch.” He could sure as hell use a soul mirror, though. Only two hunters so far had found that single witch that was the other half of their soul. The soul-mirror bond broke the curse for the witch and the hunter. Would it also chase out this voice in his head?

  Oh yeah, because in his life, good things like a soul-mirror witch happened.

  Fuck that, he knew how to survive. Sex was survival. He shifted to walk around his hawk. Sex first, then he’d find the source of that voice and silence it forever.

  Axel blocked him. “You’re going to see her.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “Got other plans.”

  “To die?” Axel’s voice dipped to anger. “Ram’s report said you were seconds from your last breath tonight.”

  He growled out, “Not your problem, Locke. Step off my balls.”

  Axel didn’t move. “Wrong answer.”

  Phoenix liked violence, but right now he needed sex more. “Try this. I’m so close to the edge that it’s either sex or going hunting for a witch to butcher for her blood.”

  Axel stepped aside. “Go.”

  He walked to the woman he’d eyed earlier, the need climbing and swelling in him. The music cut, the strobes died, and the house lights came up in a signal that the club was closing.

  The sudden silence echoed in the bright glare.

  Then singing surged in his head and cut off his thoughts. Not again. He froze to the floor, clenching his fists and jaw in an effort to will it away. He would not allow a repeat performance of losing control to a voice. Forcing his jaw to relax, he stepped up to the woman and said, “Name’s Phoenix. Looking for company?”

  “Iris.”

  He barely heard her over the insistent singing. Sweat prickled his neck, back, and pits while his biceps burned. The voice circled his brain, the singing intense and commanding. Heart-pounding urgency rode over the hot, desperate need for sex, turning into a compulsion to find the source of that voice. Problem was, Axel would see him leave, assume he’d gone after some witch blood, and try to stop him.

  He reached out and snagged Iris’s warm hand. She followed him toward the stairs that led to the second-floor condos. Phoenix looked around, saw that Axel had noted where he was heading, then turned his attention to closing the club.

  The pitch of the singing vibrated his brain, and his muscles jumped and twitched. Stopping, he turned to the woman and muttered, “Sorry.” Then he let go of her hand and broke into a ground-eating stride to go out the back way.

  Had to leave.

  Find the voice.

  Now.

  He headed out to his Yamaha R6. Straddling the machine, he fired it up and then screamed off into the velvety darkness.

  The compulsion to find the voice grew with every mile he covered. His brain echoed with the ups and downs, the smooth slide of notes that resonated with power pumping through his bloodstream in an ever-growing urge to find it. The growl of his motorcycle didn’t matter, nothing dimmed the sound. He kept following the voice.

  To where? End of the fucking rainbow? Or maybe a trip to the morgue?

  Key’s words came back to him. This how you want to die? Like your mom?

  He’d been hearing distant singing in his head for two months. Being a witch hunter prevented him from developing the schizophrenia that had tortured his mother, so he’d simply ignored it. Figured it was his superenhanced hearing picking up a radio station or something. But tonight the voice had demanded he acknowledge it and damn near killed him in the process. He would hunt down the source and destroy it or die trying.

  But his mother’s death? That was at his feet. She’d died because of him. Because she had needed him and he’d failed her.

  He’d spent every day since then paying for that. He’d pa
y forever, and it wouldn’t ever be enough. He could hunt down every man who ever hurt a woman until all women were safe and protected, and his mom would still have died on that street because he hadn’t helped her when she’d begged him to.

  If this voice led him to his death, he deserved it. No big loss. But what he couldn’t stomach was this voice interfering in his life and causing him to fail. What if he failed while rescuing a witch from a rogue, or a woman from an abuser?

  Unacceptable. He couldn’t live with failure like that. Not again.

  Leaning into a turn as he left the main road to enter an older neighborhood, he realized that the voice was no longer inside his head. Instead, he could actually hear the woman singing somewhere nearby. He pulled the bike over to the curb and shut it off. The song flowed around him, like water over rocks in a stream.

  Earth, water, air, and flames ascend to the sound of my voice.

  With the flow of my blood, enhance this knife.

  No longer shall this binding rule, deny the handfast in blood and truth. Cut the shackle of lies and deceit, wings of freedom come for me!

  Before he could feel relief at tracking the source or worry about what it meant, urgency shot through him, making his muscles jerk and twitch with the need to track the sound. He threw his leg over the bike, stood, and walked silently up the street. Several large trees cast shadows from the moon and streetlights, while the roots buckled the sidewalks and driveways. He followed the soft voice to a home at the end of the street.

  It was a small yellow house with the garage on the left, a patch of grass out front, a little porch, and a front window. The sound came from behind the house. He ignored the door and went around the two-car garage to the five-foot fence that surrounded the backyard.

  No longer shall this binding rule, deny the handfast in blood and truth. Cut the shackle of lies and deceit, wings of freedom come for me!

  Witchcraft. He felt the power tremble through his insides, and his blood began to burn in his veins. He caught the scent of spicy witch blood, and his gut cramped with need. The craving of the curse hit him harder than he’d expected. Never had he smelled any blood this alluring, thick and tangy with a cadence all its own—something familiar—coconut.