Through a Crimson Veil

by Patti O'Shea

  She chose flight.

  Only, she couldn’t move. He was doing something to the physical world around her. She fought, wanting nothing more than to escape before he reached her.

  His smile broadened, became more real, but it wasn’t a friendly, let’s-go-have-a-beer grin. Mika’s pulse beat even faster.

  “Mahsei,” the Dark One said. He inclined his head.

  His tones were dulcet, but they sent repulsion through her body and Mika struggled even harder. This situation was so not good. Panic threatened to swamp her and she made herself take a deep breath, to think things through. Giving in to overwhelming emotion wouldn’t help.

  She couldn’t move, that was fact, but what about her powers? Mika tested them quickly and found they still worked. Of course, given the type of demon this was, and the kind she was, that didn’t offer much hope, but she’d take what she had and fight.

  There was no question in her mind that this demon wanted her dead. The same energy that had surrounded the trap she and Conor found that first night now emanated from him. Without doubt, he’d been the one who’d created the snare, which made Mika wonder what else this monster was capable of. Had he broken the Council code and impersonated their minion, setting up a false meeting? Or had he found the minion and forced him to make the call?

  Mika shook herself. It didn’t matter how he’d drawn her here. What she had to concern herself with was getting away.

  “The Council must truly be desperate to send one such as you,” the Dark One said. He could have been discussing the weather for the amount of his apparent interest, and there was an edge of disdain in his voice.

  “They didn’t have many options,” Mika admitted. It didn’t surprise her that her assignment had drawn the attention of the Dark Ones. She’d never crossed them or done anything to anger them, so what else could it be? “But do you think it’s fair to kill me? It’s not as if I can refuse any request the leaders put to me.”

  Her hope to engage him in conversation was in vain. Instead of replying, the Dark One merely shrugged. Then, idly lifting his hand again, he shot an arc of fire at her.

  Reflex kicked in and Mika called the wind. With all the strength she possessed, she blew the flame back at him. Mika couldn’t singe him or extinguish his fire, but she was able to keep it from touching her.

  “Pitiful,” the Dark One commented, but he stopped his assault. “You’re not going to be much of a challenge.”

  Mika half-laughed. “Sorry about that. Why don’t you free me and see if that makes it more fun?”

  For an instant, she thought his lips twitched in reply, but the smile was gone so fast that it must have been her imagination. But the Dark One did loose whatever held her in place. She couldn’t run—it was too late for that—but maybe she could put up a halfway decent battle.

  Her assailant sent another bolt of fire her way, and wind couldn’t deter it. Quickly, Mika threw up the same barrier of dense air molecules she’d used with Conor, but the rope of flame stabbed through as if it weren’t there. Mika barely had time to hit the ground. As heat warmed her cheek, she rolled, trying to get farther away.

  Suddenly Mika realized her foe was toying with her; fire was probably the least of his powers. She was Mahsei, a demon of the air—not exactly the most powerful of branches. He could destroy her much easier than this.

  She tried to think; there had to be some way to counter his attack, some way to go on the offensive, but she was so busy trying to keep him from cooking her that she didn’t have a chance. She did notice one thing, though. He was trying to drive her to the entrance of the park. Mika hated the feeling of being herded, but if she stayed put, the Bak-Faru would char her. He discharged another gust of fire. She started to drop, but at the last instant realized he was aiming low. She leaped instead, levitating herself away from danger.

  The flames heated the soles of her tennis shoes, and Mika grimaced as she landed and twisted to avoid another blast. The Dark One laughed. Good. As long as he was amused, he’d keep playing with her. Buying time was her best option.

  She used a light pole as cover. It wasn’t much. Drawing air to her, she turned it into a small whirlwind and whipped it at the dark demon. For a second, it looked good. Then he held out a finger and her attack dissipated to nothing but a gentle breeze. It barely ruffled his hair.

  “You can do no better than this, Mahsei?” he asked.

  “I’m trying,” she muttered, and he laughed again. Maybe she’d do better in a stand-up routine than combat. Or maybe her powers were the comedy. With a scowl, she ran. Glancing over her shoulder, she realized the bastard had actually melted the metal pole she’d hid behind. A ball of terror lodged in her throat. How the hell could she win against a foe like this?

  Ducking behind a bench near the park entrance, Mika felt the heat from another blast of fire. While she was huddled there, she examined the dark maw of the entryway. She was close enough now to feel what she’d missed earlier: It was rigged with another trap.

  Mika brought up the wind, blowing debris toward the dark demon. He roared with laughter. She didn’t blame him; her defense was as pathetic as he’d claimed. Too bad she didn’t have command of water—then she’d be able to put out his fire. Of course, if she could counteract his flame, the Dark One would probably bring some stronger magic into play.

  Desperately she tried to harness elements of a storm. She had the potential to do this, although she’d never been successful in the past. Things looked good—clouds started to gather, to cover the face of the moon. But the Dark One sent out shot after shot of fire, hardly pausing between bursts.

  The bench she hid behind smoldered, and Mika knew time was running out. She tried harder to call the storm, but while more clouds filled the sky, nothing else happened. Daring a quick glance away from her foe, she looked at the snare. What had Conor said happened to those who were caught? Another blast of flame ignited the bench. One more, and her meager cover would be destroyed.

  McCabe’s words came back to her then, something about demons screaming for a really long time when they were caught in the thing. Mika shuddered again. She was down to two choices, and she wasn’t sure which would be worse. Die in the trap or die on the street.

  Chapter Ten

  Conor opened the door to The Crimson Jim and was immediately assaulted by blaring music and a cloud of smoke. The nightclub was tamer than many, and attracted an upwardly mobile clientele, but after ducking in and out of bars for hours, looking for his contacts, he’d had more than enough of these types of establishments.

  Grimacing from the thumping bass, he moved deeper into the club. If he’d been protecting anyone but Mika, Conor would have called it quits an hour ago.

  Mika. Every time he thought of her, he felt uneasy. Odds were, he was worrying about nothing. The shield around his home was solid; no one who didn’t have permission to enter would get through to hurt her. Conor rolled his shoulders, trying to ease his tension. Maybe after he left here, it wouldn’t hurt to give Mika a call and make sure she was okay.

  Thinking of her made him frown. How the hell had she kept him prisoner? He’d left as soon as she’d quit doing whatever it was she’d done to the door. She’d probably had a good laugh over the haste he’d shown in escaping, but he was beyond caring about that. Mika could find something amusing in any situation anyhow, and damned if part of him didn’t like that.

  He shook his head. If he wanted to get out of here before the bar closed, he needed to keep his mind on business. Dodging a sea of bodies on the dance floor, he searched the club.

  Mika hadn’t asked him what his plan was for finding her stalker. Most people would want a rundown, but in her case, maybe the lack of curiosity wasn’t that strange. She rarely behaved predictably, and he liked not having to answer dozens of questions about what he was doing or why he was doing it; though if she did ask, he’d tell her.

  His approach was simple. Demons, no matter how hard they tried, seldom blended in for long.
It wasn’t appearance that gave them away—strong demons were able to shapeshift and indwell, and hell, with contact lenses he could pass for human. But it wasn’t as easy to change behavior. Not long term. That was why he combed the paper every day looking for something that set off his internal alarm, and why he talked to people who might hear things that even The Crimson Post was unlikely to run.

  He thought he’d had it today. The article had been buried in the Metro section on page six, but the small headline had immediately grabbed his attention. Severed Head Found in East LA. Granted, humans did stuff like this too, especially if they followed old lore on slaying vampires, but he’d still thought it was worth checking into.

  Conor sidestepped a particularly enthusiastic dancing couple and continued scanning the sea of faces. It had been a demon kill, no doubt about that. The person hadn’t been beheaded with a knife, axe or chainsaw. Looked like a claw. The LAPD was sure a fang or a dog was their killer, but Conor knew better. It had demon written all over it. He’d spent hours canvassing the area where they’d found the head, but had come up empty.

  That was why he was in this club. He’d been trying to track down Marc Hayes since Nat had mentioned his name. The other freelancer was smooth, a good bullshitter, and people liked him. It stood to reason that if Hayes was asking questions, he might have gotten answers. Conor knew that he himself was viewed as antisocial, and not much fun when he did stop to talk.

  Maybe Mika was right about him being more alive since she’d come along. It did sort of seem as if his world had burst into full color after a lifetime of monochrome.

  He grimaced. She had him thinking too damn much, looking at things he’d never bothered to question. What he needed was to focus on finding Hayes, not to obsess over his woman. His woman? A woman. Conor dragged a hand through his hair. Shit.

  Everything seemed to revolve around Mika now. She’d taken over his house, his job, his body and his mind. And the terrifying part wasn’t that she’d done it in a matter of days, but that he liked it.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” a sultry voice asked.

  Conor hadn’t realized he’d stopped walking. The woman standing in front of him was a petite redhead with big, dark blue eyes. Her energy said she was human, and her body language said she was interested. Here was a candidate for sex—to blow off the steam Mika had been building in him. He could take this woman back to her place, have some careful sex and walk away without losing any part of himself. That would foil Mika’s teasing.

  But the woman wasn’t tall enough to satisfy; her eyes were too dark and her lips weren’t curled in that I-dare-you expression that made him hot. In other words, she wasn’t Mika. He desperately tried to summon some interest, but it just wasn’t there.

  “Sorry,” Conor said, and stepped around her.

  As soon as he was out of the redhead’s view, he scowled. He’d known Mika was trouble the instant he looked into her eyes. Now she had him. Somehow, some way, when he wasn’t watching, she’d put him down for the count. Now it was only a question of whether he should take Mika to bed or keep fighting it.

  It would be more than sex with her, he realized. She’d take a part of him he’d never get back. Even after she returned to her life, as he was sure she would, she’d hold a piece of his soul. Mika was…Mika.

  While there were moments of seriousness, moments when she probed his heart and dug around, the rest of the time she was careless. Surely it was her demon half warring with the human. It was a duality in her personality. At the end of this, she’d walk away. How many times had she referred to Orcus as home? Half a dozen? More? And she’d flat out said she preferred living in the demon world.

  Then there was her personality. She was lively, lighthearted, and gregarious. He was none of those things. Even if he convinced her to stay for a while, at some point she’d grow bored with him—it was inevitable. If he were lucky, she’d remember him fondly from time to time, but he’d never be able to keep her. She was a lightning bolt, here and gone in the blink of an eye—and capable of leaving behind a great deal of damage.

  No, Conor couldn’t afford to allow her close. It would already hurt when she left, but joining their bodies would cross some line, erase the small amount of distance he’d been able to maintain. They couldn’t have sex. No matter how badly he wanted her.

  Stopping again, he released a deep breath and looked around. There was an air of desperation in the club. He understood it now: a fear of spending life alone. Before Mika, he’d preferred being by himself. Now Conor saw his existence would be empty without her.

  It was an uncomfortable thought, but hiding wouldn’t make the truth go away. He was too pragmatic to pretend nothing had changed. A man couldn’t protect himself like an ostrich did—head in the sand and ass in the air.

  Picturing Mika laughing over that thought, he made a low growling sound and forced himself to continue searching the dance club. If he accomplished nothing else, he would keep her safe—and that meant gathering intel. He needed to know everything he could about the bastards who were after her.

  Ten minutes later, he spotted the man he was looking for. If Conor had been human, he might have missed him; Hayes had staked a claim on a table in the darkest corner of the bar—not a place where he would be seen or hit on by the ladies. While there were other people nearby, the man seemed completely separate, and his eyes were never still.

  Drifting deeper into the shadows, Conor took time to consider the situation. The man had his short brown hair spiked up till he almost looked like a bristling porcupine, and stubble covered his jaw. This wasn’t the slick appearance Hayes usually sported. Was he undercover? That didn’t make sense—not when it was common knowledge that he was a regular here.

  Mika invaded his mind again. Damn it, he needed to focus on Hayes, but his nagging sense of apprehension was back. Conor reached for his comm unit before he knew what he was doing, before he realized the music and background noise would make it difficult to hear. Then he stopped himself, deciding to call Mika as soon as he was done. It was only to put himself at ease, anyway—not because he thought anything was wrong. But the faster he finished here, the faster he could check on her.

  He threaded his way through the tables, not making any further effort to conceal himself; surprising someone like Hayes could be a very bad idea.

  “McCabe,” the man said when Conor got close. “I didn’t think this was your kind of place.”

  “It’s not.” Conor pulled out a chair and sat, shifting so that his back was against the wall.

  “Why don’t you join me?” Hayes drawled.

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Conor said, “What have you heard lately about demons in Crimson City?”

  For about half a second, Hayes appeared startled. Then, without a word, he reached for his beer bottle, took a swig and looked at Conor over the top. Conor met his stare impassively.

  “You ever consider trying some small talk, man? You know, a ‘hi, how are you’ before you start the questioning?”

  “It’s a waste of time.” If Hayes was someone to finesse, Conor would have spread the bullshit, but it would have been without point. It also would have made Hayes suspicious.

  The man shook his head and put down his beer bottle. “See? This is why they say you have communication issues. You gotta talk to people, develop a relationship. It’s easier to get information when others like you.”

  “I haven’t had any problems,” Conor disagreed.

  “Yeah, right. That’s why you’re here asking me about demons. If you were plugged into headquarters, you would have heard the rumors on your own.” With a smirk, Hayes tipped his chair back against the wall and continued. “Of course, maybe you wouldn’t know anyway. Not when you’re busy playing house with that piece of a—”

  “Finish that sentence,” Conor warned, his voice quiet but deadly, “and you’ll wish you hadn’t.” No one was going to disparage Mika, not without paying a price.

  Hayes seemed delighted. “So
that’s how it is. Fascinating.”

  “No, what’s fascinating is how the hell you know that I have someone staying with me.” Nat being aware of it was one thing; he was downright eerie with his knowledge. But Hayes? Conor didn’t like it.

  “Is it supposed to be some hush-hush thing?”

  The man’s obvious amusement reignited Conor’s temper. He reached out, grabbed the back of Hayes’s chair and brought it down on all four legs. “Not hush-hush, but there’s no reason why you should know about it,” he growled.

  For a moment, it appeared as if Hayes was going to try to stonewall him, and Conor wasn’t going to tolerate it. If someone was passing along information about him and Mika, he was damn well going to know who and why. Then he’d hunt that person down and put a stop to it.

  Finally Hayes shrugged and said, “It’s no big deal. We have a mutual acquaintance who mentioned her.”

  “Who?” Conor wanted answers. Now.

  Maybe the fact that he was running out of patience got through to Hayes, because the man didn’t screw around any more. “Calls himself Nat. I don’t know his last name, but he’s weird.”

  Great. Nat. Conor didn’t know how he’d shut the man up. Hell, he couldn’t even find him when he wanted. And odds were good Nat would lie low if he knew Conor were pissed at him. Then a thought occurred to Conor. “Why the hell were the two of you discussing my houseguest?”

  “We were talking about you. I commented on how scarce you’d been lately, and Nat told me who you were busy with.” Hayes’s smirk returned. “And before you ask why you were a topic of conversation, I’ll tell you.” He reached for his beer, took another pull, then rotated the bottle slowly on the table. “It connects, in a roundabout way, with what you were asking.”

  “How does my name tie in with monsters?” Conor asked anyway. The last thing he wanted was anyone discussing him. Especially not Nat, who knew he was part demon—it had been made very clear at their last meeting—and about Mika.