by LW Herndon
“Understandable.” I agreed with Decibel. Jez’s determination put her in harm’s way with increased exposure. “How familiar are you with her potential, her abilities? Can you work with her?”
The scowl returned, not directed at me for once. “I doubt Sol would let me close enough, but perhaps. He should take on that task. Or is the feebleness not a ploy?”
“Sol is all about subterfuge, but he may not have time to deliver what Jez needs.”
“You discerned all that. Quite the eclectic set of skills you command. How do you suggest we find them?”
I stretched my neck; the kink there only dug in deeper. “We have to play this the way Sol and Jez dictate. For now. But if we get a chance, I think you’ll have a better shot with her than I will.” I wasn’t planning to offer more of an explanation, however her silence didn’t let up. “Sol’s cornered me into ensuring her protection. If something should happen…I’d prefer not to mix the heavier hand of guide with that of confidant. She’ll need a place to vent.”
“This is based on his expectations, or does he know something he hasn’t told us?”
“Probably both. If he isn’t in the picture, she’ll trust you more easily than me.” Especially if Jez were to construe Sol’s action of omission as one huge betrayal, I thought. A second male authority figure would have a hard time gaining her trust. I didn’t need omniscience to see the disaster with Jez approaching. Despite Sol’s promise, if he didn’t tell her before something happened to him, his daughter would be one disillusioned fledgling. My gestures of help would be suspect, if for no other reason than Dad picked me as his successor.
The pity on Decibel’s face said she could see the train wreck, too.
***
A quick look around Shalim’s courtyard disclosed nothing. No sneak attacks, no stealth training sessions, and no Chaz.
I’d left him at the entrance to the fault line and had actually watched him enter the church near my building. In a quick surveillance of his quarters, a limestone-and-basalt cavern that he found echoed his tastes, I detected no recent traces of him. I would have miles of Shalim’s domain to search in order to track Chaz down, added to a multitude of sequestered places if he was avoiding me.
Demons in the clan had their own quarters. Most entrances were hidden, even from each other. The clan provided protection, but trust was always up for debate.
Luck rode in on my shoulder. Headed for Abraxas’s training grounds, I ducked at the flap of wings behind my left ear. The maneuver upended me down an unnoticed side tunnel. I slid and floundered to balance upright until I bottomed out in a flat dark pit.
No air circulated in the darkness, but a chill held off a stagnant feel. Beneath the tunnel’s crisp, fragrant scent of earth and roots, I detected a more familiar one of leather and musk. My eyes adjusted as I followed the trail from the pit toward the scent, leading me deeper and farther down into pitch.
I’d lost the fear of darkness a long time ago, and typically, even what appears as solid darkness holds some light. This tunnel wrapped black around me like water, tight with every cell and pore, allowing no valiant shade of the dimmest glimmer either forward or aft. The scent, however, pulled me forward.
Trusting my instincts, I continued and stopped only when my foot contacted with a solid but soft object. Squatting, I felt along with my fingers, surprised by the unexpected brushed-velour fur beneath my hands.
With a quick snap, I lit the darkness and blinked until my pupils responded. The golden globe from my penlight illuminated only two feet from my face. The distance enough to reveal Chaz sitting on an enormous tuffet in the center of a cavern that went out and up beyond my ability to detect. The rush of distant wings, high and muffled, were a fair predictor of the distance.
For all the pomp and presence of Chaz’s human shell, his demon form rang in at a diminutive five foot three. Granted his bulldog bulk of muscles, thick neck, and huge clawed feet made him formidable and fast in a fight.
Chaz, naked and legs folded in tantric position on a tuffet in the dark, didn’t concern me. The pupilless reflection of pale milk chocolate brown—his human eyes, projecting from within his demon body—sent a sharp prickle over my flesh and down my spine. Demons don’t mix their human façade in their demon bodies, with small exceptions. Demon claws can elongate and retract, regardless of personae. Depending on the age of the demon, the fangs can as well. But the human physique—hair, eyes, skin—don’t interchange with demon features.
He looked straight at me with no recognition in those eyes. No blink, no shift of bone or facial structure. He could have been catatonic for all of his response.
“Chaz.”
His breath faltered as one clawed finger twitched slightly.
“Chaz. It’s TK.”
That brought on a blink, though the eye color remained unchanged. “Saw you.” The words slithered out with effort, as if he was fighting through a drugged fog and losing.
“Where?”
He went still again. I considered shaking him but didn’t want to risk any unexpected repercussions.
“When did you last feed?” I’d start with an easy question.
He blinked again, then his hands fisted in his lap. “Jusssst. Prettttyy, dark curlssss.”
Yeah, that sounded a little fucked up, but more typical Chaz. He liked his ladies with lots of long, curly hair. In his human form, the ladies liked him back.
“Went inside. Saw you there.”
Inside? The Walmart. Had that been how he’d become trapped inside, because he thought he’d seen me?
“I got to the site after you, bud.” Maybe he was confused. “Where were you when you thought you saw me?”
He turned his head, meeting my gaze as a touch of flame entered his eyes. I released my breath at his first sign of normalcy. “Here.”
I bowed back a bit, caught off guard by the answer. “This room? Or just Shalim’s”
“Here.” His voice edged closer to his normal tone, deep, steadier, but still a little too parsed out for my preference.
“So you ‘saw’ me in the building here, or in a dream?”
The silver swirls on his green skin pulled tighter across his cheekbones as puzzlement gained in his expression. “TK?”
I reached out and rubbed my palm across the thick braided bones curving from his brow over his head. He closed his eyes and leaned into the touch like a puppy seeking comfort. Exactly my intent. The brow bones are high-pleasure centers for demons. They’re also a pathway to calm and relaxation. An odd Zen I’d encountered early in my habitation in the clan.
I continued the rub until a deep purr rumbled in his chest and his breathing evened out. His fisted claws released, lax over his knees.
Whatever had happened to him, I’d never witnessed anything similar before. It scared the crap out of me. No external magic could penetrate the bowels of Shalim’s compound. My quick scan of Chaz’s body detected no sign of infection or invasion. That reassured me but left me with no answers.
At least here he was safe, asleep or in a trance, if the rhythm of his breathing was any indication. I stopped my petting and waited to make certain he maintained his current image, with no more human eyes waking in the darkness.
When he’d shown no sign of change for five minutes, I retraced my steps to the top of the long tunnel and turned my search to a new candidate.
Fortunately, he found me first.
“Where is he?”
I turned to Abraxas, not sure where to begin. The slow deadly lift of his brow and the quick flicker of flame in his eyes signaled I’d better start fast.
“Chaz is in one of the lower tunnels, but something’s not right.”
“Explain.”
“His eyes didn’t revert with his demon form. His speech is odd, and he’s disoriented.” Abraxas waited for me to continue, but the tension drained from his posture, and the black sigils stopped their violent swirl over his gold skin. “At our last sighting, he’d gone in without
me. He says he saw me inside, but I got the text after he was already in the building with three sorcerers.”
Abraxas pivoted away from me. The muscles across his back flexed as his claws scraped against his leather pants. Just as fast, he turned back.
“You got him out?”
“Yes.” Obviously I’d gotten him out. That wasn’t his question. Abraxas had narrowed in on the discrepancy of how as half-human I’d gotten Chaz past three sorcerers. “He shared his power with me. I carried him, but the invisibility got us past everyone in the building.”
A deep growl emanated from his chest. “Take me to him.”
I started back to the tunnel only to have Abraxas’s heavy palm land on my shoulder to stop me.
“You will partner with another warrior. He cannot leave this sanctuary again.”
I bore the weight of his hand and stared back into his eyes, chips of scarlet ice. “Are they luring him?”
I watched him debate disclosure, his assessment of me as fierce as Shalim’s, but he removed his hand and stepped back, obviously deciding on some measure of detail.
“Chaz was a twin,” said Abraxas. He paused in an uncomfortable silence. “Beleth.”
Shalim’s seer, his visionary, the victim of the Consortium’s horrific example of possession and cruelty. “Both twins inherited that skill?”
Abraxas shook his head. “Beleth was born with visions, but Nature fills the void even within our species. The skill, born dormant in Chaz, now runs wild. More deep deprivation and training is required for him to survive the rapid onset. Given his late development, the intensity of such visions makes it impossible for him to discern them from reality. Time and sequence, neither is a benchmark for separating reality from what he perceives. When he masters the skill, his potential may exceed his brother’s. Until then, he is vulnerable.”
“The increased need to feed?”
He nodded. “The skill runs rampant through his system. The feeding actually burns him at the same time the skill evolves, instead of replenishing him. Hibernation is his only option.”
He gave me a long, hard look. He didn’t need to bother. I wasn’t going anywhere without more information, and he grudgingly continued. “I will seek the help he requires, but my order to him, to the others, is that he remains in the compound.” His scrutiny was pointless. I would hardly countermand his dictate. Especially if it could cause Chaz harm.
However, I needed one more answer. My knowledge of the Consortium was taking too many hairpin turns, not to get critical answers. “If they summoned his twin, do they have the knowledge or a connection to summon him?”
A slow hiss issued before Abraxas’s words. “His risk is high. In his current condition, should the Consortium entrap him, he has less ability to resist than his brother did.”
Sickened with the thought, I gave him a quick nod of understanding and directed him back to Chaz’s sensory deprivation tunnel.
***
Talia opened the back door of the shelter. The harsh lines on her face deepened with her frown and tightened lips. Not very inviting, but she let me in and locked the door behind me.
“They’ve got to leave. I’m sympathetic, but I don’t need word of this kind of trouble getting out.”
I raised an eyebrow at her tone, more from concern than affront. It took a lot to crack Tally’s calm, meaning this had to be bad.
I followed her into the small storage room behind the shelter’s kitchen area. The smell of blood overwhelmed my senses. The blood splotches on the concrete floor filled in the story. Someone had tried to clean the mess without much success. The trail ended at a wooden bench covered by a ratty sleeping bag. Sol Marguessa, his skin gray and sickly yellow, lay loosely holding a wadded towel over his chest. The towel wasn’t compressed enough to stanch the blood flow. From the look of the burns and wounds on the rest of Sol’s arms, face, and neck, it was too late to be of help.
Sol didn’t look at me, but Jez glanced up from where she sat with Sol’s head cradled in her lap. Despair veiled her eyes with a silent plea that I had brought some hope.
I hadn’t. I’d responded to Decibel’s message. The familiar address of Talia’s shelter partnered with the word, hurry.
Decibel stood beside Jez, her arms crossed, and her expression blank.
Talia tapped on my arm. “I open in one hour. I need everyone out of here, or someone will leak this to the police.” She looked at Jez and shrugged. “I’m sorry. I want to help, but they’ll close me down if I’m caught concealing this kind of thing. I’ve got people who depend on me.”
I nodded to her. “We understand. Thanks for what you’ve already done.”
Jez looked between the two of us. Her mouth opened with surprise for a split second, then she squinted in anger, preparing to lash out. Decibel moved in front of her as Talia left the room, adding a restraining hand to Jez’s shoulder. The gesture won her a glare, but Jez remained silent until Talia was gone.
I ignored them all and knelt by Sol. He released the towel and grabbed my jacket, pulling my face closer to his, and then glanced up at Jez. “A moment.”
Her reluctance to move diffused as Decibel rested an arm over her shoulder and eased her away with more gentleness than I would have credited my demon counterpart capable of mustering.
“They were waiting for us.” His words rattled. A slight spray of spittle at the corner of his mouth delivered the only moisture he seemed to have.
I covered his hand with mine. “Let me get you to the hospital.”
“Too late. You know that.” He moved the towel, exposing his chest. Several ragged wounds circled his skin, missing the center but appearing to have pierced both lungs. Shredded flesh lent the impression that something had crawled inside him and eaten its way through his chest cavity with small steel teeth. I hoped he had enough energy to give me a clue as to what had done this.
“More barb than bullet. Infected.” He blinked back the pain, his eyes weary. I palmed the back of his head. He tried to move closer and restrict his words for only me to hear. “I feel it mutating. Don’t know the full potential. Perhaps contagious. You must destroy this one. Now.”
“No.” Jez heard that last part and lurched toward Sol. Only Decibel’s hold kept her in place.
Sol gripped my hand with a last frenzied burst of energy. “Get it all. Trace it.” Exhausted, he lay back down and held my gaze. “I meant to tell her…my promise was good…please, keep her safe.”
I nodded. As if waiting on my response, he released his hold. His eyes remained open, though I no longer saw the window to his soul, only emptiness. I lowered his lids, and heard Jez’s cry resonate with the thud of her knees on the floor.
Decibel pressed Jez’s body to her. “Let’s make it quick, Kane.”
Raising a hand over Sol’s chest, I built the flash fire within me to a solid and taut ball, then I released the ice-white and chill-blue swirls. The fire spiraled down and spilled along Sol’s body, dipping inside the wound. A glow of light surrounded him. While I watched, thick pus and blood crept from his ears and eyes. On contact with the air, a high-pitched whine started and clamped to a close. The rust-colored fluid curdled and froze.
I closed my fist. The fire had stopped, but I held an open palm to make sure Decibel didn’t let Jez loose. Close inspection of the fluid showed not blood, as I’d hoped, but bits of toasted crispings, a disturbing likeness to charred bacon fat. The mutation of an organism, perhaps parasite, that Sol had felt. The progression was quick, from chest to brain, but I wondered whether its purpose was merely to kill him or to wrestle information from his mind. Perhaps to send a beacon to the Consortium. Given my current bad day, I’d have to go with all of the above.
“We need to leave.”
“Take the body with us?” Decibel’s question hung in the silence.
“We need to burn the body. His orders.”
Jez pulled her shoulder from Decibel’s grip, but I caught her arms before she was able to get near Sol.
“He was infected. He knew that.”
She tried to wrestle away from me, cold anger boiling over. “Bullshit.”
I pulled her around to look at me. “Those bullets contained something to potentially track us.” They would track to Talia, too. I wasn’t about to allow her to be a sideline casualty.
Jez glared at me, then closed her eyes and took a small breath to compose herself, an attempt to force down the anger.
“He’s gone, Jez. He didn’t want you at risk.”
Whatever her current frame of mind, she opened her eyes and looked at me with a version of sanity and steeled control. Her gaze dropped pointedly to where my hands still restrained her and I opened my fingers and backed my hands off a few inches.
“Do it.” She pushed past me and out into the hallway.
Decibel moved to my side with a tilt of her head. “You waste precious time on emotions.”
“It’s my time to waste.”
“Debatable.”
“Let’s just get this done.”
She nodded and, without moving, looked to Sol’s body. Red, orange, and gold wisps danced in her eyes. Flickering and growing, the pressure of her power produced a tangible force against my body. Sol’s body ignited in fire so controlled that he rested in a capsule of flame, the wooden bench beneath him untouched. The liquid gelcap of flame consumed Sol’s body and converted his energy, absorbing it back into the universe where he’d originated. Then he was gone. The whole process didn’t take an entire minute.
Decibel turned and left.
After a glance around, I followed her. There was no mess left. No stains, no towel, no body. Clean, tidy, and while I couldn’t count on sterile, it was empty.
As if Sol Marguessa had never existed.
CHAPTER 13
