Demon (The Faery Chronicles Book 2)

by Leslie Claire Walker

  No matter how much I couldn’t stand some of the fae, I couldn’t imagine a Faery King doing something like that of his own free will. I never knew the one Burns talked about, but I did know the current King. It would take more than a little infection, more than a little corruption, to make that dude go crazed killer. The King would have to have been changed into something the exact opposite of himself. He’d have to have been made into something he hated. Something he feared.

  What would a king be afraid of? Nothing. A king had everything. Except…except…

  The next thought was just around the corner. I could feel it, but I couldn’t see it. I shook my head to clear it. Not that it helped a lot, but I took what I could get.

  Focus.

  If the same rules applied to me, and Melody’s spell was changing me like that, it would have to turn me into my own worst nightmare.

  I’d worked harder in the last few years than I ever had in my life to train up right under Oscar. To be a good seer. I’d done it at first because it seemed cool and alternative. After the new wore off, I kept doing it because I wanted to keep the balance between the worlds. I wanted to keep everyone and everything safe. What was the opposite of safe? What was the opposite of who I thought I was, who I wanted to be?

  I met the Singer’s gaze. “Is there any way to stop it?”

  She shook her head.

  “You’re sure?”

  She crossed her index finger over her heart. “Sorry.”

  Kevin looked from me to her and back again. “What’d I miss?”

  “The part where I’m turning into some kind of destroyer.”

  “But you’re a protector. That’s what you do, man,” he said.

  “I know. The irony. It burns.”

  Kev didn’t seem to think that was funny. He looked at the Singer. “His eyes and the skin—whatever else—is it something you recognize?”

  She nodded. “Demon features. Non-specific, though. Not any particular type of demon I’ve ever seen.”

  “Fantastic,” I said.

  “It’s not just you, Davies.”

  Kevin rested his elbows on his knees. “Awesome. What’s my consolation prize?”

  “You get to be one of us, Kev.”

  “A faery. I know—I’ve already got the wings, remember?”

  “No. Yes.” The Singer tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The wings are just the beginning. Pretty soon, you’ll start to look at the world a little more objectively.”

  “What does that mean in human English?” he asked.

  “Your emotions will start to matter less. You won’t feel as much, except for the most important things. Those, you’ll feel so hard you’ll be afraid you won’t live through the feelings. Then, whatever gift you have inside will surface.”

  “By gift, you mean something like your voice.”

  “On the money. You’ll have to use it whether you want to or not. It might not be a good gift, Kevin.”

  “I might suck at it? Or it might be harmful?”

  “Door number two.”

  Kevin stared at the floor while he took it all in. When he glanced up again, his eyes were bleak. “And you? What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “But there’s something. You have freckles.”

  “Freckles are not a sign of the apocalypse, Kevin.”

  “You’ve never had them before, so maybe they are.”

  She chewed her bottom lip. “I used to.”

  “Not since I’ve known you,” Kev said.

  Not since I’d known her, either. Then again, she’d had a life before I met her. One in which she’d been human before the King had begun the transformation that would turn her fae.

  “No way,” I said.

  She sighed. “Clearly there’s a way.”

  Kevin’s eyes widened. “You’re becoming human again?”

  “That’s what it seems like,” she said. “That’s what it feels like. I have no way to confirm. The King would be able to tell me, but I’m cut off until we see this thing through. And we’d better do that fast. Because if I’m fae, I can help you. If I’m human, I’m a liability.”

  Kevin stood and stepped over the dog, then began to pace the back half of the bus. When he made it back to us, he said, “Not necessarily.”

  “Kev, I won’t be able to help you. You understand that, right?”

  “But you could have your life back,” he said.

  “No.” She reached out. Laid a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t. I’ll be human, and then the spell will either make me go poof or turn me into something else, maybe, but either way, it won’t be my old life.”

  “It could be a new one,” Kevin said. “A good one.”

  She squeezed his shoulder. “I don’t know how to be human anymore.”

  “Maybe you don’t want to be.”

  And the conversation had just taken a turn down a street that didn’t seem to be about our current situation but totally seemed to be about the Singer and Kevin.

  I cleared my throat. “We came here to get you. To bring you back with us to home base at Kevin’s house. The faux faery cops are picking up the rest of us.”

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “We need to go by the scene of the crime and look for clues. Burns and Reid didn’t stay long enough to check. We’re hoping that there’ll be a trail to follow. To Melody.”

  “Okay,” she said. “And then?”

  “The gang will be together. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Why Kevin’s house?” she asked. “Home base could be here.”

  I raised a hand to point out the obvious. “Here doesn’t have enough room for all of us. Also, there’s no bathroom.”

  “Witty,” she said. With extra sarcasm.

  “Why do I feel like I’m trying to think through cobwebs ever since we got here?”

  She sighed. “I’m afraid that comes with the impending territory.”

  “The destroyer territory?”

  “For all of us, actually.”

  “How am I supposed to figure all this out and turn it around if I can’t, well, figure all this out?”

  “We,” Kevin said.

  “Fine. We.”

  “Work fast,” she said. “Use what you’ve got while you’ve got it.”

  What did I have? What would be likely to tank first? The stuff that helped me protect people. The stuff that hadn’t been a part of me for very long. “My seer skills.”

  “What about them?”

  “I want to try for a vision.”

  “Now?” Kevin asked.

  “Is there a better time?”

  He stood up. “What do you need?”

  “A shot of whisky and a prayer,” the Singer said. “You don’t have the juice or the control to do it, Rude.”

  “But I ought to be getting there, right? That’s what Oscar said. How it’s supposed to work. First the intuition.”

  “Yours is on the fritz.”

  I pretended not to hear her. “And then the rest.”

  “You could hurt yourself,” she said.

  “How, exactly? I’m gonna make what’s happening to me or anybody else worse?”

  “Point taken.”

  “So can we clear off the rest of this seat? I need room to lie flat.”

  She and Kev moved the canvases out of the way, stacking them in the back of the bus. They came back with arms full of dresses. Every color and fabric imaginable. Bright yellow wool to black lace.

  “Warmest things I’ve got,” the Singer said.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Your body temperature’s gonna drop,” she said. “That’s what happens when you go traveling.”

  Traveling? “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You think the vision’s just gonna come to you?”

  “Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?” That’s what I’d always thought. But I didn’t know for sure. Maybe I didn’t even hav
e a clue.

  The Singer seemed to agree. “Oscar didn’t teach you a damned thing, son.”

  I rolled my eyes at son. “He was planning to.”

  “Too late now,” she said. “You have any idea how to get started? Any idea at all?”

  “I know how to slow my breathing down. I know what the intuition feels like.”

  “Good. Tap into however much of it you have left. Follow where it leads you. If you get into trouble, I’ll come get you.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t follow you exactly, but I can keep tabs on you if I know what you’re doing. It’s a faery thing, and you’re a faery seer, so.”

  Kevin glanced at her. “Wait. Do I have this faery thing?”

  “You will,” she said.

  “When?”

  “When you’re close to the point of no return, Kevin.”

  “Whatever you’re gonna do here, I want to piggyback,” he said.

  “Whatever. Ready, Davies?”

  They looked at me. Time to get my show on the road.

  I lay back on the seat. The Singer and Kevin covered me in layers of wool and lace. Also chiffon and tie-dye and glitter. I closed my eyes and took a deep, patchouli-flavored breath. And another. Every breath deeper. Slower.

  I heard the Singer squeeze in front of my bench and kneel. The creak of her knees. The rustle of the feathers on her halter. The soft flutter of her wings as they settled against her back. I strained to hear any other sound she made, and instead caught Kevin’s shaky inhale. The low noise he made in his throat. The slide of skin on skin. Were they holding hands?

  I let go of the question. It was none of my business anyway, and the thought of it reminded me how much my fingers hurt.

  I sank deeper into the weight of my bones on the seat. With each breath in, filling my lungs all the way. With each exhale, going further into the rhythm. In and out. In and out. The thump-thump of my heart. The rush of my blood.

  The intuition rose then like a fire inside me, beginning in the pit of my belly and winding up the length of my spine like a snake. It flared in my throat and filled my mouth. When I breathed again, I breathed it in. When I breathed out, the intuition shot into the space between my eyes and spread out through the crown of my head. The flames furled into the air above me and stretched thin, like gold threads, leading away from me. Three of them. I hadn’t expected that.

  Follow where it leads you, the Singer had said a few minutes ago. Now, she said it again inside my mind.

  How are you here? I asked.

  Keeping watch over you, she said.

  I could feel Kevin’s mind there, too, hovering around her edges.

  Which one do I follow? Three threads. I understood—the intuition told me—that I could go with one, not all.

  Only you can decide.

  Which one? None of them was shinier than the others. No lightbulb went off to point the way. What was I supposed to do? Rock, paper, scissors this motherfucker? What if I chose wrong? What if I missed some vital piece of information?

  What if I didn’t get any info at all because I couldn’t make up my mind?

  I went with the one on the left. Thread number one. Followed it up and up through the smoke-tinted air. Through the roof of the bus, into the daylight dappled by the shadows of the warehouses all around. Up and over the asphalt and concrete roofs of the buildings and south beyond the baseball stadium and the elevated freeway. Down towards Westheimer, where the neon lights buzzed to life on the Curve. Antique stores with barren sidewalks where normally they’d have showed all their funkiest furniture.

  The thread of intuition led me to the front of the leather bar with the abandoned bikes. And across the street to Snake Bite Tattoo. Kevin’s dad’s bike leaned against the outside wall. Not chained to anything. Ripe for stealing. Except it was outside Malek’s, and therefore it belonged to one of his customers. And therefore to steal it would be like taking it from him, and the thief would be in a super-bad way.

  There were no thieves anywhere near there, anyhow. Nobody outside. Just Malek and—Amy—inside.

  How could Amy be inside? How did she even know about Malek? Because Kevin and I had told her when we filled her in about what happened. She knew who he was. What he was. And she was there anyway.

  That could not be good.

  I followed the thread inside.

  The lobby of Malek’s place was empty. Everything in its place. The squeaky clean coffee table. Fanned magazines. The counter with the register. The smell of disinfectant made me wrinkle my nose. Metallica blared from the speakers. Lights glowed in the back of the shop.

  The thread led that direction.

  Tracing paper and a spray bottle filled with water sat on the counter with the tattoo equipment. Malek had been drawing. I squinted at it. Made out a line of rolling waves.

  Amy perched on a stool. Malek sat in front of her. He’d flipped the chair around backwards. Straddled it. He wrote. A lot. If I squinted, I could make out the words.

  I think you were more freaked out than you’re letting on. I think you don’t have any way to deal with what’s happening because this stuff you’re calling normal isn’t yours. You’re trying to be part of a whole world that’s not yours.

  “Because I don’t have powers,” Amy said.

  Yes.

  “I have eyes and ears and a heart. I can’t ignore them.”

  If you want to stay sane, you’ll stay out of it. If you want to live, you can stay here until we solve the problem.

  She stood up suddenly. “What am I supposed to do? Tell the guy I love to get lost? Watch him and his friends fight to save the world and not lift a finger to help? Pray that everything will be all right? I’m not built that way.”

  Your friends will have to watch your back when they should be watching their own. One of them is going to get hurt. Or you will, because they won’t be able to get to you in time.

  She hugged herself.

  Malek wrote. You know I’m right.

  “Hear me out,” she said. “I’ve seen things that aren’t supposed to exist. Faeries. Demons. Even you. I’ve seen last-minute miracles pulled off by luck and smarts and determination so fierce it left me in awe. So maybe you’re right. Or maybe I’m that determined, too.”

  He looked her up and down. Considering. And wrote some more. What kind of change would you have me make?

  I blinked. Just like that, Amy and Malek had moved. She sat on the workbench. He’d started his setup. He glanced my direction.

  No. Not in my direction—at me. As if he could see me.

  A voice bloomed in my mind. What are you after?

  The sound of it startled me. I’d never heard Malek speak before. He’d been cursed a long time before I was born. Thousands of years, if the stories were true. His voice was gravelly with the weight of all that time. And menacing. Not an immediate threat. More like a warning not to mess with him. Not to double-cross him. As if I would ever be dumb enough to even think about doing something like that.

  I’m working on a vision, I said.

  You’re in my private space.

  Vision led me here.

  You get what you came for? he asked.

  I nodded.

  Then get outta here. And watch out for Amy. She’s gonna need it.

  I took a step back. A single step. It was enough to shove me into the lobby of Snake Bite and onto the street. Back toward downtown and into the alley where the Singer’s school bus waited. In through the doors and down the smoke-filled aisle. Over the dog and past Kevin and the Singer, who leaned over me and studied my face as if she was looking for something she couldn’t find.

  My consciousness slammed into my body so hard I felt like I’d been dropped ten stories onto cement. I opened my eyes. Looked into the Singer’s baby blues. Saw the relief that flooded them.

  “I lost you,” she said. “Where did you go?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Words were gonna take a while.

&n
bsp; Speaking of, I’d been gone a while. From the cast of light inside the bus and what I could see of outside, hours had passed.

  I stuttered. “What time is it?”

  “Almost 7:00,” she said.

  “Woah.”

  She took hold of one of my hands. Kevin grabbed the other. Together, they hauled me upright and then let me go so that I could grab the back of the seat to steady myself. I hung on for dear life.

  My breath came fast and shallow. My heart pounded in my chest. The rush of my blood filled my ears. It took everything I had to concentrate on slowing it all down.

  Zach stood up from where he’d been lying in the aisle and rubbed against my legs. He whined uneasily. I laid my free hand on his shoulders.

  The Singer covered my hand with hers. “Where’d you go, Davies?”

  My first few words came out rusty. “I had to choose. I had more than one thread to follow. It took me over to the Curve.”

  “Malek’s?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah. You’re not gonna like who I saw there.”

  He raised a brow.

  “Amy. Getting ink.”

  He stared at me. “Why would she do something like that?”

  I didn’t want to say. I’d eavesdropped on a private conversation between her and Malek. Her feelings had been super raw. It felt wrong to blab it all to Kevin. “She wants help. Or she wants to help.”

  “By getting in deep with Malek? We have to go get her, man.”

  “It’s too late,” I said. “The deed’s done by now.”

  “Is she coming back to the house?” he asked.

  “I didn’t see. But I’m guessing no. She said she was gonna go look for Melody, remember?”

  “That’s not gonna happen now.”

  The Singer rose, pulling Kevin up with her. “You think you’ll, what—pull up beside her and make her get in the car? She’s a big girl. Let her do what she can to help.”

  “She’s not like us,” Kev said. “She’s fragile.”

  The Singer squeezed his arm. “She’s stronger than you think. Hell, she’s stronger than you.”

  “I’m worried,” I said.

  “You, too?” the Singer asked. “I thought you were smarter than that.”