Kat. Come backstage.
Ignoring the introduction of the next demon band up for the night, I pushed through the horde, trying to wrangle my nerves back into place.
Thomas.
I touched my fingers to the opal at my neck.
Frowning, I shook away whatever thoughts and feelings were trying to weasel their way into my psyche. Thoughts and feelings that had no place being there.
Moving my hand to the hilt of the dagger inside my jacket, I took a deep breath and made my way backstage.
Chapter Seven
Bleed leaned against a wooden beam, arms casually crossed. His crew, all lower demons, packed their music equipment in silence. One lit a cigarette and exited out a screen door, leaving it ajar.
“Come on,” said the demon singer, “it’ll be worth your while. I promise.” His lascivious grin reeked of sex, filling the room with his dark desire. His gaze flicked to me and back to Kat. “I bet you could break a man with equal parts pleasure and pain.”
What kind of conversation had I stepped into?
“Oh, I would definitely break you,” assured Kat, one hand on her waist. “Couldn’t promise much pleasure, however.”
His grin never faltered. “I’d be willing to test that theory.”
An odd staring contest ensued between the two as if I wasn’t even in the room. Thankfully, the rest of his band had vacated the premises. The fact that none of them felt threatened by us put me on edge.
“Dude, cut the crap,” I said, hating this guy already. “She’s not interested.”
He dragged his gaze from Kat, heaving in a breath. “Dommiel told me you were coming and encouraged me to be cooperative. But I don’t have to tell you a thing.” He glared at me. “No matter who you are. So be nice.”
I smiled the fakest smile I could muster. “Kat, perhaps you should begin questioning.” For it seemed she could pull more information out of him than I could.
Kat trailed her hand to the hilt of her sword, drumming three fingers. “Do you know anything about the prophecy?”
“Sure. Everyone does. It tells when the Flamma war will begin.”
She made a frustrated noise through her teeth. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, Domina?”
Every time one of them called her mistress in Latin, I got the distinct feeling they were picturing her scantily clad in black leather with a whip in hand. I suppose to be tortured by a gorgeous blonde hunter was a demon’s wettest dream.
Evasion was one of their favorite games. Kat straightened. “Do you know who has the missing part of the prophecy?”
“I do.” Red eyes gleamed.
“Tell me.”
“A demon prince.”
“Can you be more specific?” I asked, realizing Kat’s hand was itching to pull out her dagger and cut the truth out of him.
“I can.” He shoved off the beam, moving toward us. The demon inside this human host had fused to a beautiful specimen of a man. I wondered if they were always drawn to beauty because it reminded them of what they were before the Fall. Lower demons were also called guardian demons, the ones seducing humanity toward sin. They didn’t have the power to shift their form. They were forced to find a host to rule, unlike high demons who continued to wear the heavenly faces they owned before sin and debauchery distorted them into monsters. While guardian demons could hide in the shell of a human, hide their ugliness from the world, guardian angels shined their beacon of beauty and light in true form. Like Thomas.
“Tell me something, Bleed.” I couldn’t help but emphasize his ridiculous name. “Why are guardian demons so in-your-face while guardian angels hardly ever let their presence be known?”
He seemed to like the shift in conversation, hooking a thumb in his jeans pocket. “Because we like to party and have fun. Guardian angels are always hiding. Influencing from afar and all that shit. Bunch of pussies, if you ask me.”
Nice. So poetic.
Kat gave me a look, her brows puckered into a frown. “Back to the prophecy. You said a demon prince. How do you know?”
Bleed used the opportunity to step closer to Kat. She let him. Demons liked to toy with people. If it made him happy to think he had a snowball’s chance in hell of seducing Kat, let him. He’d just give us the information we wanted while trying to dazzle her.
“I worked for him. Centuries ago.”
Centuries ago? Definitely an old lower demon.
“What did you do for him?” I asked. “And which prince?”
His gaze bore into Kat. He didn’t even glance my way. He’d moved within inches of her. She’d become a stone pillar. He pulled her long braid through his curled hand, placing it across her breast.
“Ask me nicely,” he whispered to her, not me.
She reached up and threaded her fingers into his long hair with one hand. His eyes slid closed on a groan. Wrapping his long hair around her fist, she snapped his head back and forced him to his knees. Pressing his upturned chin to her abdomen, she held him hard and commanded answers, her tone a sharp blade.
“Give me the exact location of where you know the prophecy was last.”
“Glastonbury, England, Domina.”
“That’s where it was written. It can’t still be there.”
“That’s where I knew it was last.”
She tightened her fist. He cried out, but his expression glowed with pleasure.
“What was the prince’s name?”
“It was Damas, Domina.”
Kat and I exchanged glances. Damas. The one who’d held her captive long ago. Hatred flickered in her eyes.
“Is this all you know?” asked Kat, focusing her steely gaze on Bleed. He stared up as if looking on a goddess. To him, she probably was one. She still held his face, chin up, trapped against her body.
“Damas is the only one with the lost part of the prophecy. He’s hidden it somewhere. I don’t know where, Domina. I swear.”
Kat’s tone softened to a purr. “Good boy.”
She released her hold. Bleed dropped his face to her feet, lips to her boots, like a groveling dog.
“Please stay, Domina.”
I couldn’t withhold my look of disgust. Kat rolled her eyes and held out her hand to me. As soon as I took her hand, we sifted with a sharp crack, a spin through time and space, and reappeared in Jude’s living room.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, sinking onto Jude’s sofa. She’d sifted us so fast, I felt dizzy.
The house was quiet and near dark. Kat flipped on a lamp. “I’ve learned how to get the most out of them over the years. I could tell he was into BDSM. And not all demons are dominants.”
“How could you possibly know all that?”
“Don’t ask.”
Kat’s demeanor had changed. When she glanced my way, her irises were full-black. I suppose after being alive for a few centuries, you were bound to acquire a few secrets.
“So Damas has the prophecy. Where would he hide it?” I sat cross-legged on the sofa, pulling a brown velvet pillow into my lap.
She snorted. “Anywhere he damn well pleased. In this world or in the other.”
“That doesn’t narrow things down very well.”
She paced in front of the empty fireplace, newly remodeled after Jude’s temper caused him to destroy the last one.
“Not only that,” she added, “but we have no way of getting to it now.”
“Why not? Don’t all princes have weaknesses? There must be some way.”
She sat, bracing her head between her hands, palms to her temples.
“Not Damas. You don’t know him. He’s craftier than all the others. He can always smell a trap because he’s the best at setting them.”
“When you were, well, with him. Did he have a place in his lair that could’ve concealed the prophecy?” I cleared my throat. “Danté’s castle had all these…these rooms. Couldn’t Damas be keeping it there?”
“Maybe.” She shook her head,
finally facing me. Despair marked her eyes and mouth. “I just don’t know. Even if he did, we couldn’t go there.”
“Why not? I was able to enter Danté’s lair.” Though the mention of it filled my veins with ice.
“He took you there. That’s different. Flamma of Light can’t trespass in a prince’s lair, not without being taken by the prince himself.”
“Jude trespassed. Well, I take that back. He traveled to the borders. He couldn’t get inside without finding other means of entry. Because of Danté’s blood cast.”
Kat’s expression was unreadable, her words grave when she spoke. “Jude is the oldest of Dominus Daemonum. I would not chance riding a soul eater. The chance of being lost forever is too great.”
The only thing I knew about soul collectors, also called soul eaters, was they served neither the Light nor the Dark. They served only themselves, feeding on lost souls.
“I’ve only seen three of them—Cocytus, Styx and Acheron.” Just the thought of them chilled my blood, each of them carrying damned souls screaming out with hatred and sorrow. “What are the other two like?”
Kat sat next to me on the sofa. “Phlegethon doesn’t come up from the underworld much. He loves pain. Lots of souls to torture down below. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that when all hell breaks loose up here, no pun intended, we’ll see him more often.”
“That sucks.” I wrapped my arms around myself.
“Yeah. But the one I fear most is Lethe.”
“Mythology claims Lethe is the river of forgetfulness. Is that what she is?”
Kat curled her knees up under her chin, a childlike posture. “You’d think one of the others would scare me more, but Lethe… She doesn’t just make you forget the pain and woes of life. She makes you forget everything…everyone you knew, everyone you loved. You’d even forget yourself. She takes everything you ever were.”
“Jesus. How do you know?”
Kat’s glazed eyes met mine. “She’s the one soul eater who feeds until the soul has nothing left. She spews them out when she’s done, which takes a century or so. There’s a place in the underworld where the empty shells that were once human are kept.” She tightened herself more into a ball. “I saw it once, when I was down there…with Damas.”
Silence stretched between us. I didn’t like to ask her about what happened to her when she was in the hands of Damas. Some things, friends didn’t ask about. If or when she wanted to talk about it, she’d let me know. And I respected that.
Kat finally snapped out of her reverie, popped off the sofa and strode into the kitchen. The fridge opened and shut. She returned with two beers in hand, passing one to me. She twisted off the top and guzzled. I popped off mine and sipped slower. She’d finished half the bottle before sitting next to me again.
“Wait a minute.” Flecks of green showed in her dark eyes. She’d come back from the edge she’d ventured toward in her interrogation of Bleed. “What was all the talk about guardian angels to that douche bag?”
I shrugged, feeling guilty for some reason.
“Did your angel show up again?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Tonight. Before you texted me.”
“Are you kidding me! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I am. Right now. Geez.”
“That’s just weird, Gen. Why is he appearing on the scene all of a sudden? Why now?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even know he existed. He came tonight because he wasn’t happy I was going to all these demon clubs or whatever. He didn’t seem to like that I was unprotected. That Jude wasn’t there.”
“What the hell am I? Chopped liver.”
“When I told him you were with me, he seemed more relaxed.”
“Still… Why is he showing up now? Makes me suspicious.”
“He said he’s been there all along, watching over me.”
“That’s not unusual. Guardians always stay in the shadows. But why is he showing himself to you now?”
Our thoughts filled up the silence. She knocked back her bottle and nearly choked on her last gulp of beer as she spluttered, “The prophecy!”
“What?”
“It’s another sign!”
“How do you mean?”
“He must know the war is near. He’s shown up because he knows you are the one. The one to give the Light the upper hand in the war.”
I’d been told that the prophecy circled around a Vessel, the Vessel who somehow would begin the war between the two forces of Light and Darkness. This Vessel would also serve one or the other, giving one side a distinct advantage.
I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled through my notes app to find the translated prophecy. Well, the part of the prophecy we had anyway. I read aloud.
“Beneath the orb that circles round, while hosts of fiends and foes abound, the Vessel-born shall walk upright, fall from Grace, lose her light.”
“That’s referring to all the Vessels before you,” interjected Kat, excitedly. “The ones who either fell to demon possession or death.”
I gave a stiff nod, remembering Jude’s painful past. His mother was the first Vessel, choosing to die rather than become a tool for Danté to use. I swallowed the lump in my throat and read on, skimming ahead.
“When wickedness will rule on land, and all seems lost to mortal man, One Great War shall begin, upon the hour, she stands within a ring of wordless, mighty breath; amidst the clutch of endless death.”
I paused, remembering why I suddenly felt the need to reread the prophecy. “Endless death. Jude called the soul collector, Acheron, this name. The one who appeared when I was attacked by one of Bamal’s lower demons. He gave the demon the option to choose endless death or to obey him. That means one of the soul collectors will be present at this final moment, this Hour the prophecy mentions.”
“You’re right. Why had I never realized that? Few people refer to them as endless death. Only the old ones. I think I’ve only heard it mentioned once in all my time as a hunter.”
“One of the old ones like Jude,” I pointed out.
“Like Jude.” Kat scooted close to me, reading over my shoulder.
“Two great sons of Morning Star; divided, until death will mar. One will woo the warrior maid, one will cut her to a shade. We know that’s Danté and Bamal. Danté’s now out of the picture, but I don’t know what that means that Bamal will cut her to a shade. A shadow? A ghost? How?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head, trembling for not the first time tonight. According to our interpretation, the her would be me. I picked up from where she left off.
“Two sisters of the Vessel Light, blood to blood, will evil smite. So, Vessel sisters will combat each other. Blood may be spilled, I guess. And Light will smite evil. This is why Bamal wanted me dead.”
“Yes,” agreed Kat. “But then he changed his mind, remember? The demons he sent to the Crescent City Masquerade Ball had orders to capture you alive, not kill you. And they were definitely hired by Bamal.”
“Right,” I said, “and the break-in at the Vatican happened around that time, if you’re sources are correct.”
“They are.” She smirked. “I have some helpful friends.”
“I’m sure you do.”
My mind drifted back to the scene with Bleed, where he practically drooled on Kat’s boots, begging her to torture-pleasure him. “Kat, why do they all call you Domina?”
She lifted one slender shoulder in a shrug, her lips compressing for a second. “I guess because I’m a Mistress of Demons, not a Master.”
“Are there other female hunters?”
“Only two, actually. One works in Russia, the other is in the Far East. I’ve only met them on one or two occasions. Demon hunting is a busy business,” she said, absently peeling off the beer bottle label.
“Bleed was working himself into a frenzy around you.”
Focusing on peeling off the label in one piece, she said, “Yes, well, pa
in and torture turns them on.” Her speech was terse and clipped. She ripped off the label, tearing the edge, and tossed it aside. “Speaking of Bleed,” she added, changing the subject, “I believe he was right in that Damas has the lost prophecy, but perhaps he shared the information with his brother. That’s what changed Bamal’s mind. He now has the full prophecy.”
I met her frowning gaze. “That means there’s something in the second half of this prophecy that requires me to be alive, if I am actually the One the prophecy speaks of.”
“You are, Gen.”
“But why would Damas share it if he’s kept it hidden all this time?” I couldn’t keep fear from trembling through me. There was a truth I was missing. I could feel it. My VS pulsed inside my breast, trying to find the answer.
“Gen. Look.”
I glanced down at my hands. A white light glowed under my skin.
“You are definitely the One in the prophecy. It’s like the power within you knows we’re nearing the time.” She pulled my phone from my trembling hands.
“Have mercy on the mindless twin, when Wrath is right and Virtue sin. Sun and Moon, eye to eye…and that’s all we have. I’ve never been able to sort through this last part. Twin? What twin? And why mindless?”
I focused on the last. “And how can wrath be right and virtue be sin? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does make sense. We just can’t make any sense of it. We need the rest, the lost part.”
“But it’s not lost,” I pointed out. “We know who found it.”
Kat scoffed. “And we’ll never get it from him. Not on our own.” She stood and paced one length of the fireplace before pivoting to face me again, grinning from ear to ear. “What about your angel?”
“Thomas? What about him?”
“Maybe he could help.”
“I thought guardian angels were on the lower end of the totem pole. How would he know anything?”
“In hierarchy, yes. But they are the only angels who spend enormous amounts of time on earth. Besides, he would have more souls than yours to watch over. Maybe he’s come across something that can help.”
“Maybe so. I’ll ask.”
“What does Jude say about him?”
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