Green Flame Assassin (Demon Lord series, book 2)

by Morgan Blayde

I nodded my understanding.

  Vivian’s hard stare raked Josh over. She didn’t seem intimidated by the fact that he towered over her, and carried his over-muscled body with lethal grace. Her voice came up to normal levels. “And you would be?”

  “Joshua Kent, the were-liger.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Well, you’re big enough.”

  “That’s what they tell me.” He smiled at her, a flash of white. His eyes glinted gold. The sun streaked his blond mane, edging it in more gold.

  I saw tension melt from Vivian as her eyes betrayed female interest. She smiled back self-consciously.

  I said, “Okay, if we’re all done jerking each other off, let’s get moving.”

  Vivian flushed, glared daggers at me, and turned, leading us in. I let Josh go second. I could feel the dhampyr magic meshing, charging the air. I suppressed my shield, turning it off to announce myself to those gathered inside. Tendrils feathered my skin, and ahead, I sensed a veil of magic making a hidden pocket where someone or something was being guarded.

  Interesting.

  Vivian pushed open the door she’d come out of. A man stood just inside. He wore a dark brown suit. A blood smell hit me like a gun butt to the face. It wasn’t just the dhampyr, but most of the people in the house. They’d all fed very recently, boosting their strength. They hadn’t wanted to meet me unprepared. This suggested that I intimidated them.

  That made me happy.

  The man at the door led us past an oversized living room full of milling dhampyrs, a few of them beautiful woman in gowns of crimson, sapphire, and emerald. The women seemed determined to make up for the drabness of the males, most of whom wore dark brown as well. It made sense; when blood dries it turns that color. However, that color only looks good when it is dried blood. As a fashion statement, what they had on looked like something a street person ought to be buried in, dead or alive.

  The décor of the house was overly modern, defying the building’s old world architecture. Paintings that would fit well on a museum wall hung everywhere. Couches still had plastic on the bottom edges. Carpets had a fresh-from-the-factory smell. I doubted anyone lived here full time. The place was a decoy, a convenient target dangled for anyone trying to get to the dhampyr leadership.

  Moving on, I saw through an archway to the dining room where an open cooler was filled with ice and bags of blood in assorted flavors. A dhampyr was there, passing up other types in favor of the O-neg. He stabbed the bag with a pointy straw, drinking from it like a juice box, glowering at us as we headed up a wide staircase. From the upper landing, we entered a side wing of the house. I could hear murmuring voices behind some of the doors. Between the doors, there were European coat-of-arms on the wall with swords crossing the artwork on the shields.

  Dhampyrs aren’t that different from vamps. Both are pretentious.

  I looked out a side stretch of windows facing the front lawn. A butterfly fluttered past the glass, stalling out a moment as though time had stopped. Across the street, a lone woman stood, long black hair forming raven wings behind her. Her black dress was sheer and lacy. She was watching the building.

  No. She was watching me. The force of killing intent was a sword annihilating the distance between us.

  I recognized her. This was the woman from Gray’s vision, the mysterious assassin I was supposed to be careful of. She’d been sent to finish the job bungled at the last red moon.

  The Dragon Eyes tattoo on my back awakened, bathing me in acid, sending my senses into overdrive. The image of the woman sprang toward me as if I were sighting her through a sniper scope. Her hazel eyes were pitiless.

  A secret door cracked open deep in the core of my spirit. A shimmer of raw power ghosted over me, dull red curls of flame streaked with gold. I felt the dhampyr magic in the house evaporating like morning mist in the rising sun. Some part of me felt like it was doing the same, making room for something else.

  And in a nearby room, a pre-existing barrier thickened, twisting space with a slippery kind of power I didn’t recognize, trying not to draw my attention.

  The endless moment shattered as someone put a hand on my right shoulder, through the flames that wreathed me. The unnatural fire sank into my flesh, and the secret door in my spirit slammed shut. I, too, was hiding secrets—from myself. Across the street, the woman was again a distant figure.

  A green flame surged up around her and she was gone.

  The assassin from Gray’s vision…

  The hand dropped from my shoulder.

  I turned to find Vivian, her watercolor-red eyes wide, her mouth partly open, lips trembling. Her whole body lightly trembled. Her voice emerged low and husky, “Caine...”

  Standing balanced, body poised for combat as though every survival instinct had been tripped, Josh stared at me with bright yellow eyes, the liger in him barely submerged.

  Behind him, a door had opened into the hallway. Several dhampyr guards had emerged, swords in hand, their faces pale as ice, eyes desperate, afraid.

  I felt like going “Boo!”

  “Ca…Caine...” Vivian said.

  “Yes, little rabbit?”

  “What the hell…?”

  “Is there some problem here?” I didn’t want to answer questions. It might come out that I had no idea of what I’d just done, or how.

  Her eyes narrowed, flashing with annoyance. “Don’t play innocent; you know you’re not. What did you do?”

  I smiled. “Shall we keep going?” The cloaked power I’d sensed among the dhampyr was in the room where the guards had come from. I really wanted to know what was in there.

  Vivian’s face became a hard mask as she buried her emotions. She turned and led Josh and me past the guards, into a drawing room with a long mahogany table. Candelabra were lit, dominating a white linen tablecloth. No places were set. No refreshments were in sight. Five dhampyr leaders remained seated in high-backed chairs that could pass as thrones in a pinch.

  Pretentious bastards … and bitch.

  The dhampyr seated at the head of the table, facing us, was a woman.

  “Hello, I’m Brielle. You have the audience you craved. Why have you come among us, Red Moon Demon?”

  “Not going to offer me a seat?”

  She shrugged. “We seem to be out of chairs.”

  That wasn’t it. They were testing me. Dhampyr have a feudal society that only respects strength. I knew that if they thought they could push me into a subservient role, I’d gain no respect, and my job would a hundred times harder.

  I smiled. “If I kill all of you, the ones that take your place might have more manners.”

  The guards behind stepped closer. Without looking, I knew they’d be raising their swords to strike. Brielle lifted a hand, stopping them from getting themselves killed.

  Arching an eyebrow, I put surprise in my voice, “Oh, did I say that out loud?”

  I walked to the end of the table opposite Brielle. No one sat there, so it was a simple matter to spring flatfooted from steel gray carpet to table top. From my new position, I stared down at the dhampyr, my hands resting casually in my coat pockets. The angle reminded me of the other boardroom meeting in Gray’s vision, except none of these dhampyr had dressed in robes with cowls shadowing their faces.

  Sitting to Brielle’s right—a favorite’s position—a dhampyr in a charcoal suit with dove gray pin stripes stood, shoving back his chair. He did this slowly, almost ponderously. A big man, his expensive tailoring couldn’t conceal the fact that he was built like a tank.

  Brielle quirked an eyebrow at him. “Mason...?”

  He said, “Caine, take my chair if you need one so badly.”

  I waved him back down. “This is fine.” It gave me a good perspective on the room. I surveyed everything in sight, looking for the source of power I’d earlier sensed. Something unseen was here, or someone, but all I could feel was the protective barrier that hid it. That barrier was twisting my perceptions, bending them all around the room so my focu
s was scattered, unable to rest.

  I decided to get on with business. “I come to represent the major Courts in L.A. We have concerns over the situation here in Sacramento. First, we can’t have the fey, wolves, and dhampyrs fighting in the open. If you will please stand down, I’ll make sure the other factions behave as well. I will also host a gathering where all parties concerned can thrash out an agreement on how to live together peacefully.”

  Brielle stood and walked around the massive table, stopping behind me so I had to turn. She didn’t seem to care that my people were at her back. I applauded her nerve, and her tight, navy suit which taunted me with hints of an amazing body. She wore auburn hair in a bun, held in place with jeweled pins. Her blue eyes washed out, but warmed, becoming a pale red. This made her alabaster skin look even more tasty. I suspected she’d be a real freak in bed. I hoped for a chance to confirm my theory.

  “The city is ours,” she hissed. “We spilled blood for it. We drove out the vampires. The wolves and fey were oppressed. We freed them. They need to be grateful and bend their knees to us. It is only right.”

  TWELVE

  “Sure you can trust me. Look at this face.

  Hey, stop laughing before I kill you.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  “And what if we don’t want to bend knee to you?” Josh’s eyes were a yellow haze of fire. His hands formed claws. The bones of his face coarsened, growing bestial.

  I stepped off the table, dropped, and landed lightly on my feet. Brielle backed a step; half turned, saw Josh with the liger peering out of his eyes, and froze between us. The rest of the dhampyr were on their feet, but didn’t intervene. That would have weakened Brielle’s position, suggesting she couldn’t take care of herself.

  She ignored me, facing Josh. “You haven’t earned anything in this city. The instability was caused by your murder of an Alpha wolf. Do you deny this?”

  Josh’s voice roughened, as if words were no longer easy to form, “He needed killing. Which of you wouldn’t defend a heart entrusted to you?”

  Brielle’s tones softened, “It’s not that we don’t understand; we just can’t approve. If you would be Master of the City, the needs of the city must come before your own.”

  “I don’t want to be Master of the City.” Josh sloughed off the beast, his face becoming human once more, his claws morphing back to hands. “But I will protect my people. We bow to no one, but if we’re left alone, all of you will be left alive.” He shot me a glance. “That’s all I came here to say. I’ll wait for you outside.” He turned his back on all of us and stalked out the door as if we were all beneath him.

  I had to admire his style.

  Vivian came up to me, keeping her eyes on Brielle. Mason drifted over, making it a four-person knot with everyone else in the room pretty much discounted.

  Vivian said, “Josh is ex PRT. If he goes down, the feds will swarm in here like fleas on a wolf. But if he really wanted to go to war with you, he’d win, or do so much damage to you, the fey and wolves would clean up easily. You’d lose everything. You’ll get more by befriending him than by trying to leash him.”

  “Cat’s don’t walk on leashes,” I added.

  Mason smiled broadly, looming on my right. “You might be right. We will consider your words.” He caught Brielle’s gaze. “Right?”

  She nodded. “We will consider, but we make no promises.”

  Vivian looked at me, waiting.

  I nodded. “I suppose that is the best I can hope for right now.”

  Brielle stepped in close to me, her pale face inches away. “Walk softly in our city. We do not answer to the Courts of L.A., the vampire courts, or those of the fey. We heard about the mess you made in your own city six months ago. We don’t need a night of the red moon here.”

  I gave her a stare with tingling eyes. My eyes were reflected in hers. One of my eyes had that weird slit pupil in it again. She gasped softly and took a step back from me.

  I said, “I’ll walk as softly as I can, but I will also kill whoever needs it.”

  “Understood,” Mason said. “I’ll walk you out,”

  We retraced our steps and exited by the front door. The sun was dropping lower, but we still had hours of daylight left. Mason pulled out very dark sunglasses and slipped them on as we stepped off the porch. Vivian put hers on as well. They were day walkers, only half vampire, but the summer sun took its toll. I was feeling a bit wilted myself, used to the milder summers in Malibu.

  Josh was in the drive, in Kat’s VW. He must have called her for a pickup. He yelled at me, “You coming?”

  “No, you go on. We’ll follow you in one of these sedans.”

  Mason canted his head, looking at me with veiled eyes. “You will?”

  I nodded. “Sure. You’re going to loan me a vehicle in the spirit of cooperation.”

  He shrugged, displaying carelessness with his property that told me he was more than filthy rich. He probably didn’t really expect to get the car back, and would write the bribe off as the cost of doing business.

  He said, “Fine. You’ll find I can be a good friend. Should other dhampyr prove too stubborn, and get themselves killed off, I think I can promise you a more sympathetic response under my leadership, especially if you’ve got some control over the liger.”

  Vivian looked like she wanted to spit in Mason’s face. I put a restraining hand on her arm, smiling at Mason. “I am here to do business. We should all try to get along.”

  Vivian pulled violently away from me and marched over to the VW. She climbed in, leaving me to ride alone as Mason handed me a set of keys, pointing to one of the Jags. “That one,” he said. “When you return it, make sure the tank is full.”

  I smiled. “Sure, I’ll try not to let it get blown up or anything.”

  Mason lowered his voice, “Why are you really in Sacramento?”

  I gave him my best look of baffled innocence. “I’m an open book, Mason.”

  “We’re all friends here,” he said.

  “Sure, I’m into that. The power of love and friendship can change the world.” I managed to say that with a straight face, not that he bought it. I left him there, strolling over to his car, keeping an eye out for the lady assassin who was on my trail. With her around, I couldn’t afford to be predictable. That’s why I was changing vehicles. Every little bit helps.

  I followed Kat’s VW down the drive, out the gate, and over to the corner. She pulled in and parked. Everyone bailed from the car, forming a lynch mob on the sidewalk. I parked behind the VW and got out.

  Before I could speak, Vivian turned a hard face my way. She burst out in indignation, “Were you actually kissing up to that sleaze back there?”

  Josh added his own softly rumbled inquiry, “Planning on controlling me, are you?”

  Kat glared. “So my car isn’t good enough for you?”

  I drew a PPK and shot her vehicle in the ass, punching out a taillight, drizzling red plastic splinters to the street. “No,” I told her. “It isn’t good enough for me.” I swung my gun hand to my side, and slanted the liger a look that told him to stand down before other things got shot. “And no, I’m not interested in controlling my allies, shooting them maybe, but not controlling.” My glance swung to Vivian. “And you are an idiot—a hot idiot—but still an idiot. Of course I’m going to exploit an advance from one of the major players in this game. What part of ‘keeping one’s enemies close’ don’t you understand?”

  Kat blinked back tears. “I can’t believe you shot my car.”

  I grinned. “That’s because you don’t know me very well.”

  Josh jerked a thumb at the bullet hole in the car. “You are going to pay to fix that, right?”

  “You’re damn right he will!” Kat yelled.

  I looked at Kat and I offered her my weapon. “How about if I let you shoot my ride instead?”

  She snatched the gun from my hand, moved abreast of my borrowed car, and emptied the clip. Intentional or not,
she fired across the rear passenger seat, shattering windows on both sides of the car, doing little significant damage. She finished with a big breath and returned the PPK with a smiled. “Yeah, I do feel better.”

  “And people say violence doesn’t solve anything.” I holstered the weapon. “Anything else?” No one said anything, so I said, “Well, I got something. There was a hidden source of mystic energy in that room back there. I couldn’t pin it down, but I noticed something interesting when Mason showed us out. The mystic web covering the place is his. Its center moves when he does. He’s a lot more powerful than the other dhampyr know.”

  I started toward my Jag, but Vivian’s hand caught my arm. “Do you think his power comes from the dream stone?”

  “It’s possible, but there are a lot of mystic artifacts out there that could explain this. Still, I want you to swallow your dislike of the man and try to get close to him.”

  She let me go. “I’m sorry, Caine. I should have known you knew what you were doing. I was … unprofessional.”

  I loved her confidence in me. Such a rare thing for me to find.

  “Forget it.” I walked away. “Let’s go kick some wolves into shape.”

  She called after me, “After we clean the broken glass out of your back seat.”

  Oh, yeah.

  * * *

  Leaving Sacramento, we found the wolf pack compound out near the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area. We parked our vehicles at the edge of undeveloped hill property that was thick with granite outcroppings and oaks. A dirt road serviced the site, winding past a couple of small cabins, built from boards, not logs. A larger structure lay beyond, half-hidden by trees.

  I left the Jag and joined the others outside their VW. Kat had her arms crossed, plumping up her boobs. “I’m not going in there.”

  “Sensible. They are wolves after all.” Vivian checked over her guns. Like mine, they were freshly loaded with clips of silver ammo.

  Kat said, “It’s not that. Bad memories. Last time I was here, I almost died.” Her glance swept Josh. “I would have been eaten if not for—”