His expression tightened and he looked away. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Her mission was not a success. There were two confirmed deaths. Three missing. She is one of the missing. The Conclave has not responded to our requests to exchange prisoner lists.” He looked back to me with a wry smile. “I suspect because they have prisoners and we do not.”
I sighed. “Shit.”
“I agree.”
“If it isn’t too much to ask, could someone let me know if she’s confirmed one way or the other?”
Leviathan looked down at me, then placed a hand on my shoulder. “Of course, Marquis. Just as your own Prince, I had hopes for your eventual union. I will let you know as soon as I know anything.”
I swallowed hard. “Thank you, High Prince. I am in your debt.”
“It is a trifle. There is no debt to be had between us.”
“Just a small token of friendship between us and our Houses, I hope.”
He smiled and withdrew his hand. “Friendship. I will keep that in mind. Perhaps, one day, you can tell me how you became friends with such an infamous member of the Choir.”
I looked over my shoulder. Caleb was engaged in conversation with a couple of demons, and while he looked wary, there were no signs of violence in the air. “It is a long story,” I said. “But I’d be glad to tell it.”
“Hearing it will more than satisfy any debt you feel you may have.”
An imp phased into sight as I turned back around. “Marquis Isaiah Bright?”
“Yes?”
“There is an emergency at your home.” Ichor pumped as his words hit me. “Mages of the Eternal Conclave are attacking. Casualties are reported-“
I turned my back on the High Prince of Leviathan and ran to Caleb, pushing everyone out of the way without regard for rank or position. He broke off in mid-sentence as I shoved my way into his conversation circle. “Tink’s under attack,” I snapped. “Let’s go.”
He nodded and his wings shimmered briefly into view. “Lead on.”
“Portal!” I shouted. If anyone hadn’t been paying attention to me before, they were now. I caught Opheran’s frown as I pointed at the messenger imp fluttering over my shoulder. “I need a portal home, right fucking now!”
“I am not authorized-“
“You are authorized,” said Leviathan. I hadn’t noticed him following in my wake. “Friendship,” he said to me. “Do what you must.”
“Thank you, my Prince,” I said.
“Portal connected,” the imp announced, pointing toward a shimmering oval toward the center of Camp Asmodeus. “The direct portal to your home is unsafe, but there is another in your neighborhood.”
“Thanks!” I grabbed Caleb’s wrist and dragged him through the portal with me. There was a moment of disorientation before I found myself on a familiar street. I looked at the street signs to get my bearings and pointed. “This way. Hurry!”
We sprinted down the street and around a corner. “What’s happening?” Caleb asked.
“Don’t know. Attack. Casualties.” I couldn’t talk while running full speed like he could unless I was in demonic form.
“Got it. Loud or quiet?”
“Loud,” I said. If the Conclave had openly attacked the house, our cover was blown and there was no reason to hide it now. I started a partial transformation, reinforcing and strengthening my body, but remaining outwardly human. Caleb manifested his sword and shield.
We turned another corner and the house came into view. There were no visible disturbances, but even my limited magical skills could sense spells in active use. As we got to the yard, I could see the front door was ajar.
Two distinct gunshots rang out from upstairs followed by a woman’s scream. It sounded like Tink. We were close enough for our bond to function, but I was getting nothing but a garble of confused emotions from her. I jumped up onto the porch and burst through the front door before I could think twice.
In the entryway, a body lay face down in a pool of blood. The cause of death wasn’t immediately apparent, but it didn’t seem like anyone I knew. I took the stairs three at a time, nearly tripping over the last step. Another gunshot came from her bedroom down the hall.
I skidded around the corner into her room, shedding the last of my human form in an instant. A gun came up to point at my center mass, but it shifted aside before the owner could pull the trigger. “Zay!”
“Becky?” She was sitting on the floor at the foot of Tink’s bed. Blood oozed from her ears and nose. Another dead body was slumped against the wall next to the door, this one with two holes in her chest and a smear of blood on the wall behind her. Tink was standing next to the bed. At the sound of my name, she whipped her head around to look at me. Green splatters flecked her face.
“Demon, get help, now!” she snapped at me.
“I am the help!”
“Medical help!”
I stepped further into the room and the scene on her bed suddenly resolved. The green splotch in the center was ichor, and the small figure lying there was an imp. “Shit, Kibs?” My stomach churned. His legs were missing from mid-thigh down, just ragged stumps. His eyes were wide with shock and he was gasping for breath. Tink was squeezing both stumps with green-stained hands. “Caleb, call Consortium medics! Now!”
“On it,” he said, stepping back out of the room.
“What the fuck happened?”
“The fucking Conclave happened.” Tink was breathing heavily and her clothes were shredded. Long lacerations crisscrossed her arms and sides. “Two pairs of mages. Master mages.”
“I only saw two down,” I said. “Where’s Grace?”
“Downstairs with Kalil.”
“They ok?”
“Don’t know.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” I said and rushed out of the room, past Caleb, leaping down the entire flight of stairs in a single move. “Kalil!” I shouted as I stepped over the dead body.
He leaned around the corner of the den doorway, a ball of hellfire visible in his hand. “Zay?”
“Report!”
“One mage dead.” He stepped into view, leaning heavily against the wall. Ichor soaked his right side. “But not before he hit me with a spell I’m having trouble regenerating the damage from. New one to me.”
“Is Grace with you?”
“I’m here.” Her shaky voice came from behind Kalil. “I’m all right, just a little bit terrified.”
“Three enemies accounted for,” I said. “The fourth?”
“Ran, I think,” Kalil said.
“Stay in cover until Caleb or I call clear. Protect Grace with your life.”
“As you command.”
I flew back up the stairs. “Imp medics just arrived,” Caleb said as I landed next to him. “Are we clear?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “Fourth mage may have fled.”
“I’ll go check outside to make sure.”
Back in the bedroom, Tink was sitting on the floor next to Becky now, dabbing at her face with a corner of her blanket. On the bed, two imps were working on Kibs, their bodies blocking him from my view. The women looked up at me as I came back in. “You all right, Becky?” I asked.
She frowned at me and shook her head. “Concussive spell,” Tink answered for her. “Blew her eardrums out. Give me a few minutes and I can patch her up, but she’s fine otherwise. Is Grace ok?”
“She’s fine. Kalil protected her,” I said. “He took the third mage out, got banged up but he’ll be fine. What the fuck happened here?”
She looked up at me. “They hit us from the front and back of the house at the same time. A pair on each side. They must have spent days slowly disarming my primary wards. I had no warning until the front door opened. Becky and I were watching TV and the door just fucking opened. Grace was in the kitchen, Kalil was doing his thing, and you weren’t home. Before I knew what was ha
ppening, there’s a mage in the doorway casting a spell.”
“The one in the entryway?” I asked.
“Yeah. They didn’t know about my emergency wards.” She cracked a grin. “If anyone I haven’t authorized tries to cast a spell in this house, the ward siphons off power, runs it through a series of amplifiers, and throws the spell right back at the caster. It took me months to get the amplifier circuit working and it fries itself in the process. I think it hit him about four times as hard as he tried to hit Becky with some sort of concussive spell. I don’t know if he was trying to kill or disable her, but it blew him ass over teakettle at the same time he hit her. I grabbed her and led her upstairs since I had another emergency ward up here.”
“So that’s one,” I said.
“I don’t know what Kalil did downstairs, but I heard one scream.”
“Hellfire, I think,” I said. “Surprised they weren’t warded against it.”
She shrugged. “Next one came up here and kicked my door in. I hit them with the other ward as they rushed me. It was an illusion.”
I winced. “So you wasted the ward, the illusion vanished, then she charged and Becky put two holes in her?”
“Almost, but not quite.” Tink’s voice held a note of quiet fury. “They waited for a moment, then another mage jumped up through my window at the same time the one in the hallway charged in. Yeah, Becky put two holes in that one, but the other one had a spell ready to go as soon as she came through the window. She had me dead and she knows it.”
“Knows it?” I asked. “The one who got away?”
“Yeah. She cast a direct kinetic force blast at me. She had it prepared to go as soon as she saw me. No hesitation, no chance to dodge, and no way I’d survive a direct hit. There was maybe half a second to react. Kibs phased in during that half second, I don’t know how.”
“He saved you,” I said. “You got saved by an imp.”
She nodded. “Lucky for him, he came in too high. The blast just tore him up like you saw. If he had been any lower, hit more directly, there’d be nothing left of him. Her spell wasn’t perfect, most of the kinetic force got deflected, but it still rocked my world.” She gestured down. Her midriff was bruised, bloody, and completely exposed. It wasn’t her usual fashion style.
“She didn’t finish the job?”
“Becky was turning the gun on her, and then I guess she realized you were showing up, because she jumped right back out the window. Becky tried to tag her on the way out, but I think she missed. I could have gone after her, but Kibs was screaming. I didn’t think I had enough time to draw a circle to heal him, so I just tried to keep him from bleeding out.”
“Good,” I let my transformation fade. “You did the right thing. I’m just glad you’re all right.”
“I’m not all right,” she snapped. “You know who tried to blast a hole through me? Your fucking psycho ex-girlfriend. Hikari’s back.”
My transformation back to human reversed itself in an instant. I clenched my fists, claws digging into my palms. “Hikari,” I growled. Memories flashed back to the front of my mind, few of them good. “That bitch.”
“Yeah.” Tink levered herself up off the floor. “We’re going to go kill her, right?”
“Yes.” I forced myself out of my demonic form and state of mind. My human side still agreed. “Yes, yes we are.”
Chapter Ten
“I feel like this is too easy,” Caleb said. We crowded around his kitchen table, looking at the laptop screen Kalil had open. His place was too small for so many adults in the same place, but luckily, Tink wasn’t full size. “The Conclave’s operational security has never been this shoddy.”
I didn’t say anything. Hikari’s Choir Intelligence profile took up the screen. The pictures had to be recent. Her smirk was just the same as it had been when we first met close to five years ago, slightly sarcastic and knowing. Her eyes were different. Back then, her eyes laughed. Now, her eyes were deathly silent.
“I guess Becky did tag her at the end there,” Tink said. “Otherwise she wouldn’t be checking into a hospital. But why would she check in under her real name? She isn’t stupid. You’re right. This is too easy.”
“It’s a trap, obviously,” Caleb said. “We shouldn’t-“
“We’re going after her,” I said. The angel sighed. “I don’t give a damn if it’s a trap, Caleb. So what? We’ll walk in, spring it, and walk back out. It’s not like we haven’t done it before.”
“Damn. Who plugged your balls in today, demon?” Tink asked.
“Far be it from me to hold either of you back,” Caleb said. “I understand you have history. Just, please tell me we’re going to have escape contingencies ready in case the trap is more than we can deal with.”
“I’m furious, not stupid.” I leaned over Kalil’s shoulder. “Could you bring the map back up?”
The hospital Hikari had checked into wasn’t far away from Tink’s house. Kalil had overlaid locations for portals on the map. I pointed at three of them near the hospital. “We’ll have imps or archons stand by in those locations to port out, and hopefully we’ll have a couple with us at all times. If anything goes wrong, if we even feel the slightest concern things are getting out of hand, we split and get the hell out. Sound good?”
Caleb straightened up and shrugged. “I’m just the muscle here.”
“I’m happy with it,” Tink declared. “And that’s what counts. We ready to go now?”
“Why not? Kalil, you’re our coordinator. Set up the emergency escape ports and get a couple of imps to cover us.”
“As you command.” The demon turned in his chair to face me. His right arm was in a sling. Whatever spell the mages had hit him with was still impeding his natural regeneration, which concerned me more than any impending trap. If knowledge of a spell with those effects spread throughout their ranks, it would negate one of our few major advantages. “Though I do have to point out you’re not telling Opheran what you’re doing, even though you know he wouldn’t approve of this. You know he considers you too useful to risk for such a minor reward.”
“Are you going to tell him?” I asked.
“Yes,” Kalil said. “Around a half hour after you get back.”
I clapped his good shoulder. “You’re a good one, Kalil. Thank you.”
We left Caleb’s apartment a couple of minutes later. The attack was less than a day ago, but we had already abandoned Tink’s house and temporarily packed Grace off to Hell where she’d be safe, if bored. The Conclave probably already knew where Caleb’s apartment was, but with the protection afforded by his faith, they’d have a hard time mounting an attack. It was a temporary solution. After today, we’d need to find a new place to live.
That thought hit me harder than I thought it would. I’d gotten used to living with Tink and Grace. It was only supposed to be a temporary living solution, but she hadn’t made any comments about kicking me out for the past six months or so. Whether we’d go back to living together was a mystery.
“Let me cast a detection spell before we go in,” Tink said as Caleb drove into the parking garage. “If I were her, I’d have defenses keyed specifically for the three of us. Hell, I half expected something to happen as soon as we got within a mile.”
“Won’t it tip her off?”
“What, do you think I’m a complete amateur?”
“No, but I don’t think she is either,” I said.
Caleb pulled into a parking spot and shut the car off. “She is injured, though, Zay. The hospital records indicated a gunshot wound.”
“Those records could be falsified,” I pointed out. “We already know this is a trap, so we’re not going to fuck around. We go in, find her room, kill her, and run. Nothing fancy, no trying to get information out of her, no taking her alive, no last words.”
“That seems a little extreme for someone you once had a relationship with,” Caleb said.
“Extreme,” I repe
ated. “Caleb, she betrayed me, and she betrayed you to Victor. Her Conclave is murdering children and innocents. A quick death is as much mercy as I’m willing to show her.”
His eyes had gone flat at the mention of Victor’s name. “Even so.”
“Don’t push me on this. I should have killed her when I had a chance.”
“And then Victor would have killed me,” Tink said from the back seat. “I’m ok with how it turned out in the end. Detection spell didn’t find anything too crazy, just two mages.”
“A pair?” I asked.
“Makes sense. They work in pairs. Someone’s keeping an eye on her while she can’t defend herself.” Tink leaned forward. “We ready to go?”
“Yeah. Snuff them both as quick as possible,” I said. My phone buzzed before we got out of the car. “Shit. This isn’t good.”
“What happened?” Caleb stopped closing his door.
“Kalil just texted me. No imp escort. He had to lean on them just for the portals.”
“That’s not normal.”
I shook my head. “No, it isn’t, but the Consortium isn’t my biggest fan right now. I’m surprised they haven’t sanctioned me.”
Caleb closed his door and we wound our way through the parking lot. “They don’t exactly have a valid reason.”
“Probably why they’re just being assholes instead.”
The hospital staff was courteous to a fault. She wasn’t able to accept visitors at this point, they said, in response to our questions about Hikari. They refused to give us any other information, citing privacy concerns. It took four nurses for me to lose my patience and burn off a surge of ichor. The suggestion took hold and she told us the room number. Tink glared at me but didn’t complain aloud.
As we approached her room, we received pointed looks from the staff in the halls. We weren’t supposed to be here, but no one was willing to stand up and tell us to get out. It might have been Caleb’s suit or Tink’s scowl, but most likely my barely restrained murderous intent. Hospital security was probably already on their way.
Her name wasn’t on the nameplate next to the door, but the number matched. I exchanged looks with Caleb and Tink, then pulled the door open and led them inside. “You’re late,” said a soft, familiar, hateful voice. Hikari sat up in bed. A man dressed in a simple button down shirt sat in a chair next to her with a magazine in his hands. He looked up as we entered. “Cost me five dollars.”
The Demon Behind Me Page 13
