Shades of Wicked

by Jeaniene Frost

  “Come here, you little—” Dagon began.

  Magic flooded the room, drenching me with its power. Dagon let out a snarl that quickly turned into a howl. Ian told me the mirror spell came in two modes: silent and sound. No contest as to which one I’d wanted. I wouldn’t have even needed the full-body splash of magic to know the trap had been sprung. Not with Dagon’s howl turning into a scream of pure rage.

  Listening to it felt better than therapy. I’d waited over four and a half thousand years for Dagon to pay for everything he’d done. Today, his bill finally came due.

  I pressed the button on the remote control, hearing fabric swish as the counter-weight system we’d set up dragged the drapes back up to re-cover the mirrors. I came out of my hiding spot to see Ian already diving down from his ceiling perch. He rammed his bone knife into Dagon’s left eye with such force, the tip of his blade came out the back of Dagon’s skull.

  I didn’t pause to savor Dagon’s new scream. I slammed my bone knife into his other eye, putting all my rage, guilt, and grief into the blow. My hand went all the way through Dagon’s skull and into the mirror behind him. It shattered as the double blow sealed Dagon’s fate. His eye sockets turned into blackened, smoking holes that burned my arm from its close contact. I didn’t care. His final, enraged scream was drowned out by the rest of the mirrors exploding as the spell ended with his death.

  Shards of glass ripped through the room, slicing into me from head to toe. I didn’t feel the pain. I was too filled with relief as I watched Dagon’s body start to shrink and deflate, almost like when vampires died and their bodies aged back to their actual years. By the time Ian yanked my arm from Dagon’s skull to swing me around in joyous circle, Dagon’s body resembled a man-sized piece of beef jerky.

  “Break my back and baste my balls, we did it!”

  Ian’s shout coincided with my burst of laughter, as if my happiness was too great for my body to contain. Finally, it was over! All the pain, the planning, the thousands of years of waiting while fighting despair thinking Dagon might never be brought to justice . . . finished. Maybe now, at last, all of Dagon’s victims could rest in peace.

  I don’t know if Ian kissed me or if I yanked his head down to mine. Either way, our mouths were pressed together with all the jubilance of our combined victory. Dagon’s victims weren’t just avenged; Ian was also free, his soul his own again. I was happier than I’d ever been.

  Then a voice hit me like a thousand icicles suddenly shoved through my veins. “This is so sweet, if I had a heart, I’d cry.”

  Ian shoved me back, putting himself between me and the owner of that voice that should not, could not be there.

  “Hello,” Dagon purred. “Miss me?”

  Chapter 38

  Dagon winced when he saw the corpse. “I told Rani to watch out for a trap, but he didn’t think either of you were smart enough to set up anything he couldn’t get out of.”

  That dried-up demon husk was Rani? “You glamoured him to look like you.”

  Dagon’s smile was all teeth. “Got the idea from your friend Vlad since glamour worked so well on Ian the first time. You know what they say about fooling someone twice, boy.” He tossed his blond hair before wagging a finger at Ian. “Shame on you.”

  Ian smiled back. “Here’s a saying I fancy more: If at first you don’t succeed . . .”

  “Try, try again,” I finished. We’d known the mirror trap might not work. That’s why Ian and I still had another bone knife, and we also had a whole theme park full of surprises.

  Without warning, Dagon’s power blasted from him like a bomb going off. It froze time in the room, rolling over me before catching Ian in its pitiless grip. Just as fast, I let mine loose, releasing Ian from his paralysis before Dagon could take so much as a step toward him.

  “I don’t think so.” I barely recognized my own voice from the growl that came out of my throat. Dagon stared at me as if he’d suddenly seen a stranger, too. Then he laughed.

  “Look at you, girl! Full of power now that you’re all grown up.” Then he took in a deep sniff and laughed again. “From your scent, you’ve been mixing your work with play, too. Not that I blame you. I couldn’t resist Ian, either.”

  I swung a horrified glance at Ian. “You didn’t?”

  Dagon took advantage of that by leaping around Ian to slam a fist into my stomach. The impact knocked me through all the remaining walls in the fun house and into the Tilt-A-Whirl behind it. I hit that hard enough to crack my skull, then shook my head to clear it as I looked back at the fun house.

  Ian and Dagon burst through its roof. They were grappling in midair, each landing punishing blows on the other. Dagon tried freezing time again. I blasted his spell apart before Ian even slowed down. Then I grabbed my second bone knife, about to fly toward them when a fresh sizzle of power hit my back like a swarm of stinging hornets. I whirled around to see who it was and . . . what the hell?

  Dagon was behind me! I spared a glance to confirm that another Dagon was still in the air fighting with Ian. He was. The demon had indeed arrived with reinforcements. As an extra trick, he’d glamoured all of them to look like him. Now, I didn’t know which was the real Dagon. Didn’t matter. We’d just kill them all.

  This Dagon grinned before disappearing in a clear attempt to teleport the rest of the way to me. I tightened my hand around the bone knife and flew at the spot where I’d last seen him. Seconds later, he appeared back in that same place, frowning.

  Surprise! I thought nastily. The complex web Ian and I had spent days casting over the entire park meant demons could teleport into it, but they couldn’t teleport within the park’s limits again.

  I slammed into him, shoving my knife into his eye at the same time. The force smashed us both through the Tilt-A-Whirl I’d recently cracked my head against. Its heavy steel frame tore as we hurtled through both sides of it, the jagged metal ripping into my flesh. The double impact was so violent, I missed when I aimed for the demon’s other eye.

  He punched me in the head. My vision went dark and horrible crunching noises exploded in my skull. I managed to tear away before he landed another one, flying blind until my eyes healed enough to see again. When they did, everything was still blurry. I blinked until I saw a shadowy image of the demon running beneath me, something large in his hands.

  Carousel pony, I realized as he hurled it at me. I dodged far enough for it to miss most of me, though its legs struck my shoulder with a glancing blow. I blinked rapidly, trying to force my vision to heal faster.

  “Did you lose something, girl?” the demon taunted in Sumerian, holding up a small object this time. A few more blinks and I saw it was my demon-bone knife. But that wasn’t what made me feel as though I’d been hit by a car.

  His voice and scent was the same as Dagon’s. The glamour Dagon had used had been thorough. But the way this demon said ‘girl,’ with one more syllable than the ancient language called for . . . I remembered a demon who used to pronounce it that way.

  “Fenkir,” I said, hate slicing deeper than the metal had.

  Dagon’s face grinned back at me, but the one eye that wasn’t blackened out and smoking . . . I knew the person staring back at me from that eye, no matter what color and shape it came in.

  “Girrrrllll,” Fenkir said, deliberately dragging out the only word he and the others had called me back when I’d been their captive. “This time, when I kill you, you’ll stay dead.” And he wagged the demon-bone knife at me.

  I’d never been murdered by demon bone through the eyes before, so it was possible. Perhaps they knew my father was actually a different sort of demon.

  I wasn’t about to ask. I also wasn’t going to let the fear of permanent death stop me. I only paused to cast a split-second glance Ian’s way. He and Dagon were still trading blows that leveled everything in their path, but Ian didn’t seem to need my help at the moment. And I really wanted to show Fenkir how far I’d come since I had been the traumatized, broken girl he�
��d last seen.

  I held my arms out. Wind began to blow my hair around as the power I summoned spilled out into the air around me. Fenkir cocked his head, squinting with his one eye as he watched.

  “Are you too much of a coward to come down and fight?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m coming.”

  The power built, fueled by memories I finally freed because they gave it fuel. When it grew enough to make my skin burn as if something inside was trying to claw its way out, I aimed that power right at Fenkir and released it.

  He screamed. A pitiless part of me enjoyed hearing it. Told you I was coming. Here I am.

  Then he ran. My power continued to laser into him with concentrated beams. His legs became sluggish. I flew at him right as he tripped. He rolled when he fell, holding the bone knife in front of him while an expression I’d never seen before crossed his features.

  Panic.

  If I were Fenkir, I’d pause to savor that expression on my victim’s face. Then, I’d take my time torturing that person, instead of delivering a clean kill. I’d also laugh, while promising to stop if he or she begged me pathetically enough. But of course I wouldn’t, and I would laugh again as I continued the torture. That was Fenkir.

  It wasn’t me. I landed on him with all the force I could muster. It broke my legs, but it shattered his rib cage and spine. The momentary paralysis made it easy for me to rip the bone knife from his hand. Then I stabbed it through both his eyes even though one was still blackened and smoking. I was off him again before his body had a chance to start deflating.

  Fenkir loved drawing out the pain before he killed people. I just wanted justice served. For him, it finally was.

  I yanked the bone knife out of Fenkir’s eye and flew back toward the fun house. Ian and the other Dagon were no longer there. They’d moved their battle near the rusted Paratrooper ride. Two of the mock metal parachutes were torn from their perch when Dagon threw Ian into them. I flew faster and grabbed Ian’s arm, spinning him around before he could fly back to attack again.

  “Not here!” I urged in a low voice.

  Enough of the bloodlust left his gaze for him to nod, but Ian also had actual blood all over him. I hoped some of it was Dagon’s. From the crimson lines streaking the demon, it could be. But was this really Dagon? Or another glamoured demon?

  I had to find out. “Fenkir’s gone to be with Rani,” I called out. “Hope you don’t miss him too much.”

  Fury lit Dagon’s features. Then it cleared and he laughed. “Such a shame. He was so looking forward to getting another piece of you. You remember how Rani and Fenkir used to love taking turns? I never understood how they bore all your sniveling enough to enjoy it, but enjoy it they did.”

  Yes, this was the real Dagon, and his smirk made those memories all too vivid. He’d worn that same expression countless times while I was being abused. Those memories had fueled me with Fenkir, but now they cut me. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to lose the despair and keep only the rage.

  “Know what I remember, Dagon?” Ian’s tone was scathingly bright. “How you panted after me for weeks before I agreed to spend the night with you. Didn’t turn out how you’d hoped, did it? When it was over, you still had blue balls, and I had your egg-sized blue diamond. Looks smashing on the mantle of my favorite house, by the way.”

  Dagon’s expression became mottled with rage. “Fuck you.”

  Ian flashed a savage grin. “Oh, you tried. And failed.”

  Dagon tore off one of the remaining paratrooper pods and hurled it at Ian. He ducked it with a crowing sound. “Still sore about that, hmm? You should be, I’m magnificent. Ask her.”

  “That’s why Dagon’s been hunting you for decades?” I let myself laugh out loud at the demon’s palpable humiliation. Dagon had tried to wound me with the past, but while I’d dealt with that, Ian had made sure Dagon’s strategy backfired. “Wow, you got fucked, all right,” I went on mercilessly. “Just not how you wanted, and let me assure you—you missed out.”

  Ian grinned, continuing to fly toward the wooden roller coaster while Dagon chased after us. “Diamond’s valued at millions,” Ian called out to me. “Still wasn’t worth cuddling and kissing him to get close enough to steal it.”

  We were almost at the roller coaster. Dagon was still furious, but he’d slowed down from his single-minded pursuit of us. I needed to get him mad enough to keep following.

  “When we leave here, we’re selling that diamond and donating the money to charity,” I told Ian. “We’ll even make the donation in Dagon’s name so everyone can thank him for it.”

  Ian laughed. “Still treating what’s mine as yours, I see.”

  I raised my voice to make sure Dagon caught every word of what I said next. “Embrace your new state of matrimony, honey!”

  That did it. Dagon zoomed toward us, his body upright as if rage kept his spine ramrod straight. I flew around the roller coaster, Ian right behind me. Dagon was almost in the blast zone. A little closer . . .

  He stopped as if he felt exactly where the blast radius of the salt bombs was located. Then he held out his arms in much the same way I had when I’d channeled the energy to make Fenkir stagger. I’d use that tactic on Dagon if he weren’t too strong for it. Plus, I still had to conserve my power in case he tried freezing time again.

  But that wasn’t what he was doing. Moments later, a shockwave hit me, though not from a time-pause attempt. It had been from the force of three dozen demons instantly teleporting into our area. Ian ground out a curse while I stared at them in dismay.

  I looked back at Dagon in time to see him smile. “You didn’t think it would be easy to kill me, did you?”

  Chapter 39

  “Bugger.” Ian said the single word with all the vehemence I felt. Then, he gave me a light push toward the horde. “You need to hold them and Dagon off by yourself for a few minutes. Something I have to do.”

  “That’s more important than this?” I sputtered.

  His smile was a tight flash of fang. “Like you told me before, you have to trust me without arguing for once.”

  With that, he flew off, leaving me, Dagon, and the newly arrived demons staring after him.

  Dagon began to laugh so hard, it sounded like he pulled a muscle from it. “He left you to save his own skin! Ah, girl, I’m enjoying your expression so much, I think I’ll let Ian have a head start.” Then he whistled at the demons. “Bring her to me alive!” To me, he added, “You stole my last Red Dragon source, so I’m going to use your blood as my new one, and that’s only one of many, many plans I have for you.”

  “Then like Ian, I’ll have to disappoint you,” I snapped before turning toward the horde. Eeesh. Nearly two score against one was terrible odds, no matter my strength.

  I set my jaw and zipped the bone knife into one of the many pockets in my cargo pants. I couldn’t risk sheathing it in my belt because the belt could be torn free, and I couldn’t risk it being pulled from my hands again. Not when I still needed it to kill Dagon. Besides, they’d been told not to kill me and they felt like average soldiers to me, not upper-echelon demons. There were other ways to level the playing field than risking my only demon-bone knife.

  I flew over to them, staying out of their reach but only just. Ian had said he needed time. I’d give him as much as I could. True to Dagon’s taunt, he hadn’t chased after Ian yet. No, he seemed to be settling in to watch the show with me and his demons.

  “Go on, try to teleport up here to get me,” I taunted them, then laughed at the multiple failed results. Their attempts ate up only a couple minutes, though. I needed something more dramatic to hold their attention longer.

  “I’m guessing none of you can fly, but can any of you jump high enough to reach me?”

  That resulted in several more attempts, some of them forcing me to fly higher in sudden aerial leaps. All the while, I kept up the taunts with comments like “Almost!” and “You were so close!” while getting closer to the Enterprise. It w
as a ride shaped like a Ferris wheel when it was upright, but was now abandoned on the ground—like a huge, multi-spiked metal wheel.

  “I’m getting bored, so I’ll make it easier for you,” I said, landing dead center in the middle of the rust-coated ride.

  The demons vaulted over the remaining gondolas and countless metal arms that anchored the gondolas to its base. I sent my magic out, not in a blast that would have warned them but in drips that coated the ride slowly enough to let two of the fastest demons jump me before it was even half finished.

  I defended against the worst of their blows, but I didn’t fight back when even more demons joined in. All my energy was focused on spilling out more magic in non-alarming drips. Pain exploded everywhere. The blows were too fast to heal between them. Soon, my head sounded like a bag of stones grinding together, I was blind from the blood, and I fought not to puke up my pulverized organs.

  But my projection of helplessness galvanized the demons. From the sounds, all of them were probably on the sprawling ride now. I could hear them shouting as they tried to force their way through the others to get their turn to beat me. When I felt my magic reach the end of the enormous wheel, I dropped to my knees and pulled the pin on the spell. Most of my magic wouldn’t work on the demons, but it worked fine on inanimate objects.

  The wheel burst apart as thousands of pounds of metal instantly turned into high-velocity shrapnel. I was so covered by demons, not a single piece tore into me. From the chorus of screams, the shrapnel hit everyone else. When the demons around me fell back in a belated attempt to shield themselves, I shot straight up so fast, only a few pieces of shrapnel hit me. Then I took out my bone knife, waited a few seconds until the shrapnel was no longer whirling about with tornado-like speed, and flew back down to stab out every eye I could.

  I was knee deep in demon corpses when something slammed me from behind. I hurtled into the demon in front of me with enough force to flatten us both. I looked down, seeing the ragged metal edge of a sizeable pole protruding from my stomach. It had gone right through me and into the brown-haired demon I’d landed on.