by Jill Myles
I stared at James’s body.
“Are you going to kill Ethan?” Remy squeaked.
He tilted his head, staring at us. “Can’t kill an immortal, love. Or at least … not quickly. As you girls are about to find out.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Caleb/Joachim didn’t kill us right away. To my surprise, he didn’t kill us at all. Instead, he grabbed Remy by the wrist and dragged her to the basement, leaving me no choice but to follow him below. There, he’d picked up a chain—the only one in the basement—and shackled her to the window, then turned to me with an evil look. “Going to run away, little succubus?”
I trembled, but held my ground. “Not without Remy.”
The answer seemed to amuse him. Before he could respond, he shuddered, his eyes rolling back in his head. His wings gave a great shiver, and I felt the evil inside him pulse heavily. The room shook in response, dust fluttering from the ceiling. Remy cast a wide-eyed glance at me and twisted her wrist in the cuff, anxious.
Caleb regained himself a moment later, then stalked to the far side of the room. I snuck over to where Remy was chained and crept behind a crate next to her. It was stupid to hide—he knew I was there—but I felt better. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I think it’s a power overload,” she whispered, her eyes on Caleb/Joachim. “Maybe he can’t handle everything.”
I peeked around the large, heavy crate marked “Antiquities” and stared at the vampire pacing at the other end of the cluttered room. Caleb did not seem to be handling Joachim well: his eyes were hollow and shadowed, his cheeks shrunken. The tattoo stood out starkly on his pale skin, and as he paced, I watched black feathers flutter to the ground. He was shedding his wings under his torn, disheveled clothing. He twitched repeatedly.
“What’s he waiting for?” Remy whispered at my side, her hand drawn over her head in the ornate cuff. Apparently old James had a fetish for bondage equipment.
“Maybe he’s waiting for some sort of wacky ritual?” I whispered from behind the box.
I’d expected him to torture us. Demons knew a lot about torture, and whatever Joachim was now was worse than a demon. Worse than a dozen of them.
But to my surprise, after he’d bound Remy against the wall he had then left us alone. Which made me suspect that he was saving us for other, more nefarious things.
As succubi, Remy and I could only be killed by sexual starvation or the deaths of our masters. It pretty much made us invulnerable. It also made us the perfect “spares,” in case Joachim ran his current vehicle—Caleb—into the ground.
That thought made me quake with fear.
I continued to watch him pace across the floor. Slowly. Methodically. Even steps. What was Caleb/Joachim waiting for?
Remy’s handcuff shook slightly as she shifted against the wall. “Do you think Ethan is all right?” Her liquid eyes were a deep, emotional silver. “He hasn’t come back to check on us.”
“I don’t know,” I said softly. “I would have thought he’d come back for us if he was alive, so … Maybe … maybe he’s invulnerable, like us. I don’t know enough about Nephilim to say.”
At my words, Caleb’s blazing red eyes turned to focus on me.
I cringed behind the crate.
Caleb/Joachim paused, then very slowly moved to the box. He brushed it aside as if it weighed nothing, and I blinked up at him, frozen in place. Confidence, my brain screamed at me. Be cocky and confident, like every other immortal.
“’Sup,” I croaked. “You need something?”
He smiled, exposing teeth that had grown disturbingly long and razorlike in the past twenty-four hours. “I need to feed,” he said in the cracked, broken Joachim voice. “The blood hunger is strong in this body.”
I slid backward on the floor a little. “I’m AB negative,” I blurted. “Very bitter taste. You wouldn’t like me.”
His gaze turned sharply, focused on Remy. “This one, then.”
She flinched, jerking at the chain. Trapped against the wall, she was helpless to move as the possessed vampire approached.
“Wait,” I yelped. “Don’t touch her! I’ve, er, been taking vitamins,” I offered, clambering to my feet and shoving my wrist under his nose. “Lots of Flintstones chewables. Very tasty.”
He grabbed my wrist with both hands in a jerky motion. His hands were hot, like a demon’s, and I flinched. He sniffed my skin like an animal, then ran his tongue along the inside of my wrist, where the angel’s word still burned in my skin.
It sizzled against his tongue, and he hissed. He flipped over my hand and sunk his daggerlike teeth into the back of my wrist.
Agony lashed through my arm as a thousand icy-cold needles sank into my skin, digging deep, and I nearly collapsed. Then he began to make loud sucking noises, drinking my blood.
A vampire bite was normally a precursor to a quick, sweet orgasm. This was … not. This was something else entirely. I could feel the corruption and hatred lingering inside Caleb, the spirit of Joachim warping the vampire powers to something even more awful. As he drank from me, my skin crawled and I resisted the urge to retch, the sickness and corruption inside him feeling as if it were seeping under my skin.
I think I would have preferred the orgasm. This just made me feel cold and dirty and afraid.
As his mouth moved against my skin, the power in the room shuddered once more, and it rolled over me, blowing my hair backward like a strong gust of wind.
“Are you okay?” Remy said in a wobbling voice.
I gave her a weak thumbs-up.
God, I was going to pass out from the pain. My other hand fisted tight, knuckles pressed to my mouth to keep from screaming. I was immortal, I reminded myself. It would heal. It would heal.
But he continued to feed long past the point that I knew any sane vampire would stop. I began to feel light-headed and weak, and I pushed at him, whimpering my distress.
His only response was to dig his teeth deeper, bringing another hiss of pain to my lips.
I had to do something, or he was going to eff me up badly. I planted my free hand on his cheek and pushed harder. Nothing. He refused to be turned away from my wrist. I took a step backward. The room swam before my eyes, and it took a moment for me to realize that he’d followed me. I took another step backward and sure enough, he followed, his mouth still locked on my wrist.
“The staff,” Remy said, pointing with her unchained hand behind me. “Get the staff!”
I reached for the desk, feeling around. A thick brass rod lay on the far end and I dragged it forward until I could wrap my hand around it. The rod was strung through the holes of the vertebrae, but only looked half done. There was a partially-drawn symbol at the top that looked like the creator had been interrupted. I grabbed it and whapped it against the side of Caleb’s head.
No reaction. No wailing. No “I’m melting.”
He just grinned, releasing my wrist after giving the flesh one long, last lick that made me shudder. “Your djed is not finished, stupid girl.”
He grabbed me by the throat, then shoved me across the cluttered desk and against the wall. My mangled wrist hit against the brick, and my head smacked it hard. I nearly lost my grip on the djed.
“The nice thing about a succubus,” Caleb told me with a hiss, “is that you are an endless blood supply. That is the only reason you continue to live.”
“You can’t kill me,” I bluffed, fear coursing through me.
His smile was slow and cruel, his tattoo crinkling around one red eye as he watched me with a predatory gaze. “You’ll never know what you can achieve unless you try.”
Okay, I was officially scared. Even more so when he stretched my mangled arm higher along the wall, leaning in to sniff me.
I averted my face and scrunched my neck down, trying to hide the vulnerable parts. He leaned in, and my face was so close to his neck that I detected the faint gleam of gold under his shirt collar.
The shenu? Was he still wearing it?
<
br /> If so, what did that mean for the possession?
I had to be sure he was wearing it. Half against my better judgment, I used the djed to smack him on the neck, deliberately brushing against the collar of his long trench coat and the buttoned shirt underneath. More gold revealed, confirming my suspicions.
Then the djed was knocked out of my hands and Caleb flung me across the room. I crashed into the opposite wall, next to where Remy was strung up.
Good thing we couldn’t die, because the number of bones that felt shattered right now was enough to nearly destroy me. My lungs felt completely deflated and I lay unmoving as I struggled to regain breath, waiting for the world to come back to me.
“Jackie?” Remy whispered quietly. “You okay?”
I mustered the world’s weakest thumbs-up to let her know I was alive.
“That was fucking stupid,” she whispered back.
“Shenu,” I wheezed as Caleb returned to his methodical pacing. When she shook her head at me, uncomprehending, I used my slightly less broken hand to circle my neck. “He’s still wearing the gold collar.”
Her eyes widened. “Do you think the transfer wasn’t complete?”
I nodded. “I think Joachim’s bound more to the collar than to Caleb. Look at how awful he looks.” Indeed, the vampire looked as if he were on the verge of collapse at any moment. “That’s why he’s keeping us here. We’re the blood supply and the backup plan.”
“I don’t think I like being a backup plan,” she said faintly.
Me, either. I didn’t move from the ground, keeping very still. “What’s he doing now?”
“Just pacing,” she whispered, her gaze glued to the vampire. “What’s he waiting for?”
As my lungs slowly began to fill with air again, I pondered the same question. Joachim was acquiring power, so why was he staying here? It could only be a trap. Zane was the most powerful vampire, next to the queen, and killing him would clear a path to Nitocris. After that, it’d be easy for him to destroy Noah. And with that much power … who knew who he would take on next?
Suddenly the Archangel Gabriel didn’t seem so invincible.
“What does he want with us?” Remy said, nudging me with her toe.
I stared at the endlessly pacing vampire, at the strange calm that had come over him.
“We’re not a threat,” I whispered back. “We’re not even the backup plan. We’re bait.”
Her eyes widened, then she murmured, “Zane.”
My heart was ripping out of my own chest at the thought. “He won’t come for us,” I said, hoping against hope. “He doesn’t know where we are.”
Remy pondered this for a moment. Then she said, “Unless Ethan went for him, and that’s why he hasn’t come back to save us.”
Shit. She was right. I pictured Ethan chasing down Zane, his eyes flashing with a whopper of a good deed.
My good hand clenched with frustrated anger. The Boy Scout was going to get my vampire killed.
The house creaked and groaned, and a few flakes of plaster fell on my head. I brushed them off, glancing up at the ceiling. Was the weight of the bodies upstairs too much?
Caleb began to chuckle, the sound low and unearthly. Then his torn jacket ripped apart as his shedding wings burst free.
“Not a good sign,” Remy whispered, her chains shivering.
No,it was not. I got to my feet as the house groaned again, more plaster raining down.
“What is that?” said Remy.
I could guess, remembering the torn-up parking lot from yesterday. Sure enough, the house gave another loud groan and part of the ceiling fell in. I scurried out of the way just before a giant wooden beam came crashing down. Dust rained thick, and I pulled my wounded hand close to keep it safe. Wind whipped through the basement, scattering papers everywhere.
“Caleb!” called Zane in a furious voice. “Where do you have her?”
No—not Zane alone. He’d be killed!
“She’s safe enough,” the possessed vampire laughed. “And she tastes delicious.”
The chimney of James’s house came sailing down into the basement. Caleb neatly sidestepped it and it left a meteor-sized crater in the floor.
“Come out of that hole and fight,” Zane snarled from above.
Caleb’s wings beat madly and black feathers rained about the basement. “Come and kill me, if you can,” he sneered. “Or do I need to take another bite of your pretty redhead again?”
Zane dive-bombed into the room, tackling Caleb, and the two of them crashed across the floor, slamming into another beam.
“Zane,” I screamed as Caleb caught him and easily flung him across the room. My vampire snarled and picked himself up, his gaze skimming the room frantically. Relief flashed across his face as he saw me.
Relief was short-lived, though. Caleb jumped atop a fallen beam and sprang at Zane, tackling him to the concrete floor. It buckled and shattered, and I felt the room tilt wildly.
It was a clash of titans. What was left of the basement shook madly as the two vampires duked it out. Over and over, they pummeled each other.
Zane would slam a powerful fist into Caleb’s side, but it would do no good. He ignored Zane’s punishing fists and grabbed him by the throat, his strength clearly surprising Zane.
I hardly dared to breathe as Caleb tossed Zane off to the side again, making a wall collapse. The fight seemed to go on endlessly. Zane would recover, pick himself up, and surge back at Caleb again, only to be batted away. He would rise again, bloody and bruised, and the same would happen, over and over again.
Caleb barely had a scratch on him.
Zane kept turning to look at me to make sure I was safe, and every time he did, he lost a little ground with Caleb. If I remained close by, Zane was going to die.
I had to do something. I ran over to Remy’s side. “We have to get you out of here.”
Her eyes widened. “We can’t leave Zane behind. Caleb will kill him.”
I choked back my tears. “I know—I’ll come back to save him, but we can’t do anything with you chained down here.”
Scrambling, I raced over to James’s trashed desk, but found nothing useful. But the shelf next to the desk held a hammer. I grabbed it and dashed across the room just as Zane gave a bloodcurdling scream and I heard the rip of feathers.
Oh God, his wings! Caleb was holding him down, a handful of shiny black feathers in his hand. The shenu seemed to pulse under his shirt collar.
Before I could attack Caleb, someone with long black hair jumped from above with a wild yell. He landed on Caleb’s back, swinging his staff, only to be flung aside like a pesky ant. Ethan shook himself and went back to the fight, with boundless energy.
Two of them—good! I ran back to Remy’s side with the hammer. “Stand still!”
She winced, closing her eyes.
I swung. CLANG. Reverberations swept up my arms and I staggered, trying to hold on to the hammer. Nothing.
I swung again. CLANG. Still nothing. The wall behind the cuffs chipped, but that was it.
Above us the ceiling cracked and sagged, and Remy shrieked. “It won’t hold out for much longer.”
Ethan slammed into the wall next to us. One of the gigantic shelves teetered, and as I watched, the ceiling at the far end of the room began to sag.
It wasn’t going to last long, and Remy and I would be buried alive. I swung the hammer again, with the same result.
“It’s not working,” I yelled at her over the din. “It might be too hard to break!”
She yelled back, “I’ll try something else!” She leaned up to the cuff and spat on it, once, twice. Then she began to twist her hand, jerking at the cuff. I heard a crack of bone and turned to look at Zane, but he was dropping a crate on Caleb’s head. I turned back to Remy.
She shook her now-free reddened hand, wincing. “It’s lucky that I’ve done that before.”
I stared at her. “Did you just break your own hand to get out?”
“Hell, yeah,” she said, ducking the splintered remains of the crate that flew in our direction. “It’s better than the alternative.”
“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” I shouted.
“Why would I break my own hand for nothing?” she yelled back, cradling it close. “It fucking hurts!”
God. Immortals.
We crept around the back of the room as the two vampires continued to fight. Zane was slowing, even with his supernatural strength. Blood covered his face and one of his wings drooped. Ethan continued to jump in and attack Caleb, but every time, he was batted away. What he had in brute strength and energy, he lacked in skill. Caleb and Zane had had thousands of years to hone their skills.
As we crept around the room, the cat wound around my legs and I nearly tripped on it. Stupid cat!
I picked it up and put it on the desk, out of the way. Instead of running for its life, it cocked its head and meowed at me. No sense of self-preservation.
The house shuddered as Ethan was thrown through the roof and disappeared. The stairs—the only way out of the room unless you could fly—cracked and leaned heavily to one side. Pretty soon we’d be stuck down here for good, unless we could find a way to stop the possessed vampire.
Caleb grabbed a fallen Zane by the front of his torn shirt, hauling him forward. Zane raised a hand, only to have it easily blocked by Caleb. Zane was at his end, but Caleb seemed endlessly strong. As I watched, Caleb leaned in and sank his fangs into Zane’s shoulder.
“No!” I screamed.
Zane gave a full-body shudder, his eyes rolling back in his head and his entire form going limp. Caleb’s shenu pulsed, glowing so bright that I could see the outline of it through his torn shirt.
The collar! I had to get it off of Caleb, to get him off of Zane.
I grabbed the hammer and hefted it. “Remy, get out of here. Find Ethan and run.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get that collar,” I said, the power surging into the room whipping my hair. Zane was fading before my eyes as Caleb and the collar pulsed and grew stronger.
