by DB Reynolds
Taking a risk, he moved farther away from Grace, splitting the demon’s attention. “Grace. I need to focus,” he snapped, not wanting to say too much. The demon had to know what Kato was doing, what he was capable of. But he’d rather not spell it out for the creature.
Grace nodded in what he took for understanding, buoyed by the way she shifted the grip on her weapon and positioned herself to make it even more difficult for the demon to defend against both of them at once. The creature had ignored her, dismissing her as a threat, but it no longer had that luxury. Its head swiveled from side to side, its blade holding off Kato while it kept one eye on the new threat of Grace and her gun.
Kato was fighting the same two-front battle, but only one threatened his life. Relying on instincts born of years of battle, he kept the demon at bay as he scoured his brain for every ounce of knowledge he had about demons and possession. He might not be able to read or write, but he knew magic, and what he needed was the demon’s name. Was it in the scroll somewhere? The Dark Witch would never have included something so specific, but while the spell was hers, the scroll was not.
He read and reread the scroll in his memory, confident in his recall. Demon names were simple things, but if it was written into the spell, if some acolyte had been that foolish, it wouldn’t be spelled out as a single word. It would be buried, coded into the script, the letters scattered. He cursed himself for not thinking of this sooner, for not examining the spell more thoroughly when he’d had the luxury, sitting in Grace’s Malibu house and—
He jerked backward, the black blade nearly touching his face where he’d raised it to parry the demon’s attack. Ryan’s blood and flesh dripped on his clothing from the demon’s gruesome blade, while the creature grinned. “So close, witch’s son. Your skill is—”
A second shot rang out. Demon Ryan’s mouth opened wide in a shriek of pain-fueled rage, its corrosive spittle flying through the air, nearly hitting Kato’s face. He broke away, using the black blade to shove the demon back, swinging the sword in a low assault on its gut, pulling back the thrust at the last minute as he remembered that this was Grace’s friend, and that Ryan Walker could die by Kato’s hand as easily as the demon’s.
A quick glance showed him the thing stumbling backward, blood running from a bullet wound in its thigh, the blood trickling, not pumping. Not a fatal wound, but crippling. He and Grace were definitely going to have a talk about Ryan’s battle history when this was over. But first, all three of them had to survive.
He slipped back into his mind, threading his way through every character of the scroll. He was nearly there, missing only a letter or two that would make the difference between one name and the next. It would do more harm than good if he attacked the demon with the wrong name, forewarning the creature of its danger. And, as he’d told Grace, a demon powerful enough to manage a possession would kill its host rather than surrender its fleshly home.
Another shot rang out, this one meant only to distract the demon from a renewed assault on Kato, despite its wounded leg. The creature understood who posed the greater threat, that while Grace could inflict pain, she wouldn’t kill the Ryan host. Yet another shot cracked through the air, as Grace reminded the creature that while she couldn’t kill, she could most definitely cripple. But Kato understood that there was a limit to how much damage she could inflict. Every time she shot her friend, he lost more blood. Combined with the trauma the demon had caused by possession and his grisly trick with the sword, the human host had to be reaching the end of its endurance.
Kato redoubled his efforts, skimming the scroll so fast in his mind that it was almost dizzying. And then, like a sudden flame in the dark, it was there. The final piece of the puzzle. The demon’s name sprawled across the scroll, angled from corner to corner and gleaming as if written in fresh blood . . . Xezxuerahm. He repeated it silently to himself, tasting the syllables of the unfamiliar name.
“Grace,” he said quietly. “Get ready.” He caught her worried look in his peripheral vision, but he couldn’t explain, couldn’t afford to give their enemy any advance warning. The spell to cast out the demon was precise. Kato would have to get it right the first time.
He raised the black blade, holding it in a warding position as he began the rite. The words were in the language of the scroll, words of magic, which had no correlation to modern language. He couldn’t have made Grace understand even if he’d tried.
But the demon knew. It heard the first words Kato spoke and shrieked its defiance, charging Kato with little regard for Ryan’s life, understanding that its existence in this reality, and maybe its very life, was at risk. It knew Kato was the Dark Witch’s son, but it couldn’t know how much power he had in this reality, how much magic he could infuse into a rite which could kill as well as exorcise.
Kato wielded the words along with his blade, ignoring wounds inflicted as the demon’s sword slipped past his guard over and over again. Blood was running freely down his arms, soaking the leather wrist guards. But he never stopped casting, the words flowing over his tongue as if he’d learned them only yesterday, as if millennia hadn’t passed since he’d been a young boy studying under the gaze of the Dark Witch.
Finally, reaching the end of the rite, he lowered his blade and stepped back, meeting the demon’s fiery gaze, letting the flames of his own power fill his eyes as he uttered the very last word. “Xezxuerahm.”
The demon screamed, the force of his rage sending desks and equipment slamming across the room, shattering windows and setting off car alarms in distant parking lots. Grace was crouched down, biting her lip to hold back her cries as she tried to focus on the demon . . . who was suddenly there in the room with them.
Ryan Walker collapsed as the demon manifested in its own body, emerging completely into this world as it rose above the human’s limp and bloodied form. Xezxuerahm stood to its full height, several feet above Kato’s head, teeth bared, eyes burning as it fought to remain on this plane of reality. It was a deadly foe, its power beating against Kato’s thoughts, trying to force its way past his shields, to break through the rite by breaking his mind. But Kato was the only son of the Dark Witch. No mere demon could defeat him on this plane or any other. Not with magic. And not with a blade either.
The demon roared as it wielded its gruesome blade of Ryan’s flesh. The fact that the horrific blade still existed was a testament to the creature’s strength, but the black blade had power of its own. It was more than a match for the demon’s flesh-made sword, and Kato’s skill was unrivaled. The two blades met with a loud shriek of sound, a harsh note of magic against magic. Kato let the demon get close, let his weapon slide down the brutal edge of the black blade until they were only inches apart, and then he drew a second knife from his hip scabbard and stabbed upward, ramming the point under Xezxuerahm’s chin, up through its throat and into its brain.
He held the demon on the tip of his knife blade, his fist pressed up against the creature’s flesh, watching as the flames of hatred died in its eyes, as Xezxuerahm disintegrated into nothing but dust, and then not even that.
A pop hit Kato’s eardrums, and the demon was gone.
He fell to one knee, breathing hard, blood soaking his clothing, leaning heavily on his blade as he waited for his mother’s punishing curse to tear into him. He lifted his head slowly, looking for Grace, and found her kneeling on the floor next to a bleeding and battered Ryan Walker, who nonetheless was nodding in response to whatever Grace was saying. As they talked, Grace ripped the sleeve off of Ryan’s uninjured arm and tied it around the arm she’d shot earlier.
Ryan looked up and saw Kato watching. He said something to Grace, and then nodded directly at Kato, as if thanking him for saving his life and sanity. Ryan and Grace exchanged a few more words, and then the human laid back, one forearm braced over his eyes. Grace pressed her hand lightly on his shoulder, and then it was Kato’s turn, as she rushed across the room and fell to her knees at his side.
“Kato!” she said ur
gently, one hand resting on his bowed back. “Talk to me.”
He lifted his head slowly. “Ryan?”
“He needs a hospital. Hell, he needs an ambulance, but he understands the situation. Not everything,” she amended in response to his concerned look. “But he knows we can’t wait around for help to arrive. With all the screaming, not to mention gunshots, 911 will be overloaded with calls by now, so we’ve got to boogie. Can you walk?”
He scowled, hating his weakness. “Of course I can walk.” Using his blade as a staff, he dragged himself to his feet while Grace hovered, waiting for him to fall. That wasn’t going to happen. He’d been injured far worse than this and walked off the battlefield unassisted. Besides, his physical wounds weren’t the worst of it, and neither was his exhaustion. But the worst would come soon enough, courtesy of his loving mother. And Grace was right. They needed to be long gone before that happened, because he had a feeling this one was going to put him down for a while.
“You need a hospital, too,” she muttered, sliding her shoulder under his arm to help him up despite his protests.
“A hospital won’t help.”
“I know,” she said somberly, and he’d have sworn there were tears under her words. Tears for him? Had anyone ever cried for him?
“You go ahead and take Ryan. I’ll make my own way.”
“Fuck that. First, what are you going to do, walk all the way home? And second . . . no, make that first. There is no way in hell I’m leaving you here. Ryan knows the score. I’m taking you home.”
“You can’t leave him alone. What if he starts talking?”
“Ryan knows how to keep secrets. Besides, you said it yourself, there’s no magic in this world. He could tell them the truth, and they’d assume he was delusional. Traumatic psychosis and all that.”
Kato didn’t like it, but didn’t see the alternative either. They couldn’t afford anyone to link Grace to what had happened here today. Besides, he wanted her with him. All three demons were gone, not simply banished, but slain.
So why were his instincts still screaming at him to prepare for battle?
Chapter Nine
Pompano Beach, Florida
“AND MAKE SURE you get me a decent car. I’m not bringing the Ferrari along for just the weeken—”
Nick Katsaros broke off in mid-word, his body freezing as all of his instincts and senses fired at the same time. He stared at Lili for a long moment, then jolted into action.
“Goddamn it, get Damian on the line right now,” he snapped, and then spun on his heel, heading for his office and cursing all the way. “Cancel everything else,” he shouted over his shoulder. “And prep the jet for California. With the goddamned car.”
His phone rang as he entered his office. He picked it up. “I have Damian,” Lili informed him efficiently, unbothered by his outburst. But then, that’s why he employed her. One of the reasons.
“Put him through,” he said, still shuddering under the impact of what he’d sensed.
“Nico, what do you have?” Damian’s voice calmed him like nothing else could have. There was too much at stake to trust this battle to anyone else.
“You felt it, too.”
“I sensed something big, and damn it, I’m calling this one. That fucker tasted like Kato.”
“It is Kato.”
“You’ve known all along?”
“I suspected, but now I’m sure. And you’re right, it was huge.”
“Why didn’t you tell me we were hunting Kato, damn it. We’d have—”
“Because I wasn’t sure, and now isn’t the time. We both know what it means if Kato was in the middle of whatever that was. He’s going to need help.”
“He must have help already. Someone broke the curse.”
“Yeah, well, he needs our help. Where are you?”
“Cassandra says we’re thirty miles out of L.A. Where are we going?”
Nick thought furiously. Major magic workings were hard to pin down. It wasn’t like he could give his hunters a GPS point. On the other hand, certain natural laws did apply. “Try Malibu. Those fucking vampires draw magic like a magnet, and it’s a small city. Whatever happened was big enough that every cop in town will be on-scene. It shouldn’t be hard to find.”
Malibu, California
NICK WAS RIGHT. Damian stood next to Cassandra’s SUV, staring through a pair of powerful binoculars at the university on the hill. They were parked in the small beach lot of some sort of sports field, along with what looked like every media outlet in town, most of whom were bitching about not being allowed any closer to the scene. Some bullshit about the peoples’ right to know. Damian hadn’t been in this reality for long, but he already knew that was code for a ratings race among the networks. Most of the “people” probably already knew more than these reporters. Every student on that campus would have been tweeting, posting, and whatever the hell else they did, for the last two hours. Cassandra had pulled up literally hundreds of photographs from the various social media.
But none of them had told Damian what he needed to know. Unlike these fucking network sharks, he really did need to get close. And so did Cassandra. She was one of Nico’s best hunters. If this was nothing more than an artifact that had been triggered, she’d find it. She’d also know what it was, and whether it was still a danger. On the other hand, if it was Kato who’d gone off for some reason, Damian needed to be on that scene. He’d recognize his brother’s work anywhere.
“I have to get closer,” he muttered, dropping the binoculars from his eyes.
“We can trying stealing some student IDs,” Cassandra suggested. “They must hang around here somewhere.”
“Too slow. I need to get there now.”
“Talk to me,” she said, her head bent over as she continued to scroll through her cell phone, looking for information. “I know Kato’s one of you, but what’s his deal?”
Damian unclenched his jaw, reminding himself that she didn’t know Kato the way he did. She didn’t understand just how badly his brother could be hurt if he was forced to use his magic.
“Kato is the only son of powerful practitioner of dark magic, a woman so vicious and so famous that she was known only as the Dark Witch.”
“Is she like Nick? Still alive?”
“No, that bitch is long dead, but her magic isn’t. Especially not where Kato’s concerned. I don’t know the details, but she worked some magic bullshit when he was conceived so that he was like that battery that powers your truck, except he stored magic and she was the only one who could tap it. At least, until Kato decided he’d rather fight for Nico.”
“I have a feeling I know what comes next.”
Damian nodded. “You know that dark magic draws its energy from pain, right?”
Cassandra nodded.
“Well, his darling mother laid a curse on him. Any time he uses his magic, it literally tears his guts apart, like the magic is eating away at him, using his body for fuel. Nico crafted a spell that helped with the worst of it, but if Kato is here now, and he’s using magic . . .”
She leaned into him, and he knew what she was doing. Trying to soothe him, make him think logically. Well, fuck logic. His brother could be up there right now, suffering, confused. Maybe under arrest by the police who didn’t understand what they were dealing with.
“It can’t wait, Cassandra.”
She sighed. “All right. Let’s change clothes. And you need to drop the fierce face. Less warrior god and more surfer boy, got it? Try slumping a little, like you’re all tuckered out from smoking dope and fucking co-eds.”
He scowled and pointed at the tallest landmark on the campus, with its blatant religious symbol. “What about that?”
“What, you think religious girls don’t have hormones? Take my word for it, and try to look less studly.”
“What about you?”
She snorted. “You go first, and no one will notice me. You can be my canary.”
“What?”
&
nbsp; She waved a hand in dismissal. “Bad analogy. Here, put these board shorts on. We’ll leave the truck and walk from here.”
DAMIAN HAD TO admit Cassandra had a point. Looks mattered in this town, and while his Cassandra was a gorgeous woman, she had an undeniable ability to blend. She became someone else, a part of the scenery. Which was a feat for a woman with her natural beauty.
He, on the other hand, stood out wherever he went. His size alone distinguished him from just about everyone else. At well over six feet tall, and with a body that he worked constantly to maintain in peak condition, he couldn’t slouch deeply enough to blend into a crowd. Fortunately, he had a boss who was a major power when it came to magic. Nico had provided an amulet for him to wear on those occasions when discretion was required. It didn’t make him invisible—that was impossible, even if Hollywood said otherwise—but it turned observers’ attention elsewhere when he walked by.
He and Cassandra slid through the crowd, listening to rumors as they went. They discarded the most outrageous claims of students who’d seen someone or something fly away from the building, screeching like an eagle. Or a black cloud that had descended over the entire building, before breaking up into a swarm of flies. Where did they come up with this shit?
But there was truth in the rumors, too. A thundering noise and a sudden drop in air pressure that hurt their ears, and then every window in the building had shattered at once, scattering bits of glass and wounding several students unfortunate enough to be walking past at that precise moment. A few people claimed to have heard gunfire, as well. That was interesting, because Kato had always been a blade man. It made Damian wonder just who was with his brother right now.
What all of the witnesses agreed on was that there’d been a lot of angry shrieking and yelling in a foreign language. Terrorism was the watchword on everyone’s lips—a murderous plot gone bad, or a bomb that had misfired.
