Digital Edition
©2017 Christopher Nelson
www.thedemoninsideme.com
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Alex Dranovsky
www.fatterproductions.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is strictly coincidental.
For everyone’s “the one who got away”
Chapter One
Once again, everything started on a Tuesday afternoon. I had always thought Times Square could hold just under half the world’s population, based on my many years of watching New Year’s Eve television specials. Today, I discovered I was wrong. Just one little political rally and it felt as if I couldn’t take a step without someone being in my way. I wormed and shouldered my way through the crowds, politely where I could, forcefully where I couldn’t.
“Dammit, hold on!” I paused and looked back over my shoulder. My partner squeezed through a gap between people and glared up at me. “Don’t move so fast. I can’t push these assholes out of the way like you can.”
“Grow, Tink.”
She glowered up at me and her hand strayed to her hip where her favorite knife rode under her jacket. If I claimed she was five feet tall under oath, any judge would throw me in a cell for contempt of court. She had pulled her blonde hair up in a high ponytail to add one tiny bit of height. Maybe I was finally getting to her. “Just break trail for me like you’re supposed to.”
I rolled my eyes and turned my back on her. “I’d offer you a piggyback ride if I didn’t think you’d stab me.”
“Over four years together and you’ve finally learned something.” I felt her grab the back of my shirt. “Now move. We need to get out of this crowd so I can breathe again.”
I grunted and navigated the crowd with a little more care. Normally, I wouldn’t be anywhere near a crowd like this. It was overwhelming for mere humans, let alone a halfblood like me: Isaiah Bright, half human, half demon. My heritage gave me a host of abilities beyond normal humans. One of those abilities was heightened senses, and every one of my senses was telling me the same thing. Danger. Danger everywhere.
“You sure you don’t feel anything?” I asked over my shoulder.
Tink snorted and tugged hard on my shirt. “Feel what? I can’t cast anything right now, you know.”
“I’m not talking about using magic,” I said. “I’m talking about your instincts. Intuition. I know you have it somewhere. There’s something wrong here and I don’t like it.”
Instead of a snappy response, her grip on my shirt tightened. “I was hoping it was just me. Why’d you drag me here anyways? It wasn’t just for a Broadway show.”
I grimaced. For once, I hadn’t shared everything with her, and it bothered me more than I could explain. House Asmodeus Intelligence had uncovered a connection between the sponsors of this rally and certain corporations run by a certain group of human mages. Almost two years ago, that same group of mages had interfered in the delicate balance between demons and angels, resulting in a brief, bloody, and completely unnecessary war, which only ended with the sudden deaths of roughly twenty percent of all angels.
Those deaths were on my hands, incidentally.
“Hey, asshole, answer my question!” I shook my head and looked down at her. Tink was a human mage, and even though we’d been contract partners for nearly five years, I had no idea how deep her connection was to the global community of mages. Sure, she had been involved in the regional group in the past, but I hadn’t heard about the regional conclave reforming after they’d been scattered and killed by a rogue demon. No one had explicitly told me not to tell her, but word from on high said to play this one quietly. I usually listened when the High Prince of my House told me to do something.
Usually. “This rally’s been funded and organized by your kind of people,” I said. “Some of the same shell companies we traced back to the global organization dumped money into sponsoring this event. Opheran asked me to come down here and check it out. Get a read on the situation just in case.”
“And we’re both feeling danger,” Tink said. “You know what? Normally you’re a coward, but not this time. I think you’re being too brave. This is a shitstorm waiting to happen. Can we leave before it starts?”
Before I could argue about how the rally hadn’t even started yet, the screaming began. Immediately after the first scream of agony, I heard what could only be a demonic howl. Ichor pulsed through my bloodstream and I fought back the urge to transform into my demonic form. I’d grown used to the pressure of being around powerful demons over the past few years. This howl hit all the right notes to shake me from my complacency. “I think you’re right,” I said as more screams echoed around the streets.
“Haven’t you learned to never doubt me?” The crowd started to shift toward various potential escape routes. Tink shifted her grip to my arm and hung on. Panicking crowds weren’t predictable and she was small enough to make being trampled a real danger. “Let’s head back the way we came, and fucking fast.”
“You got it.” We pushed through the nervous crowd and I nearly fell over as the resistance in front of me vanished. A demon stood barely ten feet away, long slender claws dripping crimson with blood as a disemboweled woman wriggled and moaned at its feet. We made eye contact and neither of us moved, sizing the other up, an island of still tension in the midst of rising panic. There was no way I could face down a full-blooded demon in their true form. My only options were trickery, deceit, and running really damn fast.
“That’s no demon,” Tink snarled up at me.
“How do you know?” I refused to break eye contact. If she was wrong, showing weakness was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. Even if she was right, it was still a bad idea.
“I can sense the magic without even trying. Those are multiple layers of illusions, seriously good illusions, way beyond anything I can do. That’s no demon. It’s a mage pretending to be one.”
I curled my lip toward the false demon. My right hand clenched and I pricked my palm with a suddenly sharp fingertip. A single drop of ichor oozed out. “Then maybe I should just light them up.”
“Brilliant,” she said. “Light up some hellfire. Subtle. They’re pretending to be demons and killing a ton of humans. You want to show them you’re a demon too? Great. I always appreciated your brains. Can we just fucking run away now?”
The tension snapped as a man stumbled into the empty space between us and the false demon lunged. The claws might have been an illusion, but the mages were still armed. Blood spurted from the hapless victim and I took the opportunity to drag Tink along behind me. I counted at least half a dozen false demons indiscriminately murdering people, though in at least one case, people had fought back. Their illusions were thorough down to the green ichor oozing from wounds.
We burst through to the cross street we had approached the square from, just in time to see a line of police in riot gear start advancing. It was going to be a rough day for New York’s finest if the fake demons decided to keep playing. One of them signaled and waved us out of the way. Tink stumbled as I guided her aside.
“Are you hurt?” one of the officers paused as the line passed us. “Sir? Ma’am?”
“No,” I said, forcing myself to seem out of breath. “But there are a lot of hurt people back there. What’s going on? What the hell are those things?”
His jaw clenched. “Hell might just be the right word. Get out of here while you can.”
I forced myself to stay calm while the police pushed f
orward. When they were far enough away, I let loose with a string of profanities in demonic. Tink frowned up at me. “I’ve never heard you use that turn of phrase before. What’s it mean in English?”
“Nothing remotely comprehensible,” I said. “But did you get what he said? If the riot cops know what they’re getting in to, they already know about demons. If they know, everyone’s going to know real soon now.”
She groaned. “Shit. That’s going to cause some problems.”
“That’s an understatement. It might just blow the entire truce apart. Let’s get to the station. Maybe we can catch an earlier train.”
“Maybe we should just use the portal network.”
“Maybe it’d be a really bad idea to seem remotely suspicious right now by poking around places we shouldn’t be.”
“I hate it when you’re even slightly right.”
We shared a quick grin before starting the walk to Penn Station. Once we were a couple of blocks away, you could barely even tell there was a massacre in progress. Tink didn’t let go of my arm and I didn’t call her on it. We made it through the initial security checkpoints and only relaxed once we made it to an area where we could sit down.
I wrestled with the idea of calling Opheran. On one hand, he’d want to know about this as soon as possible. On the other hand, this would be all over the news in short order. I settled for a quick text message telling him to watch the news and put my phone back in my pocket. Tink watched me with her standard issue scowl. “What?” I asked.
“You’re not supposed to play with your phone in company.”
“Don’t whine. I had to tell Opheran something.”
“Hope no one can trace your phone.”
“Is that why you never pick up when I call you?”
Whatever she was about to say vanished as someone sat down on the bench facing us. Tink put her hand on her knife as the newcomer stared directly at her in direct contradiction of the city’s social norms. A surge of something familiar emanated from her, anger, hatred, and fear. Murderous intent.
As quickly as it came, the sensation vanished, leaving me even more confused than I was a moment ago. Tink’s hand flew from her knife to her mouth. I didn’t often see her so surprised. “You’re alive?” she whispered.
I looked at her, then back to the newcomer. “Nice to see you again, Anna,” she said in a hauntingly familiar voice. “Sorry I wasn’t able to contact you before now. I’m sure you were worried.”
“Worried? We thought you died when this one pulled the building down on you!”
The reference clicked for me, since I didn’t make a habit of pulling buildings down on top of people, except for special occasions. Back then, she had long strawberry blonde hair and freckles. Now her hair was darker, shorter, and streaked with gray. Her freckles were gone, probably hidden under makeup. Alternatively, she was using magic. Maybe she had used magic to get rid of them entirely. Human magic was too versatile for me to keep up with all the possible applications. “Chrissy,” I said. “Hey. Sorry about the building thing. Hope it didn’t inconvenience you too much.”
“It did,” she said. “I mean, I only finished physical therapy six months ago.”
I winced. “Damn. Sorry.”
“Why didn’t they heal you?” Tink demanded.
“Mostly because our old friend overrode just about everything making me who I was.” Her tone was light, but I could hear the bitterness underneath. “The physical therapy’s finally over, but I have to see a shrink every week for the rest of my life now. They had to keep me in an artificial coma for almost a year. I couldn’t control myself. Kept trying to escape. By the time I was able to keep myself from flying apart, I needed surgery to fix all the problems the natural healing didn’t. A few procedures, actually.”
“And you didn’t even try to contact me afterwards?”
“I couldn’t. I was shipped off once I was in condition to be moved, and Nathan ordered me to stay silent.”
“Nathan?” Tink and I asked at the same time.
“Nathan Kane.”
Tink leaned forward. “I’ve heard his name before. Isn’t he up there in the Eternal Conclave?”
Chrissy smiled, though her eyes narrowed. “Anna, he is the Eternal Conclave. I didn’t have a choice. When Nathan says you’re going to undergo rehabilitation in Germany, you shut up and do your rehab in Germany.”
I tried to keep a straight face. I’d only heard of the Eternal Conclave a handful of times, but as far as House Intelligence knew, it was the name of the global network of human mages. That meant no matter how nice it was to see an old friend again, she was part of a group that had tried their best to provoke a genocidal war. “So you’re Nathan’s bitch, basically?”
“Basically,” she said without looking in my direction.
“Here to kill us? Like your friends are doing in Times Square?”
“Don’t be an asshole, demon,” Tink snapped. “There’s no connection-“
“No, I’m not here to do anything like what they’re doing there,” Chrissy replied before Tink’s self-righteous fury could ignite. “Really, I just came to talk. Catch up a little. Maybe get a drink or two before you catch your train.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
She smiled again. “You’re right. I came to talk to Anna.”
“Sounds ominous,” she said. “I don’t like this. There’s a bunch of mages casting illusion magic to look like demons back there. They’re killing innocent people.”
“How do you know the dead people aren’t illusions too?”
“I could smell the blood,” I said. Chrissy still didn’t look at me, but I saw her eye twitch. “Illusions are never quite perfect. She saw through the false demons, but neither of us questioned the bodies. Didn’t need to. I saw people die. I could smell their blood. I could sense their souls letting go. That’s nothing your illusions can fake. So go on, Chrissy, tell us what you’re here to talk to Tink about. I’m sure it’ll be enlightening.”
She took a moment to stare at Tink before speaking. “Anna, the Eternal Conclave demands you honor the commitment you originally made to the Northeastern Regional Conclave.”
Tink took a deep breath, looked over at me, and then back to Chrissy. “Do they, now? What if I refuse?”
“Your rank, status, and membership in the Conclave will be revoked, effective immediately. Your actions to date will be investigated to determine if they rise to the level of treason. In the interim, you are free to do as you will, but any interference in Conclave activities will be met with an appropriate response.”
She snorted. “Appropriate overkill, no doubt.”
“What is your response, Adept?” Chrissy drew herself up. She was tense, probably expecting a fight. It wasn’t an unreasonable expectation when pissing Tink off.
“If it makes it easier, just do it,” I suggested.
“Shut up, demon.” I could feel her inner turmoil. Something about this had her more upset than she’d been in a long time, not since the unfortunate incident where she’d caught me in a compromising situation with her younger sister. Seemingly compromising, at least. I was completely innocent in the matter. Accidents happened when you lived with two women.
“Just let her think about it. It’s not an easy choice.”
“It’s not a choice at all,” Tink snapped. “You know exactly what I’m going to tell you. I’m trying to decide how to word the message I’ll give you to send back.”
“I was afraid of that,” Chrissy said. “What should I tell Nathan?”
“Tell him to go fuck himself sideways with a rusty chainsaw. I’m not going to honor commitments made under threat and duress, especially not now when I’ve seen what the Conclave will do. Schemers. Thugs. Murderers. Killing innocents.” Tink stood and balled her fists. “They’re not my people. Not anymore. And I hate seeing you among them.”
“I hate being on opposite sides of this.” Chrissy stood
as well. I kept an eye on her hands. If she made any quick moves or looked to be casting a spell, I’d remove them at the wrists in a hurry.
“Do we have to be?” Tink asked. “Do you really think they’re doing the right thing? Come on, they’re killing innocents. You know it’s wrong.”
“I wish I could tell you everything. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?” The taller girl stepped forward and hugged Tink, who actually hugged her back. Today was just full of surprises. “I wish we could go back to the way things were.”
“You could join us instead,” Tink said. “Go freelance with me. Do your own thing. The Conclave will live without you.”
“But I might not live without them.” Chrissy’s smile seemed sad. “I’m sorry. I’ll take your message back to Nathan. Verbatim.” The women sized each other up before Chrissy stepped back and turned away. Before she walked away, she turned toward me, but didn’t make eye contact. “Zay, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
We watched her walk away, and then shared one of those significant looks where we both knew we were in the middle of some shit once again. “You’re not going to tell me what your commitment to the Conclave was, are you?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? It’s not painfully obvious?” She snorted and looked away. “I was supposed to get every last bit of use out of you I could. Learn everything I could about demons, get your trust, and manipulate your power for our own purposes. Getting your help with Azriphel was just a personal bonus.”
“And then kill me?” This all sounded very familiar. My ex-girlfriend had tried to do the same sort of thing.
“And then kill you.” She snorted again. “Otherwise, they’d cast me out just like she said. Freelance mages don’t live long, demon. You’re not trusted and they watch you, all the time, no matter how harmless you try to be. If you do anything remotely dangerous, they make you disappear, and they get to define what dangerous means.”
It sounded a lot like my life before I had met her. Demons didn’t trust or have much use for me, but I was still subject to the Pact and all other rules governing interactions between races. I had kept my head down and just lived a nice normal life until a certain little someone stuck a knife in my back. “So why haven’t they snuffed you yet?”
The Demon Behind Me Page 1
