“Mallory? Can you hear me?”
I probably looked like a zombie. I sure as hell felt like one. Then I got another little jolt of power from So’la. It frizzled painfully across my skin and sank inward. Thank you, Mr. Passive Aggressive. Before he’d healed me gently. Now I guess I deserved only pain. I twitched and gasped, my hands knotting into fists.
“I’m—” I got that far before I started coughing. I rolled onto my side as deep, wrenching barks tore through my body. Law soothed his hands over my back as the frenzy continued. I’m not sure how long I did that before I quieted. Law pulled me up to sit against him and pressed a glass to my lips. I sipped. Half of it dribbled over my chin and down my neck, and a little wet my parched lips and tongue. I grabbed the glass around Law’s hand and drank greedily. When I was finished, he pulled it away.
“For God’s sake, talk to me, Mal. Are you okay?”
There was a wealth of fear in that question. Was I still me? Was I still mentally intact? Was I brain damaged? Was I infected by a demon? The last question was still up for debate, but I had a bad feeling about the answer. Speaking of which, “Where’s So’la?” I rasped.
“Fuck the demon. How are you, Mal?”
“I’m as crisp as a French fry and feeling like I’ve been pulverized inside a cement mixer. Otherwise, I’m just snazzy,” I said, trying not to feel the heat of him penetrating my skin or the way he snugged me close.
I pushed away from him. Rather, I tried. His arms tightened into iron bars. He was still bare chested and most of my back and arms were equally naked. I was hot and sweat gleamed on my skin. Wherever we touched, explosions of frustrated desire scattered over my nerves. I wanted to lean into him, to revel in having him hold me. Our time together upstairs had been too fast. I hadn’t had time to savor his touch and scent. I wanted it now. I didn’t think I’d have it again after we dealt with So’la. I didn’t have the strength to be with Law, knowing how he felt about me. Or maybe it was knowing how he didn’t feel about me that was the problem. Maybe both. No, as soon as this was over, I’d be out the door of the auberge and on my way home. I just wished that didn’t hurt so damned much.
“You need to let me go, Law,” I said in a weary voice.
His arms tightened. His lips moved against my jaw. “No.”
“We can’t sit here forever, and So’la has to explain what’s going on. He says he and I are bound and there’s no way to untie us. Adding spice to the dish is that if I die, so does he, and vice versa.”
“He’s lying,” Law growled. “He’s afraid. He will say anything, do anything, to keep us from sending him back to hell where he belongs.”
Us. How I wished. “Help me up.”
His arms loosened slowly, and he rose to his feet. He bent and put his arms around me, lifting me so I could stand. I held on to him as dizziness swirled through my head. The ghosts had retreated from me, I realized. They made a loose circle around us more than a dozen feet away. I felt a chill anger from them. Of course they’d be mad. My stupidity had nearly got myself killed, and if I died, they’d have to find someone else to call home, which would be nearly impossible, if Law didn’t exterminate them first. I’m a one-of-a-kind idiot.
So’la still lay on the floor, wrapped in Law’s spell. I could feel his pain pulsing through to me, but he remained still, almost stoic.
“Let him go.”
Law eyed me. “I don’t think so.”
I let out a sigh. “I can command him.” The four words made me want to wash my mouth out with hot sauce. I never wanted to command anybody. My stomach clenched and flipped over. I swallowed to keep from throwing up. “Besides, he won’t hurt me. That just hurts him back.”
My lie was met with a little wire of hot energy slashing through me. I clamped my lips to keep from moaning, but I couldn’t stop myself from flinching and clutching my hands tightly on Law’s arm. Apparently the demon didn’t mind a little pain if he could hurt me too.
“What’s wrong?” Law demanded, spinning to pull me close against him again.
I didn’t want to tell him. I don’t know why I wanted to protect So’la. Maybe it was myself I was protecting. I didn’t really want to hear yet another round of ‘I told you so,’ or worse, having Law give me that pitying look because I’d fallen so far from whom he wanted me to be.
I didn’t tell the demon to stop hurting me either. I deserved to hurt. After all, stupidity should have consequences, right? I remember that was something my grandmother used to say: “If you’re going to be stupid, you’d better be tough.” I didn’t feel tough, though. I felt like I wanted to crawl into a hole and pull it in after me. I wanted to go somewhere where I could lick my wounds without an audience.
I made myself pull back from Law. He didn’t let me. I raised my gaze to meet his. The look in his green eyes made my knees quiver. Hostility and rage and fear and more. The intensity struck me like a blow. I jerked back. His scowl deepened.
“Did he hurt you?”
I forced myself to give him a smile. My lips bent like wire. I must have looked like one of those possessed dolls come to life in a horror flick. “Like you said, this is my own damned fault. I’d like to find out how bad it is. Best let him go.”
I put my hands on his chest to push him away. Only I had no strength. Instead we just stood there, looking at each other. My gaze slipped from his in a few seconds. I couldn’t stand it anymore, the questions, the demands. The hot silk of his skin made me want to run my hands all over him. I kept them still with the little self-control I had left. I examined his hard-carved face, the cleft in his chin, the angles of his cheeks and jaw, the seductive lines of his lips. God, he was beautiful. I’d missed him so damned much. Now here he was, holding me, and what had seemed impossible between us before I was bound to So’la now seemed totally hopeless. I bit my lips.
“Mal,” he said in an insistent voice, his hands sliding down my bare back. “We need to talk.”
Did we? Despite myself, I looked at him. What he read in my eyes didn’t reassure him. His hands slid up my arms and tightened, his fingers digging hard into my flesh. I just stood there, limp as a rag. I hadn’t known I was going to see him when I came to Effrayant. Staying away from Law all those years had let me nurse a hope deep down inside that maybe one day we could be together. I didn’t have any reality to challenge my secret fantasy. Seeing him, confessing my love, having mind-blowing sex—they’d fed that hope. But now, with So’la, because of the So’la, because of the ghosts, and because I couldn’t stomach killing anymore, I felt that fragile bubble of hope collapse in on itself and just die.
“We should hear what the demon has to say,” I said, my voice hollow and distant. This time when I backed away, he let me go, his expression turning dark and bitter as six-day-old coffee.
He stepped ahead of me, putting himself between me and So’la. Inwardly I sighed. I knew part of it was just protective instinct, but I knew that Law also didn’t think I could handle the demon. Or maybe that I wouldn’t. Either way, he wasn’t planning to give me the chance. That . . . hurt.
Six years ago, I’d wanted him to love me, but I could have lived without it. I couldn’t live without his respect and trust. I still couldn’t. Even if I didn’t make the choices he wanted me to or expected me to, I needed him to trust that I could manage myself and my life. I didn’t see that happening ever. I just wished he weren’t shirtless. I had a crazy urge to run my fingers over the muscles in his back. I stepped out of reach. Not a good idea, and definitely not now.
With a flick of Law’s fingers, the magic surrounding the demon melted. Instantly the creature leaped to his feet, propelled by powerful legs and the sharp downsweep of his outstretched wings.
He faced us. The shine on his skin had faded along with the layer of lubricant goo. His eyes had gone black with small holes of orange in the centers, just as they’d looked in Tabitha’s memory. He swayed as if intending to pounce, wings upraised, his bony fingers curling, talons clacking toget
her.
“Will you explain now?” I asked.
So’la sneered, the orange in his eyes contracting even smaller. He looked insane. “Is that your command, my Mistress?” His tongue slithered out of his mouth on the last.
“If it has to be,” I said, wishing all of a sudden for a soft bed and a bottle of rum. I doubted I’d see either for a long time yet. “But since I only want to separate us, I’d think you’d want to tell us what’s going on.”
“It’s easy enough. You and I are bound together for eternity, or until one of us should die, in which case, both of us will die.”
“How do I unbind us?”
“You can’t.”
“Bullshit,” Law said. “You’re lying.”
I thought So’la would get all puffed up an angry. Instead the demon’s wings clamped down against his back, and his shoulders drooped in unsettling defeat.
“Would that I was.”
I believed him. I could tell Law did too. His face turned to stone.
“Explain,” he rasped.
“I was summoned by a monk in service to Pope Clement the Seventh.”
“A monk?” I repeated. “What would a monk want with a demon?”
“To save his master, the pope.”
“With a demon?” I said skeptically. The story sounded too ridiculous to be true. “What did the pope need saving from?”
“If you are patient a moment, you will understand,” So’la said. He snorted and blue-green smoke curled from his nostrils.
I looked at Law, folding my arms over my stomach. He ignored me, his attention fixed on So’la.
“In 1527, Pope Clement gave his support to the French against the Holy Roman Empire, which was not ruled by Rome as you might think, but by Emperor Charles the Fifth, who was both emperor and the king of Spain at that time. Clement wished to free the Papal States from dependence on the powerful Holy Roman Empire. However, his gambit failed when the French were defeated. There were no funds to pay the emperor’s troops, so they mutinied and turned toward Rome.
“Anselm was a loyal servant of Clement, and a powerful sorcerer as well. When news came of the coming scourge, he summoned me.”
The demon paused as if remembering. His body tensed and his teeth gnashing. The sound made me shudder and the primitive part of my psyche told me to run like hell. The only reason I didn’t was because no matter how far I ran, I couldn’t escape, any more than I could escape my own shadow. Abruptly So’la continued.
“The monk cut off my pinion crown.”
My gaze rose to the uneven protrusions from the top fold of his wings. That must have hurt. More, the monk must have had massive power to incapacitate the demon in order to remove it.
“With it, he constructed the spell. It was to tie my life force to the person invoking it, while at the same time enslaving me to him.”
“Why?” I asked. “Seems stupidly risky to tie your life forces together. It would be an easy way for the person to die.”
“It also lets him . . . or her,” he said, his tongue slithering out of his mouth again, “live far longer. I am immortal.”
“I—” I had nothing else. Immortal. I was going to live forever. I blinked, unable to wrap my brain around the idea.
“What happened? Why didn’t the spell trigger for Clement?” Law asked, his words cutting like daggers.
“Anselm put the control bone in the box then locked it with an extraordinary weaving of magic. After working such spells, he wasn’t well enough to carry it to Clement himself, so he sent an apprentice. Unfortunately for Anselm, Matteo was not to be trusted. He stole the box and was killed for his efforts.”
“By whom?”
“Me.”
“Then what?” Law prodded. “That was almost five hundred years ago. Clearly you’ve had masters in that time. How is it none of them activated the binding spell until now?”
“Merely having possession of the box with the crown bone inside was enough to command me. Few had the knowledge or skill to open the box. Those who did I encouraged not to want to. Most decided the risk wasn’t worth it.” He smiled and it was ghastly.
“Most?”
“One or two refused to take the hint.”
Which meant he’d killed them. Probably with a great deal of pain and suffering on their part. I wasn’t sure I was all that sympathetic. His victims had been consorting with a demon, after all, which undoubtedly meant they were up to no good. The world was probably a better place without them.
“So you wanted me to open the box without touching the stone. Did you think for a single second that that might be worth mentioning?”
“It was too risky to tell you.”
“Because I might decide I wanted to tie my life to yours? Please.”
“You have the ability to command me,” he said, as if that were enough of a reason. “And you are now immortal.”
“Unless you die. Plus, you can torture me right back and oh, by the way, I don’t want you.”
“Torture you back?” Law inserted suddenly.
I’d almost forgotten he was there. So’la ignored him. I decided to join in.
“One must get one’s pound of flesh while one can,” So’la said. “Merely order me not to, and I will never do it again.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
He smiled in what might have been a lewd way but mostly made him look both insane and hungry. More insane and more hungry, that is. “Is that a command, Mistress?”
“No, and it’s not an invitation either,” I snapped. “So what’s the bottom line? How do we cut you and me apart?”
“If there was a way, it was lost with Anselm.” The demon hunched, closing his wings around himself almost as if cold.
“Oh, please. You planned for Law to unwind the spell, didn’t you?”
“Doing so now that it’s active would kill us both.”
“How do you know?” Law demanded.
He was seething. He glared at me and So’la with equal fury for both of us. I looked away, my cheeks coloring. Once again I’d fucked up, and he felt the need to rescue me. Well, I could damned well save myself, thank you very much, and I’d do it on my terms.
“Because Anselm told me so,” So’la said simply.
Both Law and I just stared.
“You believed him?” I asked. “Just like that? Why wouldn’t he tell you there’s no point in fighting? You’d keep yourself prisoner that way, and his magic wouldn’t have to do the work.” My voice rose as I spoke until I was practically yelling. My chest heaved as I planted my hands on my hips. Everything in me wanted to hit the damned demon, but I’d do more damage to myself than him, and at this point, I was barely keeping my feet.
“He would not lie,” So’la said without the least bit of irony.
“You are dumber than I thought if you believe that,” Law said. Took the words right out of my mouth.
So’la moved faster than I could see. Suddenly he had a claw around Law’s neck and was whirling to throw him across the room.
“Stop!” I shouted.
The demon froze in place. Law’s feet swung a good foot from the floor.
“Put him down,” I said, cold and terror for Law turning my voice to iron. “Gently.”
So’la did as ordered. Law crumpled to one knee, catching himself on his hands before he fell all the way to the floor. He coughed raggedly.
“Never, ever, hurt Law again,” I told So’la. “Do you understand me?”
The demon gave a slow flourishing bow. “As you wish, Mistress.” The last word was an accusation, an indictment.
“Fuck you,” I said. Then I spun around and got sick on the floor. Relief for Law gave way almost instantly to a feeling of horror. Suddenly I felt like had six years ago. Dirty. Tainted. Like I could never be clean again. Like I’d crossed a line into a vileness that I could never return from. I didn’t have a choice, I told myself, and that was true. I couldn’t let Law be killed. All the same, I’d used a power that I shouldn�
��t even have to save him. Wrongs didn’t make rights and enslaving someone, even accidentally, was wrong. Worse was actively stepping into the shoes of the slave master.
So’la hunched up beside me. “Dearest Mistress, you’re unwell! How can I serve you? What can I do to make your life better?”
“Give it a rest,” I muttered.
“Is that a command, Mistress?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell him stick his head up his ass and get on his way back to hell. I didn’t get the chance.
Magic blistered the air, and a sizzling bolt of energy struck So’la. It drove him back against the wall. He keened and struggled. His pain seeped through our connection. I gasped. Lightning netted my body. I swayed and sagged. It took all my concentration to firm my legs and keep me standing.
I was ready to walk out and leave them to it, but I realized I couldn’t. So’la couldn’t fight back. I’d told him he couldn’t hurt Law, and that didn’t leave him much by way of a defense. On the other hand, letting Law kill the demon would certainly solve a lot of problems.
I hesitated. I’m not proud to say it, but part of me was thinking how easy it would be to just quit. Let Law have his way. So’la would be off this earth, and I would be out of my misery. Six years of being apart hadn’t made my life happy, and it hadn’t made me hurt any less for loving him and not being loved back. It was exhausting hurting all the time. That and being alone. The ghosts didn’t count. They weren’t friends and they weren’t family. I didn’t really mean anything to them. They needed me to survive, and their protection of me was symbiotic; help me, and I keep helping them.
But I was lonely. I never felt like a belonged anywhere. I never felt like anybody would care if I survived a job or not. Sure, the boss would be sorry to have to replace me. I made him a fair bit of money, after all. There was no one else. I didn’t have pets. I was never home long enough to take care of them. Hell, home was just a place for me to keep my clothes and sometimes crash until my next job. I didn’t even have pictures on the walls.
Exhaustion weighed on me, and I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and curled my fingers into my scalp. God. I was such a whiner. I needed to pull my shit together and get over myself. I wasn’t really alone. I still had my aunt and cousins. Besides, I was lucky. I got to go see interesting places and have adventures. Every kid’s dream. Nothing tying me down. Footloose and fancy free. Anyhow, family and friends were way overrated. They were just emotional minefields waiting to blow a person to bits. I was better off alone.
The Incubus Job Page 12
