“Holy hell,” I wheezed.
Nica emerged from the side of the hotel, arms wrapped around herself, shivering uncontrollably, teeth chattering. She slogged through the thick snow to get to us, her court shoes disappearing in her tracks.
“C’mon, we need to get off the main street,” Stefan urged, glancing up through the swirling snow at the hotel. “He’ll be on us in seconds.”
I took Nica’s hand, pooling warmth into my hand in an effort to keep her warm. We trudged through the snow, but it’s cloying weight slowed us down. I summoned what warmth I could find from the nearby buildings and focused it ahead of us so that the snow began to melt, shrinking back to create a path.
“We need to get to the Institute.” Stefan said from behind us.
I glanced back. He’d shaken off his demon and had returned to his normal self. Gun in hand, he covered our retreat, waiting for Mammon to emerge and give chase.
“No.” I replied, pulling Nica barefooted behind me. “It ends now.” Even I was a little frightened at the growl in my voice. I was not in a good place, mentally, but I refused to stop and think about why. Now was not the time to go over the deceit Stefan had wrought upon me. “Whatever happens, it ends now. I’m not running anymore.”
We emerged along Harbor Walk, a footway that follows the waterfront around the many wharfs and marinas along Boston harbor. The ink-black water of the harbor ahead of us reflected the sparkling lights from the buildings on the opposite side of the bay. Snow continued to dust the ground, but the further away from the hotel we were, the less snow hindered our escape until all that remained were lazy flakes fluttering like ghostly butterflies in the night air.
A pier stretched out across the water with smaller boats bobbing gently at its edges. I rounded on Stefan, forcing him to pull up short. “How could you?”
“Muse.” He didn’t even look sorry.
This wasn’t the time to fight, I knew that, but I wasn’t having him walk beside me any longer. I needed to know why he would lie to me before Mammon incinerated us all.
A scowl darkened his eyes. “Not now.” He glanced behind him. “We need another plan.”
If it weren’t for the threat of Mammon, I’d have blasted Stefan with every molecule of fire I had at my disposal. “There is no other plan. He knew about the injector—”
I saw him flinch, guilt slicing through his attempt at indifference.
“You told him?” He didn’t deny it; he could barely hold my gaze. “You told him!”
Nica stepped in front of me as I tensed to lunge at him. I’d have torn into him had she not stopped me. “Muse,” she stuttered. “You can’t blame Stefan.”
“The hell I can’t. I trusted him.” I laughed and staggered back onto the pier. “It took me a while. I should have listened to my instincts at the beginning; they never lie. I should have known better… You son-of-a-bitch.”
Nica stood in front of her brother, then stepped back, relaxing against him as he slipped his left arm around her, pulling her close. I watched, the anger simmering beneath my skin, as he kissed her lightly on the head and whispered something into her hair. I read the apology on her lips even as the breeze stole the softly spoken words. They were close. That much was clear. He’d been protecting her, but in doing so, he’d put me repeatedly in the line of fire and then screwed me for good measure.
“Hey,” I snapped. “Hate to break up the family reunion, but we have a Prince of Hell bearing down on us and not a clue how we’re going to get away from him.”
Nica swept a rogue tear off her cheek and nodded. “Just don’t be so quick to blame, Stefan. Please…”
I avoided Stefan’s glance and focused on Nica instead. I’d forgotten how vulnerable she was in all of this. A half-demon for a brother, the two of us throwing elemental energy around, revealing our demon selves as though it was perfectly normal. She must have been terrified; she was the bravest of us all.
“Stefan, can you and I…” I shoved my rage aside, bottling it and screwing the lid on tightly to be opened once this was over “Together, can we out-power him?”
“It’s possible. At least, I can draw from the veil, but I saw what he did when you summoned your element from the netherworld. Your attack slid right off him. You can’t fight him, Muse. You wield the same power. All you were doing was feeding him energy.”
Crap. I bit into my lip. There had to be a way. I racked my mind for anything resembling a solution, but didn’t know enough about battling demons. I’d spent my life cowering at their cloven hooves, not standing up to them.
“Why did you tell him about the injector?” I know—not the right time, but I needed to hear it from him. “It could have worked.”
Stefan moved around Nica, but as he approached me I stepped back, holding a hand out. “Don’t,” I warned. I couldn’t stand to be near him. It only made the gaping mental wound he’d inflicted hurt all the more. That, and the fact I wanted him to hold me, I needed to feel his arms around me. It had only been a few hours since we’d lain together. I’d been stupid enough to think that meant something. It had to me.
“I didn’t have a choice.” Stefan stopped his advance, albeit with reluctance. “He had Nica. I had to tell him everything. If he suspected I was lying, he’d have killed her.”
“But you’re so good at lying.” Anger spat the words through my clenched teeth.
He grimaced, glancing away before glaring back at me, jaw clenched, fist clenched at his side. “I did everything I could to protect you.”
“Sure, while buttering me up for Akil. All that bullshit about teaching me to summon from beyond the veil. It was all for Akil. You were leading me right into the lion’s den.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” The wind tugged his raised voice away, carrying it across the dark water. “Nica should never have been sent in to work for Akil. He knew who she was the second he saw her, so he used his advantage to call me in. I was supposed to watch over you, nudge you in the right directions, see how powerful you were—how much you knew. I did all that, you’re right, but I also kept you safe. Akil’s trials would have killed you.”
They might as well have, I thought. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I couldn’t keep the bitter sadness from my voice.
“I told you as much as I could without putting Nica in danger. I did what I had to. I’m sorry. Please, Muse. I couldn’t let him hurt Nica. She had no-one. The Institute—our father—wouldn’t even acknowledge he’d sent her in there. I was all the hope she had.”
He chanced a step closer, but I backed up. “Don’t come near me.”
He glowered back at me, eyes narrowing, but I could see how my words wounded him. The pain was apparent in his eyes. He had no idea what he’d done to me. I’d trusted him. More than that, I loved him. God-help-me, I loved him. He’d let me believe in him, and it had all been lies. Lie after lie after lie. Pile that on top of Akil’s twisted betrayal and Damien’s before him, and frankly, I was surprised I hadn’t just thrown in the towel and merrily stepped through the veil myself. Stefan had been my last hope that everything would be alright. In his arms, I’d been safe. Now that too had gone.
I masked my sorrow with anger, sneering at him as he tried to make me understand. “Don’t come near me. If we get out of this, I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Muse,” he breathed, face crumbling in pain.
“Never.”
The clap of hands behind me pierced the night. The wind played with the sound, tossing it in the air.
“Bravo.” Akil’s deep voice purred, the single word spoken with a syrupy slowness. I turned, pooling heat into my hands as I fixed him in my sights. Back in human form, his appearance shimmered with a heat-haze. An abundance of power rolled off him. We had little to no hope of beating him.
“He does love you, Muse.” Akil frowned playfully. “I knew that much when I saw you together at the lake house. Two half-bloods of opposing elements; you realize it’ll never work? Aside from the fa
ct I’m taking you home. So, no need to fret, you won’t be seeing him again.” His lips twitched. “Ever.”
I wasn’t going back there without a fight. I summoned my demon, plunging her strength into my limbs. Energy strummed through me, weaving up and down my spine and rising to the tip of my wing. I planted both feet firmly, casting my arms out and stretching my wing back. Let him see me, all of me. Let him witness the furious broiling energy thrashing inside of me. If he wanted me, he could have all of me.
I called every fragment of heat from the city behind me, finding less there than I had earlier. My attempt stuttered. The cold of the snow still piled high on the street subdued the available heat. I hesitated only briefly before reaching further, but the cold water of the bay offered little, and the reaching tendrils of power recoiled, snapping angrily in the air, their lust for power unsatisfied. Driven by rage, I sought the heat beyond the bay, but the further I stretched, the weaker my efforts became.
Akil frowned. “I expected so much more. Stefan was very thorough in his reports of your newfound prowess.”
The madness of rage spilled over me. A white-hot torrent of heat ripped across my skin, enveloping me in light. As Stefan had so eloquently said, I was about to go nuclear, and I had the source of energy I needed standing right in front of me. Akil seemed curious as my ethereal tendrils reached toward him. I wrapped the touch of them around his ankle and slid it sensually up his leg. He watched my element snap in the air around him with a look of admiration on his face. He lifted his hands as I teased more writhing ropes of power around his waist. I sensed the energy coiled inside of him: a vast abundance of fire ripe for the picking. He had torn my element from me at the marina right before he’d mistakenly or deliberately tried to kill me. Now it was my turn.
I twisted the vines of power around his wrists and then caught his hesitant glance. I had him. I didn’t need to hide the fact from my face. I let him see my features twist with rage and grinned, revealing my own glistening, sharp teeth. He tugged at his right arm, but I pulled the restraining tendrils tighter. He snarled at me and arched his back, summoning his true form. Fire raced up my reaching, whip-like tendrils, and dove into my chest where it spun around itself, searching for an exit. My demon laughed, greedily swallowing up the power, letting it swell inside us.
Mammon staggered, his ragged wings shuddering. Embers fluttered in the air with the snowflakes. He stamped back, tossed his arms out, shook his horned head, but couldn’t break free. He summoned his element, and I called it from him, drawing it out of him and sucking it into me. Our elements combined, flooding over me like a tidal wave. My eyelids fluttered closed, and undulating flames licked over my body. I didn’t need to see him to know where he was. I was inside him, pulling at his mental barriers, clawing at his source, eager for more.
Bathed in a heat so intense it ignited the very air around me, I rose up inside the firestorm. The power gathered up my physical body, set off a blistering fusion reaction, and sucked every last drop of power from Mammon’s ethereal body. We collapsed in unison. Through the flames, I saw Akil’s demon fade away, leaving his unconscious human vessel on the pier. He wasn’t dead, just exhausted in the truest sense of the word.
I, on the other hand, was about to experience exactly what it meant to summon a god-like amount of energy and not unleash it upon the world. The pain began immediately, but at first, it was barely noticeable. Just a few twitches like splinters of glass dashing my skin. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
“Muse…” I made out Stefan’s distinctive coat. He dropped to his knees in front of me, but he couldn’t breach the wall of flame.
A snap of pain lashed up my back, wrenching a cry from my lips. “Just kill him…” I hissed.
He didn’t move. It didn’t matter what we did to Akil’s human vessel, it wouldn’t destroy the essence of him. Immortal, remember? Not the kind of immortal that isn’t really immortal either. Princes of Hell don’t die.
Tears sizzled in my eyes. “Stefan…” Terror clamped my chest.
He couldn’t reach me. Pain tore my back. Energy lashed furiously at my insolence. A scream squeezed through my clenched teeth. I flung my desperate stare at Stefan. “Please, make this worth it. Do something. Make sure he can’t come back.” Energy cracked across my spine, slamming me against the ground. Fire spilled across the pier like a creeping river of lava. It was going to consume me. I couldn’t contain this much power. Not even a full-demon could contain this much energy. My only other option was to release it. But if I did that, half of Boston would be destroyed. I lifted my head and saw Stefan beside Akil with something in his hand. Ice. I saw the water running down his arm… No, not water. Blood.
My element slashed through my flesh, lancing up my entire right side. I was beyond screaming. I’d retreated from my physical self, my human mind unable to cope with the pain. Power still tore into me, slashing great talons of energy through my body.
I felt rather than saw the veil open. My demon instinctively reached for home, seeking an escape, but she could no more escape than I could. Stefan had Akil’s limp body draped over his shoulders. Blood flowed down his coat, dripping over his boots and onto the pier. I couldn’t think clearly enough to understand what was happening. Nica was there, beside him, her face wet with tears.
Fire scorched every inch of my flesh. I could end this. The water. If I could get to the water… I could escape. It had nearly killed me before, but death seemed like the easy way out compared to the body-sundering assault my element was dealing me. I searched for Stefan, needing to see those cool winter eyes one last time. Amid the heat and flame, I caught sight of him. He saw me too, and a weighted sadness crossed his face. I reached out, extending flames toward him and then he turned away and carried Akil through the veil. The tear in reality stitched itself back up behind him, and he was gone.
Gone.
I couldn’t do this. I needed him. Someone. Anyone. I couldn’t do this alone. My demon snarled at me, snapping inside my skull. She wanted to release the power. Let it all go, she hissed. …the delicious release of chaos. Taste it. Let it go. Burn the city, burn the people, burn, burn, burn.
I clawed at the pier, nails fracturing, and dragged my blazing body to the pier’s edge. Better to smother the flames, to drown in the darkness, than release the desires of the demon. I was half-human, and she was mine to command. She would not win, could not beat me. I would always be human first. My life here—my love—it was mine, and she would not take that from me.
I slipped off the edge of the pier and into the water.
Chapter 26
I don’t remember Nica pulling me out, nor do I recall Adam scooping my cold, limp body off the pier before bundling me into the back of a car. They later told me I was unconscious and non-responsive for a week. Had it not been for the sweltering heat I radiated, they’d have given me up as a lost cause.
At least I have no memory of the pain. My human mind had locked it all away in a box marked Do Not Touch–Ever. My demon would remember it, but I didn’t have to deal with that because the Institute had their claws in me, and my demon half had been sent packing.
I had a new prison cell, furnished with steel bars.
Adam visited me daily. A man of few words, he’d sit outside my cell and scribble a few notes. It was just as well they’d taken my demon from me because I’d have spontaneously combusted him on sight had I the power to do it.
I refused to speak to them. It was all the power I had left, so I stubbornly used it, hoping they’d forget about me—maybe even let me go if I played dumb long enough. No such luck. Adam hadn’t spoken Stefan’s name in weeks. He’d asked me a few rudimentary questions, which I’d refused to answer, but for some reason, that day, he decided to broach the subject.
“Do you know what happened to Stefan?” he asked in a monotone way, like a doctor might ask how you are on this fine sunny day.
I kept my head bowed, letting my tangled hair hide my expression. I knew what I’d s
een, but I didn’t know what it meant. When I finally did speak, my voice rasped across my cracked lips. “He took Akil back to hell…”
Adam let the quiet return before speaking. “He offered himself to the veil as a human sacrifice. He took Akil to the netherworld, making sure the Prince of Greed could never return.”
I remembered the blood I’d seen dripping down Stefan’s coat, but I hadn’t known what it meant. I did now. He wasn’t coming back. A one way trip. He had said as much when discussing the idea of a sacrifice in the library with Ryder. I cared, I did, but numbness had descended over me. I knew it was a coping mechanism. The only way I could function was to not feel anything, but it was a tenuous solution, liable to fracture at any moment. I looked at Adam and wondered if he’d gained a few more worry lines since I’d walked out of here in a little black dress all those weeks ago. “He’ll come back,” I said.
Adam tilted his head to the side. “No. He’s a half-blood in the netherworld without an owner to protect him. How long do you think he’ll last?”
I clenched my teeth. Did this man not feel anything at all for his son? “He’ll come back.”
Adam stood with a weary, drawn-out sigh. “He’s likely already dead.”
I lunged at the bars, hissing. “He was right to despise you.”
“Perhaps.” Adam folded his notebook and tucked the pen into his shirt pocket before peering back at me, his soft brown eyes deceptively beguiling. “Of course, we could train you. If you worked for us, we could provide the knowledge you need to retrieve him.”
“Sure, let me out of here, give me my demon back, and I’ll help you.” I don’t think he appreciated my sarcasm.
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 164
