Whiskey and Angelfire

by A. A. Chamberlynn

  Quinn was always a smart girl. She didn’t say another word as she finished fixing me up, each of us in our own thoughts about what tomorrow would bring.

  I watched the sun rise over the marsh. Typically I wasn’t much of a morning person, but then that sort of thing only applied to people who could actually sleep. After last night’s discovery, sleep clearly wasn’t a luxury that could be afforded to me. After all, if sleep was Lucifer’s conduit then there was a quite simple solution to that.

  Donovan got up not much later. He shuffled out to where I sat on the edge of the dock, chin on my knees. Shirtless, and showing a delicious swath of muscles which normally would have had me clawing the rest of his clothes off. But things were too complicated right now. Everything had gone right to hell. Or rather, hell was coming to us.

  He put his arm around me and squeezed me against him. “We’ll get this all sorted out.”

  “Of course,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel.

  “I’m going to head back to the city and talk to some old informants of mine. See if I can’t figure out what’s got Michael’s panties all in a bunch.” He looked down at me, the morning sun making his eyes glow. “You’re headed after Anna?”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged. “Not sure where else to start. It’s all tangled together somehow, I just don’t know how yet.”

  “It’s something big if it’s got the angels all stirred up like this.”

  I nodded and climbed to my feet. “Be careful out there. It’s not a friendly world for supes at the moment.”

  He laughed. “You telling me to be careful—that’s rich. I should be watching your back.” I opened my mouth to protest but he cut me off. “And that’s exactly why I’m not—you wouldn’t let me. Plus, I know you can take care of yourself.”

  I felt a huge wave of something within me, something wild and a bit giddy. The corners of my eyes stung. Donovan wasn’t always the most sensitive guy, but he got me.

  Melting my body against his, I pulled him into a kiss. Our lips met in a slow, dizzying burn that sent fireworks through me. The rays of the sun played over us, and time spun by, and we clung to each other like it might be the last kiss we ever shared. It could be, for all I knew. But for a few brief minutes I let our kiss keep the dread at bay, the dark weight in my chest that had been growing since the night before. Really, since I’d arrived in this forsaken country.

  Donovan didn’t say anything else when we pulled apart. His eyes shone bright, and he simply turned and strode off through the marsh.

  Quinn and Riley came out onto the dock. Apparently they’d been waiting until we were done.

  “Let’s go find that sister of yours,” Riley said.

  Quinn tapped a finger against her chin. “I could always try a tracking spell. Maybe it won’t bomb out this time.”

  “No need,” I said.

  They both stared at me, waiting for an explanation. Which I didn’t really have. “I—I can sense her. As soon as I thought about finding her, she was there, in my mind.”

  We all looked down at my demon mark, which glowed faintly in the sun.

  “It must be a connection through Lucifer,” Quinn said, her voice hushed. “Since she’s bonded to him, and he’s—”

  “Bonded to me,” I finished.

  “Not all the way,” Riley said, his jaw tight.

  “Close enough.” I closed my eyes for a moment. This wasn’t the time to wallow in how totally fucked I was. I opened them again. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go find the bitch.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I jumped through the interdimensional pathways, first with Quinn, then with Riley, until all three of us stood in an alleyway off Grafton Street. We’d left Scorch with Mags and a promise that he would stay put.

  My sense of Anna wasn’t so strong that I could jump directly to her, but I was able to get fairly close. Not that I wanted to go in blind anyhow. We needed to scout the area and see what kind of mess we were landing in first. Cars buzzed past just a few feet away; we were downtown in the touristy area. Fusilier’s Arch and St. Stephen’s Green could be seen in the distance. Anna was about half a mile away, to the east. Quinn and Riley followed as I strode down the street, following Anna’s beacon call like a hound chasing a rabbit. My demon mark felt warm, but I ignored it.

  I still wasn’t used to this new Dublin, this monstrosity of boutique shopping and sleek modern buildings mingled in with the old ones. If we weren’t chasing my jerk sister I might be inclined to shop for new boots. It didn’t seem a section of town where supes would hang out a whole lot, other than maybe the rich vamps. What was Anna up to down here?

  The pull I felt stopped abruptly outside a tall glass and steel building. Riley and Quinn almost ran into the back of me. “She’s in here.”

  We entered the lobby of the place, which swarmed with humans. It seemed to be some sort of financial firm or perhaps a bunch of attorneys. Lots of suits and skirts passing by, staring at me in my jeans and worn leather jacket, not to mention my katana. I heard Quinn muttering behind me, and the gazes of the humans began to slide off us like oil on water.

  “Just a little glamour,” she whispered.

  “Good idea,” Riley said.

  “Elevator.” I pointed toward the ceiling. “She’s above us.”

  We grabbed one of the three elevators. The doors whooshed shut and I looked at the keypad in front of me. There were fifty floors. I wasn’t sure exactly which one she was on, but it was pretty high up. I punched the fifty key. Riley raised his eyebrows.

  The elevator slid silently upwards, stopping every floor to let people on and off. I was beginning to wish we’d taken the damn stairs. Finally we reached the fiftieth floor, along with a couple humans, and we stepped out into the hallway. I looked left and right. There were only a few offices up here, swank penthouse style ones for the top executives of the firm. Anna’s pull came from the left.

  We reached the end of the hall, where a large polished reception desk sat in front of frosted glass doors. Two massive potted ferns framed the double doors, and soft violin music played from an unknown source. Video cams pointed down at the entrance. A brass plaque on the wall to the right of the doors said “M. Masters”.

  The brunette behind the desk cast her bespectacled gaze upon us and said in a melodic voice, “May I assist you?”

  She’d seen through the glamour. It seemed there was more to this office building than met the eye.

  “We’re here to see the boss,” I said, pointing to the brass plaque.

  She smiled sweetly and cocked her head to the side. “And what business do you have with Ms. Masters?”

  “Private business,” I said with my own fake smile.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to make an appointment and come back another time.”

  “I’m afraid that doesn’t work for us,” I responded.

  The receptionist smiled brighter, showing a hint of sharp fangs. “Well, it’ll have to—” And she promptly froze in place mid-sentence.

  “Honestly,” Quinn said, striding past the desk. “Sometimes you talk too much.”

  She shoved the doors open. Beyond them lay a small room with no adornment whatsoever, just white walls with another door set in the wall on the far side. This door was plain and gray and very unassuming. Which meant, of course, that whatever lay behind it was going to really blow our socks off.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Riley responded.

  I strode across the room and opened the door.

  A cavernous hall of rough-hewn stone stretched before us, lit by flickering torchlight. It looked like some sort of giant medieval dungeon, stretching farther than I could see. Around the perimeter stood cells, further firming up the dungeon theme, except that in the cells shops had been set up. Alchemists, botanists, weapon makers, musicians. Supes of every variety milled about, moving from vendor to vendor, looking over their wares.

  A giant supernatural black market. Stuffed inside
an office suite that couldn’t be bigger than two thousand square feet.

  “It’s a pocket dimension,” Quinn breathed. “The door led us to a pocket dimension.”

  “You mean we’re not on Earth anymore?” I asked.

  “No.” I couldn’t tell whether she was breathless from fascination, fear, or both.

  It was so packed inside that no one noticed we’d arrived. There had to be hundreds of beings. I took a couple steps forward. A barrage of scents assaulted me: strange potions, cooking meat, and of course sulfur. You couldn’t have a black market without demons lurking about. And my sister was one of them.

  The door closed behind us and I heard Riley curse. “What?”

  He pointed to the blank stone wall where the door had been.

  “Where’d the door go?” I snapped.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?”

  Quinn bit her lip. “It’s probably a safeguard. Once you get in, you can’t get out again without permission. No thieves here.”

  I groaned. “How fantastic.”

  “Well, while we’re here, I need something to eat,” Riley said.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked.

  He shrugged and headed off toward a food cart set up next to a giant suit of ogre armor. I was hungry, too, but there wasn’t shit I could do about it here.

  “Do you still feel Anna?” Quinn asked as Riley paid for a sandwich.

  “Yeah. She’s definitely in here,” I said. At least something was still going in our favor. If you could call having a special link to my sister through Lucifer good favor.

  “Walk and eat,” I said to Riley as he joined us again.

  We strode down the marketplace, which didn’t have any end I could see. The thing was gigantic. And of course Anna had to be at the far end of it. The crowd thinned a bit as we kept going, and seedy shops replaced the more commonplace ones. Poisons of all variety. Torture devices. Zombie slaves. And then an auction block for other types of supernatural slaves sold to the highest bidder. I tried to ignore the teary-eyed tree nymph up on the block. Beside me, Riley let out a low growl. If Eli was here, he could get the angelic forces to come bust this place up. But he wasn’t. And I didn’t know if the angels were really the white knights anymore.

  “Another time,” I said, placing a hand on Riley’s arm.

  He nodded stiffly and we kept going. Up ahead, the long room finally seemed to be coming to an end. Or rather, it opened up onto another room. Brighter light flooded out into the dungeon area. As we got closer, I could a large, round room beyond, with a domed mosaic ceiling. Sandstone pillars lined the perimeter; the floor a similar material but in large tiles. On the far side of the room sat a high-backed chair of polished ebony wood. Supes rimmed the outer edges of the room, but they gave a wide berth to the being sitting in the chair. And for good reason.

  I’d seen a lot of bad guys (and gals) in my two centuries. Obviously, I mean, it came with the bounty hunting business. Not a whole lot impressed me. I’d seen about every type of demon under the sun, and loads of other creatures from the dark corners of the universe. I’d helped destroy the supernatural overlord of Brazil, and several other international A-listers. I’d had drinks with Lucifer himself. And Michael was now climbing the charts of beings I’d rather not tangle with. So when I say the creature in the chair made me want to run like hell in the opposite direction, it was not lightly said.

  She looked fairly normal as appearances go. Normal height. Skin a dark, shiny eggplant color. Long hair in shades of pewter, loose and pulled around over one shoulder. Solid black eyes, except for a thin ring of white around the irises. She wore a cloak of black velvet, and her lips were redder than fresh blood. If I were to classify her I would’ve said she most closely resembled some sort of demon, but that wasn’t quite right. Or maybe it was, but from a time before time.

  And that was just it—this creature was old. I’d never felt something that resonated with such ancient power. Dark power, too. I could almost smell it. It tingled in the air and danced down my throat. I was guessing in her pinky finger alone she carried the power of a whole solar system. She could probably cough and accidentally blow up a planet. The insignificance I felt overwhelmed me, and I was hardly a humble person.

  I turned to Riley and Quinn to tell them that I’d decided to cancel this whole mission when the crowd parted and someone stepped into the empty space before the chair.

  My sister.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Anna stepped up before the ancient demoness and bowed low to the ground. She stayed there, forehead to stone, until the being said in a silky yet powerful voice, “You may rise and show me what you have brought.”

  I realized this was the ultimate showroom of the marketplace, where people could display items they had for sale to the mistress of the pocket dimension. Seemed awfully risky to me, but then this was the sort of place for shadowy types. Glancing at the beings around us made me feel like a regular Girl Scout. We stood out like elephants on the moon.

  Anna appeared unfazed. She was in demon form. Did that make her feel more powerful in such a place, or had she just come to prefer that appearance? “I have a very special drug I’d like to demonstrate for you.”

  The demoness wore a bored expression. “What sort of drug?”

  Anna smiled, a small upturning of the lips. “It turns humans into demons.”

  I sucked in a breath. Murmurs of appreciation rose throughout the crowd. It made sense now. All the demons of different levels that broke loose in the city? The water nymph had said there wasn’t a breach from the Hell dimension. Not needed if you could make your own demons here on Earth. An invasion from the inside.

  Anna pulled a vial of bright orange liquid from within her jacket. The demoness frowned. Not so much a movement of her lips, the frown came from her whole being. She radiated displeasure, and it sang palpably through the room.

  “I did not say I was interested,” she said, her voice carrying the force of a solar breeze.

  “My apologies,” Anna said, her voice impressively steady. “An army of demons—would that not be useful to you?”

  A wave of power rolled across the room and everyone rocked on their feet. The air constricted and I could taste blood where I’d bitten my tongue. A couple people near the door backed out of the room and left.

  “I know for whom you are employed,” the demoness said, her eyes boring into Anna’s. “I am not interested in Lucifer’s petty games. He is nothing but a child. I was created eons before Heaven came into existence and I will be here long after it has crumbled. He wishes dominance over the realm of Earth. Earth, of all the countless dimensions. His lack of vision is pathetic.”

  “That’s why I’m no longer working for him,” Anna said.

  Quinn grabbed my hand and shot me a look, her golden eyes panicked.

  “I agree with your assessment,” Anna continued before the cloaked being could interrupt. “Allow me to work for you instead. You are not personally interested in the drug, but perhaps it could be a valuable commodity in the marketplace? If you like it, I can find other things of that nature for you.”

  The demoness regarded Anna for what seemed an eternity. “A demonstration then,” she said at last, snapping her fingers toward the back of the room.

  A goblin-looking creature disappeared into the main hall, reappearing a minute later with a human in tow. The man, who looked to be in his twenties, didn’t struggle at all. He was shackled at the wrists and ankles, and seemed resigned to his fate. The goblin thing shoved the human at Anna’s feet, and he moaned softly as he toppled over onto the stone floor.

  Anna looked down at him coldly before grabbing a fistful of brown hair and jerking him to his knees. She dug her fingernails into his chin until he opened his mouth. He stared up at her, his eyes dead as she poured the orange liquid down his throat. A bubbling sound hit my ears, and the man gagged and thrashed, but Anna held him tightly until he’d swallowed. He slumped to the floor.
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br />   A moment passed, then two. At five seconds the demoness began to tap long black fingernails against the arms of her chair. Ten seconds and the air around the room began to get scarce again.

  The human jerked, his back arching off the ground. Boils rose up along his skin, black and green, before bursting and boiling up again. His eyes widened, then expanded, protruding grossly from his face. They split down the middle, forming the classic goat eyes of a demon spawn. His fingers lengthened into claws; he flipped over and from his back sprouted leathery wings. A low growling erupted from his mouth, which soon turned to a high howling of agony. Quinn stepped closer to me and shielded her eyes.

  The new demon rose slowly to his feet. His eyes might have looked like a spawn, but his body was more like a tenth level demon. He towered over Anna. But it wasn’t her he paid any attention to. He turned to face the demoness and went to one knee before her, his head bowed.

  “Interesting,” she said, one eyebrow arched. “How does it know I’m its master?”

  “A simple but irreversible spell. Done at the time the drug is produced. The demons are born knowing their one and only master, and will obey only you as long as they live.”

  “And how do I know this isn’t one of Lucifer’s tricks?” The demoness asked. “What if I create an army, only to have it turn on me later? An easy way to get rid of a being as powerful as I am. Without Lucifer ever having to meet me face to face.”

  “Again, I’m not here at Lucifer’s behest,” Anna said. A flicker of fear ran through her eyes. “However, if you are unsure of my loyalty, keep this demon free of cost for as long as you wish. I am also happy to work for you on a trial basis to prove my worth.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the demoness said. She looked down at her new demon slave. “Kill that one for me.” She pointed at Anna.

  “M-my lady—” Anna stammered.

  “It’s a much quicker and more efficient test than what you had in mind,” the demoness said with a blade-edged smile. “If the demon is truly loyal to me and not Lucifer, it will have no problem killing you.” The demon had already risen to his feet again and turned to face Anna. “Of course, it could be that Lucifer planned to activate a spell later to turn them against me.” She shrugged. “But this rules out any immediate treachery.”