“I can make things vanish?”
Distracted again, but not unfocused. She chased after stray bits of information like . . . like he did. But Nicholas was trying to discover everything, just in case the knowledge was useful later. He was trying to form an impression of her that he could understand and anticipate. Ash wouldn’t have the same reasons.
Was she just that curious about everything?
“Everything goes into a psychic storage of some kind.” Nicholas didn’t know much more than that. “Demons and Guardians both have one. They call it a cache.”
“A cache . . . like a pocket universe? Something small on the outside, big on the inside—and we put stuff in there, somehow?” She glanced at him, as if searching for the answer in his face. Nicholas didn’t have one for her. “Like a TARDIS?”
Her references for understanding a demon’s abilities were based on Doctor Who and Schwarzenegger movies? God. “I don’t know if it’s science or magic. You can’t put living things in there, though.”
“Why?” When Nicholas couldn’t answer that, she wondered, “Is that where my clothes go?”
“When I gave you the electric shock? Probably.”
“And the other times?”
Other times? Nicholas fought not to grin. “Do they disappear often?”
“Somewhat often. Then people start laughing, and the clothes come back. Ah, and see? You’re laughing now, too.”
So he was. He could almost picture it . . . Ah, hell. He could picture it. All too easily. When her clothes had disappeared earlier and he’d still believed she might be Madelyn, he hadn’t really looked at her. Now his memory filled in the little he’d seen in delicious detail: the changing shadows beneath her knees as her skin had faded from crimson to tanned; the shallow depression of her navel, which demons didn’t possess in their true forms; the silken fall of blond hair across soft breasts. Glimpses, impressions, because he hadn’t been looking at her sexually . . . and made him wish now that he’d looked a little harder.
He wouldn’t have been averse to her clothes disappearing. And if they did, Nicholas didn’t think he’d be laughing. No, he’d be enjoying the view.
How screwed up was that? He’d ask Leslie when he saw her next. Did sexual attraction to a gorgeous demon suggest that he was even more fucked up than he’d thought, or was it healthier than planning to slay one?
He tried to imagine Leslie’s reaction and couldn’t help being amused. One of these days, she was going to have him institutionalized.
“No living things,” Ash said softly, cutting into his amusement. “But Madelyn vanished the body—so that means Rachel had to be dead. Did Madelyn vanish the evidence, too?”
God. The memory of Rachel’s bloodied chest replaced Ash’s perfect breasts. The memory of his shock and utter helplessness as she died.
And it was exactly the slap that Nicholas had needed. Gorgeous demon or not, he couldn’t cultivate that physical attraction. Sex complicated everything. Allowing anyone that close meant he lowered his emotional shields and exposed more of himself than he wanted to. Taking that risk with a demon . . . Hell, he might as well put a gun to his head and pull the trigger now.
A dead man couldn’t pursue revenge. That was all that mattered. This demon didn’t matter, and neither did his screwed-up attraction.
“Madelyn took everything with her,” he said. “The gun, the bullets, the blood. And so, like I said, I spent money. I hired investigators to look for murders where the body and evidence had gone missing despite witnesses, to track down anyone with a similar story to mine. After a while, they found commonalities, but no answers. Not until about four years ago, when one investigator ran across Sally Barrows.”
“Another demon?”
“No. A vampire.”
“A vampire,” she echoed flatly. “Is that like a dragon?”
Nicholas couldn’t see her eyeteeth behind her compressed lips, but he guessed she had fangs again. “Yes,” he said. “Because I’m not lying about vampires or dragons.”
She didn’t respond. Either struggling to believe him, he realized, or flat-out refusing to. Fuck. Never did he imagine trying to prove to a demon that vampires existed.
He damn well wasn’t going to start now. Let her believe what she wanted. “That’s when I began spending a lot more money. For the right price, Sally and her husband agreed to help me find Madelyn, and told me what they knew about demons.”
“I notice they aren’t helping you now.”
“Because they’re dead.”
That grief must have slipped through his emotional shields, or Ash heard something in his voice. She looked away from the road, studied his face. “What happened?”
“A demon ripped them apart.”
Sally and Gerald had known some information about demons, but they hadn’t known a lot. Like many vampires, they were mostly ignorant of their origins, having heard only bits and pieces of the truth about Guardians and demons, but not the whole story. So they’d known enough to capture a demon, to take it down alive, but hadn’t known enough to keep it down.
“How long did you work with them?”
“Three years, off and on. Sometimes they went into other vampire communities and gathered information.” And other times, they’d worked together with him—Nicholas making certain their sleeping forms were secure when the sun rose, and then training with and learning from them by night. “I met Rosalia after that.”
When she’d slain the demon who’d butchered Gerald and Sally. Still, that demon’s death hadn’t been enough of a punishment. Not after Nicholas had seen what it had done to his friends.
Nicholas had been going it alone since then. He wouldn’t ask any other humans or vampires to risk their lives in pursuit of his revenge, and he sought help from Rosalia only because she could take care of herself—as she’d aptly demonstrated by beheading a demon several times stronger and faster than she was. One moment Nicholas had seen Rosalia and her partner facing the demon, and the next moment she’d been bleeding from her gut and the demon’s head had been rolling across the floor.
“Rosalia is the Guardian?” Ash asked.
“Yes. And because that’s what Guardians do—hunt demons—she had more information about how to find them.”
“And how do you?”
“The most obvious sign is the temperature of their skin.”
Ash rubbed the tips of her fingers together, as if feeling the heat of her own skin and considering that. Finally, she said, “It’s obvious, but difficult to use for identification, I’d think. You’d have to touch a demon to know.”
Not necessarily. Modern infrared sensors could detect higher temperatures from a distance, and the differences were noticeable, especially if the demon stood near a human. No reason to mention that, though.
“It’s a problem,” he agreed. “I can’t walk down the street shaking everyone’s hand.”
“Or kissing them, like you did to me.”
So she’d figured that out? “If I’d shaken your hand, you’d have noticed me grabbing the Taser.”
“So? You could have just not let go of me. You know I can’t pull free without breaking the Rules.”
No, he couldn’t have just held on. He’d needed payback, however small. “You showed up with Rachel’s face, and I thought you were Madelyn. I wanted to electrocute you. So I got close enough to do it.”
She nodded, as if in understanding. “All right. The kissing makes more sense, then.”
No judgment? No pointing out that he was a sadistic bastard? Who the hell was this demon? He’d given her freebies all over the place, practically invited her to tear into his character, and she sat and nodded her head because it made sense.
“Is the hot skin the only difference?”
Her question made Nicholas realize that she’d been waiting for him to continue. He shook his head. “Demons count on people to explain away the unexplainable. A man disappears, and people tell themselves they must have been mista
ken—that they just didn’t see him turn a corner. Someone moves too fast, looks inhuman for just a second, and they come up with excuses: They’re tired, their eyes are playing tricks, they—”
“Are going crazy,” Ash said.
“That, too. Most of the time, they shake their heads and laugh it off.” Others couldn’t, and some, like his father, landed in the care of doctors like Cawthorne—and then took a dive from the tallest bank tower in London. “But if you know what it might really have been, you look a little harder.”
“And then make sure you’re right by touching them?” When he nodded, she said, “So it’s all luck—a matter of seeing something at the right time? You’ll be looking for Madelyn forever, then.”
“We will be looking,” Nicholas reminded her. Though he’d be stupid not to get out of this bargain as quickly as possible. The more time he spent with the demon, the less he could figure her out. He hadn’t counted on that. When he’d made the bargain, he’d been certain of his ability to predict her reactions.
He should have been able to, goddammit. He should have been dodging her slings and arrows, not reminding himself that he shouldn’t be attracted to her, that he shouldn’t be amused by her. He’d expected subtle insults, not . . . whatever she was doing.
“We,” she echoed. “And based on what you’re saying, it really will be forever. Or until we die of old age.”
She wouldn’t grow old. Nicholas didn’t correct her, though.
“It’s not just luck,” he said. “You called their methods unoriginal, and you aren’t wrong. And that’s how you look for them.”
“A trail of dead dogs?”
Jesus. And people thought Nicholas lacked sensitivity. He wasn’t bothered by her question, but he definitely wouldn’t be letting her talk to the Boyles, even if she did learn to shape-shift.
“Not dogs. Dead people, sometimes. If someone says that a loved one came back to talk to them, there’s a good chance it was really a demon. If someone undergoes a complete personality change, a demon might have taken their place. If members of a vampire community start disappearing, they are probably being killed by a demon. If vampires start killing humans, there’s probably a demon in the background, prodding them into it. They use humans and vampires to do what they can’t: break the Rules.”
“I see.” She was quiet for a moment. “That’s still a lot to look for.”
“A lot of shit to wade through, and a lot of dead ends,” he agreed. Except for when it involved vampires, humans did everything he’d just mentioned without demon influence, too. “But I’m just looking for one demon, and I already know how she works. So I’ve been searching for something similar.”
He’d searched for a mother whose personality had undergone a sudden transformation. He’d searched for a husband who’d been committed to a psychiatric institution. He’d searched for a wife who’d taken over her husband’s business—probably in the financial sector—and who’d begun working all hours of the day and night, transforming the business into a burgeoning success.
He’d also searched for a kid battered by every recent change in his life. The ones marked by razor scars across their wrists or who’d spent nights in the hospital having their stomachs pumped. That had been the worst part of the search. He’d found far too many of those kids, and not a single one of them had ended up there because of a demon.
Did Ash know that part of his history? He hadn’t been wearing a shirt in Madelyn’s bedroom. If Ash had spotted the scars on the insides of his wrists, she could guess their origin, just as she’d guessed what Madelyn had done to Ringo. Not that it would matter if Ash had guessed; he was no longer self-destructive. All of the rage and pain he’d felt as a kid had cooled and hardened, and he’d channeled it into revenge.
“You searched for her and found me, instead,” Ash said.
He’d find Madelyn, too. “Yes.”
“And I resemble the assistant she killed—a woman you once dated.” Her brow furrowed in a way that told him she’d been distracted by some detail again. “But I can’t figure out why Rachel would date you, no matter how charming you were. As Madelyn’s assistant, her association with you created an enormous conflict of interest and was completely unethical.”
That had never been a problem for Nicholas, not where Madelyn was concerned. “Why is a demon bothered by something unethical?”
“I’m not bothered.” She frowned, as if trying to decide whether she should be or not. Finally, she shook her head. “What I don’t feel is beside the point. I’m trying to figure her out—and everything I’ve learned about Rachel says that she wouldn’t behave unethically. Do you think Madelyn told her to date you, to undermine your takeover bid?”
“Probably.” He’d used Rachel for the same reason: to undermine Madelyn. He had to assume the demon would have done the same thing. “If so, Rachel didn’t follow her directions well. She tried to make us reconcile instead of destroy each other.”
And Rachel had never understood that there’d never be a chance in hell of that happening. But then, Madelyn had been a different woman with her—a ruthless businesswoman, but not a cruel one. Rachel had been convinced that Nicholas’s hatred was just born out of ancient misunderstandings and a teenager’s rebellion.
“Did that amuse you?” Ash looked away from the road to study his face. “Or did it irritate you?”
Both, depending on how hard Rachel pushed him. He wouldn’t tell the demon that, though. She was here to learn about herself, not about him.
Her eyes narrowed. Ah, now she was irritated by his refusal to answer. “At least Rachel’s relationship with you makes sense now. I knew it couldn’t be your charm.”
Maybe she was right. “What did you think it was?”
“You said she was smart. So I assumed she dated you for your money.”
“Rachel had more than enough of her own.”
“As much as you do?”
No, but enough to live well for the rest of her life. Now, her assets hung in limbo. Only six years had passed since Rachel had gone missing, and she’d never been officially ruled dead. A demon with her face and identification could access them . . . which was why he’d taken the passport back as soon as they’d passed through customs.
When he didn’t respond, Ash bared her teeth, just a little—and there were those fangs. “I suppose money isn’t incentive enough to put up with you, anyway.”
He grinned. “Probably not.”
She was still watching his face rather than the road. If her driving hadn’t been so smooth, he might have been worried. As it was, he just wondered what she was looking for.
Her gaze dropped to his lap. “Maybe she wanted you for sex, then. Is your penis big?”
Was she serious or just winding him up? “I haven’t had any complaints.”
“If you haven’t had any complaints, it must not be too big.”
She slanted a look up at his face, and he realized that she wasn’t serious at all. And fucked up as it was, Nicholas was getting a kick out of this, too.
“It’s not monstrous.” He’d never heard anyone compare his cock to an ogre’s, at least. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Yes.” She sounded slightly mystified by that fact. “And I want to be your girlfriend.”
Now that seemed serious again. “What?”
“So that I’ll have access to your money. And since your penis won’t rip me apart, I’ll even have sex with you.” Her gaze turned inward, and though she spoke out loud, her question seemed directed at herself rather than at Nicholas. “I wonder if I’d enjoy that?”
She wouldn’t. Demons couldn’t. They could fake a sexual response, but they didn’t actually feel desire or arousal. Did she truly not know that?
If so, that ignorance didn’t give him an advantage that he could see. She knew so little, had no memory, and yet wasn’t a bit naïve. Her cynicism rivaled his—perhaps the result of being able to sense everyone’s true emotions. She might not know what so
meone was trying to sell her, but she didn’t buy any bullshit.
“You have access to my accounts without that,” he reminded her. “I’m bound to help you find out who you are. That includes giving you money when you need it.”
“Oh.” She focused on him. Her lips slowly curved before she faced forward again. “Good.”
Jesus Christ. What the fuck was she doing to him? Rachel’s smile had never kicked him in the gut, but here he sat, feeling like he needed to catch his breath after a single satisfied look from a demon. How in the hell could she have the same face as Rachel, the same mouth, and possess such a different smile? Rachel had always been weighing, judging, estimating the effect of her response on him, making certain he was at ease and comfortable. She’d cared for him, loved him. Yet it was Ash, who didn’t seem to give a shit about his response and had no interest in judging him—or caring what he thought of her in return—who got to him with a little twist of her lips. And how the hell was he supposed to hang on to his cynicism when she beat him to it with her unabashed greed?
And why the hell did he like it? Like her? God help him, now he was wondering if he’d enjoy sex with her, too, despite knowing that she wouldn’t feel a thing, and that it would fuck him up even more than he already was.
Any other woman, he’d manipulate her emotions and charm her until she wanted him in return, until he had the upper hand—just as he had with Rachel. But he didn’t even know if Ash had any real emotions.
Goddammit. He had to take control of himself, and take the upper hand again . . . before she ground him under her heel.
CHAPTER 7
Since strange was normal now, Taylor didn’t think anything of teleporting into a graveyard in Illinois after the sun had set. Revoire had asked her to meet him at that location, and as graveyards went, this one seemed kind of pleasant. No spooky broken fences, no precariously tilted headstones. Just Marc Revoire, standing in front of a grave marker, looking a bit like a farmer in a worn brown jacket and tan trousers. He had that lanky, wide-shouldered look to him, as if he rose with the sun and spent the day behind a plow. In the Midwest, what could be more normal than that?
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