“And why are we targeting him exactly? What has he done to break the rules?”
There were high demons all over the world, luring the sinful into their service. This was fair game in the battle between Light and Darkness. Humans chose which side dominated their souls. Free will. But when demons stepped over the line and cheated, forcing a human into captivity or service by unnatural means, demon hunters showed up on their doorstep.
“Gorham has created spawn to control innocent girls and pull them into his line of business. Worse than stripping, he’s using innocents in his underground brothel.”
“That’s horrible.” My Vessel Sense sparked in fury at the thought. “How? What kind of spawn?”
High demons had the ability to create life, which was always an abomination of some kind. As a matter of fact, the legendary dragon Saint George had destroyed was actually the spawn of a demon prince. Only high demons with great power had the ability to manifest evil into a living being.
“Gorham’s spawn is a mist of his essence, an entity spawn. It seeps into the one he wants, veiling her will, so he can control her.”
Entity spawn. Jude had been giving me history lessons of angels and demons every night. Great pillow talk. Considering we were still forbidden to do what our bodies urged us to do, he distracted me with fascinating, and disturbing, tales of the demonic world. I’d learned that there were three kinds of spawn. An entity spawn is non-sentient. The demon creating it can infect objects and even people with it. Like this asshole, Gorham. There were also furies—nasty, ugly beasts who were strong and deadly powerful. Stronger than titans even. Titans were huge—monsters from fairy tales. Their power lay in their behemoth size and physical strength. It was a titan that George so famously fought and received the title of dragon slayer. Only the most powerful of high demons can create a fury or a titan.
I nodded. “Okay, so we’re just dealing with an entity. And the spawn Gorham is using on these girls is sort of like a blood cast. Right?” I shivered. The demon prince Danté had used my blood to summon my soul to his lair in the underworld. The helplessness I’d felt under his control made me even more infuriated at Gorham, who was doing the same thing to innocent girls.
“Yes,” agreed Kat, “sort of, but worse. His entity smothers their will entirely. They become puppets for Gorham, but underneath it all, their souls will still feel the evil being done to them.”
“I’m ready,” I said, reaching for the door.
“Wait.” She grabbed my arm. “We need to be cautious. Like I said, Gorham is stronger than others you’ve encountered. Also, Bamal has to know what he’s doing, since this is his territory, which means he has the backing of the local prince.”
Bamal—high demon, one of the seven princes of the underworld—currently reigned over the territory of New York. He also happened to be the prince who’d sent assassins to kill me over the past few weeks, then sent demons to abduct me. We still had no idea why he’d reduced his attacks from kill-on-sight to kidnapping.
Kat let go of my arm and stepped in front. “I imagine there are a few lackey demons hanging about, but it’s early morning, so this is the perfect time to surprise him. Whatever lower demons he has around will most definitely be fused to their human hosts.”
I nodded. Lower demons often fused to their hosts when a wicked human invited the evil spirit to stay for a prolonged period. There was no freeing a human host fused with a lower demon. Both must be destroyed. Word to the wise: don’t fuse with demons.
She twisted the knob, but the door was locked. “Hold on to me.”
I gripped her arm. The image of sand and seashore filled my mind. Every Flamma had a signature when they used their power. Kat’s was a balmy beach. She cast a protective shield to keep Gorham and his men from sensing our presence, then sifted us to the other side of the door in a millisecond. My Vessel Sense enveloped me in its own protective shield, shimmering along my skin. When I’d first discovered this other sense, this gift of power, I’d had to focus intently and say the words and think of the safest of places—the memory of being safe in my mother’s arms when I was a little girl and she was alive. Now, I no longer needed to do any of that to cast illusion or call on my power for defense. I simply willed my VS to come forward, and it responded at once, as much a part of me as breathing.
We stood at the end of a long, dark hallway with no doors. I drew the daggers. Muffled music pumped from somewhere within. An oppressive aura hung in this place—heavy and somber. Kat and I slipped silently down the hall, peering around the corner. To the right sat a stage and a long bar, over which hung in glaring red lights House of Hades. Round tabletops and chairs wrapped around the stage. No one in sight. The music came from the left.
“Hades?” I whispered, rolling my eyes. “Gorham is god of the underworld?”
“He likes to think so.” She winked.
One thing I knew from experience—demons had ego in abundance. Fortunately, arrogance was an easy weakness to exploit.
Kat looked at me and nodded to the left. We walked through a curtain of hanging beads underneath a sign reading VIP and stepped into an open area. There were four rooms leading off a hexagonal waiting room. The doors were simple red velvet curtains. Above each door read a name in gold, jagged script—Artemis, Aphrodite, Hecate, and Persephone.
I tugged on Kat’s sleeve and held up four fingers, mouthing four girls to her. She nodded. The rooms were empty. Where are the girls?
Kat stepped toward a closed door across the room. Again, locked. We sifted to the other side, landing at the top of winding stairs leading down into a basement. The music pumped louder. A deep, masculine laugh rumbled from below along with muffled conversation.
We crept down the stairwell, coming to another hallway. To the right were more doors with dead bolts on the outside. The girls. To the left, the music beat in a slow rhythm. We headed for our prey. Daggers ready, Kat gripped my arm and sifted us in, our backs against the entrance.
We stood in a room with red walls and white carpet. Five demons. Two lower. Their eyes glinted with supernatural luster, the telltale sign of a lower demon incapable of disguising this feature when they inhabited a human host. The other three men—two lounging on black leather sofas, one in a matching armchair—were definitely of the higher order. They exuded power in rippling waves much stronger than the two lackeys with glowing red eyes. In the center of the room, a topless girl wearing only a sheer white sarong swayed seductively to the music. Her brunette hair hung in a loose braid over one shoulder. She was younger than me, maybe eighteen. Seething anger coursed through my veins.
Assessing the greatest threat at once, I focused on the man in the leather chair. Gorham. Dark brown hair waved past his shoulders. Pale green eyes regarded us with interest, though he didn’t move from his lounging position, a glass of either whiskey or scotch in his hand. Bourbon for breakfast? What else would a demon have? He was gorgeous. This, above everything else, was what disturbed me most about high demons. They kept their beauty from before the Great Fall. On the outside anyway.
One of the lower demons popped up into fighting stance. The others stayed put. Glaring but alert. The girl continued to sway, running her hands along her body, completely oblivious.
“Hold, Macon,” said Gorham from his leather throne.
One of the other high demons on the sofa uncrossed his legs and stood, hands casually in his pants pockets. He had neatly cropped blond hair and ice-blue eyes. A skin-tight white shirt accentuated muscular, bronzed arms. He walked closer to Gorham’s chair. A protective position.
“I had not expected a visit from you, Domina.” Gorham practically purred his nickname for Kat. She appeared unfazed. These two had exchanged words before.
“You know why I’m here, Gorham.” Gorham’s gaze drifted to the half-naked stripper, still dancing in a trance. Kat took a step forward. “You’ve been a naughty boy.”
Gorham grinned, quite pleased with Kat’s declaration. “Come to me, Ar
temis,” he commanded in a low voice. He’d even renamed these girls after his freaking mythological fantasy. Bastard.
The girl sat on Gorham’s lap. Her eyes were cloudy gray—whites and all—proof of his possession. I felt a knuckle crack as I tightened my grip on a dagger. Gorham’s eyes moved to me, raking me with too much interest.
“And who do we have here, Domina? A little hunter in training?”
I knew my cast of illusion was fully in place, my VS tingling, but his intense observation put me on edge. He shouldn’t be able to see through the cast. Shouldn’t.
“I’m taking the girls,” Kat said with finality, “and you’ll all be punished.”
The blond stepped forward, smiling. His signature wafted over me—a cutting sting like I’d been nicked with a whip or thin blade. “We like it rough, Domina. This should be fun.”
Okay. So, apparently, they all called her “Mistress” in Latin. Interesting. My attention fell back to Gorham, and my heart skittered. His eyes were fixed on me, his smile too wide. He pushed the girl off his lap. She slunk to the floor against the back wall. Gorham stood, revealing how tall he was. Taller than the others.
“Moon-white skin. Cascading, dark hair. Lovely, bewitching eyes.” He held my gaze. “Oh, Domina, I never imagined you would bring such a treasure right to my doorstep. I know who you are, Genevieve Drake. Words and pictures do not do justice to the flesh.”
“Gen,” muttered Kat.
“Right,” I answered.
Kat sifted directly in front of the demon called Macon, stabbing him in the throat while chanting. Red sprayed the sofa and carpet. Within two seconds, the human host’s body shriveled into a blackened hull on the floor. The demon’s scream died as Kat sent it back to hell. Energy crackled, electrifying the small room.
The other one jolted from the couch and launched himself at me, bulky frame moving faster than I’d expected. I dodged and slashed with my dagger, saying the words to call my VS power, “Flamma intus.” Flame within. I missed my mark. Sort of. Intending a stab to the jugular, my dagger sliced from ear to eye. My power pulsed a white light across the room when dagger met skin, knocking the demon to the far wall. He shrieked, pressing hands to the wound dripping crimson on the white carpet.
Three of the high demons attacked Kat at the same time. She swiveled and sifted, evading and striking at the same time. I spun around the room. Gorham was gone. Or so I thought.
Suddenly, my wrists were gripped and pinioned to the wall behind me. Gorham’s body trapped me in a tight hold. His power rippled against my body, an aura of earthy rock and dark woods. What an odd signature, but that was what I felt, even smelled, as he leered down at me. Green eyes sparked with fierce curiosity and something else. I didn’t like the something else.
“His Majesty will be so pleased with me,” purred Gorham, “when I bring the crowning jewel he has so long sought to hold.”
“You demons are all the same. All you think of is possession—of women, territory, power.”
“What else is there?” he asked, squeezing my wrists to try to make me drop my weapons. I refused. He pressed his body closer, keeping my legs, hips and chest immobile. He was definitely enjoying the latter.
“I suppose it’s in your nature. If you weren’t so freaking evil, I might feel sorry for you.”
His grip loosened a fraction as he lowered his face to mine, his mouth close to my ear. “Perhaps you could teach me what else there is, Vessel of Light. You could transform me,” he whispered huskily, pressing his groin against my upper thigh. “Mercy, woman, I can feel your power vibrating through my skin.”
“Can you feel this?”
I didn’t need to say the words aloud as I called to my well of star-bright power. A potent force pulsed out of my chest, throwing Gorham across the room. He fell over the black leather chair against the wall. A stunned expression marked his face.
One of the higher demons bellowed as Kat sent him back to hell with a thunderous clap. The scent of sulfur and soot wafted through the room. Kat still defended herself against the other two, kicking and slicing through the air—beautiful to behold.
The bleeding lower demon, still clutching his face smeared with red, lifted himself off the floor and charged me again.
“Stupid move,” I said, stabbing my dagger straight into his heart and chanting the words to send him out of the human world. His pale skin darkened and cracked until limbs, torso and head fell to the floor in a pile of ash. Not one sound before the beast was gone.
Gorham had recovered and took two steps toward me, then sifted out.
“Damn it.” I hated when that happened.
I spun around, waiting for him to appear behind me. He did. I swung at him, screaming, “Flamma intus!”
My blade nicked his shirt, slicing across the skin above his heart. Well, where a heart should be. Black blood dripped from the gash. Gorham stared at the wound in disbelief. Green eyes glittered like a cat’s.
Oh crap.
He sifted out again. I refrained from cursing, trying to stay focused. I pivoted in one spot, waiting for his reappearance. A viselike grip tightened on my wrist. I jerked back, and we both tumbled to the floor. This time, he did knock one of my daggers loose as I fell onto my stomach. He banged the other wrist on the floor while squeezing so tight I felt a bone crack. I released the second dagger with a cry, calling my VS at the same time. He held on tight, but the pulse of power blew us both into the air. I spun and elbowed him in the face, coming back down to straddle his chest.
I pressed my palms to his head. My power seemed to pack a bigger punch when infused with steel or iron, but I could expel demons just fine without them. I started chanting, suddenly aware of another presence in the room, a male Dominus Daemonum.
“Help Genevieve!” screamed Kat as she dispatched another demon.
I glanced up to see a blond-haired, black-eyed man sprinting toward me. The distraction was only a second or two. Long enough for Gorham to reach up and crush me to his chest, banding his arms around my waist.
“What the hell,” I muttered.
In my peripheral vision, I saw a blur of blond flying through the air.
“You’re coming with me, pretty Vessel,” Gorham hissed in my ear and sifted out with me clutched in his arms.
Chapter Three
Constricted against Gorham’s chest, we spun through the Void at a dizzying pace. If I tried to break free of him, I’d be lost. If I let him take me to his destination, I’d be in the hands of Bamal. I’d decided slipping off in the Void would be the better option when I felt someone’s hand clutched in the back of my jacket, trying to pull me from Gorham’s arms. A few seconds of whirling darkness.
Snap!
We stood in a high-rise, looking out a wall of glass a hundred stories above the smog-hazed city.
Gorham glared at the person over my shoulder. I was shoved out of the way. The blond hunter swung his fist, cracking the demon duke across the jaw. Both of them fell bodily onto a glass coffee table, shattering it into a million glittering shards. I staggered backward, hearing the distinct sound of someone sifting into the room.
My VS cranked up to oh-shit level. A black-bedecked high demon glared in confusion at the two grappling on broken glass.
“Get her!” yelled Gorham from the floor, black blood staining his gritted teeth.
The hunter slammed his fist into Gorham’s face again. “Run!”
I sprinted for the door. The other demon sifted and grabbed my shoulder. Spinning, I punched up at his chin while channeling power down my arm. A blast of white light. He stumbled back and cried out.
Slipping through the door just as two red-eyed demons in cargo pants and muscle shirts rounded the corner, I sped down the hall in the opposite direction, my boots echoing on the stone floor. Two sets of boots pounded behind me, drawing closer. I skated around another corner, hoping to find a stairwell or elevator, smacking right into a wall.
No. Not a wall. A man. Flamma. My VS zinge
d to new heights as a signature of downy snow and windswept hills washed over me. His hands wrapped my forearms in a firm grip.
I pushed my palms against his rock-hard chest, ready to blast him with VS power.
“Wait! I’ll take you to safety, Genevieve. Hold still.”
His voice, a sonorous melody, rolled in a deep, languid baritone. I froze. Trapped in sea-green eyes and powerful arms, I was taken into the Void.
My breath sucked right out of me as we fell through the darkness. The second time in a matter of minutes I’d been sifted away by a stranger.
The moment my world righted, I pushed out of his hold several paces away. He’d brought us to a park. A pond shaded by orange-gold trees with skyscrapers towering in the distance. Central Park.
I glared at the stranger and tried to catch my breath, drawing the dagger from the sheath sewn into my boot. He stood nearly as tall as Jude, similar in build but leaner. Black hair hung in staggered waves halfway to his shoulders. He regarded me with startling eyes—deep cobalt blue, the color of a glacier buried and untouched for centuries. Like white marble, his jaw, face and neck were sculpted in perfect, harmonious lines. His captivating signature circled me like a wintry halo.
My dad had splurged the Christmas after I’d turned sixteen, taking us skiing in White Fish, Montana. At the tip-top of the slope, the evergreens were completely covered in new-fallen snow, sculpting white ghosts out of the landscape. The wind blew snow crystals in whirls—a pristine world of enchanting beauty. The air sparkled with iridescent ice-dust, like a fairy land. This image pushed to the forefront as I backed another foot away, gazing at my frost-and-snow rescuer.
“Who are you?”
His eyes flicked to the weapon in my hand, but he made no move toward me. Though we were quite far from park-goers and anyone who could help me if I cried out, I felt safer in this public place.
Sealed in Sin Page 2
