Embers

by Suzanne Wright

  Knox felt his brow furrow. “No, she’ll stay calm.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Alethea had a what?”

  “Shh, baby, calm down.”

  Harper did a slow blink, thinking he had to be kidding. “Calm down? Calm down? Knox, that bitch had an incorporeal demon, it’s now on the loose, and it went after Asher. There’s also a damn high chance that Alethea meant to sacrifice Heidi in order to free the fucker. It’s good for the damn dolphin that she’s not alive, because I’d have smacked the motherfucking shit out of her. Really. I’d have put her through an eternal loop of soul-deep agony until she’d begged for a mercy that would never have come.”

  His cock inappropriately twitched—it seemed to love her bloodthirsty streak. Ignoring the “I told you she’d flip her lid” look from Levi, who was leaning against the wall, Knox spoke to Harper in a soothing tone. “I don’t doubt that, baby. I’d have been right there with you, delivering my own brand of punishment. But we’ll have to be content with knowing she suffered an excruciating—if much too fast—death and concentrate on dealing with those who’d worked with her, including the incorporeal.”

  “Deal with it how? Correct me if I’m wrong, but those fuckers are practically impossible to kill.” Harper shoved a shaking hand through her hair. Fury and anxiety clawed at her insides. How the hell could she neutralize the threat to her son if she couldn’t damn well destroy it?

  Knox rested his hands on her shoulders. “They can be killed but, yes, they make tough opponents for a number of reasons. But so do we, baby.”

  Sitting on the sofa, Larkin lifted a hand. “I have to admit, I don’t know a lot about incorporeals. Just that they’re nasty little bastards.”

  Beside the harpy, Keenan gave Knox a look that said he wasn’t much wiser on the subject. “I know they sure like possessing humans, pretending they’re the devil himself. Do the exorcisms really weaken them?”

  “No, but they weaken the human, which then weakens the incorporeal and so they switch to another body while they regain their strength,” Knox explained.

  “All I need to know is how the hell to kill it,” said Tanner, sprawled on the other sofa with his legs crossed at the ankles.

  Knox had summoned Larkin, Keenan, and Tanner to the mansion so that he and Levi could inform them and Harper of Jonas’s revelations. It was vital that the sentinels were fully apprised of the situation so that they were not only prepared to deal with whatever came next, but so they could then impart the necessary information onto the Force—the demons who worked under the sentinels to help police their lair.

  “Like archdemons, incorporeals are born in hell,” said Knox. “For the most part, they remain there. But that’s mainly because they can’t survive outside of it unless they have a host. The only way they can roam the Earth is if they possess bodies. But they can only control them for a short time as it’s draining, so they often sort of … linger inside a person, surfacing occasionally to take command of the body and do whatever it is they wish to do. If they’re very powerful and at top strength, they can even maintain a physical form of their own for a very limited amount of time.”

  At Knox’s meaningful look, Harper hissed. “Fuck. I should have considered that she might have been an incorporeal. They’re just so rare … ” Harper frowned as something occurred to her. “Wait, could she have still been in the room with Asher after the attack? I thought she’d gone, but maybe I just couldn’t see her.”

  “It wasn’t a ‘she’,” said Knox. “Incorporeals are neither male, nor female; they just are. As for whether it lingered, I doubt it. You hurt and weakened it, so it would have needed to quickly find a host. Without a body to possess, they die fairly quickly, especially since maintaining a physical form of their choosing drains them.”

  Cursing, Harper started to pace. “This isn’t good at all. I mean, an incorporeal can look like anyone at any time, can’t it? It can possess virtually anyone.”

  “It can possess virtually any human or animal,” began Knox, “but only a powerful incorporeal could possess a demon. Incorporeals are uncommon, and powerful incorporeals are even less so.”

  “But they do exist,” said Harper.

  “Yes,” Knox allowed. “Still, even powerful incorporeals generally don’t bother trying to possess our kind. They can’t use our abilities, so a human would be just as useful a host. Humans are also much easier to possess, not to mention a hell of a lot easier to control.” He shrugged. “Logically, we’re just not worth the effort.”

  “Have you ever come across one before?” Tanner asked him.

  “Yes,” replied Knox. “A long time ago. I killed it by calling on the flames of hell.”

  Keenan took a swig from his flask. “And if you’re someone who can’t call on the flames, how do you kill them?”

  “It’s not easy to harm an incorporeal,” said Knox. “You can’t do so by harming their host. You have to kill it while it’s either bodiless or using its energy to manifest into a solid form. By stabbing it in the heart and dealing it soul-deep pain, Harper will have dramatically weakened it, but it would take much more than that to kill one.”

  “They can’t leave hell unless they’re conjured by a practitioner or an incantor, right?” asked Levi.

  Knox nodded. “It would take a shitload of dark magick on the conjurer’s part. It usually takes months and involves a lot of blood sacrifices. Not just any incantor or dark practitioner can call a demon from hell. They’d have to specialize in conjuring, and that often takes years of practice under the tutelage of another. There’s nothing simple about the process, which is why there aren’t many of them roaming the Earth.”

  “Is the conjurer then in control of the incorporeal?” asked Larkin, her eyes—sometimes gray-green, sometimes gray-blue—glinting with unease.

  “To an extent,” replied Knox. “They make a bargain. The conjurer will give it freedom, but the incorporeal must first do their bidding.”

  Keenan returned his flask to the inner pocket of his jacket. “And after the incorporeal has fulfilled its end of the bargain?”

  “It can do whatever it wants,” said Knox, flicking a concerned look at his mate, who was still pacing. “Remain on Earth. Go back to hell. Whatever it likes.”

  “Which means that the one we’re up against could be acting alone,” Tanner pointed out.

  Knox pursed his lips. “Yes, but I don’t see what it would gain from trying to possess Asher.”

  Harper stumbled to a halt. “Say that again.”

  Knox took her arms and pulled her to him. “I don’t believe it was trying to snatch him, Harper. I believe it was trying to get close enough to possess him.”

  The thought made her stomach roll and her knees buckle. “But why?”

  “Exactly. Why? It’s not like an incorporeal would get any use out of a baby’s body. Asher can’t walk, and he relies on others to care for him. A baby would serve it no purpose.” Knox just didn’t get it. “He’s simply not worth the struggle it would take to possess him—assuming the incorporeal even could.”

  “Does a person know they’re possessed?” Larkin absentmindedly toyed with the end of her long braid. “I mean, if the incorporeal is just hanging back, hitching a ride in someone’s body like it’s a cab or a train, will that person know?”

  “Think of them as microparasites,” said Knox. “Like bacteria. A host wouldn’t feel the actual bacteria there. They wouldn’t even be aware of the infection until they experienced physical symptoms. Incorporeals can, as you said, ‘hang back’ and hitch a ride. The host won’t feel them. The incorporeals are a drain on the body as any parasite can be, so the host may feel tired and weary and have headaches. But unless or until the incorporeal takes control of the body, their presence won’t be sensed. Well, not unless they talk to the host, anyway.”

  Tanner’s brows rose. “Talk? They can talk to them?”

  Knox nodded. “For the host, it’s just like another voice inside their head,
which is why some often think they’re going crazy.”

  “Is the host fully aware of what’s happening while the incorporeal is in control?” asked Larkin.

  Pulling his mate closer, Knox slipped an arm around her as he responded to the harpy’s question. “Sometimes they’re partially aware. Afterwards, the host usually has no memory of what happened. They might assume they blacked out or went into a fugue state unless someone witnessed what happened.”

  Harper rubbed her arm. “So I could be possessed right now and I wouldn’t even know?”

  “If an incorporeal were to attempt to possess you, you would feel it.” He gently skimmed his fingers over her head. “Like sharp splinters trying to force their way into your brain. It’s highly unlikely that it ever happened to you, Harper. You have extremely strong psychic shields that can shred and mutilate a person’s psyche. In other words, you wouldn’t be a risk worth taking when the incorporeal can just as easily use a human.”

  She swallowed. “You really think it meant to possess Asher?”

  “Yes,” he said, hating the answer. “I just don’t see why. It could have been ordered to do so by the Horseman, of course. But there seems little point in it.”

  Tanner stroked his jaw. “I’m guessing an incorporeal can use its own power just fine while possessing a host.”

  “It can,” confirmed Knox. “But if you’re thinking that it was ordered to then strike at us while within Asher, I sincerely doubt it. He’s a baby. Limited with a baby’s psychic strength, the incorporeal wouldn’t be able to do a lot of damage, no matter how powerful it was.”

  “But it could drain Asher, right?” asked Larkin.

  Massaging Harper’s nape, Knox replied, “It could, yes, but that would take time. Months. The entire estate is encompassed by a protective shield that would prevent anything harmful from entering. Even if the incorporeal had managed to possess Asher while he was at Jolene’s house, it would never have gotten past the shield. Would have literally been spat out of his body the moment Asher returned home.”

  “The incorporeal won’t have known about the shield, though,” said Keenan, but then he frowned. “Actually, I take that back. It’s pretty much common knowledge among demons that your home is shielded, so it’s unlikely that the Horseman ordered the incorporeal to try to possess Asher in order to drain him. That’s probably why the incorporeal had to make its move when he was off the estate.”

  “It’ll try again, won’t it?” Edgy, Harper had to resist the urge to dance from foot to foot. “I mean, if it was ordered to possess him for some reason, it won’t stop trying until it does. Not if it wants to be free.”

  Knox cocked his head. “That depends. If it was ordered to possess him and then reports back to the Horseman that Asher has a shield it can’t bypass, it might then be given a different order.”

  But, whatever the case, they wouldn’t give up, thought Harper. “The Horseman seems determined to succeed where the others within his group failed. If that’s true, he’ll—and I’m feeling confident that it’s a ‘he’ after studying the footage—come at us with everything he has. Including an incorporeal demon.”

  Levi folded his arms. “Jonas said that Alethea claimed to have stolen it from a private collector. Knox, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Knox looked at him. “If you’re thinking that Dion Boughton could be the collector then, yes, I am.”

  Keenan’s eyes lit up. “He collects the unique. Keeps them in his own personal museum at his home. If anyone would have an incorporeal in their possession, it would be him. Hell, he could even be the fourth Horseman. It’s worth considering that Dion may have partnered with Alethea.”

  Tanner’s brows lowered. “I don’t recall ever hearing that he and Alethea spent time together.”

  “Unless we speak to Dion, we won’t know anything for sure,” said Knox. “Unfortunately, that’s not something we can do straight away, since we can’t simply call him to arrange a visit to his island.”

  “Ah, yes, he’s a technophobe,” Harper remembered. “Doesn’t use phones or computers.”

  Knox nodded. “I still have his address somewhere. I’ll write a letter to him, saying I wish to speak with him. It shouldn’t take long for him to respond. Still, I don’t like that we’ll have to wait.” He wanted answers yesterday.

  Larkin crossed one leg over the other. “I still think we should look more closely at Thatcher. He helped us get to Harper after she was kidnapped by Nora, sure, but what better way to shift suspicion from himself than that? And he and Alethea did look a little cozy in the Ice Bar.”

  “But surely Thatcher wouldn’t have been seen in public with someone he knew he might have to later kill if she didn’t agree to go along with his plans,” said Levi. “Plus, Jonas said Alethea was being secretive about her new boyfriend. Parading around with Thatcher isn’t discreet. Not that I’m ruling him out as a suspect, I’m just saying it doesn’t add up.”

  Knox felt his face harden. “As far as I’m concerned, while my mate and child are at risk, everyone’s a suspect.” He looked at Larkin. “Jonas says he had extreme difficulty tracking Alethea’s movements after she disappeared, but maybe you’ll have better luck with that. She’s the key to uncovering the identity of the Horseman—he made a grave error in killing her so publicly. He more or less shouted, ‘Just follow her past footsteps and you’ll find me.’”

  “He must be very sure those footsteps were covered,” mused Levi.

  Knox glanced at the reaper. “Let’s hope the fucker made a mistake.”

  Harper sort of zoned out then. Conversation continued around her, but she couldn’t take it in. Her thoughts were centered on the simple fact that an incorporeal demon wanted to possess her son. Possess. Her. Son. What mother would ever take that on the chin and get the fuck on with her day?

  Like Knox, she had always suspected that someone would one day come for Asher. She’d planned to capture said someone and make them pay in a way that discouraged anyone else from even daring to try such a thing. But how could you capture something that had no body? How could you hunt something that had no scent? How could you attack something you could only see if it wanted you to see it?

  The simple answer to each question was … you couldn’t. Not without a fuck of a lot of power and a shitload of luck.

  Harper wasn’t weak. Not by any means. And with her ability to call on the flames of hell, she could certainly destroy the incorporeal … if it revealed itself. If it wasn’t possessing another at the time. If it didn’t learn from the mistakes it made with her at Jolene’s house. She’d never been up against anything like it before, and it was easy to fear that she’d fail when the consequence of that failure would be the end of her son’s life.

  Her self-doubt weighed on her chest and left a sour taste on her tongue. She was Asher’s mother; she was supposed to protect him. Right then, she didn’t feel fully equipped to do it, and that absolutely terrified her.

  Leaving the others to continue the meeting, Harper excused herself and headed upstairs. She needed to be alone. Needed privacy. Needed time to assimilate everything and calm the fuck down.

  On her way to her bedroom, she paused at the ajar door of the nursery. All was quiet inside. Still, she poked her head through the door. Asher was sprawled on his back in his crib, flat out, dark silky hair all mussed. Her heart squeezed.

  Resisting the urge to go dab a kiss on his cheek for fear that she’d wake him, Harper headed into the lavish master bedroom, shed her clothes, and hopped into the walk-in shower of the opulent private bathroom.

  She stood under the square rain shower head, arms crossed over her chest, head down, eyes closed as the hot spray pounded on her skin. Her muscles felt sore and cramped from the tension that had arrested her on hearing Knox’s news.

  An incorporeal demon. A goddamn, motherfucking incorporeal demon.

  Dammit, why hadn’t she just called on the flames of hell that day in Jolene’s house? If she had, th
e incorporeal would be mere ashes right now. Then again, so would a good portion of Jolene’s dining room, and there would be no hiding exactly how it had burned, since the flames of hell left a red residue behind.

  People already worried that Knox could call on them. If they realized that she could also do so, they’d no doubt panic that she and Knox were so strong as a couple that they were a threat that needed eradicating. The other Primes were already nervous that Knox was mated—they didn’t need an additional reason to worry.

  Worse, people might even think that Knox had the ability to pass on such a power. She doubted there was a demon alive who wouldn’t be greedy for such an ability. Some could then target him in the hope that he could give it to them. So, yeah, calling on the flames at Jolene’s house would have brought on another set of problems.

  That wasn’t why Harper hadn’t immediately called on them, though. She kept the ability in her “worst-case scenario” box, still spooked by how her demon had once gotten immensely drunk on the power. The fact was it wasn’t an ability Harper should possess. She wasn’t built to handle it. She could control it well enough, but not while angry. She wasn’t like Knox, wasn’t good at containing her emotions or keeping her composure. If she’d called on the flames in Jolene’s dining room, Harper’s out-of-control rage would have fed the flames and made them just as out of control.

  In that sense, it was a good thing that Harper hadn’t instinctively called on them. But the protective mother in her didn’t care for logic—it wanted the incorporeal dead. And the dark entity within Harper craved that very same thing.

  Knowing that stewing on the whole matter wouldn’t help clear her head or calm her nerves, she concentrated on lathering the shampoo in her hair. Let herself enjoy the dig of her fingertips into her scalp and the vanilla scent of her soap surrounding her. Every time her thoughts strayed back to the incorporeal, she slammed a mental door on the subject. The last thing she wanted if Asher woke was for him to touch her mind and feel nothing but fury.