by S. L. Wright
“Anything.” My voice caught.
The penthouse button was already lit on the panel. The door slid closed and we started up. It was an old elevator with polished wood trim, parquet floor, and narrow proportions that suited a more modest era.
As the elevator ascended, the tingling sensation of Revel’s signature got stronger, making my heart beat faster in spite of myself. It felt exhilarating, like being on the verge of jumping out of a plane or succumbing to orgasm.
I hated it, and everything it reminded me of.
The elevator bypassed the lobby and went straight to the top, pinging through the numbers like a countdown. It was, of sorts. I hadn’t seen Revel in five years, not since the last time he had dropped by the bar. I had ordered him to leave, loudly, in front of everyone. But he had maintained his cool, laissez-faire attitude, smiling and waving at the confused regulars on his way out as if he were leaving a charity benefit and the paparazzi were recording every second.
I had never been to Revel’s place before, though Shock had forced me to memorize his address and phone number in case of an emergency. As badly as Revel had treated me, I was fairly sure he didn’t want to kill me or Shock.
That was more than I could say about any other demon.
With a final, refined ping, the elevator eased to a stop and the door slid open silently. I went first, stepping into the vestibule.
My first impression was that we were high up in a vast space, a marble cathedral filled with diffuse light. We looked down on a two-story gallery with three stained-glass windows placed high in the wall. A heraldic shield was centered in each window with twining leaves around the outside edge, blocking the view and much of the afternoon sun. The carved marble arches around the windows were supported by double stone columns. Next to the grand staircase leading down from the vestibule, there were two matching arches overlooking the gallery.
“It’s a museum,” Theo muttered. Musty traces of old parchment, wood, and oil paint permeated the air.
One of Revel’s flunkies was standing at the top of the staircase leading down to the floor of the gallery. “Good afternoon. My name is Ki. If you please wait, Mr. Fortunay will be with you shortly.”
Ki appeared to be of East Indian ancestry, with his skin like creamy coffee. He had delicate bones like a girl’s, with slender ankles that showed between the bottom cuff of his black suit and loafers. He folded his hands and stood at the head of the stairs blocking further entry, all the while smiling pleasantly as if he saw people carry unconscious girls into the apartment every day.
Theo continued holding Shock as if she weighed nothing. I scuffed my flip-flops on the black and white marble floor, laid in a pattern that resembled the coffered ceiling with its dark wood beams and white plaster roundels. A high-backed wooden bench to one side and a chair with a filigreed carved back set a medieval tone. Down in the gallery, the walls were filled with stylized paintings in arched frames showing three-quarter figures on gold-foil backgrounds, each one lit by its own light. Even the bronze chandelier was ancient, filled with fat, white candles ready to be lit.
But high up along the cornice, moveable cameras aimed down at us. I realized if I had misjudged Revel, all of us were in trouble.
As if reading my mind, Theo murmured, “Are you sure this guy is your friend?”
I shrugged, admitting my doubt. “You’d better get down here now, Revel,” I said directly into one of the cameras, “or I’m leaving.”
I silently counted off ten seconds before Revel appeared through a side door of the vestibule. Of course he had been watching us. That was his favorite thing to do.
Revel’s persona was a dashing young Frenchman with longish dark hair and the flippant manner of a man of leisure. Everything about him was perfect—his smooth complexion, his vibrant blue eyes, a slight dimple that appeared when he smiled, and the compact yet powerful physique of a race car driver.
He quickly joined us, giving me a look of concern as he pretended to check Shock’s pulse, assessing her energy levels. I almost believed he was worried, but then again, Revel was good at acting as though he cared. His current persona was much younger than when I had first met him as “Jacques Fortunay,” the supposed cousin of Giles. Jacques had passed into graceful middle age, and a few years ago Revel had created Giles to transition into. I wasn’t surprised that he preferred young personas, though he trotted out the older ones whenever he needed to cash in on society favors.
This persona was consistent with the Fortunay mold. His skin was tanned beautifully, and his dark hair curled to his shoulders. His vibrant eyes could speak volumes, as could his sensual, full lips. Even his mannerisms were the same—that sly smile, the way he crossed his legs at the knees, the lazy tilt of his head.
“How long has she been this way?” Revel demanded.
“Half an hour, give or take. She looked worse when I found her. A lot worse.”
Revel pinched Shock’s cheek and the back of her hand, noting how long it took for the dents left by his fingers to disappear. “I don’t think she’s in any immediate danger.”
“No,” I said, glancing at Theo, “or I would have taken her to a hospital.”
I didn’t take Shock’s hand again. I was depleted enough already and I needed to have my wits about me.
Revel took a long look at Theo Ram, head to toes in that cool, judgmental way of his. “Who’s doing your heavy lifting, Allay?”
“I’m her bodyguard,” Theo said assertively.
“No, you’re not,” I told him.
Revel’s amusement was clear. “So you’ve finally acquired a staff. Well, it’s about time.” He saw me tighten my lips, and he quickly waved a finger. “Bring her down here.”
Revel’s signature was tingling very strongly. Either he had just fed, or he was excited by our arrival. He led us down the steps and through the galley. Huge double doors were opened with a slight flourish by Ki. Inside was a two-story-high reception room with a coffered ceiling supported by square wooden columns and a formal arrangement of antique furniture. A vast expanse of maroon rug was monogrammed with a huge GF in the center, about as pretentious as you could get. I thought the four windows along one wall were the best part, offering a breathtaking view over the tops of the intervening town houses toward Central Park. The mass of leaves spread out, flashing silver and green in the afternoon breeze.
Theo laid Shock down on a brocade sofa. I sat down next to Shock, keeping myself between her and Revel just in case he got any ideas.
Revel shooed Ki out, then took his time settling himself on a nearby chair. He was eyeing Theo as if trying to figure him out. Theo wasn’t giving anything away. He stood at Shock’s feet, his hands clasped in front of him and his legs braced apart, watching me instead of Revel.
There was no way I could explain my past with Revel to Theo. I had first met Revel within weeks of returning home from the insane asylum, when he was posing as Jacques Fortunay. I was sneaking out of my parents’ house at night, unable to sleep, and scammed my way into all kinds of Hol lywood and Beverly Hills nightclubs and parties, making myself look more glamorous and beautiful. “Jacques” was exotic and exciting with his European background, a big art collector who lived in a Malibu beach house—every California girl’s dream. The tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I was with him sealed the deal.
Revel soon told me that he was a demon, too, and I was so infatuated with him and happy to find another of my kind that I didn’t even care that he had lied to me. He showed me how to survive, teaching me self-defense moves and enrolling me in my first Aikido class to make sure I could protect myself when he wasn’t around. He explained the origin of modern demons to me: Vex was born from Bedlam around AD 300 and Glory some fifty years later, when the Roman Empire still ruled both the Eastern and Western world. But the demons were kept locked in coffinlike boxes by Bedlam, ready to be consumed when he needed to regenerate himself. Together, Vex and Glory broke free and killed Bedlam; without th
e ancient demon controlling the emperors, the great empire soon split apart and fell to the invading tribes of the north.
Since Plea was a Vex demon, that meant I was, too. When I’d found out that Plea had been Revel’s offspring, I realized he was the same as the man in Plea’s memories. The memories of him were the only ones I could stand, and Revel taught me how to block the rest out at will. He explained demonhood so reasonably, taking a soothing philosophical view born of his thousand years of experience. Were demons really cast out of heaven by God? Were we brothers to the angels as some claimed? Or was our existence a physiological function of quantum physics and the human body? We might even be aliens from another world living as parasites on humanity.
I didn’t realize it then, but Vex was laying his claim on me, keeping all the other demons away by sending his most loyal people to form a protective screen around me, giving Revel time to seduce me. When I begged to meet another demon, Revel took me to see Mellow, an innocuous fellow who lived in Venice Beach and worked as a masseur. I was shocked to discover that the tingly feeling I felt around Revel wasn’t love; it was his energy signature. The sensation that Mellow evoked in me was like being stroked; my eyes wanted to close as I drifted away.
Revel didn’t know how much that shook my faith in him. My gut wasn’t really telling me that he was the man for me. But I still trusted him, and believed he was my salvation.
I didn’t bother to graduate from high school. Maybe some girls could be possessed by a demon and keep up their GPA, but I wasn’t one of them. Instead, I moved into Revel’s beach house in spite of my parents’ protests. I stopped returning their calls.
I was a girl when I met him and a woman by the end of the summer. Revel was ruled by sensation, as were all demons, but he indulged in the more sensuous passions. He had been born after the demon Storm overfed on a young nun who wallowed in religious visions; but since hysterics were few and far between since the Middle Ages, he had learned to make do with the more common ecstasy of sex.
He was openly bisexual, the consummate exhibitionist and voyeur, and orgies seemed to spring up around him naturally. I had indulged in all sorts of erotic explorations with his encouragement. To my knowledge, he hadn’t been unfaithful. He had soothed my petty jealousies and seemed to truly love me.
It finally unraveled when Revel planned to return to New York that fall. He asked me to come with him. Living in the city sounded glamorous and freeing. I had to get away from LA to put some distance between myself and my past life, which was still going on exactly the same as if I had never existed.
The day before we left, Revel insisted that I attend my Aikido class. I wanted to blow it off like a typical teenager. “You need it,” he kept saying. “If a demon attacks you when I’m not around, you won’t be able to defend yourself.”
Exasperated, I had brushed him off, saying, “I pushed that demon off Plea before I was turned. Now I’m much stronger. I can take care of myself.”
“You were just lucky that sand was so slippery. That’s why you were able—” Revel broke off, realizing he’d said too much.
It was his own reaction that made me realize what he’d said. “I never told you that.”
“You must have,” he insisted, but it was weak.
Revel had refused to say more, so I was forced to go through the whole dreary charade of figuring out the truth myself. In the end, I went to Mellow, who revealed what the others already knew—Revel was the demon who had attacked Plea.
He was the reason I had been possessed. He had tried to kill Plea, his own offspring. Some demons consumed their own offspring immediately at birth, and some actually overloaded on energy on purpose every two hundred years, birthing their own pet demon to consume. The thought repulsed me, like eating babies.
But Revel had hunted down Plea when she was several centuries old. Years later Shock told me it had been revenge. She was the one who would know.
Needless to say, there was an ugly scene after I found out. I screamed and cried, but Revel never lost his cool. That more than anything told me what I needed to know: He didn’t care about me; he just wanted to control me.
He had seduced me because Vex ordered him to. It was all a lie. He had done it to get me to move to New York and live under Vex’s protection. He had manipulated me as though I meant nothing to him.
Now I was finally asking for his help, and Revel acted as if he always knew this day would come. But I wasn’t playing one of his games. “Could you keep Shock here and take care of her until I find a safe place for us? And promise you won’t tell anyone about it?”
“Why? Did that shack of yours finally burn down?”
“For all intents and purposes, yes.”
Revel shifted his eyes to Theo, saying discreetly, “You’re not giving me much to go on, Allay.”
“I’m not giving you anything—except a promise that if you hurt Shock, I’ll kill you.”
He hesitated, but I held firm. I didn’t want his help contingent on how much I told him. Revel was notorious for his information network of human and demon spies; he always knew what was going on, and he shared that information to get more. I wasn’t going to have my troubles become his currency. He had to agree on my terms, or at worst I could move Shock from hotel to hotel until I figured out an alternative.
“Allay,” Revel chided with a mocking smile, “there’s no need for threats between us. Of course I’ll take care of Shock. I would do that for Shock’s sake, if not yours.”
I was relieved, but I couldn’t quite manage to thank the bastard. I wouldn’t kowtow to him, not in any way. He needed to respect me in order to fear the consequences of hurting Shock.
Revel went to the door and pushed a button, murmuring a request. As he returned across the expanse of rug, a burly man appeared. “Bring Shock to the Green Room.” Turning to me, he said, “Come along and you’ll see that we’ll take care of her properly.” To Theo, he added, “You can stay here.”
Theo stiffened, but I needed to be able to speak honestly to Revel. “Do you mind waiting, Theo? I’ll be right back.”
“Of course,” he said, taking a step back to let the security guard pick up Shock. Her head lolled.
I glanced back at Theo as I followed Revel out of the room. It was an awful thing, but he was my canary in a coal mine. If something happened to him, I would know that it wasn’t safe here for Shock. Unfortunately, all I had now was the word of a pathological liar.
8
Through the door in the corner of the ornate reception room, there was a spiral stairway leading up to a long hallway to our right. Two young people in shorts at the top of the stairs were arguing good-naturedly about when they were going to play a game of tennis.
As I followed Revel down the hall, we passed another living room, more intimate in scale. A young coed was reading in one deep window seat, and a guy who couldn’t be much older was playing a handheld video game in the other. The wood smelled of old-fashioned beeswax, and I imagined there was a sea of white-coated servants working feverishly behind closed doors to maintain this place.
At the end was a long wall of tempered glass, with shouts and laughter echoing inside. Several naked people were splashing in the lap pool, which was paved in tiny glass tiles of blue, green, and white. A mural bordered the pool; a vast expanse of golden countryside dotted with cypress trees and vineyards.
Down another short hallway was a pretty guest room of modest proportions, with a pale green rug and bedspread, and white satin wallpaper. It was probably one of the more ordinary rooms in the penthouse.
Revel dismissed the guard with a wave. “I’ll send one of my harem to feed her. Michelle has a toothache; that should be to Shock’s taste. Or maybe I should send her a boy—she’s hopelessly heterosexual.”
Maybe he was trying to remind me of the few bisexual experiences I had shared along with him. But those days were ruined, though he acted as if I were silly for thinking that way. “Just feed her, Revel. And don’t let an
yone get to her. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?”
There was no doubt in my mind—I needed to see Vex. I needed to know whether Shock and I were still under his protection. I needed to find out if Dread was behind these attacks on her. “I’m going to see Vex.”
He dropped his flippant tone. “What for?”
“You think I’m going to confide in you?” I let out a short laugh.
“You should, you know. Listen, I’ll tell you what I’ve heard. Shock birthed another demon, and the rumor is that she had him at your bar. Petrify was last seen near the New Jersey docks. If he was smart, he grabbed a slow boat to Taiwan. I have reports that Pique was on his tail, but nobody’s caught sight of him since.”
“Pique again,” I repeated grimly. “Who is he? Where did he come from?”
“Nobody knows. Nobody’s claimed him.” Revel seemed very interested. “Pique isn’t talking. The first sighting of him was on the west side of Manhattan a few weeks ago.”
“He must belong to somebody. He’s been hunting around my bar a lot. And last night he attacked me, right on the street in front of everyone. He would have killed me if it weren’t for that man out there.”
Anger flashed over Revel’s face. “I told you that bar isn’t safe, Allay! You should have security around you at all times.”
I didn’t want to get into that again. But his reaction seemed genuine, which surprised me. He was always calculating cause and effect; he didn’t usually get this upset unless he was putting on an act. And this wasn’t an act; I could sense his frustrated concern without even touching him.
Suddenly I did want to confide in him. I was trusting him with Shock’s life. I had to make sure he was on my side. “It gets even worse. Today a demon got inside my apartment—twice—and both times I didn’t sense him. He’s the one who attacked Shock. When he didn’t kill her the first time, he came back to finish her off.”
That made him pause. “Shock doesn’t fit the profile.”
