Daemon Uprising

by Mariah Ankenman

  “So what’s your name, sexy?” Mr. Charmer said.

  “Tabitha.”

  “Meow, Tabby Cat.”

  The way he said it made her want to hurl. Nothing like when Kiernan called her Tabby Cat. He annoyed her, but sounded endearing at the same time, like she was special to him. The way this Kako said it made her skin crawl, like he wanted to wham bam and not thank her, ma’am.

  The Kako slouched forward, spilling his drink. His brother elbowed him in the side roughly, an irritated scowl on his face.

  “I’m Alec,” the irritated, coherent Kako said. “This is my brother Brone. I apologize; he’s had a bit too much tonight.”

  “Fuck you, Alec,” Mr. Charm said in return.

  Alec said something to Brone in a low voice. Even if the blaring music had ceased and the noise silenced, she still couldn’t have made out what he said. It didn’t sound like English. Whatever language he spoke, she had no clue, not that she was fluent in any language other than English and some Spanish, but she could usually make out a country by the dialect. This sounded like nothing familiar. A harsh guttural language she had never heard before.

  After a moment of what appeared as an argument, Brone gave Alec a grudging look. The Kako stood, pushing back his chair. The scowl on his face disappeared as he turned to her and extended his hand.

  “It’s been a pleasure, Tabitha.”

  She didn’t have to fabricate the shock on her face. “You’re leaving?”

  He sent a scowl toward his brother. “Unfortunately, the club doesn’t run itself, and as my brother informs me, duty calls.”

  She lifted her hand toward his. Brone grabbed it, the glaze in his eyes dissipated somewhat after talking to his brother. Lifting her hand to his lips, he placed a wet kiss to the top of it. Tabitha was pretty sure she felt his tongue snake out and lick her. She tried to repress a shudder. What was it with Daemons and licking?

  Brone left, disappearing into the crowd. She controlled her disappointment. Okay, so the plan had now changed, not a problem. Easier to take down one Kako anyway. Of course, she preferred to take down the slightly more inebriated one, but she’d settle for whatever she could get. Pasting the seductive smile back on her face, she turned to the remaining brother, Alec.

  “So you guys own the club?”

  Alec traced the rim of his glass with his finger, eyeing her. “No, we’re more of the management team. But you already found that out from Mara, didn’t you?”

  Shit.

  “What?” She tried to put as much innocence into the word as she could.

  “Mara. The bartender I saw you and your rather large male friend talking to her when you first got here.”

  Shit, shit, shit!

  “Where is he, by the way? Your large friend?”

  She shrugged, tossing a look over her shoulder as if to seek Kiernan out. “Who cares? He pissed me off, so I told him to get lost.”

  Alec’s gaze narrowed. “Yes, I saw that, too. What did he say to warrant such a vicious slap, I wonder?”

  He baited her. He watched them the entire time they were in the club. Did he know they were after them? That they were Enforcers? Had he heard their plan? No, he couldn’t have. Even with his superior hearing, the music was loud and too many people talking for him to single out her voice. Praying the one semester of drama she took in high school had some effect on her, she leaned in closer.

  “He called me a groupie club whore.”

  Alec’s eyebrow’s rose. “And are you?”

  “I prefer to think of myself as a connoisseur.” Man, the lies rolled right off her tongue like water. At least if this Enforcer thing ever went belly up, she had a bright future in used-car sales.

  “Really.” Alec’s tone showed interest. Bingo! Now all she had to do was lure him out the back.

  “What can I say?” she replied, coyly leaning back in her chair. “I like a man with connections.”

  Alec sat eyeing her. For a minute, she feared she had overplayed her cards, but then he hooked the leg of her chair with his foot and drew her closer to him. “I have my car out back. What do you say we head over to my place, and I can tell you about all the connections I really have?”

  Perfect! She didn’t even have to come up with a ploy to lure him. Tabitha rose and took the hand he offered to her, allowing Alec to lead her out the back exit. Though they didn’t have both brothers, one worked. Kiernan waited right outside the door. It almost seemed too easy.

  Chapter 14

  Kiernan stood outside in the chilly spring air. The nighttime cold barely registered against his skin. Just another perk of being a Daemon. Eight minutes had passed since he left Tabitha in the club. Worry crept into his mind. Okay, that was a lie. He started worrying the moment he left her. He couldn’t help it. She was human. No matter how tough or how many years she had been training and working as an Enforcer, she was still human. He was actually surprised she’d lasted this long. In all the years he had been alive, he knew of only three other humans to join the Enforcers and even they had a bit of Witch blood in them.

  So deep in thought, he didn’t hear the sound of someone sneaking up behind him.

  “What’s a nice guy like you doing in a dark alley like this?” the southern twang drawled from behind him.

  He spun around poised to fight, but not fast enough. Before he could swing his arm to strike, he found himself flat on his back.

  Damn, these Kakos were really strong.

  When he looked up, he saw a big black boot standing squarely on his chest. Looking up farther, he saw the owner of said boot, a tall dark-blonde woman clad in a black leather ensemble, resembling the suit from a superhero movie he’d seen once. He found such representations quite humorous. Were humans really fooled by rubber masks and simple black glasses?

  Getting back to the matter at hand, he glanced up at the woman currently using him as a step stool. A sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

  “Name’s Shanna. What’s yours, Enforcer?”

  Oh shit!

  Not only Shanna, the third in Stryden’s Kako crew, but somehow she knew him as an Enforcer. Not good. The stiletto heel of her boot pressed directly over his heart. Kiernan had no doubt the Kako possessed the strength to plunge the heel through his ribcage and pierce his heart. He also knew he wasn’t fast enough to stop her. The smarter option, outwit her. Hopefully, the souls she devoured had left some traces of madness in her. He had to do something quickly before Tabitha came out with the other two. If they faced all three Kakos, they were as good as dead.

  “My name is Kiernan.”

  “Did the council send you to kill me?” Shanna asked with a sneer.

  “I was sent to find a Kako named Stryden.” Not really a lie. Racine had sent them out to find Stryden. Finding his underlings and bringing them to justice was an unspoken term to their assignment, but he thought it better not to tell her.

  The Kako’s gaze narrowed, her heel pressed more firmly on his chest causing him to wince as the sharp spiky point penetrated his shirt and the first layer of skin. “How do you know of The Dark One?”

  “He isn’t exactly keeping his presence a big secret.”

  The heel went deeper. Silently, he cursed as he felt the stiletto make a small hole in his body. Blood dripped down his chest, sticky and warm, wetting his shirt. He needed to get in control, now. When the back door of the club opened, he saw his chance. Distracted, Shanna shifted her gaze from him to the door. He seized the opportunity and—in a move that would have made his old Enforcer trainer proud—he grabbed Shanna’s foot with both hands and pushed it one way while shifting his body the other.

  The move succeeded in bringing the Kako down. As she fell face first to the harsh pavement, Kiernan rolled back, this time landing on top of her. He successfully trapped both of her hands behind her back, lifting himself onto his knees he straddled her with all his weight pushing down firmly on her back. She struggled, trying to buck him off, but he had gravity on his s
ide.

  “Oh shit!” The expletive came from the door.

  Looking up, he saw Tabitha and one of the Kako brothers. Where was the other one?

  “Where the hell is Brone?”

  Apparently, he wasn’t the only one with that question. Instead of waiting for an answer, Shanna shouted, “Alec, the girl!”

  Her warning came too late. Tabitha recovered from the shock of the unexpected scene quicker than Alec and landed a powerful slam of her joined fists to the base of his neck. The Kako met the pavement like his female Kako counterpart.

  “I knew this was too easy,” Tabitha muttered under her breath.

  “Speak for yourself,” Kiernan replied while trying to keep the struggling Shanna under control.

  Alec lay unmoving on the ground. Tabitha must have hit a nerve that rendered the Kako unconscious, but he would not remain so for long. They had only a few minutes before the Kako woke and neither had a clue as to the third Kako’s location. For all Kiernan knew, Brone stood right behind them, poised for an attack.

  “We have to go.”

  “No,” she replied harshly. “We’re not finished.”

  “We have to leave now.”

  “We haven’t gotten anything.”

  The woman proved damned stubborn at times. Normally a good thing, because she always got her man, but in this situation likely to get them killed.

  “I’ll give you somethin’, sweetheart,” Shanna growled from underneath him.

  Tabitha sneered at the Kako, striding over. Kiernan saw the slight movement of her hand reaching to her hip for her sword that wasn’t there. In her eyes, he saw the desire to chop the stupid Kako’s head right off, but it had been impossible to carry a weapon in her dress. He doubted she even had room for underwear beneath the sexy sheath.

  He shook his head to clear the image of Tabitha sans underwear. The very tempting distraction did not help at the moment.

  He watched as she brought her heel up high and slammed it down with all the force she could into the back of Shanna’s neck. The heel sank into the flesh, severing nerves and breaking off from the shoe.

  “Who says you can’t wear heels to fight crime.”

  He couldn’t help smirking at her ill-humored joke. He stood, rising off the body of the now incapacitated Shanna, unfortunately, not dead. As a Daemon, her injuries would heal in a matter of minutes. Minutes that would get them as far away as he could fly. He reached out to Tabitha.

  “Come on.”

  She pulled out of his grasp. “We should at least take one of them in. For questioning.”

  Kiernan growled. She was being impossible. “Look, we have a minute, two max, before Shanna wakes up. Even less for Alec, and no idea where Brone is. We don’t have time, Tabitha.”

  Taking a prisoner for questioning would be nice, fantastic even, but the only way to keep a Kako under control was to drug them and, sadly, neither of them had thought to bring any sedatives. After all, the night had started as a simple recon mission. “We have to go, Tabitha, now!”

  “Fine.” Her face set in grim reluctance, she started past him.

  ****

  Tabitha ran down the alley, heading for the street. She made it a few steps before her feet lifted off the ground. A pair of strong arms caught her under the knees and back, lifting her from the pavement and into the air. She turned her head to see Kiernan, giving her that annoying little smirk she wished she could smack off his face.

  “Kiernan, what are you doing?”

  “They’ll catch up to us too quickly on the ground.”

  “No! No, no, no, no, no!” She struggled, but his grip remained steadfast. “You are not taking me into the air, Kiernan. I mean it!”

  Kiernan said nothing, just smiled. His arms tightened as he rolled his shoulders back. Long, black-feathered wings appeared on his back through the slits in his shirt. Once fully extended, he dipped his head to hers and whispered in her ear, “Hold on tight, Tabby Cat.”

  With that, he lifted into the air. She suppressed a scream as her arms wrapped immediately around his neck. She shut her eyes tighter than she ever had. As the wind whipped around their bodies, she buried her face in the crook of Kiernan’s neck. She breathed in deeply, trying to calm her nerves, but it only served to give her a big whiff of Kiernan. Sexy, woodsy Kiernan. That just frazzled her nerves even worse and in totally different ways.

  “Relax, Tabby Cat, it’s only flying.” Kiernan chuckled. The sound reverberated off his chest to hers, caressing her breasts, firmly planted against him because of her clinging-for-dear-life position. She tried to ignore the sensation.

  “Easy for you to say. You’re the one with the wings. I swear, Kiernan, if you drop me, I will come back from the dead and beat your ass.”

  “Promise?” he growled huskily.

  Leave it to Kiernan to turn everything she said into an innuendo. “Just don’t let me go.”

  “Never.”

  He said the word with such conviction. She pulled her head from its hiding spot in his chest to gaze up at him. No teasing light in his eyes, no playfulness in his features. Instead, somberness she had never seen before filled the beautiful blue gaze. The word held meaning, deeper than just a response to her demand.

  Tearing herself away from the intensity of his gaze, she looked down to see how high they were. Big mistake. In the darkness of the night, she couldn’t even see the ground. The lights of the fading city looked like little blinking stars. A low moan escaped her lips. Dizziness set in, and her arm instinctively tightened around Kiernan’s neck.

  “I might not be as human as you, Tabby Cat, but Daemons still need to breathe.”

  Hearing the gasp in his voice, she reluctantly loosened her grip. “Sorry, but really, it’s your own fault. You know I hate flying.”

  “It was the fastest way to get out of there.”

  She rolled her eyes, not that he could see the gesture with her face currently planted firmly against his chest. “They can fly too, ya know.”

  He laughed darkly. “Not with their wings clipped.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. Daemons were stronger than humans in every way. Most human weapons barely made a dent when used against a Daemon. A direct shot to the chest, and they’d keep right on coming, but like all creatures on earth, they had their weak points. A Daemon’s weak point was their wings.

  Cut a Daemon’s wings at the top, where the cartilage met the shoulder blade, and the damage was done. It lessened their strength by half and rendered them incapable of flying. Not permanently—the wings healed eventually—but it kept a Daemon out of commission for a few hours.

  She hadn’t witnessed Kiernan cutting Alec and Shanna’s wings. He must have done it quickly while she headed down the alley. Boy, they would be pissed when they came to.

  “You can open your eyes now. We’re here.”

  Tabitha lifted her head at Kiernan’s soft-spoken words. Glancing down, she saw the ground beneath Kiernan’s feet. They were in the back woods behind council headquarters. Breathing out a sigh of relief, she thanked every god there ever was she made it back to earth safely. She really, really, really hated flying.

  Expecting to be put down, she made a sound of annoyance when Kiernan did not loosen his hold of her.

  “You can put me down now.”

  “I don’t know.” He chuckled. “I kind of like you right where you are.”

  “Put me down before I hurt you, Kiernan.”

  “And again, no thank you for saving your life.” He released her, taking much longer than necessary in her opinion.

  She sighed wearily. Leave it to Kiernan to get melodramatic on her. “I seem to remember it being your ass on the ground. How did Shanna get the drop on you? What was she doing there anyway?”

  His snarky grin turned into a scowl. “I have no idea.”

  “Mara.”

  “What?”

  “Mara must have told Shanna we asked about the club and Mr. S.”

  Kiernan shook
his head. “When? We were barely done talking to her before you went to talk to the bonehead brothers.”

  Tabitha twisted the silver bracelet on her wrist thoughtfully. She stared off into the distance, working out the scenario in her mind, placing herself back in the club. It had to be Mara. How else could Shana have known about them?

  “I don’t know. Maybe Tony. He wasn’t very friendly and didn’t like me asking any questions about the club. Though, I didn’t get to ask him much since he only grunted in response to anything I said.” Her fingers left the bracelet and fell back to her side. “I only asked a few questions about how new the club was and who owned it. Not enough to make me look like I was after something, but maybe enough to raise suspicion.”

  “What did you and the brothers talk about?”

  She shrugged. “Not much. I had a drink with them. From the look of their bottle, they started long before we got there. I hoped to talk to Brone more. He seemed a bit more intoxicated than Alec, but Alec sent him off somewhere almost as soon as I sat down.”

  “Where?” Kiernan asked.

  “No idea, but Alec seemed perturbed his brother wasn’t holding his liquor well.”

  It wouldn’t be good for the Kakos if one of them in a drunken stupor spilled out secrets to strangers or took a human soul in plain sight. It took a lot to make a Daemon drunk, but when they imbibed enough, they acted just like drunken humans—lowered inhibitions, spouting off things they shouldn’t, getting into brawls.

  She wondered why Stryden allowed the Kakos to drink where they hunted. Didn’t seem smart. Then again Kakos were not known for their intelligence, usually the opposite in fact. Except for these Kakos.

  “How drunk was Brone?”

  She turned to him. “I don’t know. Still coherent. A little chatty maybe, which was why Alec sent him away I think.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened from the moment you went over to sit with them.”

  Straightening, she relayed the events of the night as if reciting a police report, just the facts, ma’am. A skill that made her a good Enforcer and a bad charades partner, or so she’d been told.