Devil May Care: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 2)

by DaCosta, Pippa

  Things were still at the light-hearted let’s-check-each-other-out stage, but I knew they could turn sour at the wrong word or gesture. My human senses were beginning to sound all sorts of alarm bells. I knew demons. I’d spent the majority of my life among them. Something about her felt different and not in a good way.

  I held her gaze, watching a smile writhe across her lips. To her, I was little more than a bug. She might even have been considering squishing me, but she probably also mulled over the chances of the Enforcers finding out.

  “Are you a cop?” She leaned closer.

  “Not exactly. I don’t want any trouble. I just need some help.”

  “How about you tell me your name?” The tip of her tongue slid across her lips.

  A lie could get me killed as quickly as fear. My intentions here were amiable, and intentions are key when negotiating with demons. “My name is Muse.”

  A single eyebrow jumped, and the corner of her lips hooked up. “Oh.” She threw a glance over my shoulder before dragging her attention back to me. “I can help you.”

  I didn’t dare turn around to see what or who she’d been looking at. This was between me and her. “What’s your name?”

  “Carol-Anne.” She extended her delicate hand. I took it in mine and winced as she clamped her fingers closed. “Nice to meet you, Muse.” She grinned, flashing perfectly white teeth behind blood-red lips.

  I followed her through the crowd, acutely aware of eyes turning on me as we walked. So far, so good. I was still alive and hadn’t yet had to prove I could cut it among the killers. Had this been the netherworld, I’d have been fighting for my life from the start. Thankfully, things are done a little differently on this side of the veil.

  Carol-Anne invited me to sit in a mezzanine lounge suspended above the crowd. It was no coincidence that we looked down on the heaving throng of customers. Intention, remember. Demons have a purpose for everything. This balcony view was a declaration of status on her part. She either owned this club or was among the higher echelons of those who did.

  Draping her body in the corner of a plush couch, she patted the cushion beside her and crossed her legs. “Sit.”

  We were alone and tucked out of sight. She could quite easily dispatch of me without anyone ever knowing. I’d disappear. No family for the Institute to send a note to thanking them for their sacrifice. Just poof. Gone.

  “Sit,” she said again, this time more forcefully.

  I perched on the edge of the couch cushion, angled so I could leap up and dash down the stairs. Maybe I was being paranoid, but half demons who weren’t paranoid were already dead.

  As satisfied as a cat curled on its favorite cushion, she blinked slowly. “I know who you are, Muse. Nobody forgets a name like that. Named by your old owner, I hear. As though you inspired him. Is that right?”

  Not many demons knew that. “It’s true.”

  “What is it about you that could inspire, I wonder?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised.”

  Her laughter trickled through the air like water in a brook. “I’m sure I would be. Tell me, Muse, why are you here?”

  “There’s a demon doctor around here, goes by the name of Jeremiah, or Jerry. I need to speak with him.”

  “Why?”

  The music and the noise from the crowd rose and fell below us like the sound of waves crashing on a beach, but they could have been a million miles away. Our little suspended corner of the club felt comfortable, close, and homey, the sort of place you’d curl up with a good book. Whatever power she had, it worked on me, easing beneath my mental armor and evicting my concerns.

  “That’s between Jerry and me.”

  She grinned. “Jerry answers to me. If you want something from him, you come through me. He’s also very precious. Demons are often mistreated at hospitals. They don’t know whether to patch us up or call a priest. Plus, our kind has a tendency to… lash out when misunderstood. Jerry is a valuable asset, not just to me, but for the entire demon community. I will not have him put in harm’s way, and given your history, I’m inclined to protect him...from you.”

  It was my turn to smile. “I’m not all bad.”

  Her grin faded, and her eyes cooled. “Half-blood turned Enforcer? You’re about as bad as they get. You’ll be lucky to leave here alive unless I escort you out.”

  Oh. I pinched my lips closed. “Look, I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I need his help.”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  I only had the clothes on my back and about five dollars in my pocket to bargain with. There was something else... I closed my hand around the jet-injector in my pocket—PC34—and plucked it from my pocket. The size of a spool of thread, it didn’t look like much, but it packed a devastating punch. A quick jab to exposed flesh, and the demon who found themselves on the receiving end would soon be face down in the dirt.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Her eyes widened, and her tongue darted across her lips.

  “Just the one.” She reached out a hand. I pulled back. “Take me to Jerry, and you can have it.”

  Carol-Anne’s eyes narrowed, and something liquid swirled in her irises. “You have a deal.”

  * * *

  It had rained while I’d been inside the Voodoo Lounge. The club’s garish neon lights reflected in the parking lot puddles. The rain had since stopped, replaced by a foggy drizzle swirling around the streetlights. I tucked my hands into my pockets and walked beside Carol-Anne. She stepped around potholes, her dainty stilettos staying dry. My boots didn’t warrant such careful footwork.

  I dropped behind her as we crossed the parking lot and passed between two panel vans. The van door to my right slid open. I snapped my head up, caught sight of the two heavies in the back, and tried to lurch away. A gnarled hand struck out and wrapped around my upper arm. A fractured cry of alarm puffed from my mouth as he dragged me off my feet and into the back of the van. Another hand smothered my nose and mouth. I tried to bite down, but a strip of duct tape pressed across my mouth. I reached for my gun and felt their hands riding roughshod over me. My fingers fumbled against the grip. The gun snatched away, leaving my fingers stinging.

  I lashed, kicked, thrashed, and bucked. My heel crunched against something semi-soft and I heard one of the men curse.

  “For hells-sake, she’s half the size of you two.” Carol-Anne loomed in the van’s doorway. Her impressive Cosmopolitan Magazine silhouette rippled in the low light as it peeled away to reveal her true appearance. The gray-skinned demon stood maybe six feet, her body elongated, limbs gangly, ribs protruding. Her fingers were narrow talons, like crabs’ legs. Water bubbled up through open pores and trickled over her flesh. Great, a water elemental. And there I was without my demon.

  She slammed her hand into my chest and pinned me down between her two henchmen. Her rigid lips parted. Rows of piranha-like teeth bristled in her mouth. A fin fanned down her back, its barbed points dripping a viscous substance.

  I tensed to kick, but she wrapped her spindly fingers around my thigh.

  “It’s in her pocket,” she gurgled. Water dribbled from her lips and splattered onto my chest.

  I tried to buck again, but my arms were pinned to the van floor. I couldn’t move. All I could do was glare, and I made damn sure Carol-Anne read my intentions in my eyes.

  She laughed, a tinkling wet sound like water bubbling from a tap. “What a disappointment you turned out to be.”

  Calling my demon did nothing. I hadn’t really expected her to come, but it was worth a try, considering my element’s behavior the night before.

  One of her guys found the injector. She snatched it from him with a liquescent cry. “Tie her up. She’s another’s property. He’ll want her back.”

  Panic flushed through my veins. Did she mean Damien? Adrenalin sparked off all number of instinctual fight or flight reactions. My element finally came, rolling out of the dark void inside me like a backdraft devouring the insides of a
building. In one great heave of chaotic energy, fire burst over my skin and ignited the two men flanking me. Their screams fuelled my fury.

  Carol-Anne recoiled. The air quivered with heat and vaporized her liquid sheen. Her gray skin tightened around her bones like shrink wrap. Steam bellowed between us. All of my demon came then. She thundered toward me, a heaving malevolent darkness bursting from obscurity to expand every cell in my human body with her hunger. The pressure of her rising up severed my grip on reality. She evicted my humanity with one backhanded mental blow. My conscious thoughts fell back. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did; she tore through me with no regard for my sanity. It was wrong. We were one and the same, but she came at me—through me—as though I was the enemy.

  My one ruined wing burst from my back and stretched outward to butt up against the van roof. My demon embraced my body with flames, superimposing her smoldering flesh over mine, blurring the lines between my normal appearance and hers. She devoured the fragility of my body, driving steel rods of power through my body.

  I swung my glare toward the wide-eyed Carol-Anne as the tape over my mouth melted away. I could kill her. The demon in me, she wanted it. Death. Destruction. Chaos. But it wouldn’t stop there. She wanted them all dead. Everyone. Everything. I felt her summon warmth from the buildings around us and the earth below us. If I didn’t rein her in, she’d call it all, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could stop her from using it. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

  I sprang from the back of the van and slammed into Carol-Anne, knocking her back against the other van. She wailed as flames burned across her skin. Torrential rain began to pound us from above. It fizzled and hissed against my sweltering flesh.

  I wrapped my hand around her throat and squeezed. My wing stretched high behind me, funneling the fire skyward. “Take. Me. To. Jerry.” I snapped each word through clenched teeth while desperately clinging on to the one tiny thread of control I had left.

  She nodded.

  I released her and stumbled away. Burn them. Burn it all.

  My whole life, I’d walked a line; it’s called control. Sometimes, it was obscured by so much emotional debris, I could barely see it, but it was always there. If you understand that chaos, by its very definition, is uncontrollable, then you’ll realize the line was everything to me. If I stepped off, just for a second, the lure of chaos would sink its claws in, and I’d be free. Chaos desires freedom. It abhors control. I couldn’t afford to let it win.

  I splayed both hands on the roof of the nearest car. Fire flowed through me, cascading down my arms and into the metal. The roof buckled, sagged, and melted. Once the interior caught, fire roared from the windows and licked higher. I let it all go, let it wash through me, out of me. It was that or swallow the energy back into myself, and given the state of my demon, I wasn’t sure she’d let me live through that.

  Only when I’d spent the chaos and the car was fully ablaze, could I regain some measure of composure. I very delicately packed my demon away, back inside her mental box. Regaining control felt like clinging to the edge of a cliff. A crazy urge to let go came over me, that same crazy voice that sometimes wondered what it would be like to drive a car off a cliff or jump from a tall building. You know the trip only ends one way, but it might just be worth it. The voice, her voice, my voice, it wanted me to let go.

  By the time my demon retreated from my skin and the flames around me died, I’d stepped away from the blaze and was ready to collapse from exertion. Carol-Anne watched me closely. Back in her woman-suit, she brushed a spec of soot from her shoulder and humphed something like reluctant admiration. She wouldn’t press my buttons again unless I revealed a weakness. Considering my buttons were my weakness, the possibility of a long night ahead was a very real one.

  “I’ll have that injector back now please,” I said, surprised at the clarity of my words.

  Her two men stumbled from the back of the van, sodden clothes steaming. She returned the injector and my gun. Her gaze searched mine as the sound of sirens pierced the night. She hadn’t sensed the power in me because it hadn’t been there. She wouldn’t feel it now either. It should have been a constant presence at my core. She and I both knew that. Something was very wrong with me. I hoped Jerry had some answers.

  Chapter 11

  Jerry was not the sort of man I’d been expecting. When I’d read about a doctor who treated demons, I’d assumed he’d be the academic type, and with a name like Jerry, surely he’d be a cheery, approachable kind of guy.

  Jerry was built like a pro-wrestler. His wife-beater shirt stretched thin over obscenely butch muscles. Intricate black tattoos marked every visible inch of flesh. The markings swirled and dipped around his forearms, wove over his biceps, and rode across his shoulders. Even his face was marked. His eyes drilled through a ski-mask of symbols. Jerry did not look at all like a Jerry.

  He glared at me in such a way I felt sure he expected me to wilt and die. I blinked back at him. I’d survived a childhood of torture, faced Hellhounds, and drained a Prince of Hell. Jerry didn’t scare me. It helped that he was human, at least as far as I could tell. My senses weren’t tingling.

  “Jerry,” Carol-Anne snapped, “let us in.”

  He grunted, turned his huge bulk in the doorway, and stalked into a poor replica of a waiting room. Plastic chairs formed a neat row down one side of the room. Dog-eared magazines looked as though they’d been scattered into the room at random. The lone light bulb barely penetrated the thick gloom, and I had to wonder whether I was looking at shadows or dirt on the floor. Or maybe blood? I couldn’t smell blood, at least not beneath the stifling odor of antiseptic.

  Jerry led us into an empty examination room and flicked on the lights, bathing us in a glare so bright it made the stainless steel surfaces of the table and washbasins look brittle. Carol-Anne maintained her flawless appearance, her skin mannequin smooth. I could only imagine what I looked like. Haggard and edgy probably.

  “What’s she?” Jerry’s bass voice rumbled against my rib cage. He jerked a thumb at me and leaned back against the polished steel work surface, avoiding eye contact.

  “A puzzle.” Carol-Anne skewed her liquid eyes at me. “A half-blood with some control issues.”

  Jerry’s eyebrows jumped, an expression which I took to be one of surprise, and then he gave me an up-and-down visual assessment, taking in my unassuming appearance. “A half-blood?”

  The depth of his rumbling voice curled and teased its way beneath my façade of resilience and planted seeds of uncertainty about good ol’ Jerry.

  He folded his stout arms over his chest. “Well aren’t you somethin’... How are you hiding your power?”

  “I’m not.” My voice sounded high and prickly compared to his. “Let’s get something straight. I’m not an easy morsel you can chew up and spit out, as Carol-Anne here will testify, so don’t get any funny ideas. I don’t want trouble. I just want to know if you can help.”

  As I spoke, his smile grew until he practically beamed at me. “You’re the half-blood they’re looking for.”

  “Yes.” There were others like me, but they were few and far between. Half-bloods are generally killed at birth or sold as playthings to lesser demons. Few survive into adulthood, and those who do are usually damaged beyond repair. Stefan had been the only other half-blood I’d ever met.

  Jerry’s chuckle rolled out of him and flowed through the room like a melody. If he wasn’t demon, he sure as hell was something because his laughter disarmed my instincts with impossible ease. I found myself liking him. Hell, I was about ready to roll over and let him tickle my belly. Resisting the urge to melt into a pool at his feet, I flicked my hair back and planted a hand on my hip, setting my face into a scowl. “What are you?” I grumbled.

  “A vet.”

  Laughter lodged in my throat. “A vet?” I coughed into my hand. “Really?”

  “And other things. But mostly a vet.” He seemed aware of how ludicrous it sounded because those penetrat
ing eyes sparkled with silent laughter. “So, half-blood, what do you want from me?”

  “Call me Muse.”

  His smile died a slow languishing death on his lips, and the laughter snuffed out of his eyes. “Muse. Holy-hell. You’re the half-blood who ruined the Prince of Greed.” He shot a look to Carol-Anne. “You brought her here?”

  “She didn’t leave me much of a choice. Plus she has something for you.” She gave me an encouraging nod.

  I wondered about how he’d described what I’d done to Akil. Ruined seemed like an odd word. I’d drained him and kicked his ass back to hell, but ruined? Did he imply Akil was still around but was somehow desolate? I hadn’t considered what had become of him. I told myself I didn’t care. But Jerry’s definition picked at a mental scab, threatening to peel it off and reveal my fear that Akil was plotting his revenge. Jerry and Carole-Anne were watching me, waiting for me to reveal my trump card. I filed thoughts of Akil away for later and held out the injector. Jerry’s eyes widened.

  “PC-Thirty-Four,” I said. “I’ve had this crap in my veins for over six months, and it’s playing havoc with my demon. I’m sick of waiting for the Institute to free me, and events have... forced my hand. So I’m here, talking to you, to see if we can...work something out.”

  Jerry dragged his hand across his chin then scratched at his cheek. “You’re a hot potato right now, Muse. I could hand you over to half a dozen named demons, and I’d be generously rewarded. Reckon you’re on the run from the Institute too?”

  I’d put money on those demons he mentioned being my owner and possibly Akil, not to mention demons that just wanted me dead for breathing, oh—and my charming immortal brother. Have I mentioned him? Form an orderly queue to kill the half-blood.

  “You could try.” I flicked a glance at Carol-Anne, who pursed her lips. “But I don’t think you want it known you’re the type to talk. Demons get spooked pretty easy, and all of them have secrets I bet you get to hear, right?”