All of the guards—which is a bad name for this mismatched group but the best my addled brain can do—exchange glances. No one speaks, which tells me none of them are calling the shots. Finally, the woman with the rifle speaks up. “Just get it. What can it hurt?”
“She’s not a houseguest, Rayna,” the woman with red hair spits.
“She’s still a person,” Rayna insists. I shoot her a grateful look. She refuses to meet my eyes and studies her nails, which are painted a bright shade of pink.
Muttering to himself, Kai puts his gun on the counter and pulls a bottle of water out of the fridge. He walks over to me and then seems to realize my hands aren’t free to take it. He sighs and unscrews the cap, putting it to my lips. He won’t meet my eyes either, but I’m grateful to have the water, and I swallow a few mouthfuls before I indicate he should stop. He ignores me at first and water spills down my t-shirt. It’s only then I realize my jacket and bag are no where to be seen.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice less hoarse. He grunts, puts the bottle on the counter, and picks up his gun, but at least he doesn’t aim it at me again.
My mind races in time with my frantic heartbeats. These people may not be ready to put a dozen bullets in me—yet—but someone wants me tied up and secured. That can’t be good.
“What’s going on? Why am I here?” I don’t expect coherent answers but I’m a little disappointed to be met with resounding silence. A few of the guards shift uncomfortably.
I make two more attempts to get information. The third time I ask why I’m here, Rayna says, “Obviously no one is going to tell you until the Boss Lady gets here, so just stop, okay?”
“Vessa?” I ask, as if there’s any question.
Rayna grunts in confirmation. I knew it already but ice washes over me at the memory of the murderous demon.
Time passes. I can’t say how much but the guards who stood at attention when I awoke relax, leaning against walls or checking their cell phones, paying only slight attention when I tug at my bonds. They’re plastic zipties—I can see them around my ankles—and struggling does no good to loosen them.
I can’t move my hands or legs, and shifting in the chair doesn’t help. My only recourse is to create dissent in the ranks and hope I can convince one of them to betray Vessa and let me go.
I turn as far toward Rayna as I can. She’s the only one who hasn’t slumped against some wall to bide their time. I’d bet money she has military training. She’s also the only one who’s really spoken to me, and therefore my best bet.
“How many years did she give you?” I ask.
Rayna finally looks at me. Here’s a tiny furrow in her brow but otherwise, her expression is neutral. “What?”
“I asked how many years you got when you made the deal with the demon.” I scan the room to gauge the reaction. More than one guard looks surprised. “You know. She lets you live for a set amount of years.”
Rayna just smiles sadly. “You’re smart, for a kid,” she says. “Though I guess when you work for a demon, you’d have to have some brains in order to survive.”
Working for Azmos is not exactly rocket science but I decide not to say so. “So, how long do you have?” I ask, ignoring the fact that she called me a kid. I am only sixteen and maybe that will help garner sympathy. “Because my boss could probably cut you a better deal.”
She frowns. “As long as I want, provided I don’t piss off the Boss.”
I shake my head. My tweaked neck protests but I ignore it. “Doubtful. She can’t offer you more than ten years and even that’s rare. That’s the limit.”
The two guards near the window exchange worried glances. The red head says, “Bullshit.”
“It’s true,” I say. Granted, I don’t know for sure that it is. Azmos said he can’t keep people alive any longer than that but maybe his sister’s magic is stronger. But I’m not as worried about the truth as I am about planting seeds of doubt. I need to sway someone to my side, convince them Azmos can offer them a better deal or at least that they’re not being told the truth. Anything that might convince them to mutiny and let me go. Because it’s not hard to guess what Vessa wants with me. The same thing she wants with everyone: to make me her helpless slave, which she’ll do by nearly killing me and then graciously letting me live as long as I follow her orders. And then I’ll die anyhow as soon as Xanan finds me or Vessa is stopped, which is inevitable assuming reality doesn’t collapse on top of us first. Or I’ll be stuck here until Xanan’s people find their way to me and dispatch me because they think I’m part of the problem.
“Ten years is the most their magic can manage. And,” I pause for dramatic effect, “they can’t even do that if they have more than a few people to keep alive. I’d say you’ve all got a year. Two, tops.”
“She’s lying,” says the woman with the paint-splattered clothes. She looks like an art teacher, not a soldier. “You know what Vessa said. As long as we follow her instructions, we’ll live until old age.” There’s a desperation in her voice that reminds me of Heather Bancroft. I feel sorry for her, for all of them.
“She can’t do that,” I say, keeping my voice level instead of argumentative. I am just stating facts. “Her magic isn’t that strong.”
“Shut up!” Kai says. He points his pistol at me again. His hands are shaking. I swallow a gasp, acid boiling in my gut. I want the gun off me. “I say we shoot her. It’ll take her a while to bleed out. She’ll still be alive enough when Vessa arrives.”
Any confidence I’ve gained that I could sway these people to my side crashes to the ground when I see the hateful look in his eyes. He’s more than willing to shoot me in the gut and watch me bleed until Vessa gets here to “save” me. My heart pounds and I stare down the barrel of the gun, terrified that this is really going to be the way I die. Tied up and helpless, without anyone knowing where I am, like some distressed damsel in a horror movie.
“Kai, put your gun down,” Rayna says.
Kai sneers.
“You can’t shoot her,” Red-Hair says calmly. “But I bet she’ll let you do the honors when she gets here.” She smiles and it’s full of malice. I shiver. I think any of these people will hurt me if they feel it’s necessary but I get the impression Red-Hair wants to.
“I don’t think she cares, so long as she’s alive enough to revive,” Kai says.
“Don’t!” Paint-Splatter screams. She sounds desperate and terrified, her own gun shaking in her hand. “If we don’t obey, we’ll die.” Her eyes are wide and wild, and they plead with Kai, who finally lowers his gun.
“We don’t know that’s how it works,” Kai says. “I doubt we just drop dead the second we disobey.” But he doesn’t sound so sure.
I don’t think it’s true either but if that’s what they’ve been told, there’s no way they’ll let me go before she gets here. My hope, small as it is, deflates. Exhaustion slams into me. My shoulders slump. I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to die at all. And I’m sure as heck not doing Vessa’s bidding. I serve a demon, but not a monster, and there’s a difference.
“Kai, please,” Rayna says, her voice low and commanding. “Your temper is going to get us all killed.”
He hesitates but finally lowers the gun. “Fine,” he says. “But I’m not listening to her. She speaks again, we tape up her mouth.”
I clamp my mouth shut.
More time passes. When Kai goes into the next room—presumably a bedroom with a bathroom attached, I say, “You don’t have to obey her.”
Red glares. Paint Lady shivers. “Shut up!” she yells.
“Calm down, Moira,” Rayna says.
“She’s the bad guy,” I say. “She doesn’t care about any of you.”
Kai comes back into the room. “I told you to shut up,” he hisses. Paint-splattered lady is shaking so hard I’m afraid she’s going to put a bullet in her own foot. A dark part of me thinks better her than me. Who taught this crazy demon lady about zip ties, anyhow? I want to suc
ker punch whoever it was. Rope might have given me a fighting chance but I can’t begin to get the hard plastic loose.
“And I’m telling you, you don’t have to be her slaves. She’s lying to you about how her magic works.”
Rayna doesn’t take the bait that time. None of them do. They all ignore me.
The front door opens. Everyone turns, including me, although I have to strain to see and it makes my neck throb. My heart pounds in time with the pain.
A woman walks in. She’s wearing leather pants and a corset over a long-sleeved black t-shirt. Her boots stomp over the wood floor. I see her telltale electric blue hair out of the corner of my eye. Vessa.
“Where’s the psychic?” she asks.
“He wasn’t with her,” Rayna says. Vessa sighs dramatically and Kai flinches like she might strike out. Instead, she walks around the chair I’m tied to, her heels clicking on the wood floor, until she stands directly in front of me.
She bends down over me, her silver-and-blue snake eyes so similar to Azmos’ and yet hers glint with unmistakable malice.
I swallow, throat dry again. I tug again on my hands, the plastic zip tie biting into my wrists. There’s no escape.
And then she does the most terrifying thing of all: she smiles at me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“We meet again, Nicolette,” Vessa says. “Since our last meeting, I’ve learned so much about you.”
Words stick in my throat. My skin prickles like invisible needles are being run over my arms, my cheeks.
“I had my people looking all over the city for you.”
I remember the incompetent kidnapper at the bus stop and shudder.
“It turns out there’s not a lot of information about Azmos and his cohorts I can get that isn’t direct from the source. He plays his cards close to his chest.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “Luckily, I found an informant.”
My stomach roils, acid boiling and sloshing around. I have no idea what that means but it’s definitely not good.
“Strange that a creature as powerful as I would rely on such a young human for help. Several young humans it seems.” She cocks her head, the movement mechanical. She’s stiff and stilted. Azmos is a little robotic sometimes but she takes it to a whole new level. With Azmos, it’s just other-worldly. With her, it’s scary as heck. “I suppose I expected better of my brother. You do know he’s my brother, yes?”
She waits to see how I react to this news. I don’t. My heart is going wild and blood thrums in my ears but I try not to let it show.
“Although I do see the appeal of this world. It’s so easy to build an army when your kind is so desperate to cling to their short little lives. It’s like harvesting maggots.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rayna bristle. It’s a very small motion and Vessa doesn’t seem to notice, but it gives me hope. Rayna is reasonable. She might be my salvation.
“I am disappointed, though,” Vessa adds. “So many of my kind have fled to your realm over the years, seeking the freedom to use their powers, and yet none of them has attained their rightful place as ruler of this world. Perhaps they too were weak-willed.”
Sweat beads on my upper lip. I do my best to keep my voice even but it shakes anyhow. “They haven’t done it because they can’t. They’re not powerful enough and neither are you.”
Vessa’s eyes light up like lasers. She steps towards me and every cell in my body screams, willing me to run even though I can’t. Her cool fingers brush my cheeks as she grabs my chin in her hand. I bite my tongue so I don’t scream. “I am of the Vitas race. We have the power to make ourselves gods. Long ago, my brethren did just that, performing miracles and convincing whole tribes of your species that they were gods and saints and healers and saviors. We still hold that power. It’s why other races have driven us to the brink of extinction. But some of us persist, and soon, I will prevail in ruling you.” She squeezes, her fingernails cutting into my skin, and then drops her hand. “Now, my brother had not been as cooperative as I hoped. He fled when I sent people to retrieve him.”
I snort. To kidnap him, she means.
Her eyes narrow further, slit-pupils dark. “Where can I find him?”
“I don’t know,” I say. And it’s sort of true. I don’t know where he is right this second.
She gives me the patient smile people give misbehaving pets. “I don’t want to hurt him. He merely needs to swear fealty to me. Tell me where he is, and I’ll return you to him. He can decide what to do with you. I would like to keep you alive for him as a token of respect. But I will do what I have to do.”
Fear slides like an ice cube down my spine. “I don’t know where he is.” The lies comes out automatically and I’m grateful I’ve gotten better spewing bullshit. “He finds me when he needs something. Not the other way around.”
Vessa walks to the counter and grabs Kai’s gun. He goes white as a sheet. She aims it at me and another burst of fear explodes in my chest. I have no illusions: Vessa will happily shoot me. She won’t even see it as murder, because she’ll bring me back to be her newest lackey.
She smiles at my fear and lowers the gun. “I don’t want to kill you. There’s enough,” she rolls her wrist, searching for the word, “animosity between my brother and I. I’d rather not hurt his most precious little pet. Azmos will appreciate having you intact and see that I can be benevolent. Tell me where I can find him and you will be rewarded for his cooperation when he and I finally join together.”
“Why can’t you find him?”
She sighs. “He seems to be hiding from my army. After he disliked my approach to our last arranged meeting, he’s gone to ground. He is too skittish. He needs to see he can trust my people.”
I’m not sure Vessa can trust her own people, at least not if they figure out they aren’t being magically compelled to do her bidding.
“He doesn’t want to see you.” This logic is, unsurprisingly, lost on her.
“He’s afraid I’m being pursued,” she says. “There are those who fear my power so much they seek to destroy me or keep me in chains, and given the chance, they’d do the same to him. But I’ve made sure they can’t find me in this world.”
A bristle of fear ripples through me as I remember Xanan warning me about his kind, who will happily track down the cause of the imbalance and kill anyone they think is at fault. But despite my fear, Vessa looks so smug that it’s fun to taunt her. “Of course they can. They can track your power. I know a demon who’s hunting you down right now.” It’s not strictly true—Xanan is hunting down the recruits of her army—but it’s satisfying to see doubt cross her face like a storm cloud. Anyhow, she can’t veil herself from them if she’s using her power so much that it’s poking holes in the Spirit Realm’s barrier.
“That’s not possible,” she insists, confident again. “Azmos merely needs to see how easy it is to rise above you mortal maggots, and he will rule by my side. Together we’ll take over your pathetic world and be gods as is our birthright.”
I swallow. Azmos scared the crap of out of me when he first showed up with a contract and said I’d made a deal to work for him, I was terrified. But bit by bit, I’ve gotten to know him. I’ve come to like and respect him. Azmos may share Vessa’s power, but he doesn’t share her desire to take over the world or whatever her master plan is. He certainly doesn’t hurt people in order to reduce them to helpless lackeys.
“He’ll never work for you,” I say. “And he’ll never swear his loyalty to you.”
She laughs. The sound is high, like a chorus of bells, and beautiful and terrifying. It sends new bursts of fear coursing through my veins. “Of course he will. Now, tell me where I can find him.”
“I don’t know,” I repeat.
Vessa tuts at me like a disappointed teacher. “If that’s how it’s going to be…” In one motion, she whirls and brings up the gun, aiming it at the paint splattered woman. Before the poor lady even has time to react, Vessa fires. A hole appears in th
e middle of her shocked face and then she crumples to the ground, dead.
Terror slams into me and I bite back a strangled cry.
Kai screams and Vessa turns, aiming at him.
He holds his hands up, biting off his scream. He mutters one word under his breath. I think it’s “please.”
Bile works its way up my esophagus. I swallow a manic laugh that bubbles up behind it. The bile burns on its way back down. I glance surreptitiously at Rayna, who’s holding it together pretty well but does look little a green.
“I’m not playing games with a child,” she says. She drops the gun on the counter. Kai stares at it like it’s a snake. “I’ll give you one hour to decide to help me. And then I’ll start cutting your limbs off until you change your mind or you bleed out so far that I have to make you mine. I’d rather keep you intact and in his power to show my brother how much I love him and how well we can work together, but I will do what needs to be done.”
She turns to Rayna. “I’m going to go check on the others. Clean that up.” She waves at the body of the woman she shot as if she’s talking about a broken glass. Then she sweeps out of the small apartment, the door banging shut behind her. No one breathes until the door to the stairwell outside slams shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Another guard, this one in his fifties or so with gray hair and lines on his face, enters the apartment a few moments later. “She sent me up to help,” he says, or starts to say, but the words die on his tongue as he spots the body. “I see,” he finally says.
“You two wrap her up and get her outside,” Rayna says to the Gray-haired Man and Kai. Red stays in the corner, unmoving, but smirking. My stomach turns. I wonder who she was in her previous life, before she became a demon’s lackey. What kind of person she was to find murder amusing.
“No way,” Kai says. “We can’t take a body outside, even in the dark. Someone might see.”
Rayna and the older guy considers this, while Kai pulls out a box of trash bags. I wonder if this is what they bought them for and how many of her own people Vessa has killed—for good—to make a point.
In the Demon's Company (Demon's Assistant Book 2) Page 14
