I went to the small bathroom and angled my body, trying to see the welt from where Mohawk’s spell had slammed into me. I could see a patch of red on my lower back, just above the rise of my jeans.
A knock sounded on the door. I froze. Waited. Another knock pounded a moment later.
“Just a minute!” I called, setting down the salve and scrambling for my t-shirt.
The door opened.
Conor Ramsey walked in.
I had barely lifted my shirt from the ground and held it between my fingers, down at my side. He stared, caught by surprise. I was standing sideways in my bra. My skin felt hot under his gaze. And then his eyes traveled to the giant magical welt on my naked back. He sucked in a breath.
“What happened to you?” he demanded, coming closer.
“I got into a tiff with some punks,” I said. “No big deal.”
He traced the wound on my back with a finger and sucked in another breath. “This is bad.”
“Could be worse. The spell hit me through my leather coat.” I was painfully aware of just how close to naked I was and how close Conor was to me. Heat radiated off of him.
“Healing potion?” he asked.
“I have a salve,” I said. “It’s not as good as yours, but it does the trick.” I inched away from him, setting my shirt on the desk, and grabbed the salve from the bathroom sink.
Conor took the jar from me and spun me around. I let him. He dipped his fingers in the cool, minty salve and spread it over my wound. It stung but his touch was gentle and surprisingly soothing. When he was done, he cleared his throat and turned around.
“Thanks,” I said, leaning on the edge of my desk. “So what brings you here?”
“I have another lead in the Goldsmith murder,” he said, eyes focusing on the torn knees of my jeans. “I thought we could look into it together.”
I stared, surprised. I’d appreciated Conor letting me tag along but I hadn’t really expected him to bring me leads and invite me to come with him.
“Okay,” I said. After I let the salve dry for a moment in the open air, I tugged my t-shirt back on.
“Who attacked you?” he asked.
“More mages with way too much fire power.” I lifted my ruined jacket. It wasn’t pretty with the ugly scorch mark and it smelled faintly of brimstone, but it would still work for now. I pulled it on. “They knew Marcus.”
“They did?”
“I got one of them to talk a little. Before his friend threw a ball of magic fire at my back.” Mages using magical fire wasn’t unheard of, but it could imply a connection to demon magic. “I think they have brimstone. And worse, I think they’re summoning demons. That’s how Marcus died. I think one of them was there when it happened.”
“They are summoning demons,” he said firmly.
“I mean, obviously Marcus did, but I’m saying I think that’s what this little group is all about. I’ve encountered how many of these guys with brimstone-fueled power now? Marcus was just the unlucky bastard who got himself killed.”
“I agree,” Conor said.
I straightened. “Not gonna lie, I enjoy you agreeing with me, but…”
Conor smiled. He reached in one of his vest pockets and pulled out a vial of black, viscus liquid and held it up. I gasped and reached for it, almost automatically. I didn’t have to be told what it was: it sang to the blood in my own veins. It was demon blood. So dark red that gathered in a vial it appeared to be the color of obsidian, black and sleek. And full of power. My magic flared inside me, excited by the sight.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, forcing myself to keep my hands at my side and not reach for the vial. Demon blood was super illegal to have in your possession, worse than brimstone, because it came from a demon, not just the Underworld.
“One of my guys found it during a search of the property where Marcus died last night. It was the third search my team has done. It was in the grass outside.” Conor pulled the vial closer to him, as if pretending to examine it. I dropped my hand, embarrassed at how badly I wanted to hold it.
“Holy crap,” I said, smoothing my hands over my t-shirt to keep them busy. “No wonder Marcus is dead, if these idiots are harvesting bodily fluid from demons. That’s suicidal.”
Though it might explain why the non-corporeal demon had been left behind: maybe they’d been hoping he’d gain more power and manifest physically so they could try to bleed him. If that was the case, the mage had probably come back with brimstone or something to help it get more power. I shuddered at the thought.
It would be almost impossible to touch a demon, extract their blood, and survive the process, but obviously they’d succeeded at least once. Of course, Marcus had died, so they hadn’t all made it out alive.
Conor nodded and put the demon blood away. I stared at the pocket it was in longingly for a moment before shaking myself. What exactly was I going to do with demon blood? I didn’t even know how one would use it. Put it into a charm? Soak brimstone in it?
Besides, I already had demon magic. But part of me burned to touch it regardless. That was unsettling.
I shook it off. “What’s the lead?” The vial was great evidence but it didn’t actually point anywhere, unless it had a name on it or something.
“Oh, you’re going to love this. We got an anonymous tip.” Conor said the last two words like one might say ’space alien.’ Like he couldn’t even believe it.
“What kind of tip?”
“Come on,” he said, and ushered me out the door.
Conor was half a block ahead of me, moving quickly to his car to chase down the next lead. With my back still in pain, I was struggling to keep up. At least my hand had mostly healed.
“That’s her!” The voice that shouted was squeaky and belonged to a teenage boy. I turned to see a kid I recognized. His name was James and he was a wolf shifter. His pack had paid me to track him and a human girl down when they’d run away together three months before. It was a cute little Romeo and Juliet romance and he hadn’t appreciated me dragging him back to his pack, but that had been my job.
Besides, the girl was better off. She reluctantly went home to her human family and that was that, as far as I knew (or, frankly, cared, since I’d been paid.)
Now James was surrounded by other teen boys, all muscular and snarling. They squared their shoulders and tried to look bigger than they were.
I raised any eyebrow. “Hi, kids. What can I do for you?”
One of them lunged. James held an arm out, holding him back. “You owe me,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t owe you anything, kid. You should head home before your Alpha sends a search party. He seems kind of uptight about you taking off.”
The kids with him preened and growled. At least one of them sounded very wolf-like despite his human throat. I swallowed, a little uneasy. I wasn’t going to fry these kids or cut them up with my sword, which meant if they jumped me, things would get bad pretty fast.
“You owe me payback for taking Amy.”
I folded my arms across my chest and pretended my back didn’t scream in protest. “I didn’t take Amy. I sent her home.”
He cast his eyes downward. “Yeah, well, she won’t talk to me anymore.”
A pang of guilt vibrated through me. I ignored it. I did feel bad for the kid, in a way. Shifters had pretty strict rules and it couldn’t be easy to be a teenager under those circumstances. But it also wasn’t my fault. I’d been paid to retrieve him, but if I’d refused the job, the pack would have sent someone else. Only reason they didn’t go after him on their own was he and Amy had been damn good at covering their tracks. They weren’t stupid, just stupidly romantic.
Footsteps came up behind me. “What’s going on here?” Conor asked.
“Oh crap, she’s with a Watcher,” one of James’ friends blurted. The kids scrambled like someone had dropped a grenade at their feet.
Conor shot me a questioning look. “What was that about?”
“Some shifter kid with a grudge. He ran away with a human girl and I dragged him back to his pack.”
Conor smiled.
“You think that’s funny?”
“It’s kind of sweet, actually, running away for love.”
“It wasn’t sweet. It was stupid. It got him put on his pack’s shit list. It’s been three months and he’s just now coming at me to whine and moan. Why? Because they’ve probably had the poor kid on lockdown this whole time.”
“And yet you returned him to his pack knowing that would happen.” Conor’s expression was unreadable but he was watching me carefully.
I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could manage, ignoring the small pang of guilt that reverberated through me. “I do what I’m paid to do.”
Conor raised his eyebrows.
I turned to head for the car, but moved too quickly and winced as pain exploded in my back. Guess the healing salve was taking its sweet time.
“You okay?” Conor asked.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. The pain was fading, if slowly. “Let’s just chase this lead. I’m ready to have some answers for Marcus’ family.”
I was also ready to go back to jobs like tracking down runaway shifters and not get jumped every three blocks by punk mages with super magic. Rogue shifter kids I could handle. Mages using brimstone and demon blood to increase their firepower, not so much.
Chapter 16
“Who’s she?” I asked, as he parked the SUV in front of the halfway house. A woman was standing there, obviously waiting for us. She wore the same shade of gray as Conor’s uniform but in a fashionable business suit that was perfectly tailored, the pants flaring over her three-inch heels. Her blouse was a cream color, flaunting the normal uniform, but the aura of power around her still said Watcher. She was tall, thin, and absolutely stunning, with pouty lips, dark hair in a bun, and tan skin. If she hadn’t been born a witch, she might have made a career working as a supermodel. She had a dagger on her belt, mostly concealed by her charcoal jacket.
“Lana,” he said. “She’s one of my superiors.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly nervous. The more Watchers I was around, the greater the chance I’d mess up and get caught using my demon magic, especially if we ended up in a dire situation.
Not that anything about this halfway house looked dire. It was a normal looking three-story house on a dead-end street a few blocks down from bigger, more recent housing developments. The house itself wasn’t that old, maybe a decade or two, but it looked worn down, like those had been hard decades. It needed a good pressure washing to take all of the grime off the siding. Trees surrounded the house on three sides, except for the little road that led to it from the main street.
I doubted this house would last long. It, and the land it was on, would probably be purchased by a developer who would raze it to the ground and build a dozen houses in its place.
On the ride over, Conor had filled me in on the anonymous tip: someone had called the Watcher’s office and said they’d witnessed people summoning demons at Harbor Heights, a halfway house that catered to down-on-their-luck supernaturals and humans who were trying to rehabilitate themselves after supernatural encounters (like people who wanted to untangle themselves from vampire lovers or those who’d escaped the clutches of the fae).
Lana watched us get out of the car, giving me a once-over before shooting Conor a questioning look. “You bring stray witches to crime scenes now? I taught you better.”
“Lana, meet Dani Warren, PI. The Goldsmiths hired her to look into Marcus’ passing,” he said curtly, as if the very notion of a family hiring a private investigator was ludicrous.
“Did they?” She considered that for a moment. “I suppose grieving causes people to do strange things.”
Was she serious? I knew I should keep my mouth shut, keep a low profile, and be grateful Conor had brought me along to investigate. But come on.
“They just want to be sure they get the truth,” I said, smiling brightly.
Lana’s expression hardened into a mask of stone. Conor shot me a warning look.
I brushed past both of them and stepped up to the wrought iron gate. The fence was waist-high, hardly high security, but the iron content would repel the fae. The house was dark and quiet, not so much as the blue flicker of a television screen. It was barely ten pm, far too early for a house full of supernaturals to be asleep.
“Looks a little quiet,” I said. Conor came up beside me and I could feel the heat of his body near mine. Then Lana stepped up next to him and I tried to push all carnal thoughts out of my mind. Next to Lana, I looked like a wrung-out gutter rat. “Is Harbor Heights still open?”
Conor shrugged. “I assumed so, from the call.”
“Doesn’t appear to be active,” Lana said. “Though I suppose that might be why this little faction of criminals is using the space.”
“Perhaps,” Conor said, but he didn’t sound convinced. I caught his eye and he gave me a pointed look, but I couldn’t tell what it meant.
The air was still and sweet, filled with the earthy aroma of forest, which sprawled out around the house. Nothing moved but the light breeze. My heart pounded. Something about this was wrong. I wanted to look into the shadows for signs of demonic activity, but I was too scared to do so with two Watchers next to me.
“I don’t sense any magic,” Lana said, frowning.
I didn’t either, but that didn’t mean much. If the magic was done inside, it might not make its way out into the yard, especially if it had been performed a while ago.
I stared at the house. At first it had just looked a little unkempt but the longer I stared at it, the more a sick feeling bloomed in my stomach. Something about it felt wrong. I just couldn’t put my finger on what.
“You said it was an anonymous call?” I asked, trying to make sense of the situation.
“A tip,” Conor said. “Yes.”
“Well, we aren’t going to learn much standing out here,” Lana said. She pushed me aside and reached for the gate.
“Wait, maybe we should…” I trailed off. What, exactly? Stare at the house until it fell down from neglect?
Lana pulled the gate open and walked down the short path to the front door. It was maybe twenty, thirty feet. Conor followed on her heels.
I let them go ahead and used the opportunity to take a quick peek into the shadows. I didn’t see demon shadows around the house. That was something, but like the lack of magical energy, it didn’t mean a whole lot. I pulled the gate open to catch up.
The house exploded.
A ball of fire came rushing out of the windows, shattering the glass. The force of the explosion knocked me backward onto the sidewalk. My injured back and butt slammed into the pavement.
Pain burst from my back and behind. My head went fuzzy. The world went quiet for a moment and I realized the explosion had damaged my hearing. I forced myself up to my knees, pressing my palms into the dirty asphalt. Everything hurt. I’d have a whole army of bruises tomorrow.
I forced myself to breathe. The air was dry and hot.
Conor and Lana had been closer to the explosion. Lana lay on her side, her cheek and hands bloody, body completely still. She’d been thrown from the porch and onto the concrete path. Conor was a few feet behind her, thrown onto his back like I was. Neither was moving and I couldn’t tell if they were breathing.
I called their names. They didn’t move or react.
I started toward them. Magic flew at my face. I turned to see three mages emerge from the trees, including my friends Elmer and Mohawk. The third was a young woman with short black hair and too much eyeliner.
I dodged the magic and drew my sword, rushing toward them.
“Isn’t that the demon?” Mohawk asked. His words sounded distant but my hearing was improving.
“Shit, this is why I told you to wait to set off the bomb,” Elmer hissed at Mohawk. The woman with them rolled her eyes and fired off another ball of green energy. It came at my
chest and I had to dodge to the side. Mohawk threw another spell right after it, and it swept my leg. Heat exploded in my lower leg as I crumbled to the ground.
I looked down and my jeans were torn, my leg bloody from the hit. Before I could get to my feet, another ball of green magic flew at me. I rolled away and it slammed into the dirty pavement of the narrow street.
I lifted my sword, pain shooting down my arm. I swore. More magic came at me. Large balls of green energy, ranging from baseball size to as big as a basketball. One would shoot, then the next. I dodged, rolled, stood, dodged again. I tried to rush attack only to be pelted with more magical energy balls and burning magical arrows.
My heart was pounding so hard I was sure it was going to explode. My muscles burned in agony. My mind reeled.
I glanced at Conor and Lana. Neither was up. If they were conscious, they were playing dead. Neither of them seemed the type. I voted unconscious. I seriously hoped they were still alive.
I’d have to risk using my magic. There was no way to beat these people with my sword, not with the amount of magic power they were throwing out. It was like trying to fight a machine gun with a knife.
I gathered my demon fire and flung a fireball at the girl, who was readying a spell of her own. She stopped mid-cast, the green magic evaporating from her fingers as she dodged my attack.
I drew more energy from the air and let the demon magic flood through my veins. I ran toward the mages, tossing the next fireball at Mohawk. It caught him in the chest and ignited his clothes. He swore. Elmer had gathered a ball of red energy that he rotated in his hands.
I tossed another ball of blue demon fire at him. He tossed his spell and it shot into the fireball feet from his face. Blue fire rained down into the grass. Mohawk screamed, still on fire. He was rolling on the ground to get it out but I’d put a lot of energy into that spell, and it burned on. The woman gathered a water spell. She tossed it on him and extinguished the flames. Mohawk’s flesh was red and burned. He stopped moving, his panting breath filling the night air. She ran to him and dragged him back into the trees.
Demon Fire (Brimstone Magic Book 1) Page 11
