by LW Herndon
“I’m not asking how you honed your skills, but how you learned of their existence. The things you do, the skills you possess, are not normal for human or demon.”
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to go there. I tried not to remember the times my abilities had slipped past my careful restraint. Always as instinctive reactions, pulled from some deep well I had no control over.
“Whatever you may be, you can no longer hide, blue-eyed boy. You do not have the luxury of denial. You don’t have years to acclimate. First, the demon clans will see you as a traitor. Then you may have to deal with the repercussions from angelic hosts. Some of your kind were hunted to extinction. You learn to survive, or we will wish you’d never been born. Your choice.”
I lifted my head. “Those are the only choices I ever get.”
“Except this time there are others who will suffer with you.”
She was right. It was a little late to step out of the game. I’d dragged Aisha, Marco, Anne, and Jez in with me. Despite the large-and-in-charge attitude from Decibel, she was still a demon who had bargained with the bastard of God-only-knew what. By association, she was at risk from my clan and her own. I’d always known I wasn’t quite human. Now my category was an extinct species.
I would have preferred demon.
If Decibel knew more about what I was, she apparently wasn’t giving it up. She also didn’t bail. I detected little surprise within her barely shielded emotions. No hesitation, no doubt, no sign of second thoughts. But an odd sense of resignation blanketed her expression.
“How long have you known?”
She leaned back against the wall and watched me. “I owe you nothing, child.”
“Stop calling me child.”
“You would prefer Nephilim?”
“What do you know about my past?” I broke the cardinal rule in dealing with demons. Never voice what you want. They will always use it against you. I should have known better.
“Aren’t you curious about her?”
I was still. “Who?” I felt a cold chill inch up my spine.
“Your mother,” she whispered.
Panic, like a vise, locked around my lungs, tight and hard with a twist. I dreaded this answer. Because deep down in my soul, fathoms deep, I knew the answer had bad repercussions. I’d imagined my mother dead. For what loving woman would give up a one-year-old infant to the care of strangers? My companions in the plane crash had been men, both elderly. Brief tidbits relayed by my shaman rescuer years after the crash implied one was Asian, the other of pigmentation that aligned with a tribe much farther south. He’d burned the IDs of both men, photos feared as unholy relics. By his description, neither man corresponded with my features.
Decibel knew the answer. Had all along. She’d sought me out and manipulated me into being responsible for the lives I now carried on my shoulders. She had planned and participated to keep events on course for her own ends. Which I knew no more about now than I had when she’d first approached me.
But I’d had enough. “Get out.”
“Don’t you want to know? What woman grants an angel the use of her body to produce offspring?”
“Get out now.” I gripped the couch to stand; the cold seize in my chest became warm, inflamed, and bright. Her eyes widened, and her stance changed, feet shifting for fight. Or flight. “I will give you time. But you will need this answer, Kane.” Then she disappeared.
I don’t know what she saw in me that caused her to rouse out of her calm and controlled façade. If it was also part of her plan to rile me, she hid it admirably.
I turned to ease back down onto the couch and caught an image from the mirror on the far wall. Not my reflection, for the brightness was too intense to see a clear outline of a body. I momentarily mistook it for the influx of sunlight through the sliding glass door behind me, but the sun was setting, Anne’s living room deep in lengthening shadows.
Shit. New, uncontrollable, damning powers.
My phone vibrated, and I dug it out of what was left of my pants pocket in the pile of shreds on the floor. Amazing, my jeans were in tatters from the fight, but the cell phone was fine. Guess the ladies took them off me before Anne fried my body—priorities. And I’d been worried about overexposure. I flipped it open.
Kids gone. Stayed longer than expected—Caulder.
Great.
CHAPTER 19
I looked around for a shirt and found it in my hands right where I’d left it. Putting it on took tender care. With any luck, my skin would rebound in a few hours. In the meantime, I showed the aftereffects of a full spa treatment. Apply sea salt, loofah, and scrub well with a pumice rock for hours. Skin guaranteed to glow.
The ethereal glow diminished after Decibel left. Anger evidently a trigger for my star-bright potential, but the how and why to control the deadly new skill proved elusive.
I glanced around for the keys to my Accord. Anne and Jez stood at the open patio door and scrutinized me as if I had rabies. “I need a ride.”
They looked at each other. Anne nodded to Jez, whose expression was skeptical, but she shook her head and shrugged. “Whatever.”
She snatched up my SUV keys from the kitchen counter. Because I’d let her drive it, she’d evidently taken possession of the vehicle. “Now where to?”
I held up the phone. “I’ve got to find these kids before the Consortium does. And I have to warn Shalim about the organism.”
“Shalim, why? And these kids are what? Irin? Demons? Wizard? Or like you?” She rattled the keys for incentive when I refused to give more information.
“No one should be like me.” I tried to snatch the keys and winced at the twinge from my chest muscles. “I gave an oath to Shalim to protect the clan and serve his interests.”
She raised a brow, not convinced.
“The kids are homeless. Didn’t you tell her?” I asked Anne, my tone a bit harsh while I scrounged for a jacket in the pile of clothes Decibel had brought from my loft.
“We got distracted, what with all the pain and suffering,” Anne lobbed back with her own bit of sarcasm.
I caught Jez’s frown. So she had felt all my nightmares.
“And?” said Jez.
“They’re wizards,” I said. “Defenseless, children, nothing more than meals of power and blood to the Consortium. Hoping they’ll survive if I don’t do anything isn’t a strategy.”
She closed her eyes. I expected her to back out of the ride. I started another search for the keys to the car I’d driven to Anne’s, only to realize it was still parked a block from the high school. After a moment, Jez shook her head, opened her eyes, sighed, and gave me a sad smile. “I would rather believe you choose to make this hard, but there aren’t any easy choices, are there?”
“Rarely.”
“You know you aren’t a demon now.” Anne moved behind me, her body planted between us and the front door. Her fists on her hips, elbows splayed to take up more real estate and her face full of righteous indignation, she shifted with me to block my exit. “You don’t need to warn the clan. What have they done for you? They dragged you into that fight where the Consortium shot you, and then left you to die. You don’t need to prove yourself.”
I wanted to laugh. The concept of “killed with kindness” was suddenly clear, physical, and standing before me.
She was angry. She was angry with me and for me, and her first response was to question my motives with the reprimand of a stern mother. Like Jez and Decibel, she was changing before my eyes. It had been a hard couple of days, and none of us would leave this connection the way we’d entered.
Anne couldn’t regain her innocent human existence and I was probably the only connection she had to envisioning her future as something other than fractured and combustible. She’d acknowledged her widowhood and motherhood. I had suspicions of her heartache there. Treasured locations along the bookshelves and on end tables displayed pictures of a young boy. No pictures past the age of perhaps ten,
a sign that signaled a tragedy. A fresh start in a new city with a new job might cover for the loss, but from the pictures, a loving mother couldn’t let go. I suspected Anne was very alone. It was scary. I understood better than most.
But my issues took priority.
“I’m as much demon as anything else. I won’t turn my back on them, on any of them. This is about responsibility, not debt.”
“What if they aren’t worth it? What if none of us are worth what you’re doing?” demanded Anne.
“Who determines what constitutes worth?” I moved closer to her but glanced at Jez to make sure she knew this was coming her way too. “You? Me? The Consortium? Worth doesn’t determine whether I make the effort or not.”
“What does?”
I started to turn away and hesitated. “I will be back.”
“You can’t even keep that promise.”
“I’ll make it anyway. I made it the last time, and here I am.”
She swept an arm into the air and flicked her hand at me. “Only because Jez knew you were in trouble, and the hard-ass spawn dragged you back, and I just about killed myself to save you.”
“And that’s why this works—teamwork.” I stepped back and pulled Anne into a quick hug. After a few seconds of stiffness, she gave up.
“Don’t go for the death wish. Just come back,” she whispered.
I had no response. I’d come to the conclusion long ago that I had no control over my life. I was one of the lost ones, perhaps unsalvageable. Yet I could survive better than those more fragile. Maybe I could help the few thrown in my path from meeting my fate.
Jez climbed into the driver’s side, shut the door, and let out a breath, evidently ready to say her piece.
“I hate to agree with her, but she’s right. You must have some kind of a death wish.”
“So far I haven’t hit the wall.”
“It’s not for lack of trying. Which first?”
“The kids.”
“They were somewhere you were keeping an eye on them?”
“With a friend, but they’ve bailed,” I said.
“And that’s unexpected?”
Her gaze skimmed the sidewalks and houses along Anne’s street, looking for hostile targets. Given her years of training with Sol, probably a good response.
“I’ve got a feeling it’s less that they’ve run than that they were summoned,” I said.
She glanced back at me. “Then how are we going to find them?”
I turned in my seat to face her and squared my shoulders, going for the strong, dictatorial approach. It didn’t come across well with my wince. “We aren’t. I need you to take me down near the shipping docks and then leave to handle another task.”
“I can do more than chauffeur and run errands.” She waited, keys in the ignition, her hands on the wheel, but she didn’t start the car. “Or don’t you trust me? I realize I wasn’t exactly open when we started out, but I’m here now. We’re stuck with each other. I have some skills. So let me help while I do my indentured servitude.”
“Servitude, my ass.” I couldn’t resist the snort. “You’re hardly under my thumb. This isn’t about any doubt in your abilities either. I trust you to make sure that the man I asked to watch the kids is not in jeopardy. I need you to let Caulder know the risk he might be in if they didn’t just run. You can get him to safety.”
“And you want to keep me safe from the Consortium.”
“And I want you safe.” I nodded and turned back to face the dash. “You have three years plus spit, and then you transform—according to Decibel.” And Sol, I thought. “You will be safe then. After that, if you choose, you can participate in all sorts of dangerous and deviant behavior. For the time being, I won’t put you at risk. How about you just make it to your twenty-third-year mark?”
I glanced back.
She was silent for a moment. “Deviant, huh?” She let her gaze run up my thigh and across my chest to my face. I didn’t need the link between us to feel the intent in her look. She could push her point, and while she was officially legal, she wasn’t old enough in my book. Too much fear and trauma, too young. She could make it tempting, but I had more trouble right now than I could handle.
I reached over, pulled her head close, stared at her for a minute, and then slowly and purposefully kissed her forehead as if she were a beloved child. Then released her. “Behave. Three years.”
I pointedly turned away from her to look out the window, but I could still see her reflection in the glass.
She let out an exaggerated sigh and didn’t laugh, but a smirk remained fixed to her face. The fact that she’d discovered a way to get under my skin gave her too much enjoyment. However I also felt her relief that I hadn’t accepted her taunt. She’d tested, and my response had reassured her that I wouldn’t take advantage of her.
Good, I wanted her to have stability. Given the way things were going, I wasn’t sure how long I’d be around to deliver.
She pulled away from the curb.
The sun seemed to drop faster the farther we got from Anne’s neighborhood. I wasn’t worried about the dark. Between the lights of the city and the urban sprawl that ran for miles, it never really seemed to go dark in L.A. It had initially struck me as an unlikely place for the Consortium to set up shop under the bright lights in the midst of almost ten million people. Then again, what better place to hide than in a crowd.
I was concerned that the night would bring additional complications.
My phone buzzed again and I put the call on speaker.
“Yeah, Ray.”
“I just wanted you to know I think there’s something wrong with the boy.”
“Wrong how?”
“Last night he got really quiet. I know you’ve hardly heard him speak two complete sentences, but I had pulled out an old video-game unit someone passed on to me. He got totally engrossed in playing with his sister. We’re talking hours. That lasted for a few days. Then last night, he lost all interest.”
“Did Aisha check him?”
There was an uncomfortable pause. “He put up a struggle. Never seen him balk at anything she asked. But he definitely didn’t want her to touch him.”
“Then what?”
“His reactions really upset her. I left the room and gave them a little space. Kind of hoped he’d calm down. When I came back, they were sitting on the couch. Together.”
“Like nothing had happened.”
“Except she was as tense as the day you brought her here, and he—the kid’s expression was like nothing I’d ever seen.”
“Blank?”
“Cold, Kane. He-couldn’t-care-less and nobody’s-home cold.”
“But she didn’t call me.”
“It’s a hard call to admit someone you love is so damaged. She’s sixteen, and he’s all she’s got.”
Not all she’s got. I glanced at Jez and shook my head at the question in her expression.
“There’s one more thing,” Ray continued. “I called around. Tried to get a fix on where they were going. The checker at the Stop-n-Shop saw them hanging around. A truck full of migrant workers picked them up and headed toward the freeway and downtown.”
“Thanks, Ray.”
“Kane?”
I waited.
“If you find them, let them know they’re welcome back.”
No, those kids weren’t alone. They had more than a few people in their corner.
“Will do, Reverend.” I snapped the phone shut and considered my best options. A downtown drop-off for Marco and Aisha would have been easy. If the brother had a link with one of the sorcerers, finding them would have been quick work. The Consortium had consistently located Marco in the past. An easy pickup once the kids made it downtown.
I knew Aisha and Marco had walked into a well-framed trap. I, at least, followed them with my eyes wide open. Even with complications, I had little choice.
We were still fifteen blocks away from the waterfront when I felt the su
rge.
There is a specific frequency and vibration that I recognize when a group of demons converge in a single location. I hadn’t felt it often because the vibration is somewhat neutralized in a clan’s home base, be it from the proximity to the fault lines or the age and strength of Shalim’s magic. In spite of prevalent human fears through the ages, demons rarely saunter en masse into human populations. Demonic needs rarely require groups of force, just well-officiated singular interactions. Small teams, varied combinations of skills, can handle most altercations. An efficient delegation of duties doesn’t jeopardize the whole.
But this vibration I’d felt before. Once.
After Beleth’s death, after I’d found the clan, Shalim had surfaced with the whole clan for retribution against the Consortium. Another well-laid sorcerers’ trap but inevitable because Shalim, like me, shared that fatal flaw of responsibility.
The only reason it hadn’t ended in disaster was that I’d pulled Shalim from the binding circle. The only clan member not a full demon, I was the only one who could have achieved the rescue. The odds and the success of that outcome now rewound through my mind with an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. I didn’t know if I could pull off a repeat performance with so many potential victims.
If he was here with the clan, then something unforeseen had occurred, and I’d run out of time with his goodwill. Shalim would be here only to rectify betrayal. Mine. My window of opportunity to find the kids, get them out safely, and turn the Consortium’s goal around was uncomfortably narrow. About to be sandwiched between sorcerers with an unknown objective and hostile demons, I reconsidered my options, because despite what most people think, there are things much worse than death.
“Pull over.”
Jez gave me a puzzled look. “We’re nowhere near the warehouse district.”
“Just let me out here.”
“Okay.” She aimed for an open parking space farther up the street.
“Here.” I started to push open the door even though the car was still moving, and she swerved to a stop. “Head out to Caulder’s and don’t come back here.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
