“Oh, I think we both know I’m not your average Witch.”
The source of the wrongness hit me. His scent reminded me of teenaged boys, loading on strong-smelling cologne to mask their body odour. My face went cold, as if all the blood drained from it. My hands grew clammy.
Fake. The Witch scent was fake.
There, underneath, lay something else, something sweet and much more deadly. My heart punched against my rib cage, pumping so hard the throbbing echoed in my ears. I identified the smell.
Almond.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once.”
~Diane Ackerman
The Demon’s grin widened. Standing a foot away from him with no room to maneuver and nothing to separate us, the serrated details of his shiny enamel glared at me.
My fingertips tingled as I started to shift.
Not fast enough.
The Demon lunged. His long nimble fingers closed around my neck as I shot my hands out, inside his arms, and dug my claws into his face. My elbows pushed against the insides of his arms. His hold should’ve weakened, but this Demon possessed uncanny strength. His frame stretched, growing to almost eight feet in height and giving his body an emaciated appearance. He pulled me close, his nose touching mine. I wrenched to the side, but my toes dangled above the floor.
“Bola sends his regards,” he said, his breath hitting my face.
My gums stung as fangs protruded, and I hissed at him, ready to make the full change and get my fight on. I yanked on the mountain lion and spurred her into action.
“By all means, little nugget, shift into one of your animals.” He gnashed his sharp teeth together. “I love to rend the flesh of livestock, to mutilate the bodies of creatures and to smash the bones of beasts.”
Then, I got it. I stilled and released my hold on the mountain lion. The energy vibrating my skin seeped away. My brain shuttered as if jump-started by a diesel generator. He spent fifty minutes of his lecture talking about himself, taunting me. I’d been staring at the Slender Man the whole time.
The Demon squeezed my neck.
My throat constricted. Sweat beaded on my forehead and ran down my face. My skin grew hot and clammy. He was too strong. Too strong for my human form. Too strong for my mountain lion. I’d have to let the beast out. I reached down and held my breath. I’d need all my energy to keep control. The beast woke and stretched.
Over his shoulder, something large and black charged across the room. Baloo leapt over seats.
You can’t help, I told her.
She kept running, straight for us. Instead of bowling into Westman, she dove low and slammed into me. Her essence filled my body. Before any of my feras could react, she seized control and my skin stretched and snapped.
Underneath Westman, I shifted into a two hundred and fifty pound black bear. His eyes widened. I rolled and flung him off. He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the exit behind the stage.
Never run from a bear.
I barrelled into him before he reached the halfway point to the exit doors. With a deep-throated growl, I let my claws rake his back. He bellowed and flopped down beneath me. My nails dug into his flesh, and I flipped him over.
A pulsing sound vibrated from deep within my throat, and I bellowed into the Demon’s face. His expression scrunched up and drool from my muzzle splattered against his cheeks. He recoiled, and tried to squirm away. My claws dug in more, and he whimpered.
I shifted back to human form and gripped his hair in my hands. My bear, instead of retreating into my mind, dispelled herself and sat ghost-like beside me.
What the hell just happened?
Focus, Baloo said. Control the Demon.
I didn’t know what freaked me out more—what just happened with my fera or that a translucent black bear was the voice of reason.
Westman groaned beneath me. With a fistful of hair, I smacked the back of his head against the ground. “You’ll tell me what I want to know or I will do the rending. Got it?”
Westman grunted and went limp underneath me. I took that as a yes.
“Can we talk like civilized supes, or do I need to keep you pinned for your good obedience?”
“We can talk, Carus. I will no longer fight you.”
“Your word.” I bashed his head against the ground again for good measure. “I want your word.”
“I promise.”
“Be more specific.”
“I promise not to attack you or seek to harm you in any way, and will answer your questions.”
“Not good enough.”
He grunted. “I promise not to attack you or seek to harm you in any way, either directly or indirectly, and will answer all your questions fully and to the best of my ability.”
“Good.” I released him and stood up.”I can’t believe the university failed their background check on you.”
“Oh, they know,” the Demon said as he clambered to his feet.
“What?”
“Who do you think summoned me and supplies me with the Witch scent charms? How do you think I’m present in daylight?”
“That’s messed up.”
“Not at all. You’re just prejudiced.” He took a few steps back, probably to distance himself from me. The shadows lay over him like a blanket, as if he pulled them over his body. I squinted for a better look. Now that I knew he was the Slender Man, certain things stood out. His body had a distinct rope-like quality to it, his long arms appeared boneless. The shadows embraced him like a dark cloud at midnight. He had the creepy factor down, and if I’d ever woken up to find him lurking in the shadows of my bedroom, I’d have screamed like a little girl.
Now, after beating him in a fight, he just appeared weak.
I glanced down at my shredded clothes and then surveyed the room. “I need clothes.”
He pointed to the podium. In the cabinets beside it, I found some old alumni sweaters and track pants. Perfect! I clambered into them while keeping my gaze on the Demon, and my back to the wall.
“Let me guess,” I said. “One of your agreements for exiting the circle is to remain in your human form. Brilliant.”
“My human form is essentially my demonic form, only more compact. What you see, is what you get.”
“Weak?”
He snarled at me, but I ignored him. He’d threatened to rend me to pieces. I didn’t care if he thought I was a bitch.
“What did you say your name was?” I asked. “Taco Man?”
“Takkenmann, Fear Dubh, Thief of the Gods…the Slender Man. My name doesn’t matter.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t. Where’s Bola now?”
“I don’t know.”
“When is he outside of his host’s body?”
Westman hesitated.
“Do I need to bash your head against the floor again?” I asked. “When?”
He winced. “Sometimes when he feeds, but it’s not a given. He doesn’t need to take his true form.”
“How does he feed? Wait, what does he feed on?”
“He feeds on bloodshed and war. Fear, sometimes. You can find him near any location where that’s happening. Hospital is a good bet. Or you could wait until he stages his next massacre.”
Since I only found out about his demolition derbies after the fact, the latter suggestion wasn’t an option. Not to mention it meant a lot of death. “I’d rather avoid another of those.”
Westman nodded and shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“You’re not going to run, are you?”
Westman shook his head. “My deal with the institution forbids me to leave without permission.”
“Good to know. So if I have further questions, I can find you here?”
Westman nodded again.
“Why do you look so cagey?”
“I’m providing information on Bola. Do you have any idea what fate awaits me if he finds out?”
“You’re both Demons. Wouldn’t you sell
each other out for advancement? Surely, he knows I could summon one of his brethren and get information on him.” Not a bad idea.
“The Demon realm is not as simple as you think.”
About to chastise him for not providing a full answer as our deal entailed, I stopped. I didn’t have time to fully research the demonic realm. If it didn’t pertain to kicking Bola’s ass, I didn’t need to know about it right now. Time for that later.
“I’ll be in touch,” I said and walked out of the room, leaving the Demon with his shadows for company.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“As a child, my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.”
~Buddy Hackett
With plenty of day left and my ghost feras close on my heels, I barged through the SRD agent’s office doors, not caring if I took out interns, minions or the devil himself. “Donny!”
The room smelled of dust, old parchment and coyote. Nothing but trouble. My lips shut on a mouthful of floating fur, and it stuck to the back of my throat. I staggered forward and bent over in a coughing fit.
I swallowed the surprisingly tangy fur and straightened. Good thing I gave up all pretenses of professionalism already.
Donny’s coyote familiar lay on a dog bed in the corner of the room. Ma’ii’s greeting consisted of popping one eye open and flashing his teeth at me before curling up to go back to sleep.
The old man looked up from his desk with a smirk on his face. “Yes?”
“How the heck am I going to keep my sanity if I end up with the entire zoo following me around squabbling?”
“You’ve lost me.”
“After I dispel a new fera, they follow me around like transparent ghosts. And they’re chatterboxes. Way more than my first three feras.”
Baloo made some sort of mooing sound, like a cross between a howl and a roar, without any malice. She nosed the back of my leg, and I had to fight to stay upright.
Donny frowned. “You mean to tell me there’s a transparent ghost fox in the room with us right now?”
“And a black bear.”
“A black—?” Donny wheezed. He doubled over and shuddered. I stumbled forward, reaching out to help him. A heart attack, maybe? Stroke? Then he started slapping his knee. I snatched my hand back and frowned. It took me a full minute to realize the old man laughed at me. Again.
I should’ve known better. My hands flew to my hips. “It’s not funny.”
Hah, cackled Ma’ii in my head.
“Oh,” Donny gasped, “I disagree.”
I flopped in the chair on the opposite side of the desk, and a cloud of dust and fur bloomed into the air. The particles slowly fell back to the floor as I waited for Donny to finish his laughing attack. Honestly. Nothing about this situation was humorous.
O’Donnell wiped his watering eyes with his shirt sleeve and took three long breaths before he sat back and focused his attention on me. “Have you tried asking them to leave?”
“Wouldn’t I lose them forever then? I’m not about to give up parts of my soul like that.”
Donny shook his head. “You can’t lose what you’ve found. If they’re ‘ghost-like,’ maybe they have ghost-like abilities, such as dematerializing. Maybe you can send them away and then call them back when needed.”
Red and Baloo had both flashed in and out of existence already. I narrowed my eyes at the agent. “And maybe you know a little more about me than you let on, old man?”
He winked, the bastard.
Donny’s wise, like his fera, Ma’ii gloated.
I squeezed my eyes closed and gripped the armrests. If Donny couldn’t or wouldn’t help me, I was screwed. What was I going to do? I couldn’t walk around with a bulldozing bear loping behind me. Ghost-like or physical, it distracted the hell out of me. Red was easier to disregard, being smaller and less obtrusive, but Baloo acted like a battle-ax and took up entirely too much bed space.
“How much do you know about Shifter history?” Donny asked.
I shook my head and tried to shed the itchy feeling of despair. “Whatever I can find on the internet.”
“Then you don’t know much. Most Shifters choose to keep our history private, sacred, especially after the Shankings. We’ve always passed it down, generation to generation, by word of mouth.”
“Well, you know my history and I’m ignorant, so cut to the chase and tell me what I need to know.”
Careful, Ma’ii warned.
I leaned back and forced the tension from my shoulders. If Ma’ii thought I gave too much attitude to Donny or stressed him out, he’d sink his teeth into me. Usually the fleshy tissue of the calf muscle, or the sensitive skin on the back of the ankle. Not exactly fatal injuries, but the bites stung.
Donny sighed, as if he followed the dialogue with Ma’ii. Maybe he did. “It is believed we were once all like you,” Donny said. “Descendants of Feradea and her human lover, we could take any shape without a fera. More like Angels and Demons, we had a human form and a divine one. The divine form resembled your beast, the Ualida, or something close to it. The animal feras came later, when we became tied to the land. Our history is unclear on why we lost the ability to take the shape of different animals, why all but the Carus lost their beast, or why we bond to only one physical animal familiar now. Some say jealous Demons tricked us, some say we defied the beast goddess and she punished us, reducing our gifts. Some say the feras exist as a reminder of what we once had, and some say simple evolution is at play. The Feradea hasn’t answered my prayers. But our history is clear on one thing.”
After a long dramatic pause, I took the bait. “And what’s that?”
“You. The Carus is our salvation. Our path to redemption.”
My vision wavered, and my brain became light-headed. A chill racked my stiffening muscles, and my hearing tuned out, overtaken by a weird wave-like sound—as if the sea crashed against my ear drums. “You bastard!”
“Excuse me?” Donny aimed his right ear at me.
Ma’ii’s head snapped up, and he flashed his teeth at me.
“You told me there was no prophecy. I remember the exact moment. You made some cutting remark about how that was a good thing because I wasn’t prophecy material.”
“There’s no prophecy.”
“Then what the heck do you mean when you say I’m the salvation for Shifters? Sounds like prophecy to me.”
Donny shrugged. “There’s nothing specific about what will happen or who will do it. Remember, Carus, you might be unique, but you’re not one of a kind. There have been Caruses before you, and there will be Caruses after. All we know is the Carus has the ability to save us.”
“From what?” I groaned. “You also told me there was no doomsday plotline to my life. How could you flat out lie to me without smelling foul?”
Donny shook his head. “I never lied.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, but it did little to stem the increasing ache behind my eyeballs, beating in time with my heart—thump, thump, thump. “Donny. I need you to explain very explicitly what you’re talking about.”
“I wish I could, Andy. The fact is we don’t know much. The Carus has abilities the rest of us Shifters don’t. The lore passed down from generation to generation hints that one of those skills has the potential to mend the bridge between Shifters and Feradea. Most discard the stories as old legends to remind young Shifters to be wary of Demons, to explain our tie to Earth and to revere our patron goddess. Some believe the myths though. I do. Others… Well, others have different ideas.”
“Like what? What do the others think? That I can destroy everyone?”
“Well, no. We already know the previous Caruses went insane and had to be put down. Your beast form is not invincible. No. The others think the Carus can break our tie to the earth; make it so all of us will have the same ability to shift into multiple animal shapes.”
“What do the feras say? What does Ma’ii say?”
“The wily old beast clamps his jaw
s shut and refuses to answer any time I ask. I think it’s a part of their nature not to comment on their origin or the tie that binds us to them.”
Ma’ii cackled in my head again.
Will you tell me? I asked the fera.
The coyote snorted, and then coughed. His furry body recoiled as he choked on the air.
I leaned forward with concern, but Donny waved me off.
Ma’ii staggered to stand and hacked up a giant wad of saliva-coated fur.
Gross.
Ma’ii flashed his pointy teeth at me.
I turned back to Donny. “Would you pass on being bound to Ma’ii for the chance to gain my abilities?”
Donny paused, and a slow smile spread across his face. He glanced at the old coyote, currently licking up his own fur from his bed. The fera had so much gray around his eyes and snout, his whole face appeared ghost-like.
“Not in a million years,” Donny said. “Ma’ii and I…we are one. It’s unlikely anything you do will impact current Shifter bonds, but perhaps those of future generations.”
“That’s what I mean. Knowing the awesomeness of the fera bond, would you want future generations to miss out on that in order to become like me?”
“Are you saying you don’t have a connection with your feras?”
I am you. You are me. We are one, my feras chanted.
We sat in mutual silence. O’Donnell looked like he might be meditating, while I… On the outside I might look calm, but a battle waged on the inside. One half wanted to be pissed off and verbally rip Donny a new one. My other half wanted to run free in the forest, away from all this nonsense, away from all of life’s complications, just be, just run.
“So you think I should just ask my ghost feras to leave?”
“Dematerialize.”
“And then what?”
“Ask one of them to come back.”
“What if she doesn’t? What if she takes too long? What if it drains me of energy somehow? What if I can’t do it?”
“You remind me of my daughter,” he said. For a moment, sadness flickered across his face. I didn’t comment on it, or ask about his daughter. With most of the Shifter population killed off during the first few years of the Purge, the probability spoke so Donny didn’t have to. He cleared his throat. “She…she kept asking for guitar lessons. For her sixteenth birthday, her mother and I got her a package deal at the local music store.”
Carpe Demon (Carus #3) Page 16
