“We are here on official business,” I said, my voice firm. “I’m serious.”
“Whoa, are you using the ‘bad cop’ voice?” Acheron asked. “I haven’t done anything…yet.”
“Official business,” I repeated, staring into his eyes. A feat very few could do while keeping their sanity. “Are we clear?”
“I’m officially in lust,” he replied, ignoring me and looking out the window before running his fingers through his hair. “Absolutely clear. How do I look?”
I sighed. This was a losing battle.
“If you can’t keep it together, you can wait in Eight,” I said, my tone still serious. “Last thing I need is you flirting with Liv. Did you forget what happened the last time you tried to flirt with her?”
“How could I?” Acheron replied with a grin. “It hurt so good.”
“I don’t know why you insist on pushing this with her,” I said with a sigh. “You know she’s taken a vow.”
“Please explain it to me,” Acheron said. “How can a succubus take a vow of celibacy? It’s practically criminal…especially when the succubus in question is one inhumanly spectacular Liv Rei.”
“We’ve been over this,” I said, letting the anger creep into my voice. “The vow makes sure she keeps The Grimoire. We need The Grimoire and we need her guarding it. Why is this complicated for you?”
“I understand it,” Acheron answered. “I just don’t like it.”
“Celibacy and neutrality,” I said. “She stays clear of all OSA affairs, they leave her alone.”
“Beautiful and smart,” Acheron answered wistfully. “I need to convince her to break this vow, at least for me.”
“Will never happen,” I said with a small smile. “You just gave the perfect reason.”
“I did?”
“She’s smart, practically a genius,” I answered. “Why would she risk that for some scruffy Demon Lord who’s all hormones and no brain?”
“Ouch,” Acheron said with a grin. “That was uncalled for.”
“It’s her choice, so drop it,” I answered. “Tell me you understand.”
“A vow like that should be illegal.”
“Do I need to compel you?”
Acheron’s face darkened at my words.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me,” I assured him. “You stop the blood flow to the head on your shoulders, and you’ll find yourself crawling back to Eight so fast, it’ll give you whiplash.”
“Mmmm…whips and lashes. Can you make sure Liv is doing the lashing?”
“You are a lost cause, did you know that? Do not make me compel you. I’m serious.”
The bond we shared, through the summons that went wrong, bound Acheron to me…completely. We didn’t like to talk about it…well, he didn’t and I avoided bringing it up. Mostly, because we both made errors that day. Errors that had long-lasting consequences for the both of us.
“Threats…are beneath you,” he said, tugging on his vest indignantly and straightening the glasses on his face. “A simple request would have sufficed.”
I bit my tongue and took a deep breath, counting to ten to restrain myself from driving a fist upside his head…repeatedly.
“Just…get out,” I said, unstrapping my harness. “She should be expecting us.”
“She always is,” he purred. “One of the things I love about Liv.”
I shook my head.
“Holy hell,” I muttered under my breath. “You can be a total pain in my ass.”
“There’s nothing holy about hell,” he answered with a grin. “I should know.”
“Out…now.”
“I can hardly wait,” he said, jumping out of Eight. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”
We stepped into the Sweetgreen, and Acheron scrunched his face.
“Behave,” I said under my breath, adding an elbow in his ribs for good measure. “We’re not here to critique the place. Leave Becca alone and head to the back.”
He peered into the containers holding different kinds of food.
“Do humans really eat this…? Does it even qualify as food?” he asked, his face still scrunched up. “This is food for rodents. Really, this can’t be a food of choice. This is some sort of torture…yes?”
“People like to eat it and keep your voice down.”
I nodded to the counter person who stood behind the large glass panel. She gave me a short nod in return, moving on to take care of the next customer—who was giving Acheron a serious case of side eye. Acheron smiled and winked at her. The customer blushed and quickly looked away. There were days he was impossible.
Today was one of those days.
The counter person standing behind the large glass panel observed this brief interaction and slowly shook her head with a small smile. Her name badge said Becca, but I knew she was really one of Liv’s guardians. She gave me another subtle nod, directing me to the back.
Becca stood at least six feet tall, her gymnast’s physique easily clearing the tall, glass panel. Her black hair was pulled back in a long, tight braid, contrasting starkly against her pale skin. Her violet eyes shone with latent power, her gaze following us for a few feet as we walked past.
If anyone tried to get to Liv or The Grimoire upstairs, Becca was the first line of defense. To my knowledge, The Grimoire housed five guardians on the premises. I’d only ever seen Becca. The other four were either a myth or invisible.
Not that Liv needed guardians. She wasn’t some helpless waif waiting to be rescued. I’d never faced a succubus in combat, but the rumors around Liv made me glad I was on her good side.
“Did you ever find out what she was?” Acheron asked, returning an elbow shot to my ribs, and knocking me out of my reverie as we headed to the storeroom. “Becca is not part of the Brood.”
“Do you really want to know?” I asked and slowed down. “I could always go back and ask her.”
“No, thank you,” Acheron said with a sniff. “I just wanted to know if you knew. Who’s being crass now?”
“She’s a guardian…a powerful one,” I said after a moment of thought. “Not someone or something I want to face without serious backup.”
“That was my assessment as well,” Acheron said, his face serious. “I just thought you would know what kind of guardian. The subject is broad.”
“It never really crossed my mind to get into detail with Becca. I don’t plan to ever launch an offensive against The Grimoire, do you?”
“Not The Grimoire, but that poor excuse for an eatery? Possibly.”
“If you really want to know what she is,” I answered, picking up the pace again, “you could always ask Liv.”
“Ignorance is not bliss in my world,” he replied. “In my world, ignorance is one step away from oblivion. What you don’t know can kill you.”
He did have a point.
“Know yourself and know your enemy?”
“Sun Tzu knew what he was talking about,” Acheron said. “I don’t like facing unknown entities in battle.”
“We aren’t facing her in battle, we’re walking past her and upstairs to see Liv.”
“She’s an unknown quantity and that makes me uneasy.”
“Whatever she is, I don’t want to tangle with her,” I answered, heading to a black, unmarked door at the rear of the storeroom. “If Liv trusts her to protect The Grimoire, she’s capable and dangerous.”
“I’m capable and dangerous,” Acheron said, looking back over his shoulder to the front area. “Becca is something more…something old…something worse.”
“Something worse than you? I seriously doubt that.”
“There are many things out there worse than me…deep unknowable things in an abyss of mystery.”
I snapped my fingers to get his attention.
“Abyss and gazing…don’t,” I said, refocusing his attention on the door in front of us. “Do you want to open the door, or should I?”
“Allow me,” Acheron said, tracing a s
igil on the door. It gave off a faint hint of demonflame, and instantly disappeared in a small puff of red flame and smoke. The door opened slightly a few seconds later. Acheron gestured with a small bow and a flourish. “After you.”
“Show off,” I said, pushing the door open. “Remember: this is official business.”
“Sweet, sweet business,” he sing-songed as he followed me upstairs. “It’s like automatic gunfire…a stairway to heav—”
“Knock it off,” I said, stopping on the stairs. “Game face, now.”
“Now, I’m confused,” he answered with a mischievous smile. “Is this business or a game?”
“It’s always a game…with deadly outcomes if we screw up. Let’s go.”
SIX
We reached the top of the stairs, and at the end of a short hallway sat the door to The Grimoire.
Each stair was covered in a specific set of sigils designed to prevent entry if Liv wished it. They were hard for the untrained eye to see, but I had had plenty of painful training in uncovering them.
The short hallway at the top of the stairs seemed innocent enough. This was an illusion. Every surface of the hallway was also covered in barely perceptible sigils. These were more along the lines of ‘end your life in agony’. The kinds of sigils I stayed away from. Liv valued her privacy and protected it with applied lethality.
I guess Liv felt that if the uninvited guests could get past the stairs, they needed to die in the hallway. The sigils we walked past were, thankfully, dormant, but could easily turn lethal. If Liv was having a bad day, it guaranteed anyone in the hallway was going to have an excruciating one.
“Liv takes her security seriously,” Acheron said with a hint of admiration, stopping to peer at one of the sigils on the wall. “This one here is new. It will”—he pointed at the symbol—“turn your insides out. I do so love a connoisseur of the classic maneuvers.”
“So glad you’re a fan,” I said. “Let’s not do anything to make her activate them.”
“And this one,” he said, pointing to another. “Will literally boil your blood…Delicious.”
“There’s something wrong with you, you know that?”
“Nothing like warm blood on a cold winter night.”
“It’s summer.”
“Warm blood on a hot night is good, too.”
“How about you don’t give me the fine details on the sigils I’m currently surrounded by?” I asked, feeling queasy. “I’d rather not hear about having my insides ripped out or my blood boiled.”
“No, not ripped out,” Acheron corrected. “You would be turned inside out…literally. Quite effective as a method of stopping an attack, I would think.”
“No shit,” I said. “Let’s get to the door. Leave the walls alone, thank you.”
We approached the large, intimidating door. It was the kind of door that made you regret leaving your RPG at home. I placed a hand against the cool steel, feeling the power thrumming beneath the surface.
“This is an impressive door,” Acheron said. “She’s recently modified it.”
“Can’t imagine the amount of firepower needed to bring this thing down,” I said, admiring the door. “Did she borrow it from Fort Knox?”
Acheron stepped close and licked the door, stepping back with nod.
“Just as I suspected,” he said as if what he had just done was the most normal thing ever. “Tartarus steel. How she ever managed to get this in place is astounding. Liv is a demon of many talents, not all of them titillating.”
“Tartarus the prison?”
“Do you know of a different Tartarus?”
“Only the one that’s in the depths…Scary prison. The ‘no escape ever’ type of place.”
“The one and the same,” he nodded. “This would be a…cell door, I think…for something particularly powerful, but yes, this door came from Tartarus.”
“How did she get it?” I asked, wondering. “Were they renovating and changing doors?”
“I would say Liv is a lot stronger than she lets on…If Becca the Guardian is any indication of her power and standing, Liv is beyond even my level.”
“Stronger than a Demon Lord? What’s stronger than a Demon Lord?”
“There are many levels. King James said it best: principalities, powers, rulers, and wickedness in high places,” Acheron said. “To get this door here, Liv has to be among the first two.”
“Where are you in that group?” I asked. “Are you more like wickedness in low places?”
“I’m one of a kind, my dear,” he said. “I can’t be classified.”
I turned back to the door of The Grimoire.
It was the kind of door that made bank vaults jealous. Blue sigils covered the grey surface and pulsed to a gentle rhythm. There were no locks or handles. It was just a large piece of metal designed to be slid into the wall, allowing entry into the space beyond it.
Tartarus steel was reinforced and alloyed with some impenetrable metal I didn’t recognize. For all intents and purposes, it could’ve been adamantium. All I knew was that no one got through this door unless Liv wanted them to.
Someone or something had tried not too long ago.
Before the guardians, Liv had operated The Grimoire alone. She had, at that time, a rare artifact designed to enhance the amount of power a sorcerer could control—basically a turbocharged leveling up device.
Whoever it was had gotten past the outer defenses of The Grimoire unchallenged, until they had gotten to this door and wall. The metal made up the door was also part of the walls that encased the entire second floor of the building.
Rumor was that Liv had just kept the door closed and called the OSA, who disposed of the remains. Ever since that day, guardians had appeared at The Grimoire and no one ever showed up unannounced…except me.
Somehow, Liv always knew when I was on my way, much to Acheron’s delight. He considered it a point of personal pride that she would be aware of his presence to such a degree.
I suspected it had more to do with the threat he posed. A Demon Lord bound to an Otherkin could be seen as a security issue and threat, not only to The Grimoire but to the city and, if powerful enough, to the world.
What was to stop me from compelling him to breach The Grimoire?
Not much. We didn’t know what the guardians were, but I would bet on Acheron being able to deal with them; same for the walls on the second floor. It would take some time and maybe insane amounts of power and explosives, but I was certain that with enough time, and maybe a missile or two, he could get through.
The only thing that could stop him after all that would be Liv herself. If I were her, I would keep tabs on us too.
Liv opened the door before we knocked, and smiled.
“Hello, Nyx, Acheron,” she said, her voice a husky blanket that wrapped itself warmly around me. “Please, come in.”
Liv was beautiful in a 1920’s femme fatale kind of way, emphasis on the fatale.
Auburn hair framed her pale face and was pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her eyes, similar to Becca’s, radiated a soft violet light, with the only difference being that Liv’s pupils were actually violet—a rare trait.
With humans, it was known as Alexandria’s Genesis; in demons, it denoted power…Arch Demon level of power. It meant Liv was beyond a heavyweight. She was a succubus at the top of the food chain, and everyone and everything else beneath her could easily be a snack. I reinforced my a mental note to never piss her off…again.
Liv wore a loose-fitting pair of jeans and an old, oversized black T-shirt that did little to hide her curvy figure. She was at least as tall as Acheron, and the wiry muscles in her arms were an indicator of the strength she possessed.
Liv was no one to trifle with, which made this path she chose an odd one. She seemed to enjoy the quiet life of librarian-demon. Maybe one day I’d ask her why she took her vow…but not today.
Acheron nearly tripped over himself trying to step inside Liv’s sanctum.
&nbs
p; “Take a breath,” I said under my breath. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“I keep forgetting how breathtaking she is…every single time.”
I had to agree.
Liv was beyond beautiful. She was nearly perfect, which, if you were paying attention, was the first indicator that you should be running in the opposite direction. The truth was that by the time your brain got the memo, it was too late. Liv was dangerous, and I was doubly glad for her vow of celibacy and neutrality.
She was, literally, deathly beautiful.
“She is beautiful and…unavailable,” I almost whispered. “Remember we are here on business.”
“Yes, yes, business,” Acheron said, waving my words away without taking his eyes off Liv. “I’m all business.”
“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “C’mon.”
I stepped farther into The Grimoire.
The space was laid out in a wheel fashion: one main room acted as the hub, with smaller connected rooms acting as the spokes. The main room was for general research, with glass display cases, and tables were covered with books.
The walls around the main area were covered in bookcases filled with books. The smaller rooms allowed for some privacy and quiet reading away from the main room.
We stepped in, past the initial entrance. To the side was a large reception area, with a wide desk acting as the boundary between the entrance and the main room proper. The desk was made of ebony wood and shimmered with subtle sigils of power. Liv walked around the desk, and made a waving gesture with one hand. I heard the door slide shut behind us. Several metallic noises rang out through the space. We were effectively locked in.
Liv sat in the large chair behind the desk, grabbed a mug of dark liquid I really hoped was coffee, and looked at us.
“How can I help you, Nyxia?”
SEVEN
I stepped up to the desk, picked up a pen, and one of the small note pads.
“I need to show you a sigil,” I said. “Can I use the room?”
They Bite: A Nyxia White Story (They Bite-A Nyxia White Story-Book 1) Page 4
