I flicked my gaze to the bunch of flowers in the lounge window. The heads drooped. A few brittle leaves rested on the sill beside the vase, a sure sign I’d spent too much time at the workshop lately. I retrieved the flowers and dumped them in the trash, rinsing out the vase and upending it on the drainer.
I leaned back against the sink. Everything was so quiet. The double-glazed windows stifled the constant drone of the city, but today I almost felt as though I needed the noise. The city lived. It breathed: the blaring car horns, the rapid shrill of the pedestrian crossings. Walk, don’t walk. I didn’t want to walk. My apartment, as small and insignificant as it was, felt like a real home. I’d never had that before, and I wasn’t about to walk away from it.
I opened the window, breathing in the South Boston air. The sounds of children playing drifted from nearby Buckley Playground. I caught snippets of a conversation from a couple passing beneath my window. A car rumbled by, and I soaked up the familiar sounds of life. The cacophony of human activity grounded me firmly in normality.
The meeting with Akil, although brief, had rekindled an ache I thought I’d long ago cured. He exuded power, wore it like cologne, and the primal creature curled at my core refused to ignore the attraction. My demon, she’s all about need, and she made it clear she needed Akil. It didn’t help that Akil was one of the Seven Princes of Hell; demon catnip to the likes of me.
Flicking on the coffee machine, I grumbled a few choice words. They could all go to hell, or the netherworld, to give it its proper name. I wasn’t giving up my life, not for anyone. It might seem quaint to the many varieties of demons who stalked me, but it was mine.
Opening the fridge, I took out the milk and closed the door. A creased photo caught my eye, the corner trapped against the fridge with a cat-shaped magnet. Sam and me. I smiled. He had his arm around me, his broad grin genuine. The picture had been taken a few months ago, in the summer. We’d hiked up a woodland trail and found a small waterfall off the beaten track. Water rushed just out of the shot. Sam’s jeans were wet with the spray. His salt-and-pepper hair had a damp and ruffled chaos about it. How I loved to run my fingers through his hair.
The flowers I’d just thrown away had been from him. An apology for something he didn’t need to apologize for. I’d lied to him. A lot. Especially about why it was never going to work between us.
While pouring the milk into my coffee, I caught a glimpse of a blinking light from my antiquated answering machine. Six messages, more than I usually get in a month, I thought, taking a sip of coffee. The machine wasn’t the most reliable at the best of times and had a tendency to delete or overwrite messages.
I jabbed PLAY on the machine.
“New message received Sunday, eleven-fifteen-pm,” an automated female voice said. “Hi, Charlie.” Sam’s deliciously smooth tones instantly soothed my strung-out nerves. “You really need to get a phone at the workshop, or get a cell phone. Everyone has a cell these days. Even my Aunt—and she’s nearly eighty.” He talks too much, always has. “Anyway. Look, I can’t make Tuesday. A potential contract has come up…you know how it is. I can’t say no. I’m really sorry.” He paused, his silence weighted with unspoken words. “I want to see you. Miss you.” He hung up.
I groaned. Break ups are never easy, especially when neither party really wants to separate. I shouldn’t have agreed to meet him even though our planned ‘date’ was a friendly one, no strings attached.
Tuesday? Today was Tuesday. I clasped my hands around the hot mug of coffee. My slouch deepened. Now that he’d cancelled, I realized how much I needed to talk to him. Sam made me forget myself, who and what I was. He had such a light-hearted outlook. So quick to smile. He loved his work as an architect, and his enthusiasm for life infectious. It was one of the reasons I’d let our relationship go on for as long as it had.
“New message received Monday, nine-oh-nine-am.” Silence followed.
Strange.
“New message received Monday, nine-oh-eleven-am.” Silence, then static and click. “New message received Monday, nine-oh-fifteen-am.” More static.
I frowned into my coffee and glared at the answering machine. Its digital display blinked PLAY back at me. The messages continued to play their static nonsense until I reached the sixth, received an hour before I’d arrived home, a message from the police asking me to visit them at the station. Non urgent.
I stopped the machine, my finger hovering over DELETE ALL, when something possessed me to listen again. It was the third message I was interested in. I set my coffee down on the countertop and listened. It wasn’t silence. There was something in the background. Muffled noises, static, then a click as the caller hung up.
I hit REPLAY. There was someone there. I could hear scuffles, like the sounds you hear when a caller hasn’t hung up properly, and he’s dumped the phone in his pocket. With a shrug, I picked up my phone and coffee and walked into the bedroom, tapping out Sam’s number.
“Hey, this is Sam Harwood, Architect. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back between the hours of nine and seven.” His voicemail beeped and waited for me to speak.
“It’s Charlie. I got your message.” I sat on the edge of the bed, cradling the phone between my chin and shoulder and placing the coffee on the bedside table. “Sorry I didn’t call sooner…” The seconds ticked, and the silence urged me to speak. “Something has happened at the workshop and… It’s all gone.” A knot twisted in my throat. A swell of emotion choked me. “I’ve not been exactly honest with you. Can you call me?” The phone beeped, cutting me off.
I couldn’t tell him everything, but he deserved to know the break-up hadn’t been his fault. Humans cannot date demons, even half-demons like me. The history I carried—my family, my past—was too dangerous. If he knew what I was, had any inkling of what lay at my core, it would destroy him. Like most people, he knew about demons. He tolerated their presence, but to be sleeping with one? He’d never look at me the same again. It would ruin what was left of our friendship, and I’d be alone again.
I lay back on the bed, resting the phone beside me on the pillow and closed my eyes. Sam had been a mistake, one of many I’d racked up over the years, but at least I had the memory of our relationship: the dinner dates, the movie nights, the simplicity of it all. That had to be worth something.
I fell asleep with the comforting thoughts of Sam in my head and the warmth of my normal life around me.
Jonesy nudged my cheek, purred, then sniffed my lips in that irritating way cats do. I swatted him away, only for him to dive back in and nuzzle my chin. His purrs vibrated through his furry little feline body.
I dragged my eyes open. The gloom around me came as a surprise. My digital clock read 9:20pm. I’d slept all afternoon and into the evening. Jonesy continued to pester me as I rose from the bed like the walking dead. He darted around my feet, weaving around my shins, mewing softly.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, cat. I get it.”
The phone on my pillow rang, its screen glowing green in the dark, one name flashing on the display.
Akil.
I picked it up. My thumb hovered over the answer button. Just seeing Akil’s name sprinkled traitorous shivers through me. It hadn’t been a day since I’d left his offices, and already my body felt the effects of demon-withdrawal. The damned darkness inside wouldn’t let me deny what I’d experienced seeing him again. They do that to you, demons. They know your intentions, your needs, your desires, and they play them like musicians play their instruments. The demon inside me—she knew I wanted Akil on a level I didn’t dare admit. But thankfully, I’m not all demon; I still had a measure of self-control.
I answered the call.
“Muse.” His voice teased through my sleep-addled mind, rekindling sparks of desire. “Are you alright?”
Was that something like concern in his voice? Surely the all-powerful demon property developer wasn’t worried about little ol’ me.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I croaked, the remnants of
a deep sleep clawing at my voice. “Why? Shouldn’t I be?”
Jonesy weaved about my feet as I headed for the bedroom door. Some part of him arcing back to his big-cat origins, he tried to playfully lunge at my boots.
“Your assassin… Did he carry a gun with a scorpion motif on the grip?”
“Yes.” My heart thudded a little faster.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“I’ll tell you in person. Will you invite me in?” The way he asked, slipping it so easily into the conversation, you’d have thought it was a flippant request. It wasn’t. Akil is full demon. A Prince of Hell, no less. Without an invite, he couldn’t physically enter my apartment, but only idiots and mad men invited demons into their homes, and I was neither.
I couldn’t invite him in and was about to say as much when I stood on Jonesy’s tail. He yowled and shot through my bedroom door in a blur of black fur. I stumbled after him, falling against the doorframe, and froze.
“Muse?” I heard Akil’s voice from the phone at my side, but dared not lift it to my ear.
Sprawled on my couch, an arm draped along the back, boots propped up on my coffee table, sat Mr. A. The pale glow pooling through the window bathed him in a cool crisp light, casting shadows across his face that darkened his arctic blue eyes. That same light played across his hair like water shivering over ice.
“Muse?” Akil growled. His distant voice at the end of the phone snapped me out of my reverie.
I lifted the phone to my ear, my unblinking stare never leaving my uninvited guest. “Yes,” I hissed.
“What’s going on?” Akil demanded.
“Nothing. I’m fine,” I replied, each word hollow.
Akil fell quiet. “Goodnight, Muse.”
“Goodnight.” The forced nature of our farewell was a clear indication that not all was well.
I hung up the call. It wouldn’t take Akil long to arrive. I just needed to buy time.
Mr. A hadn’t moved. No human could sit as still as that. He might as well have been carved from stone. But there was definite amusement glinting in his otherwise frosty glare. His lips ticked into a crooked smile.
Jonesy, my traitorous cat, leapt onto the couch beside him and then proceeded to nudge Mr. A’s hand, purring like a V8.
“Your cat has taste.” The velvet tone of his voice crept through my defenses, stirring my reservoir of energy. He had power in his voice, but the sense of power didn’t stop there. Like an iceberg, the man I saw was just a fraction of his true self. I felt his restrained energy prickling my skin, but what the hell was he?
“It’s widely known that cats are half demon. So what are you?” I asked, pleasantly surprised by my casual tone. The fact that he was in my apartment, sitting very comfortably on my couch, meant he wasn’t a full-demon. No invite—no entry. He was something else or a half-blood, like me.
I snaked my arms across my chest and leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe as though I hadn’t practically fallen over my own feet a few moments before.
Mr. A. dropped his hand and gave Jonesy an obliging tickle behind the ear. My cat fell over himself, soaking up the attention, utterly oblivious to the rising tension in the room. Mr. A fought a smile before he planted his boots on the floor and leaned forward. “Can I trust you, Muse?”
I almost laughed. “Trust me?” I shoved away from the door, feeling his eyes lingering on me with every step. “No. You can’t trust me.”
His confident smile faltered as though my answer might actually matter. He broke our mutual stare and stood. Numerous buckles rattled against the supple leather of his coat. I caught a glimmer of light as it slid across the gun in its holster, but no sword.
“Where’s the sword?” I stood between him and the front door.
“Somewhere safe.”
“Why did you destroy my workshop?” My attempt at remaining calm began to fail. My voice quivered. “I don’t know you. I’ve done nothing to you. Why would you do that to me?”
He cast his gaze over my shoulder at the front door behind me then dragged it back to meet my accusations. “I know you. You’re the half-sister of the full-blood demon, Valenti. The illegitimate child of Asmodeus—one of the Seven Princes of Hell. You were sold at birth as a plaything for lesser demons.”
My power began to stir despite my best efforts to keep it from awakening. A tightening heat seeped outward, the touch of it rolling across my skin. I knew what I was, but hearing the disgust behind his words roused deep-seated emotions I’d tried to keep locked away.
“A half-blood abomination,” he snarled. “An embarrassment to demons everywhere. By all rights, you should be dead.”
The heat broke over my skin. My demon stretched her tendrils outward, entwining herself with my human form. “And you don’t know the half of it,” I growled. He had come to kill me, but he wasn’t going to find it easy.
I welcomed the blaze of power, letting it burst white-hot across my fragile human flesh. Demon and human blurred together as one. My human body was a shimmering apparition, intangible amid the raging heat. Writhing power lanced up my spine, the pain blinding and yet invigorating. It sought release. My physical flesh restrained it, containing it behind reality. Now that I’d revealed my demon, there would be hell to pay.
I summoned the city’s elemental heat. Human activity provides an endless supply of energy, an energy I can summon the same way the ocean calls the tides. The streetlights outside flickered before blazing bright then bursting one by one before wilting on their poles like the long-dead flowers I’d thrown away. Heat swelled inside of me, the power brimming over. It wasn’t all I had, but it would be enough to make Mr. A think twice.
He had backed up a few steps, shielding his face from the heat with the crook of his arm, but he made no attempt to retaliate. He hadn’t even reached for his gun.
Molten power dripped from my body, fizzling to nothing once it separated from the inferno lashing inside of me. Half-blood, half-demon, I stood between two worlds, summoning the darkest of energies from the fabric of this reality, but it was restricted, captured, and tethered in my human form. Bound as I was, I could still incinerate him if he made one wrong move.
“I’m not your enemy, Muse.” He flinched and staggered back a few steps as the sheer weight of the heat bore down on him, but still he didn’t summon the power I knew he must have.
“No? Then prove it.” My voice no longer resembled my own. It hissed and spat, lashed and snarled. He wouldn’t see me as human, not any more. What he saw, the thing that occupied my body, was a hellish visage of anger and hate, of the years I’d spent cowering at the feet of others. He saw a beast ablaze in flame, a female silhouette tethered by the blanched-white chains of power.
With each step, my intent grew. The demon inside me reared up, demanding satisfaction. She wanted the chaos that came with summoning the elements. Her elation spurred me on, her lust for destruction tugging my conscious thoughts toward maddening freedom.
Mr. A. pressed his back against the window and lowered his arm. Refusing to look away, his jaw worked, teeth grinding. His fists, clasped rigid at his sides, gave away the effort control took him. He was deliberately holding back, refusing to rise to my threat. His restraint was commendable, but it wouldn’t stop me from hurting him.
“Be careful what side you choose, Muse.” He turned and ducked out of my window in a flurry of red coat.
In a blink, I was at the window, hands splayed either side as I peered four floors down to the street below, but Mr. A was nowhere in sight. Sirens wailed, a fire truck blasting its horn somewhere close.
With the threat gone, the mass of elemental energy inside me had no outlet. With the promise of retribution stolen, and the lure of devastation no longer achievable, it turned every drop of its displeasure on the woman anchoring it to this world: me.
I knew what was coming, but short of leveling a city block, I had no choice but to let it ride over me. I could have released the chaos,
could have walked right out of my apartment building and swept a wave of destruction in my wake, but if I did that, I’d be no better than the demons I despised. As my demon turned the weight of pure elemental energy on me, I buckled under its pressure, falling to my knees and burying my head in my hands. Like the devastating force of a hurricane, it tore into me, metaphysical talons slashing through my cowering soul, tearing out any strength I might have had to resist it.
I hugged myself tighter, trying to escape the relentless assault. Lashings of fire snapped over me, through me. I heard my own cries in the maelstrom, but they were distant and detached, belonging to another woman. A pitiful human woman, weak of mind and soul.
“Invite me in, Muse.” Akil. His voice broke through the storm of chaos in my head. The slightest touch of him was enough to soothe the madness.
I didn’t need to speak the words. All it took was a moment of intention, a brief flicker of defeat, and he was there, beside me, gathering me into his arms and holding me close against him. I fought him at first, trying to desperately hold on to whatever remained of normality, but it was pointless. I had neither the strength nor the inclination to deny him, and he knew it.
He cradled me against him as I sobbed, ignoring the pulsating waves of heat spilling from me. A wretched trembling wracked me. My muscles cramped. With each lash of pain, I bucked, teeth snapping shut. Akil’s strong arms held me firm as he whispered words in a language I didn’t understand and didn’t care to.
I don’t know how long he held me, but eventually reason and reality returned. I listened to Akil’s heavy heartbeat as the sounds of the city drifted through the open window. A cool breeze slid over my flushed skin. No physical indication of what I’d just been through remained. My demon rarely wounds me physically; she knows better than to damage her human counterpart.
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 145
