by Lee, Rachel
“But we can’t be sure it would work or for how long.” Creed settled back on the sofa. “I need a little time to absorb what I’ve read today, and to find out what Avi has discovered. We can’t let this happen too fast.”
“As if we’re in control.” The laughter disappeared from Jude’s face. “Garner is out looking for the rest of the circle, but he still hasn’t found them all.”
“They may not have been possessed yet. And that reminds me. Has Garner found Yvonne’s ex-boyfriend? I think he needs to insinuate himself with the guy. It seems he has the perfect mixture of desire and inadequacy to be easy prey for the likes of Asmodai.”
“Which is?”
Yvonne spoke. “He wants desperately to be a rock star and he’s about as musical as a tin pan.”
This time it was Creed who laughed, but Jude nodded. “That would do it. Big dreams and no way to fulfill them. People have fallen sway to demons for a lot less. And Garner hasn’t run across him yet. He doesn’t seem to be at home often.”
Jude pulled a phone from his pocket and punched a button. “Garner. Where are you? Yeah. No, I need you to do something else for me. Hold one a sec.” He looked at Yvonne. “What’s the name of your boyfriend’s band?”
“Tommy and the Mechanics.”
“Lovely,” Creed murmured, eliciting a giggle from Yvonne.
“Garner,” Jude said. “Have you heard of a band called Tommy and the Mechanics? Of course not. I’m assured they’re abysmal. Find out where they are. Present yourself as a recording executive or talent scout. I think the lead singer, Tommy…” He arched a brow at Yvonne. “He is the lead singer?”
“Yes.”
“Tommy Sincks, the guy I asked you to look for,” Jude continued, “may be in this up to his neck. I need to know. Why, yesterday, of course. If you need anything to add to your powers of persuasion, let me know. In the meantime, get some money from an ATM and flash a wad appropriately.” He fell silent a few moments, listening, then sighed. “Right now I don’t want him to know I’m involved. Asmodai has been hanging around Yvonne again.”
“Maybe I should go,” Creed suggested. “Yvonne is safe with you.”
Jude shook his head, holding up a hand. “Yes. I really don’t care. Just do it.” He snapped his phone closed.
“Jude,” Creed began again, but Jude cut him off.
“Right now, Asmodai knows about you. He knows you came here. The one thing we can’t be certain he knows about is Garner’s involvement. So it makes more sense to send Garner after this Tommy cretin right now. If that doesn’t work, I’ll consider letting you play the knight errant, all right?”
Yvonne glanced at Creed, wondering how he felt about that, but his face was unreadable. He was still holding her hand and she turned hers so she could squeeze it.
He looked down at her, and his face softened a bit.
“I know how you feel,” Jude remarked. “Trust me. Right now you want to tear Asmodai limb from limb. But right now we need to be reasonably cautious so we don’t precipitate anything we’re not ready to deal with. I need your brain power more than your acting abilities tonight.”
“And,” Creed finally agreed, “we still have to find a way to knit Luc St. Just into this.”
“Ah, yes. St. Just. It just keeps getting lovelier, doesn’t it?”
Chloe spoke. “Have you eaten today, Yvonne?”
“Not really.” She hadn’t even thought about it except for a couple of cookies.
Chloe snorted. “These vampires need some lessons in the care and feeding of humans.” Jumping up from her desk, she grabbed her jacket and purse. “I’m going out to pick up something. Do you have a preference?”
“Anything is fine. Really. I’m sorry I don’t have any money with me.”
“Jude’s paying,” Chloe said saucily.
“Of course I am,” Jude drawled.
“No, I will,” Creed said, standing and pulling out a wallet. “At least let me do some damn little thing that doesn’t leave me feeling utterly useless.”
He passed some bills to Chloe and she pranced out the door with a toss of her head.
Jude looked at Creed. “Useless? Hardly.”
“Certainly not,” Yvonne said quickly. “You saved me from St. Just last night. And you’re doing some important research. You’ve been protecting me for days.”
“Well, I don’t feel as if I’ve succeeded all that well.”
“I’m still here and in one piece, aren’t I?”
He frowned. Jude stood. “I’ll let you two hash this out. Meanwhile, I have one word of advice for you, Creed.”
Creed’s frown deepened.
“Going off half-cocked out of impatience would be the worst thing any of us can do right now. And you really didn’t need me to tell you that, did you?”
Jude disappeared into his office, closing the door behind him.
Creed sighed and looked down at Yvonne. “He’s right, of course. None of us can afford to be rash. It isn’t as if this is just another one of the common demons Jude has dealt with a hundred or a thousand times before. This is uncharted territory.”
Yvonne reached out, seized his hand and tugged him down beside her on the couch. “I don’t want you to be rash, and I don’t want you to feel pressured to do something. I’d hate it if something happened to you.”
He gave a bark of laughter. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m not worried about myself.”
“You’ve never dealt with something like this before. How can you possibly be sure nothing’s going to happen to you, especially when it apparently killed Natasha?”
“I suspect Natasha may not have been entirely innocent in that. And I intend to question Luc about it tonight. I’ve told you before, we’re pretty much impervious to their sort. They may try to wheedle us or force us into allowing possession, but they can’t do much to us without our full consent.”
“I wonder why that is.”
“I haven’t a clue. And I’m mostly taking Jude’s word for it.”
“It might be revealing to find out what happened to Natasha.”
“I agree. But it won’t be pleasant. Luc will be furious about being questioned.” Then he sighed. “I feel like a caged tiger. I haven’t felt that way often. The other time was when my great-granddaughter was attacked. Now again, with you. I hate not being able to take charge and set you free of this threat.”
“I don’t think that’s a failing on your part. We still don’t know enough to act. Any of us.”
“No, I realize that. And it’s driving me nuts because I feel there was something in that book Avi gave me, something I read but didn’t quite get. I need to think more about it. I absolutely loathe the sense that something important is escaping me.”
She nodded. Then she did something very daring, and possibly very stupid. She leaned to the side until she rested against his shoulder and arm. Tense, she waited for rejection. Instead, after a moment, his arm wound around her shoulders and drew her comfortably to his side. She relaxed into him, glorying in being so close, and delighting in the fact that he no longer seemed quite so reluctant to be near to her.
He spoke again. “Much of what people assume about angels is apparently false.”
“How so?”
“Well, we call them messengers from God, we imagine they’re perfect in every way, and assume that they’re basically one-dimensional. If what I read earlier is any indication, they’re every bit as complex as we are, and equally prone to fault. They have arguments, they have wars, they mated with human women…”
“Wait. Why would they want to do that? That troubles me. They’re so different from us. It’s like King Kong falling in love with Fay Wray.”
He chuckled quietly. “As I said, they’re not so very different from us. They’re actually…” He paused, looking struck. A second or two later he said, “Like us.”
He jumped up without further explanation and went to Jude’s office. He didn’t even knock, just threw
the door open.
“Jude. What if Asmodai is like us? Vampires?”
Silence emanated from Jude’s office. All of sudden he was in the front room with them and Creed had turned in the doorway to look at him. Yvonne closed her eyes and looked again, even though she should be getting used to this by now.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. Neither of them answered. They were locked in stares, looking almost frozen.
“That,” Jude said finally, “could be very interesting.”
“It could be the key.”
“What,” Yvonne demanded again, “are you talking about?”
“We have huge appetites,” Creed said. “Far beyond what we knew as mortals.”
“Huge and hard to control,” Jude agreed.
Creed looked at Yvonne. “I told you that you couldn’t begin to imagine the kind of craving I feel for you. You offer me things which, gotten any other way, are merely poor substitutes. I live a life of cravings that are barely satisfied, a life of intense experience that makes me continue even when it all feels so pointless. Now imagine if I were to unchain those cravings. Give in to them. I—any vampire—could become such a horror that your kind would live in a state of terror and shock for a long time to come.”
Yvonne felt her heart skitter. She’d had only a taste of what this man could do, and it was enough to make her quail at the thought of him dropping all his civilized rules.
“Exactly,” Creed said, reading her response.
He turned back to Jude. “Suppose Asmodai is like us, plagued by such huge cravings, ones he can’t satisfy in his own realm. Imagine that humans offer him, just as they offer us, a satisfaction he can’t get anywhere else.”
Jude again perched on the corner of Chloe’s desk. “The one time we encountered a demon that truly wanted to master a vampire, it was only so he could gain our powers to destroy.”
“Not to destroy. He wouldn’t think of it that way. He’d think of it as slaking his need. For human blood, human sex, whatever. Destruction could be the byproduct.”
“Right.”
“And we have evidence from the Bible and other ancient sources that angels have fallen prey to the desire for human women.”
“Indeed.” Jude looked thoughtful. “That would explain the why of it, but we still need a solution.”
“I don’t deny that,” Creed said, “but understanding Asmodai’s motivation for all of this will help. It seems to me that they have supernatural powers much in the way we appear to. Perhaps some of those powers are augmented here, or perhaps some of them arise from persuasion. After all, we have the Voice.”
“True. Are you trying to say they’re not as dangerous as we think?”
“I’m not sure. I’m just trying to take a different angle of approach. If we can put them into better perspective, we may find it easier to figure out what we need to do.”
Jude nodded. “Well, it would kind of fit.” He gave a short laugh. “How many times in literature have we been referred to as dark angels? Perhaps they’re our equivalent in another realm.”
“Not an equivalent,” Creed said, “but a kind of mirror image.”
“But not all of you are bad,” Yvonne remarked. “And angels have been known to do good things.”
“Exactly,” said Creed. “That’s what I’m pondering here. A rogue angel. One who can probably satisfy his lusts a lot better here than he can in his own realm. But that means, like us, he can probably be killed or bound.”
“You said Raphael bound him once. Can’t we just call on another angel?”
Both Creed and Jude shook their heads simultaneously. “We’re trying to close a gateway,” Jude said.
“Precisely,” Creed agreed. “The last thing we want to do is open yet another one. There’s no way to be sure what might come through.”
Yvonne could see that, but wondered privately if they weren’t just going in circles here. What did it matter what kind of being Asmodai was? All that mattered was that they could send him back or destroy him.
Chloe interrupted further cogitation by returning with supper in the form of large salads and sandwiches. Only when Yvonne started eating did she realize just how famished she was.
She looked at Chloe. “You’re right. They need to learn to take care of us.”
Chloe snickered but Creed was suddenly there, touching her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Truly. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to think about feeding a human.”
“No,” Chloe retorted, “all you think about is feeding on us.”
Yvonne felt a giggle bubble up from her stomach. She tried to stop it, but it escaped anyway. The response was probably augmented by a touch of hysteria, she thought. Or reaction to fear. Because she wasn’t sure she really felt like laughing right now. It just happened.
“Ouch,” said Creed.
She looked up at him, still grinning from her laughter. “Did I say I minded?”
His golden eyes creased with a smile. “I don’t recall it if you did.”
“Too much info,” Chloe announced, although she sounded as if she were joking.
Yvonne turned to her. “You have such a mouth, Chloe. I wish I could come up with that stuff off the cuff.”
“Please no,” both vampires said at once.
“One of me is enough,” Chloe said smugly. “I keep them on their toes. And you’ll notice it’s not me they fall in love with.”
Yvonne’s heart almost stopped. Surely she didn’t mean Creed was falling in love with her. Certainly not. She must be referring to Jude and Terri.
But she felt a flicker of hope leap in her heart anyway, only to see it killed when she felt Creed stiffen beside her. He didn’t like the implication at all.
But before she could fully tumble into the despair of wanting something she could never have, Jude spoke, defusing the moment.
“Some day your vampire will come.”
In spite of her dismay, Yvonne had to laugh. She watched Chloe screw up her nose at Jude, but just then a buzzer rang. Chloe immediately looked at her monitor.
“Speak of the devil,” she said, and pressed a button. “Luc is here. And no, he’s not my vampire. I wouldn’t have him if he crawled on his knees and came wrapped in a red ribbon.”
“That’s an image,” Creed murmured, and Yvonne looked up to find him smiling at her. “Go on with your dinner,” he added. “Chloe’s right. I haven’t been taking very good care of you.”
She repositioned her chair, though, so that she could better keep an eye on Luc when he entered the office. She didn’t trust him, not one bit.
He seemed completely subdued, and took a seat as far from Chloe and her as he could. In fact, he didn’t look well, thought Yvonne as she forced herself to meet his black eyes. If it was possible to tell with a vampire, he looked awful. Exhausted.
Creed and Jude placed themselves on seats between him and Chloe, offering silent protection to the women.
“So,” Luc asked, “what’s the plan?”
“We don’t have one yet,” Creed responded. “We have Garner doing some research, and we’re doing some of our own. And we have questions for you.”
“Me? I know nothing about this Asmodai.”
“But,” said Creed, leaning toward him, “you know something we don’t.”
“That is?”
“How Natasha got into so much trouble with him. Most of the time demons avoid us.”
If it were possible for a vampire to grow any paler, Luc did. His face tightened. “It’s none of your business.”
“It’s our business now,” Creed said forcefully. “A woman, my lady as you referred to her, is at risk. And now we’re all at risk because Asmodai knows we’ve joined forces. We need every bit of information we can get. So tell me, Luc, how was it Natasha tangled with him?”
Luc let out a deafening roar. Yvonne covered her ears and very nearly dove under Chloe’s desk, expecting an attack of some kind. But if that was Luc’s intent, the next thing
she saw was Creed and Luc standing face to face, and Creed’s hand pressed hard against Luc’s chest.
“Don’t try anything,” Creed said in a voice so deep and echoing it didn’t sound human. “There are two of us to stop you.”
Luc’s lips pulled back from his teeth, his eyes seemed to grow even blacker, but then he shoved Creed’s hand away, almost too quickly to see, and fell back on the chair. “Cut off my head,” he snarled. “It would be easier.”
