“Feeding. This area is ripe for harvest. I suppose I have you to thank for that.”
“I wasn’t the one who invited that nerd herd here.”
The demon chuckled and swirled his drink. He appeared relaxed and in no hurry to get on with the meal-mate test. That suited me just fine. Eventually the thoughts scurrying around in my head would coalesce into a plan of action. Until then, we could chat. Another positive thought: I appreciate his leisurely pace. On the heels of that thought was, I hope he underestimates me. Then I refused to think a follow-up thought, because they were all negative.
“So, where’re ya from?” I asked with a Southern California accent.
He blinked at me, then threw back his head and laughed. “Remind me to do this again. You newbies are fun.”
I eyed the horns, the black and red door, and the faraway trees. I did my best to school my features to calm. Think Sarah Connor under pressure.
I made myself walk across the room so that I could hide my face for a moment while I regained my calm. Tim shifted quickly in his chair and I disguised my jump by leaning forward for a glass from the bar.
“Are you going to answer my question?” I asked. I filled the glass with water. This was getting ridiculous. I needed an out. Or a little mouse hole of my very own to hide in. Somewhere where the demon couldn’t get to me while my soul recharged. If I could unconsciously recharge in my sleep from plants I wasn’t touching, maybe I could teach myself to do it while awake. And maybe I’d feed off people, I reminded myself darkly.
Tim smiled, exposing sharp teeth. “I’ve been in LA most recently. A friend mentioned this delightful region, ripe for a transfer. He was right: it’s a wonderful place to put down roots.” He petted the dark leather of the couch. I watched his hand glide back and forth and wondered how I had even for a moment fantasized about those sharp-clawed paws doing naughty fun things to my body. Of course, at the time they’d looked like regular human hands and he’d been doing some sort of demon voodoo on me. Still, it was repulsive.
“A friend?” I asked.
“How could I not stay once I met you, Maddie? May I call you Maddie?”
I hated that nickname. I hated it more that my weakness and inexperience was the reason he’d settled in this region. It made me feel responsible for something that I had no control over, a misplaced guilt that could eat away at my soul. What was left of it, at least. I stared at my legs. A few days ago, looking at my own soul had made me sick with vertigo. Now my stomach churned with worry over how dim I was.
When I looked up, Tim was behind me and I hadn’t even heard or seen him move.
“Enough talk.” He reached around me to take my glass from my hand. It was now or never.
I threw the glass over my shoulder at him and whirled to race across the room. I felt his claws slide through my back, but my thin polyester shirt slipped through his hands. I darted through the furniture arrangement and gripped the back of the couch. Tim was still near the bar, watching me with patronizing indulgence. He flicked water off his shoulder and stalked toward me.
“That wasn’t very nice. Where’re you going to go, Maddie? There’s no escape. Nowhere you can hide.” He stepped in the middle of the furniture arrangement. There was only a coffee table and the couch between us.
I’d played this game of tag as a child with my cousins at family reunions. The person who is “it” tries to outsmart the other people and dart around the furniture to tag them. I was never good at being “it,” and I’d been even worse at escaping. Of course, my life hadn’t depended on it then.
“Why don’t we dispense with these games?” Tim asked. He reached for the edge of the coffee table with one hand and flung it against the windows. They rattled but didn’t break.
I made a small noise, more hamster than human.
“Ooh, do that again,” the demon purred. He stalked to the right. I eased left. He lunged at me over the couch. I ran for the other side of the room, grabbing the lamp as I passed and hurling it blindly at him. A meaty thunk told me I’d hit some part of him.
There was nowhere to hide in the bedroom, and the door on the bathroom wasn’t going to stop this demon. Resigned, I turned to face Tim again, this time with the other couch between us.
He crouched in the middle of the room, looking carnivorous despite the antlers. Or maybe because of them and their wickedly sharp edges. There was a gleam in his eye that riled my anger. He was having fun. His dark soul glowed wetly with what I assumed was excitement. Or anticipation. I must have looked tasty and helpless from his perspective.
I ran my hand down my side in a reflexive gesture to wipe the smears of atrum away and I brushed up against the butt of a gun. Desperation made me draw it. Seeing too many movies made me feel falsely empowered.
“Stop right there,” I commanded with a surprising amount of authority.
Tim paused. He eyed the gun. When he gave me a full, sharp-toothed grin, I knew I’d run out of options.
“Bullets can’t hurt me, Maddie—not for long.” He took a step toward me.
“Infused with lux lucis they can.”
He paused again. “True. But if you had lux lucis bullets, you would have used them on me already, wouldn’t you have?”
Good point. If I hadn’t, his patronizing tone would have pushed me over the edge now.
The hounds in the hall started barking. Neither of us breathed for a moment as we listened. The dogs were running toward the elevator, their baying growing fainter. Hope made my skin tingle, and I shoved it down behind a layer of sarcasm.
“We’ve got company,” I said. “Friends of yours?”
Tim lunged, leaping onto the sofa cushions. I flailed backward, heaving the heavy gun at him. It smacked into his shoulder, spinning him slightly.
He staggered to the side. I ran for the door. I made it two steps before he tackled me from behind. We both went down, my padded breasts cushioning our fall. I kicked at him and tried to scramble out from underneath him. I couldn’t get a purchase on the carpet. The demon grabbed the back of my neck and smashed my face into the carpet.
I’d barely registered the pain before the demon flipped me over as if I were a rag doll. I used my knees to land a few blows before I was pinned again, this time facing those glowing putrid eyes and sharp horns. He straddled me, one knee crushing my left wrist a hand immobilizing my right arm.
When I realized none of my squirming was helping, I stiffened, trying to conserve energy. Yep, I’d been right; he was enjoying himself. The evidence was pressed firmly against my thigh. The demon grinned at me and I couldn’t help it—I began to struggle all over again. With those teeth inches from my face, it was impossible to think rationally.
“You could just look at me,” the demon said. He was breathing hard, too, but he wasn’t having trouble holding me down. “You’d even enjoy yourself.”
I didn’t like the reminder of how easily he’d overpowered me earlier when I’d switched to normal vision. It was terrifying, and I didn’t want to feel fear. I wanted anger.
“I don’t want a mind fuck.” I spat in his face.
He slapped me, and the blow bounced my head off the floor. The impact did something to my eardrums. I could hear the blood pounding in them like a hammer. I blinked and tried to focus. The demon lowered his face to my neck.
“There’s room for only one vampire in this room,” I growled. I gathered lux lucis and forced it through my hands into his body. The demon hissed against my neck. His teeth pressed against my fragile flesh. I screamed and pushed light through my neck, pulling from reserves in my life force that I hadn’t known existed.
He flew off my body and landed next to me, rolling almost immediately to his feet. I stared in wonder at my own strength.
It took a second longer for me to make sense of the extra pair of feet by my head.
Tim stalked backward, hands splayed, ready to pounce on the newcomer. I scooted like a crab to press against the wall. It ha
dn’t been my strength that had thrown the demon, I realized as I leveraged up against the wall while my rescuer stalked past me after the demon.
My eyes soaked in the fierce white of Niko’s soul. After so much darkness and so much terror and despair, looking at him was like feeling sunshine after spending months underground. His soul was like no other’s I’d seen. It wasn’t merely pure like my soul. There was strength in it, a solidness that boasted of confidence and the physical abilities to back it up. I would have been able to pick Niko’s soul out of a crowd from twenty paces.
The optivus aegis ignored me, his attention focused on the demon. I glanced back over my shoulder at the door. The painful black and red ward was gone. The door frame was gouged and splintered around the lock. The hallway beyond was empty. If a hound had somehow escaped Niko’s notice, it surely would have come through by now.
The chime of metal on metal spun me back toward the men. From out of who knew where, both men had drawn long knives. Niko’s shone white like energized pet wood. The demon’s was a regular blade, dead in the world of Primordium. Of course, a regular blade was all it would take to kill Niko. There were no special added bits of evil needed.
I looked around for something I could use to help Niko, and blinked to get a better view of the room. The sun had set and I’d broken the lamp in the main room. Light from the hall provided the only illumination. My gaze returned to the man who had rescued me.
Had there ever been a more delicious sight than Niko in full battle mode? He was dressed in army fatigue pants with a plethora of cargo pockets, and a skintight sleeveless black shirt very similar to my own. Only, all the bulges in his chest were real. So were the defined muscles in his arms. Even in my sad state, my mind made nummy noises just looking at him.
His face was stern and focused. I held my breath as the men circled each other, jabbing and kicking. In a matter of moments, all the furniture had been knocked to the edges of the room. Niko fought conservatively, and the demon taunted him with jabs and feints that even I could see were more to test Niko’s skill than to cause real damage.
Then my gaze collided with Tim’s face.
He was beautiful, delicate and masculine at the same time. I itched to run my hands over his body. I dodged a roundhouse kick and sidled closer.
“Madison, stand back!” Niko ordered.
I stopped. I hadn’t realized I’d moved. I stood two feet from Tim, two feet from Niko.
“Shit. Blink, Madison. Look at him in Primordium.”
The men moved toward me at the same time. I shied away from the shiny blades in their hands, but I didn’t shift too far. If we all could get along, this could turn out to be my best night ever.
Tim got to me first. I smiled at Niko and then turned into Tim’s embrace. He was pressing a knife against my throat, glaring over my shoulder at Niko.
“Ooh, you like it kinky?” I asked. “I can be kinky for you.”
“Move and she dies,” Tim snarled at Niko.
Niko backed up, hands held up in surrender. I cupped my hand around Tim through his pants. He was no longer so happy. He’d been happy before, right?
“Drop the knife.” I heard the muffled thump of Niko’s blade on the carpet. One down, one to go.
“Blink, Madison, damn it!”
“She’s so innocent. And old. What are you guys doing around here?” Tim asked.
“We could be doing so much more if you’d let me,” I purred against his neck. I tasted him with my tongue. Odd. He tasted human. What else would he taste like? I rubbed my hand against his crotch while I thought, using the motion to help me focus. Tim turned us and I saw Niko over his shoulder. We were going to leave him behind. I fumbled to push the knife from my throat. “Wait. Stop. I want both of you.”
Tim chuckled and slid his hand down my back to grab my butt. I continued to stare into Niko’s dark, angry eyes. Did I misread Niko? Is he angry he’s losing me to Tim? Was I making a mistake?
Yes! screamed a voice through the cotton in my brain.
Tim hauled me toward the door and Niko followed, but from a distance. I wanted him close. I knew it. I closed my eyes. My thoughts squirmed through a quagmire of lust, and I chased after them, pouncing on the loudest: This is wrong.
I didn’t open my eyes. If I did, I knew I would lose my hold on that slippery, important thought. I ran my leg up Tim’s side. He lifted my right butt cheek, half picking me up off the ground. I slid my hand into the knife sheath of my boot and grabbed the pet wood. Feeling like my actions were being performed by someone else’s body, I pushed lux lucis into the pet wood. I slid my face up Tim’s neck, slid my hand holding the pet wood under his shirt, and opened my eyes to Primordium. With all my strength, I plunged the tip of the pet wood into the demon’s soft side.
He jerked, releasing my leg. I pushed off his chest, but he pulled me right back. The pet wood was already drained of lux lucis. I grabbed for it again.
“Madison, don’t!” Niko shouted.
My hand closed around the pet wood and I slammed lux lucis into it. It was like pushing lux lucis into a cavern of atrum.
Tim looked down at me and smiled. “Why are you still fighting me, Maddie? You don’t want this. You don’t want to be an enforcer.”
His words made me falter. Two days ago, I would have agreed with him. I’d taken this job for the money and to find a way to get rid of my ability. But changing Max last night had changed me, too. Given the chance, there was a possibility I’d still be okay with leaving humanity’s fate in the capable hands of the already existing enforcers, but I couldn’t turn my back on helpless victims like Max when I had a chance of preventing their suffering—or saving them.
Staring at Tim, I now had a second reason for fighting. The demon was an abomination, a creature that gleefully harmed and warped humans and animals alike; he was a being with no chance at redemption.
I redoubled my efforts, shoving my dwindling supply of lux lucis through the pet wood.
“I tried,” Tim said with a shrug. Then, without moving his hands, he pulled lux lucis from my body through the pet wood faster than I’d been feeding it.
Icy dread drenched my scalp. I tried to halt my energy’s drain. When that didn’t work, I yanked my hand away from the pet wood, but my fingers had gone numb, much like they had when I’d accidentally created a loop with my own lux lucis, and they didn’t budge. Inspired by the memory, I shifted to bring a leg up and break my connection with the pet wood.
The world tilted, blurring at the edges. Niko’s voice washed against my ears, as unintelligible as the sound of the ocean in a seashell. I sagged in Tim’s embrace. My last thought before I passed out was one of triumph, because Tim had let me fall, freeing me from the pet wood. Then the carpet crashed into me, soft as a down comforter.
16
Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body
I woke to pain—throbbing pain in my head, arm, hands, and left leg; stinging pain in my elbows and knees—and a warm hand on my back. Had I felt only the pain, I might not have bothered opening my eyes, but the warm hand was large and male and pressed against my bare skin, and that realization snapped my eyes open.
I stared across the floor to where the flowered carpet met a cream-colored wall. This was not my home. I rolled to look behind me, but a second firm hand on my hip held me still.
“Don’t move,” Niko said.
Memory returned in a single pop of knowledge. I scrambled to my feet with the next breath.
“Where’s Tim? What happened?” We were in the hall. Tim’s suite was several feet away. Five dead dogs were crumpled at the other end of the hall.
Blood rushed to my head, chased by ice. I collapsed to all fours and threw up. Niko handed me a bottle of water and eased me back away from the foul-smelling puddle. I started shaking, then crying. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the dead dogs. Niko pulled me around until I couldn’t see their bodies, and he held me against him, pushing his hand b
eneath the back of my shirt again to touch skin.
“The demon fled after you blacked out,” Niko said.
If the situation had been more intimate—if I hadn’t just passed out, then puked in front of the handsome optivus aegis—I might have enjoyed being held up against him. We were almost hugging. As it was, I held myself stiff, trying to get my emotional bearings.
“You didn’t kill him?” I asked, my voice raspy.
“I had to take care of you.”
I blinked at the rough edge of anger in Niko’s voice. I tried to pull back, but he tightened his grip.
“I’m not done,” he said.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you lux lucis. Enough to make it outside. You’re lucky I got your call. And that you sent those pictures to Brad. If you hadn’t, you’d be dead now.”
I vaguely remembered dropping Medusa in my backpack right after I’d initiated a call to Niko, back when I’d been on the service stairs at my first sight of Tim.
“Thank you.”
When Niko let me pull away from him, I kept my gaze turned away from the dogs, which meant I was forced to look at Niko. Like every emotion, anger looked good on him, firming his full lips, sparking in his eyes.
“What were you thinking?” Niko asked.
“Wait. You’re angry with me?” I was the one who’d suffered a debilitating attack by a demon. If anyone was going to be angry, it should be me.
Niko’s patronizing silence grated against raw nerves. “What was I thinking? You’re going to have to be more specific. When I was being attacked by hounds? When I was facing a room of wall-to-wall vervet and imps? When I was under Tim’s spell and then control?” My hands slashed the air around us. I was shouting, but volume control wasn’t important. “I was thinking about survival. And how to save my region. And how useless busy work was.”
“So you rushed up here to take on a demon all by your incompetent self because you were bored with ‘busy work’?”
“I didn’t rush anywhere. I was herded.”
Niko made me explain what I meant. Grudgingly at first, then with greater apathy as my energy and righteousness fizzled, I told him everything that had happened between the time when I walked through the employees’ door and when he had arrived.
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