She swallowed hard, her eyes finally misting. “It wouldn’t have mattered. We either knew this now or a few hours ago. When doesn’t really seem to matter.” Raven breathed deeply and raised her gaze to Dexter’s. “I did it willingly, Dex. I signed it because I wanted to. Hell, I think I would’ve done it even if I’d known.”
Nicholas’s grip on her tightened. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
“I’m not worth it.”
“And yet that wouldn’t have changed my mind.” She offered a watery smile and kissed his lips. “I would’ve given Paimon anything. You would’ve, too.”
His eyes widened in protest. “Well…yeah, but you shouldn’t have…”
When his thought failed to conclude, Raven forced a laugh. “Compelling argument.”
“Raven—”
“So I die. It’s only fair. You got to die last time.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I think Paimon would beg to differ.”
“I’ll kill him if he tries.”
“You can’t.”
“Raven,” Nicholas said tightly, “you can’t do this. You can’t do this to me. I won’t lose you. I won’t. Not like—”
“Not like I lost you, you mean?” she replied, the mist in her eyes crystallizing into tears. “Not like I had to watch you die for me? Because hey, that was good enough for you. If it’s not good enough for me, then I—”
“So you’ll just let this happen to get back at me, is that it?”
“Oh, please!”
He tore himself from her side the next minute, falling to his knees in front of her. “You listen to me,” he growled. “You can’t do this. I don’t care what you signed. I don’t care if you dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every fucking ‘t.’ I don’t give a flying fuck if God himself couldn’t smash this stone of yours. You’re not leaving me. You’re not. Even if I have to follow you through Hell itself, I’m not giving you up.”
Raven’s eyes dropped to the ground. She couldn’t watch him any longer, even though she just felt him—felt his pain, his sorrow, his worry over her, all over her. She couldn’t say or do anything because it was already done. It was over.
She would fight. She would lose. She would die.
There was no miracle cure this time. There was nothing he could forfeit to save her. Nothing she would allow him to forfeit if he could.
She had five nights left to live.
They truly were even now.
Chapter 24
There seemed a good reason why Paimon was the demon Raven had summoned. His name colored page after page, listing accomplishments and powers believed attributed to him that, had Dexter not been educated, he would have guessed to be the demonic equivalent of padding one’s résumé. Entire chapters detailed the plagues, famine, wars, even people for whom Paimon was allegedly responsible. The demon had power beyond his means—there was no doubting that.
Now he held Raven’s life in his hands. In less than a week, her power would be his, and she would be gone.
Dexter sighed heavily, resting his back against the wall. He sat on the living room floor. He hadn’t moved since Raven and Nicholas retired into her bedroom. There had never been a time in all his years wherein he would have thought it safer to have a vampire around, but he likewise knew there was no longer any choice. His warrior and the vampire were bound now, and even though it had only been a few days, it bewildered him to consider that he hadn’t seen it there before. Perhaps not what had transpired over the past few days, but something buried deeper within his surrogate sister’s eyes and actions, something he should have seen or detected. More than the obvious affection between them, they just seemed to complement each other. Perhaps it was the claim he witnessed. He didn’t know. All he knew was that it was powerful, and it made him very glad for Raven.
It made him glad that Nicholas was here and not elsewhere. Dexter was certain she was only being brave to keep them both from shattering.
No matter how comforting he found the vampire’s presence, however, it didn’t make the truth any prettier. It didn’t make what was coming more bearable. For the past three hours, Dexter had been poring over his books, searching his own personal library for any and all information on Paimon. Each passage seemed grimmer than the last. The demon always acquired the thing for which he bargained. There had never been any slick moves or loopholes to save the intended at the last minute. There had never been anything but the price, and Paimon took what he was rightly owed. He didn’t need to stalk the innocent. They sold themselves willingly.
Most people didn’t realize that evil was created by man. Demons just had a way of pointing and guiding the willing in the right direction.
Dexter couldn’t save Raven.
The knowledge crippled beyond anything he’d ever known, but just because his options were at an all-time low didn’t mean Dexter would throw in the towel. He wouldn’t sit by idly and watch his girl wither into nothing.
No. This time, the battle wasn’t hers. Raven had already died once. He wouldn’t let her die again. Not for this demon, not for the world, not even for her precious Nicolai.
“We are all fools in love,” he murmured wisely, climbing to his feet.
If he couldn’t find a loophole in her bargain, he would simply create one.
No matter what it cost him.
* * * *
He remembered peace beyond recognition. He remembered soft light. He remembered the tragic beauty of her face breaking under the weight of sorrow. He remembered her apologizing a thousand times for initiating the events leading to his death. He remembered everything.
Nicholas couldn’t sleep. His mind was stuck on repeat, on the night he’d last looked at her before he’d first set eyes on her in his new body. If he focused, he could almost taste her tears on his lips. He could hear her sweet voice pleading in his ear. He could reach out and touch her. Reassure her. Tell her everything would be all right.
He just got her back. After years of not knowing her, not remembering her, he’d gotten her back. She couldn’t do this to him.
She couldn’t make him watch her die.
A trembling breath pressed through Nicholas’s lips. Raven was asleep. He didn’t know how she could sleep, but sleep she did. Dressed only in his t-shirt, she was pressed against him intimately, her leg draped over his thigh, her hand resting on his bare chest. It was a mocking rendition of the way they’d laid together just a few short hours ago. The way he’d held her after making love to her in the tomb, the way everything had seemed so immovably perfect then.
He’d known there was an evil to fight, of course. He’d known Raven had made a bargain and the price was heavier than she’d anticipated.
He just hadn’t thought it would be like this.
Nicholas sighed again, his fingers curling around Raven’s wrist. He lifted her arm delicately, inching away from her on the mattress, mindful of his movements and not wanting to wake her. Though he didn’t want to leave her side, he knew he would drive himself out of his skull if he did nothing.
And he wasn’t the only one.
“Evening, Dex,” he said as he stepped into the living area.
Dexter made a sound which would have been funny under different circumstances, the matchbox in his hand shooting into the air. He whirled around quickly, eyes wide with alarm as his palm slapped itself across his chest. “Christ,” he gasped. “What are you…”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Nicholas arched a brow, fighting off a grin as the Guardian was assaulted by a rainstorm of matches. “I’m guessing you couldn’t, either.”
“Sleep is a luxury I can’t afford,” Dexter replied, clearing his throat and doing his best to look dignified. He plucked a match off the floor and struck it against the wall. “Something wrong?”
The question was ridiculous, and they both knew it. However, Dexter’s tone provided the guise of normalcy, a guise both resented and strangely needed. Nichol
as didn’t know Dexter particularly well and he didn’t figure he ever would, but he saw immediately what the man was trying to do. And he appreciated it, failed that it was.
“Other than the fact that the woman I love is demon fodder in less than a week?” he replied. “No, nothing I can recall.”
Dexter lit one of the three candles on the coffee table, then used the flame to strike another match to light the other two. “You didn’t know you loved her before tonight,” he argued weakly.
It was a statement based on fact and logic, but Nicholas couldn’t help but feel irritated. Raven might not have been at his side every minute, but he’d always loved her. It was just a matter of rediscovering her and himself.
He might have fought the knowledge that he loved her, but he’d still loved her. He always had.
Always.
“She’s always been mine, Guardian,” Nicholas replied, his voice low and dangerous. “She’s been mine longer than—”
“I know.”
“You know and yet—”
“I don’t. I thought it might help if…” Dexter inhaled sharply, cast his head downward, avoiding Nicholas’s gaze. “I don’t know what I thought.”
Nicholas didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. Instead, he nodded numbly, his eyes taking in Dexter’s disheveled appearance before wandering to the design on the ground made of salt. A protective circle. He’d read once or twice about how those who summon demons needed salt to ensure their safety. And without need for warning or confirmation, he knew what the Guardian aimed to do.
It must have been on his face, for the next thing Dexter said was an explanation of motive, as though he needed one.
“If there is something I can do,” he said softly, “to negate Raven’s bargain, I will do it.”
Nicholas inclined his head, at once humbled with respect and gratitude. “She won’t like it.”
“Don’t try to talk me out of it.”
“I’m not. If it comes down to you or her, you know which way I’m swinging my axe.”
Dexter’s brow furrowed and his lips pursed, but he nodded with the same sense of quiet esteem. “And you know if it comes down to you or her…”
“You better aim for the heart. I had to die a long painful death once. Don’t particularly want to do it again.”
A ghost of a smile crossed the Guardian’s face. “I believe we understand each other.”
“Yeah. So is this a one-man-only summoning or can I—”
The air chilled and cut his words in half, a gale of icy wind whispering through his skin and making his bones rattle. He’d always thought it was an expression—the bones rattling bit—but no part of this sensation wasn’t real. And without warning, he was visited by an image of Hell, the Hell he’d known between dying and being rescued. There was fire, but it was cold. So much so that flames froze in mid-roar, screams shattered like glass, and shadows hardened into statues. It wasn’t always cold in Hell. Sometimes it burned so fiercely he felt he might know death all over again. It kept him there on the boundary between existence and death, that horrible second before his body dissipated into nothing, when there was nothing but pain and the sensation of falling. He fell forever but never landed, and left instead branded with the permanent knowledge that death was coming, but denied the solace of rest.
The cold in the apartment was one no witch could replicate. This was the cold of Hell.
They were no longer alone.
The molecules surrounding them tugged steadfast in one direction, and there he stood. Standing a full seven feet, dressed immaculately in the finest Armani money could buy. His skin—if one could call it skin—was as colorless and pale as a slab of stone, his eyes naught but slates. A jeweled crown rested atop his head, buried in a nest of what one might call hair. The demon was the picture of elegance. He looked almost human but anyone who saw him would know better than to mistake him for one. The planes of his body were composed of shadows. He moved and the air around him rippled.
“While I appreciate the attention, I assure you, there is no need for theatrics.” Paimon raised his hand, his eyes indicating the circle of salt on the ground. “Or old wives’ tales.”
Nicholas couldn’t remember a time in his life when he’d been paralyzed with fear. Fear wasn’t something he was used to facing, at least fear not involving the welfare of another. He thought himself beyond fear, especially at the expense of other demons. He thought himself above many things.
One glance at Paimon and he remembered Hell. He remembered despair. He remembered pain. He remembered everything.
“Paimon,” Dexter said, his voice strained but strangely lacking in fear. Perhaps he didn’t feel it. Perhaps he didn’t feel Hell. Perhaps Nicholas was the only one who could.
“I prefer King Paimon, if you don’t mind,” the demon replied, straightening his tie. “After all, if you had performed the ritual, I would have made you say my name several times just to make sure you dialed the right number.” He tossed Nicholas a smirk. “You’d be surprised at how similar my summoning spell is to others.”
Nicholas’s jaw fell slack. He saw the words he wanted to form. He saw them clear as day, but they wouldn’t come.
His body wouldn’t let him speak.
“Paimon, King of Hell,” Dexter said calmly, nodding. “I am—”
“Guardian to Raven Rayne, please don’t insult me.” He nodded at Nicholas. “And this would be our girl’s Nicolai. I must admit, for someone who inspired such passion, I thought you’d be taller.”
A rush of outrage split Nicholas’s veins. He longed to scream. His feet wanted to rush forward. His body wanted to tackle the bastard to the ground and beat him within an inch of his existence. He wanted to empty his grief, his anxiety, and every strain against the fabric of his being into making Paimon beg for respite. He wanted to make Paimon suffer as he’d suffered in the last few hours. He wanted to give him the eternity of agony he was owed for even thinking about ripping Raven away from him. He wanted so many things, all of which paved the way for carnage and destruction.
He couldn’t move. It wasn’t about fear anymore. He didn’t know what it was.
“You’d amuse me if I didn’t know you were serious,” the demon mused. “For a creature who loves and feels all earthly things, you do have a passion for bloodshed that I can’t help but admire.”
Nicholas’s throat went dry. Had he read his mind?
Paimon arched what could have been a brow. “You really don’t know? Come now, Nicolai, I thought you had more wits about you than that.”
Dexter blinked in surprise but said nothing.
“That doesn’t matter,” Paimon responded, waving dismissively. “To answer your question, you can’t move because I don’t want you to. You are a thing of Hell. I am a king of Hell. In the hierarchy of the demon world, you are what we like to call…hmm…well, other than a cosmic joke, there really is no description. Nevertheless, you do exist as an Other in this world. Whatever thoughts you have, you cannot conceal from me. Nor can you move if I do not wish it. You are a thing of Hell, and you are looking at your monarch. Show some respect.”
“Nicholas is not why you are here,” Dexter said quickly. “I’m the one who—”
“Oh, isn’t he?” Paimon retorted. “Were it not for him, dear Ravenna never would have made her bargain. No, she would have died at the hand of some demon, and the Power would have lived on. You, Dexter Bartlett, would be the Guardian of another, and none of us would be here having this very timely conversation. I think it’s safe to conclude that Nicholas is very much the reason why I am here.”
“But I summoned you,” Dexter argued weakly.
“Again you are mistaken. I arrived of my own inclination. But I do appreciate the thought.” Paimon at last drew his gaze away from Nicholas, turning instead to fully face the Guardian. “This close to pay day, I don’t like to be too far from my bounty. After acquiring that which they want, people tend to get the idea that they don’t
owe what they promised me. Your little warrior has fallen victim to the same sad, erroneous line of thinking.”
“You can’t have her,” Nicholas barked, nearly as surprised as Paimon when the words breathed life. His voice had fought for freedom and won. It was short-lived, but he’d take his victories where he could.
The Hell King held up a hand, his eyes flickering dangerously with flames Nicholas well remembered. “Oh, can’t I?” he replied. “She signed herself over to me.”
“She didn’t know what she was doing,” Dexter replied, his voice soft but deadly. “And I believe you know that.”
“I suppose I do, but I’m quite sure I don’t care.”
“You can’t have her,” Nicholas snarled again, pushing against the invisible restraints on his muscles, determined to tackle the fiend to the ground.
“I don’t see why you’re so upset with me,” Paimon replied with an apathetic shrug. “I went to great lengths to make sure you wouldn’t give a damn when I came to collect. It’s not my fault you had to feel the pangs of your hell-bound honey.”
The fact that words were no longer denied him gave Nicholas a sense of power, though the larger part of him recognized that the allowance was at Paimon’s discretion. He could take speech away from him again whenever he desired. “You would’ve kept us from each other?” he demanded. “Just because—”
“Yes. And wouldn’t that have been better? You would have your life back without being any the wiser to poor Ravenna’s foolish gamble.”
Rage purer than anything Nicholas had ever felt consumed his body, and for his part, Paimon must have realized he’d fanned the fire. Perhaps that was his intent. Either way, he again robbed Nicholas of the ability to move the next instant.
“Amore,” he clucked. “It makes fools of us all, doesn’t it?”
Ripples Through Time Page 26
