by Joe Jackson
Kaelin was smoking a cigar again, a habit Kari encountered rarely, but it had a pleasant enough fragrance, and the Earl refrained from blowing smoke toward his guest. The room was a bit chilly, but the Earl looked relaxed compared to how he’d been when she first met him, and he sat slightly to the side in his high-backed chair. His white tunic had been replaced by a similar one but with no sleeves, and Kari could see that he had kept his body in great shape over the years. While being muscular was typical for a half-guardian, Kaelin’s muscles were long and toned rather than bulky like those of her brothers-in-law. Around his neck was a woven silver chain that Kari hadn’t noticed before. She thought about her encounter with BlackWing, but didn’t remember him wearing such a piece of jewelry.
“What brings you here?” Lord Black asked softly. His tone lacked any of the malice that had dominated it when she’d first arrived in the city, and in fact made it seem like he was speaking to an old friend.
“I was hoping to find Lord Garant here,” Kari answered. “Since he’s in the city, he may be able to help us with our investigation.”
Black shook his head. “He was here earlier, but he never stays past the ninth hour,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what you’ve found thus far? I understand there was an incident at the graveyard, and two more of my guards have been killed, but the tales I’ve heard sound far-fetched, to be honest.”
“Well, we encountered Emma in the graveyard…,” Kari began.
“Emma? Is that the name of this succubus?” Black interrupted, and it dawned on Kari that if she had truly met BlackWing in DarkWind, and not Kaelin Black, then he wouldn’t even recall Aeligos mentioning Emma’s name.
Kari sighed. “No. Emma is a mallasti – one of the hyena demons, as you may know them,” she said, and Black nodded his head to let her know he followed. “She’s been involved in a number of plots to invade Citaria, so needless to say, her presence here is alarming. On the other hand, we’ve kinda come to the conclusion that Emma is what the succubus is really after, and that all of these murders are part of a ‘ritual’ for the succubus to strengthen herself.”
“Why my city?” Black asked. “Have you any indication of why she chose this city for her ritual?”
“Nothing outside of the fact that the Black Dragon Society has power here, and BlackWing is a major player in this plan,” the demonhunter answered. Black rose to his feet and circled his desk, and he sat on its front edge and awaited further explanation. At that distance, Kari could smell him even over the scent of the cigar burning slowly in the ashtray. He smelled good despite the fact that he’d been smoking, though a part of her mind wondered why that stood out so prominently. “I’m not sure I’m going to do a good job of explaining all this, but I’ll tell you what we know, and what we suspect.”
“The succubus is named Turillia. We believe she’s been sent here to kill Emma, because Emma was involved in foiling several plots by the demon king Sekassus the Calculating,” she explained. “Emma is an extremely powerful sorceress, though, so we think Turillia has been using these seemingly random murders to feed BlackWing…”
The Earl balked. “Feed BlackWing? What does that mean?” he asked.
“BlackWing was possessed by a shadow demon,” Kari said, and Kaelin Black made no effort to mask his surprise. “We killed him, but the demon lives on; where it will go from here, I don’t know.”
“You killed BlackWing?!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet. “Where’s his body? I want to see this for myself.”
“There was no body. From what the others tell me, his body crumbled to dust when the shadow demon left him,” Kari said. She held her hand up to stave off further interruptions and continued, “As I was saying, we think the murders were making the demon stronger, and Turillia was drawing power from him by…well, whatever tickled their fancy, I suppose. She seemed to be trying to make herself strong enough to face Emma, but based on the fight in the cemetery, it seems she still isn’t anywhere near strong enough.”
Black sat back down on the edge of the desk, and Kari gave him a minute to take in everything she’d told him. He rose to his feet again anxiously as he turned the thoughts over in his mind, and Kari watched him pace over to the wide window on the back side of his office to look out over the city. He folded his hands behind his back, and his gaze swept side to side, and after a couple of silent moments he turned back to Kari. “So, why is Emma here?”
Kari considered what to tell him. She had initially assumed Emma was in the city to get some sort of revenge on her for the incident on Tsalbrin, but in light of Emma’s opportunity to kill Kari in the graveyard, that didn’t fit. It made Kari wonder if Erik may have been right when they discussed the issue on Talsbrin: whether Kari was, in fact, Salvation’s Dawn. That would suggest that Emma was keeping an eye on her to protect her investment, as it were. The fact that Emma had so recklessly struck Kari with a lightning bolt still left some room for doubt, but she could’ve killed Kari and chose not to, which gave the theory some credence. All that said, though, Kari wasn’t sure that sharing any of those details with Kaelin Black would be a good idea. He may have changed his attitude toward her, and she may have mentally crossed him off of her list of suspects, but giving him too much information could put him in danger. He didn’t seem like the type of Earl to sit back and let others do all the dirty work when he knew who his enemies were.
Though she loathed doing so blatantly, Kari lied. “I helped stop one of her plots a few years ago, and I think she wants revenge,” she said, keeping up her poker face as well as she possibly could. She knew she was lying, not merely deceiving Black, but she had a nagging feeling that telling him the truth might cause more harm than good. If he even suspected that Kari was Salvation’s Dawn, he might try to use such knowledge to his advantage, which would put her in danger, directly or indirectly. There was no telling what the nobles’ or the general population’s reaction would be to discovering Salvation’s Dawn, but there was no doubt what the demons’ reaction would be.
“So what are your plans from here, then?” Black asked. “Is this Emma too strong for you to deal with? And why didn’t she kill you at the cemetery?”
“I think she’s more worried about killing Turillia first,” Kari said half-truthfully. “She seemed to just want to get out of the way, and let Turillia and I fight, so one or both of us would end up dead. But then Turillia left, hoping the werewolves would kill me and my companion.”
“So the werewolves are involved in this too?” he said with a shake of his head. “This is ridiculous…the damned Apocalypse was easier to deal with than this.” He turned to face back out the window, and he let forth a deep growl that he didn’t even try to cover.
Kari rose and walked to stand beside him at the window. She was amazed at how much of the city she could see from it, and her gaze went east toward the old city hall and its bell tower. Though the building was dark, Kari’s eyes searched the inky blackness for some sign that Emma was there. “The werewolves are just trying to get rid of the demons and stop them from raising corpses, so far as I can tell,” Kari assured him, and for some reason she couldn’t quite explain, she patted him on the shoulder comfortingly.
Lord Black wrapped his arm around her so that his hand rested on her opposite hip, and Kari had to admit to herself that it felt good. He pulled her close to him, and Kari wondered how she had missed his own protective nature and well-masked gentleness. In a way he was like Eli, but he was taller, stronger, and much more handsome, not to mention the fact that he was half-guardian, and not a half-corlyps. They stood side by side, looking out over the city streets, dimly lit as the hour grew ever later, and at the few lighted windows scattered throughout the more populous areas of the northern districts.
Kaelin turned toward her, and Kari let him wrap both arms around her as he bent down to kiss her neck. She felt good and comfortable in his embrace, and she ran her hands down his powerful arms before she rested them on his hips. He began to back her up to
ward his desk, and Kari sat on its edge once they reached it. Kaelin continued to kiss her, and despite the scent of the cigar burning behind her, Kari could only smell the muscular, handsome half-guardian male. She tried to remember why she hadn’t opened herself up to him before, but her memories felt hazy, and she found she couldn’t even remember why she’d come to see him. She knew only that he was handsome, available, and the rich and powerful Earl of a prosperous county.
There was a brief tingle in Kari’s mind, warning her of some sort of danger, but as the Earl’s hands began searching for the clasps that would release her breastplate, she found herself falling deeper and deeper into the warmth of his touch. She couldn’t explain the tentative pang in the back of her mind, but it pulsed and pulsed even while she reached to remove the Earl’s shirt. Kari ran her hands down his muscled chest, marveling at the puncture wound scars just below his ribs, and the telltale sign of deep lacerations not unlike claw marks near his collarbone. She vaguely remembered him mentioning being attacked by a demon once, and she assumed the scars were likely from that encounter. She mused that perhaps they had more in common than she had originally thought.
The pang grew more powerful, and Kari rubbed the back of her head as Kaelin undid the last of the clasps of her breastplate and started to take it off. She couldn’t figure out why she felt like she was betraying someone by being here; after all, she and Eli weren’t mates, only friends. The fact that they’d had sex didn’t mean she belonged to him, and she was free to make her own choices and spend a passionate night or three with Black. She took her breastplate and padded shirt off after Black struggled to get them free around her wings. She pushed Eli out of her mind and stood up so Black could embrace her and start taking off her halter.
Wait a second, Kari thought, nearly a moment of clarity through the fuzziness of her memories. I never had sex with Eli, did I?
The pang in her mind turned to blinding pain, and Kari separated from Black and put her hand to her forehead. The entire situation seemed wrong somehow, but the only thing that was real at that moment was the pain. She tried to remember her first encounter with Eli through the haze in her mind, and she remembered that she’d met him in a brothel. She remembered him coming to her bedroom that night, but it wasn’t to have sex, it was to fight a demon: a succubus. She tried piecing her thoughts together. The pain began to subside slowly, and she remembered that she was hunting a succubus…a succubus working with a demon. A demon that apparently thought she and Eli were sleeping together, and tried to use that to blur her memories of Grakin. A demon that was standing right in front of her....
She slapped Black hard across the face, and he staggered back a step, his eyes wide with surprise. She thought perhaps she was mistaken, but then he grabbed her by the arms in a bone-crushing grip, picked her up effortlessly, and slammed her on his desk. Kari was stunned, the breath blasted from her lungs, and Black began yanking the lower part of her armor and her padded pants off. Kari got her wits back about her when her panties followed, and the massive half-guardian jumped up onto the desk with her.
Instinct took over, and Kari threw her right leg over Black’s shoulder. He regarded her leg for a moment with a grin and muttered, “Well, this is different.” But his smile disappeared when she wrapped his head and arm with her other leg and locked them in a triangle choke, just as Aeligos had taught her. She pulled his trapped arm out straight, threatening to break it at the elbow, but she regained her wits enough to realize she didn’t want to hurt Lord Black to get at the demon inside him. Instead, she released his arm and grabbed his head to pull it down harder into the choke. She wasn't sure she could choke the demon unconscious, but she squeezed with her legs and kept pulling his head down to deny him oxygen. Black – possessed or not – tried to say something, but his eyes rolled and he went limp in seconds.
Kari leaned to her side and dropped him unceremoniously off the side of the desk to the ground. She got to her feet quickly, and put her hands over her exposed breasts. She shivered in the chilly office, and after the briefest hesitation, she grabbed for her swords to get them close to her while she gathered her scattered clothing. She got all but her breastplate back on by the time Black stirred, and she grabbed up her scimitars when his hands sought purchase on the surface of the desk. He pulled himself to a sitting position, his face clearly showing confusion, and he beheld Kari curiously, staying on his rump for a few more moments. He started to rise, but seemed to think better of it, rubbing the back of his head with a grimace.
“What the hell happened?” he asked as he met Kari’s gaze. “And why are we both half-naked?
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Kari asked suspiciously. She put her scimitars back in their sheaths and then put her breastplate back on.
“I was…looking out the window, and then you patted my shoulder,” he said, and if he wasn’t sorting through his thoughts, he was doing a damned good job of acting like it. “Then, I woke up here…with the back of my head bleeding. What happened?”
“The shadow demon blindsided us,” she answered. Kari hated to lie, even to someone like Kaelin Black, but she also wasn’t sure what she’d just said was a lie. She watched Black rub the back of his head, still seated on his rump, and she was pretty sure he wasn’t acting.
“Everett!” Black called, rising to his feet, and it took only half a minute before there was a brief knock at the door. The Earl invited his marshal in, and for a moment, Kari thought Black was going to have her arrested. He picked up his shirt, made his way around to his chair, and sat down. He took up a handkerchief and pressed it to the bloody tangle of hair at the base of his skull. “What do you mean it blindsided us? Did it take solid form?”
“I’m not really sure,” Kari said.
Marshal Saracht came to attention before Black's desk. “What happened?” he asked.
“The shadow demon attacked us,” the Earl answered. “Did you see anything enter or leave the building?”
“No, my lord.”
“Why was your breastplate off?” Black asked, turning to Kari.
“It started trying to pull off my clothes,” Kari said. A slight tremor entered her voice and she tried to calm herself. “But I was able to drive it off.”
Lord Black beheld Kari in a way that told her he knew exactly what she was implying, but he wasn’t really sure how to react. “Everett, escort the Lady back to her inn, and then bring me a priest – I don’t care from which church,” the Earl said, and the marshal bowed. Kaelin Black turned back toward Kari then, and fixed her with a measured gaze. “I’m tempted to keep you around if you’re capable of dealing with this shadow demon, but you seem shaken up. Go back to your inn and get some rest. My marshal and his men will keep watch over you through the night. Meanwhile, I’ll see if the priests can at least keep that demon out of here. Come the morning, keep up the pressure on these demons, and let me know if you need anything from me. I am placing the marshal and his men fully at your disposal.”
Kari nodded and tried to calm her heartbeat and breathing after what she’d just gone through. “Thank you, Lord Black,” she said breathlessly. Marshal Saracht guided her toward the door gently by the elbow. He sensed that Kari was shaken, but her cover story that they had been attacked by the shadow demon seemed sufficient to dispel any suspicions the marshal may have had. It was strange to Kari to be escorted back to the inn by a man who was neither well-armed nor armored, but the oddity of the situation paled in comparison to the thoughts that whirled in her head about what had just transpired.
Was it possible that Kaelin Black was BlackWing and didn’t even realize it? In truth, Kari hadn’t seen, heard, or felt anything that suggested that the shadow demon had entered the room. She had touched Kaelin Black, and then something had clouded her mind much more subtly than even the sylinth’s attempt on Tsalbrin. She was stunned at just how quickly the demon had built the false web of memories and emotions. Whether it was the mental exercises Kari had learned from Triela or
something else that helped her break free, she realized she was very lucky that she hadn’t given herself willingly to the demon. And in spite of all the confusion that surrounded the incident, she knew that the demon had been inside Kaelin Black somehow.
It didn’t help Kari determine how or why, but she guessed that it had to be one of two things: either Kaelin Black and BlackWing were the same person and didn’t realize it, or the demon had taken possession of Black due to his own nature once BlackWing was killed. She recalled Devin Sanstrom’s tale of BlackWing attacking the Earl in the bazaar, and that divination magic had been used to determine that neither of them had been an illusion or under some shape-changing magic. It simply didn’t make sense to her; there was no other explanation she could think of.
She decided to push the thoughts aside for the time being. It wasn’t really important how the demon had gotten into Kaelin Black, and neither was the mystery of BlackWing and Kaelin’s relationship. What was important was that she knew she could no longer trust Kaelin Black at all, and that Markus’ life might be in danger spending any time in the Earl’s presence. Kari knew she needed to speak with Lord Garant and warn him of Kaelin Black’s possession. She wasn’t sure if Markus would try to arrest him, force the demon out, or perhaps just keep him bottled up to separate the demon from being able to consort with Turillia. In the end, she supposed any one of the three options would work well, though she wasn’t sure if forcing the demon out might mean it would seek yet another host.
“Marshal, I need a favor from you, if you would,” she said as they walked toward the inn. “I need to speak to Lord Garant first thing in the morning, but I don’t know where he’s staying. If he comes to Lord Black’s tower, could you ask him to come speak with me right away?”
