Inner Demon

by Jocelynn Drake

  “Are you okay?” My voice was like brittle autumn leaves, cracking and breaking at the slightest touch.

  She nodded, slowly easing back onto her stool. “You?”

  “Getting there.” I still didn’t feel up for standing, but I needed to get up and move.

  “What was that?”

  Fear rippled through me. There was no mistaking it. “Death Magic.”

  “What? What’s that?” she asked and I was surprised. The elves were a long-­lived race. I was sure that she would have heard of it. Of course, the Summer Court was the least likely to use something like that since they so highly valued life. Maybe she didn’t know about it because it was something that had never touched their lives.

  “A dark kind of magic.” Reaching up, I grabbed the edge of the counter and pulled myself back to my feet. I stood still, swaying a bit as the last of the dizziness and nausea started to fade. “I’ve been tracking this killer for the Towers the past ­couple of weeks with Gideon. It’s why I’ve been away so much. We’re trying to catch this bastard before he destroys more ­people.”

  “Is this the same person who killed Kyle?”

  I shook my head, a part of me wishing they were the same person just so I didn’t have to find a way to catch two lunatics. “No.”

  “You need to go?” Trixie said it as a question, but it didn’t feel that way. We needed to talk more. To work out this issue she was having with my use of magic, but it had become obvious that we were just going around in circles. Maybe it would be best if we just walked away right now so that we could both cool off and think clearly. Truth be told, I was beginning to wonder if I could think clearly being so close to one of Zyrus’s doorways. I hadn’t thought the demon could influence me, but the creature’s emotions were starting to tangle with mine and that couldn’t be a good thing.

  “I need to catch this asshole before he hurts more ­people,” I said, careful not to add that this killer was now in Low Town and things were on the cusp of getting nasty if he found the other killer stalking innocent women.

  “It’s okay. Go. I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

  I hesitated, staring down at the wide-­eyed elf who was still too pale. For a moment, I thought about loosening the bonds on Zyrus so that it could protect the first floor of the tattoo parlor and watch over Trixie, but it was far too dangerous. I couldn’t trust the demon to properly guard her and I doubted the elf would welcome the protection of a demon.

  Trixie’s safety had become a tenuous thing. A demon was an easy answer as nothing could stop the creature but me. Yet, there was a tiny voice in the back of my head that was slowly getting louder. It was saying that Trixie and the baby would be safest with her own ­people. But I shoved that voice back down into the darkness.

  Trixie couldn’t leave me. There would be nothing left of me without her.

  Chapter 5

  The street was silent as the sun sank toward the horizon, casting long shadows across the snow-­crusted lawns. A crisp, bitter wind swept through the neighborhood, rattling the bare tree branches and reminding me that I was an idiot for not pausing long enough to grab my coat, though I was beginning to think that I had left it in the Towers rather than the parlor. Damn, my mind was anywhere but where I needed it to be.

  Prior to leaving Asylum, I slapped on a cloaking spell to hide my sudden appearance from the normal residents of Low Town, but it wouldn’t have hidden me from the person working the Death Magic. I didn’t have anything in my bag of tricks that would help me on that front. Gideon and I had been two steps behind this asshole for too long. Now that he was in Low Town we had to act fast, which meant there wasn’t time for fancy Towers suits or better cloaking spells. I was just grateful that I had started carrying my wand with me at all times.

  My heart stopped upon arrival. The neighborhood reminded me too much of where my parents lived. I knew the tracking spell had taken me to the north side of Low Town, but I couldn’t have told you my exact location. Twisting around, I took in the street of two-­story brick homes and evergreen shrubs, willing my heart to slow down. It wasn’t my parents’ street. The killer wasn’t close to my family. Relief made me light-­headed while my hands shook from something other than the cold. It was enough that I was constantly worried about Trixie. I didn’t need something new to throw on the fire.

  Farther down the street, a car rumbled to life, the sound echoing off the buildings before it pulled sharply from the curb and headed away from me. I reached out, sensing the air, but the magical energy didn’t follow the car, so I didn’t think it was possible that the killer was escaping that way. The tang of death was heavy. I was hoping that I had acted quickly enough and he was still here.

  Crossing to the sidewalk, I crunched through the frozen snow. The cold bit at my fingers and I fought the urge to shove them into my pockets. I needed my hands free if I suddenly found myself faced with the killer. Without Gideon at my back, I felt like I was at a distinct disadvantage against this insane fucker.

  The thickest concentration of the energy was only a few houses down from where I’d arrived. It wasn’t as bad as when Trixie and I were initially hit at Asylum, but it was heavier than either of the times Gideon and I had shown up at the other two locations. My stomach lurched and churned, trying to force out its contents, while my heart hammered in my chest. An aching throb had started in my temples, threatening to split my skull. Whatever this magic was, it didn’t agree with my own magical inclinations and body chemistry.

  A ripple of energy slipped down the street from behind me and I jerked around, my feet nearly slipping out from beneath me on a patch of ice. Gideon stood in the middle of the street, his cloak waving around him like a pair of ebony wings. The warlock looked pale in the fading light, probably feeling just as shitty as I did. Prior to the great revelation of this past summer, I had always thought that the warlock spent most of his time in his assigned Tower, but I was coming to the understanding that he actually spent the majority of his time here in Low Town to keep a close eye on me as well as to be close to his family.

  Gideon took an unsteady step forward, his wand clenched in his left hand while his other hand was open and held out before him as if feeling the waves of energy shifting through the air. It actually took him a few seconds to notice me. At first, I would have been little more than a waver in the air before he pushed the cloaking spell aside to reveal a ghost-­like image of myself.

  Dropping his hands to his sides, he swiftly closed the distance between us. “You weren’t going to wait for me?” he inquired, looking around at the nearest houses.

  “Neither were you,” I pointed out.

  The warlock gave a nearly imperceptible shrug of his narrow shoulders. “I was confident that you would catch up.” He paused and looked over at me, frowning. “Though I thought you’d at least have the sense to change clothes.”

  I grunted and continued down the block, heading toward the house from where the magic emanated. “I didn’t want to waste the time. We’ve been too close and just missed him.” A large two-­story Georgian-­style redbrick house with dark evergreen shutters rose up in the middle of the block. The front windows were dark, but dim light glowed from the back of the house, possibly the kitchen, and was leaking down the main hall. “Besides, we’re still in Low Town. Someone could recognize me.”

  “If anyone happens to see us together, I promise to knock you around,” Gideon said with a little smirk. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your precious cover.”

  “Fuck you,” I growled as I stepped around the smug warlock and walked up to the front of the house. I was just ready to get this done. I knew there was no chance of Trixie and I finishing our discussion until we were both done working for the night, but it would be nice to go back to her with news that at least one psychopath had been stopped.

  The house looked empty. Of course, if the killer had murdered everyone on the premises
like he did the last time, then the place would look empty.

  “Do you know where the local nests are located?”

  I shook my head. “One of them is on the west side, but I don’t know about the other one.” Vampires were notoriously secretive about where they slept during the day. But then, if you burned away to ash in the sun and were significantly weaker during the day, you’d be a little paranoid too.

  Gideon swore under his breath, taking another look around the silent street. “We’ll just be cautious then. No magic if you can help it.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Gideon glared at me for a second as he tucked his wand back up his right sleeve. “You take the back door. I’ll go in the front. We’ll search from bottom to top.”

  With a little wave of my hand, I started around the side of the house, heading toward the gate in the six-­foot wooden privacy fence that lined the backyard. The fucker had picked a pricy neighborhood in which to settle. He couldn’t have spent much time here because the neighbors would have definitely noticed something strange going on in the house. It had been my experience that the more money a person had, the more attention they paid to what their neighbors were doing. Or maybe that was just the neighborhood my family lived in when I was a kid, living in an upper-­middle-­class subdivision littered with houses just like this one. You couldn’t sneak out of your bedroom window without someone being there to call your mom two minutes later.

  The gate creaked as I pulled it open on frozen metal hinges. At the same time, a security light flashed on, flooding the back lawn and stone patio with harsh white light. I blinked a ­couple times, my eyes adjusting to the bright glare after walking for so long in the fading afternoon light.

  A high-­pitched laugh drew my eyes to a tall, thin man seated on the swing of a child’s playground set. He had hair as white as snow and his skin had a strange gray cast to it. His lank, stringy hair fell forward, covering most of his face, but one glimpse of his eyes revealed madness burning in their liquid black depths.

  “I can seeeeee you, warlock,” he called in a singsong voice. Using his feet, he pushed off the frozen ground, swinging slowly while his bare hands gripped the metal chains on either side of him.

  “Who are you?” I took a ­couple cautious steps into the yard while letting the gate close behind me. Was I finally faced with the madman who had been slaughtering ­people as he traveled north? He certainly didn’t look as if he was in his right mind. Could the Death Magic have driven him insane? There had to be a chance of that, but then didn’t you have to be insane to kill children in order to raise the dead?

  “You’ve been following me,” he continued. His voice had a strange melody to it, as if it would be extremely pleasing if it weren’t entirely creepy at the same time.

  “You’re the psychopath who has been murdering those children.”

  The white-­haired man cocked his head to the side so that his eyes were completely covered, but I wasn’t willing to bet that he was blind. “Psychopath? That’s not a nice word. But warlocks aren’t very nice. You’ve killed so many.”

  “Like you.”

  His laughter rang out, echoing through the silent neighborhood. There was a sickening child-­like innocence to that sound, which twisted in my stomach. The man kicked his feet out and lay back as he swung higher. His white hair fanned out behind him in a cascade of starlight, shining in the glare cast by the security light.

  I pulled some magical energy together, preparing to defend myself. I didn’t know where Gideon was in the house, but the warlock would realize that I hadn’t entered yet and would come looking for me. Right? He was my backup. And I was going to fucking need it. This guy was definitely not human. He wasn’t an elf, a siren, an incubus, or a shifter.

  “No need for that, warlock,” he called as he straightened, his hair falling back over his face when he leaned forward. “I’m not going to kill you yet. I need you alive to see my final creation. My moment of triumph.”

  “But maybe I’d rather see you dead now,” I muumbled before sending out a debilitating spell meant to incapacitate the fucker but keep him awake for questioning. One of the few spells I’d picked up from Simon during my studies.

  The madman laughed again, the sound like needles prickling along my arms. The spell just washed over him as if he wasn’t even there. My heart stumbled and for the second time I wished that I felt more secure in having Zyrus watch my back, because it would know what I was faced with.

  Gideon! I mentally reached out for the other warlock.

  “Calling for help?” he taunted with a soft giggle.

  “What are you planning?” I demanded, hoping to distract him long enough for Gideon to join me.

  “Oh, I can’t tell that now. It would ruin the wonderful surprise.”

  “Never been a fan of surprises myself.”

  “No, warlocks aren’t.” The man’s voice changed suddenly, becoming cold and biting like a sharpened blade slicing through the fatty tissue around your stomach. The singsong mocking was gone. “You don’t like anything you can’t control and manipulate.”

  “No, we don’t,” I said, grinning broadly at him. The boiling anger that lay just below the surface was something I could use. If I could get him pissed, then I might be able to get him to make a mistake. Lord knows I’d done that often enough in my life.

  “Your time is coming. We’re going to destroy you all,” he snarled.

  I gave an indifferent shrug. “And who is ‘we’? The Towers have got a lot of enemies.”

  The man chuckled. It had become a low and ugly sound as it tumbled across the lawn toward me. “But that would be giving away the surprise.” And then it was like he’d flipped a switch. His high-­pitched laughter returned as he started swinging again. “Nice trick, warlock, but you’re not going to get me.” His singsong voice had me clenching my teeth.

  At the sound of the back door opening, the man was consumed in a brilliant flash of white light. When I could finally see again, an enormous white owl was perched on the wooden beam that held the swing. The owl watched me and Gideon, who was now standing on the patio just past the back door of the house, and then the owl extended his massive wings and took to the air.

  I started to form a new spell that would pull the bastard back down to the ground. There was no way in hell I was going to let this prick out of my sight. I’d find a way to get some answers out of him. But I never finished the spell . . .

  A surge of raw energy blasted through the backyard, similar to what I had felt at Asylum earlier in the evening. The power of it threw me backward, tearing through the defensive spell I had erected like it was wet tissue paper. Pain exploded in my spine as I slammed into the wooden fence. Boards creaked and splintered under the impact, but I didn’t go through it. I collapsed in a heap in the yard, my face down in the dirt and snow. My organs clenched and burned while my brain felt like it was melting in my skull. My cheeks were wet, but I couldn’t tell if I was crying in pain or if my eyes were bleeding.

  It took all my energy to roll partially onto my side so that I could throw up without choking on my own vomit. When I had flushed both the coffee and old pizza I’d had from my system, my stomach decided that it needed to rid itself of stomach acid and then blood. Sheer exhaustion was the only thing that finally stopped the massive purge.

  Gage. . .

  Gideon’s voice drifted weakly through my head and I cringed. He didn’t sound any better than I felt. With some effort, I rolled onto my side, curled into the fetal position as I prayed for the pain to stop.

  Promise me I’m going to die, I sent back to the warlock. I hurt so bad in more ways than my brain could comprehend. I just couldn’t accept the idea of living much longer with this pain.

  You will . . . if you don’t tap into the magic around you.

  “Good,” I whispered. There was an end in sight.<
br />
  Do it, Gage. Pull in just a little energy. You’ll feel better. It helps.

  I lay there. The pain was growing worse instead of subsiding. My bones were being slowly ground into dust and my lungs weren’t pulling in enough air. I couldn’t catch my breath. Too much pain. It was burning through me. I just wanted it over.

  Tap the magic. Or do you want that killer hunting Trixie?

  Gideon’s comment was barely enough to snap me out of my wallowing. Clenching my teeth, I released my last breath and opened up the little door inside of me that allowed the energy to flow in. Gideon lied. It made the pain hundred times worse.

  I screamed. My legs jerked straight out and my back bowed off the ground, but the energy rushed in. I gasped, sucking in my first deep breath since being hit. My heart pumped and life flowed through my body, shoving out the dark magic that the bastard had hit me with.

  It felt like I was on the ground, covered in sweat, tears, and blood for hours, but only a few minutes passed. My arms trembled when I pushed myself into a sitting position and looked around. The yard was a little darker now that the strange man was gone. Gideon had made it to his feet, but he didn’t look all that steady as he leaned against the side of the house. He was ashen and his face was streaked with what was probably both sweat and tears.

  “What the fuck was that?” My voice sounded like I’d been gargling broken glass for cheap thrills. With a grunt, I pushed myself to my feet and immediately fell back against the fence when the world violently shifted around me.

  “The bastard forced the Death Magic into us. The energy was trying to take over our bodies. It would have killed us.”

  “And then what? Zombies?”

  “Don’t know. Possibly.”

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing while my mind turned over the bastard who had tried to turn me into a brain-­munching, shambling horror show. He’d appeared pretty confident that he wouldn’t kill me, but I couldn’t agree with him. If Gideon hadn’t known what to do, I would have been quite content to let the Death Magic consume me in the hopes of death relieving my pain.