by Misty Evans
“Already been there,” Cole said, reading my determined walk and handing me a paper sack with my favorite fast-food chain’s logo on the front. He looked tired. The scent of bacon, scrambled egg and English muffin wafted past my nose.
I’d already eaten a dozen of Kirill’s chocolate chip pancakes, but a demon needs her energy, especially when facing homicidal queens, warring vamps and whatever craziness Chloe and her blood bank had goin’ on.
I unwrapped the paper and bit into the breakfast sandwich. “And?” I said around a mouthful of egg and bacon heaven. “What was the emergency?”
Cole stuck the keys to my TT cruiser into his jeans pocket and leaned against the doorframe. His tired eyes scanned the parking lot and the front of the Institute. “Your slaves are causing problems. Drinking up the Kali Sweet inventory and throwing hissy fits when there isn’t enough to go around.”
I continued inhaling my food and shook my head. “Rad’s drinking directly from me most of the time, and I’m donating three bottles of blood every week for Arman. No way should he need more than that.”
“After we left the club last night, Guitar Boy went down to Chloe’s for more of your blood. Arman was there picking up the last bottle. They got into a fight and damaged a bunch of Chloe’s prized inventory. She says you owe her…” He pulled a wadded up piece of paper from his pocket. “Two thousand, six hundred and fifty-two dollars. And some blood.”
“Holy shit.” I nearly choked on a bite of sandwich. “What the hell is wrong with those two?”
“Beats me.” He stepped closer, scanned my face. “What happened to you last night? You look like hell.”
What every female wants to hear. “Something hit me in the back of the head, twice, but left no visible injury.”
Like usual, I’d put my hair in a high ponytail for work. Cole turned me around, slid one of his hands up my neck and ran his fingers over the back of my head. Damn, every male in my life had skilled fingers that immediately made me sigh with contentment.
His fingers probed and rubbed and outlined my skull and then he made a hunh sound.
I turned back to face him. “What do you think it was?”
His fingers lightly probed my facial bones while he checked my pupils. “Obviously, you’re not nauseous. Any dizziness? Vision problems?”
“I had a bitch of a headache when I woke up.”
“It’s gone now?”
“Damon did something to my temples. Worked like a charm.”
A muscle jumped under Cole’s right eye. “You think it was the ghost? Maria?”
“Those are the going theories, but since when can a ghost knock out a demon and how could it possibly be Maria?”
“And how did it manage to knock you out without leaving any wound?”
I shrugged. “I need to go back to the scene. See if I can figure it out.”
“Cops are all over it. Better wait until they clear out. Let’s get some sleep, then we’ll hit it tonight.”
“No time for sleep. I still have Toel to chase and Dalinda to stop.”
“You’re pale as the snow.” He stepped closer—so close, his nose was practically in my hair. My demon took notice, sat up. “You smell off.”
“I showered with some vanilla latte body scrub Di gave me. An early Christmas present, she said. She knows I don’t do holidays.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that. Your demon. She smells…weird.”
The demon in question hissed at the criticism. “So I look sick and smell weird. Any more shots for my ego?”
His nose grazed my neck, below my earlobe, and a tickle of electricity sent a shudder down my spine. “Your iron is low. Way too low for a demon. You’ve got to quit feeding Guitar Boy all your blood.”
Demons in general have high mineral counts. Our magic comes from the earth, so our bodies are natural sources of iron, zinc, magnesium, etc. We can bleed to death, but it’s a rarity because we heal fast and the minerals give us extra fortification. “Let’s not forget Arman’s drinking his fair share as well.”
Cole sighed, sounding older than his gazillion-odd years, stepped back and leaned one hand on my car. “It’s like they’re addicted to your blood.”
“They’re blood slaves. Of course, they’re addicted to my blood. Not my blood so much as Nudra’s. If he hadn’t injected me with his blood in the first place, neither Arman nor Rad would have been able to drink from me. It would have tasted like gasoline.”
“This is beyond normal blood slave addiction, Kali.”
Okay, but what could I do about it? “I don’t know what’s going on with them, but right now, I have bigger issues to worry about. I’ll ask Dru next time I see him and see what he thinks.”
Another tired sigh escaped Cole’s lips. The sun was higher in the sky and a few weak rays cut through the gray clouds, emphasizing his hazel eyes and five-o-clock shadow. “So where to first?”
I balled up the now empty wrapper and shoved it in the bag. “When was the last time you slept?”
Cole straightened. “I don’t need sleep.”
Dire o sparare. “Don’t bullshit me. You haven’t slept in a week, you haven’t screwed anyone in six. You’re an absolute bear to be around right now, so go get some sleep and I’ll call Hone and have him meet me at the office. He can play bodyguard today.”
Fishing the keys from his pocket, he motioned me to get in the car. “Forget it, toots. You’re stuck with the bear. Although, I don’t know what you think you’re going to pull off during the day. Vicky and Toel will be in their coffins, Chloe is closed until five, and Dalinda won’t pop her head up until sunset.”
I peeked up at the filtered sunshine. Usually I worked nights, slept days. The tug of warm covers and a few more hours of shut-eye called to me. Especially since lately, I hadn’t been having the Rad nightmare. Since he’d come back into my life, my subconscious seemed appeased by his real-life threat so he stopped showing up in my dream world carrying a silver knife. “Tell you what, I need to pick up a couple things at my house. After that, we can come back here until sunset. I’ll regroup with Maddy, JR and Di on my cases while you catch a few hours of dream time.”
“And you’ll call Dru and see what he knows about your blood slave freak show.”
If Cole was pushing me to talk to the Master vamp, he was well and truly concerned. “I’ll call Dru.”
Turned out, I didn’t have to. A second before his black BMW pulled up to the Institute’s double iron gates, my stomach clenched hard and I doubled over. “Che cavolo, what is wrong with me?” I bit out between clamped teeth.
The clouds overhead suddenly blotted out the weak sun, shadows dark as night falling over us. A cold wind kicked up, blowing flakes of snow in my face. The gates swung open and Dru’s Beemer drove onto the grounds. Meanwhile, Cole grabbed me to stop me from falling.
His well-muscled arms held me against his body, one of his chiseled thighs sliding in between mine to steady me. “I’ve got you.”
Boy, did he, and thank Satan for warrior bodyguards with overprotective instincts. There’s not much better to hold you tight—all that solid muscle and steady demon—when your own body seizes so hard, you nearly crack your spine.
Brianna exited Dru’s car first, her eyes lit with happiness to see Cole. That happiness died the instant she saw him embracing me. She opened Dru’s door and he extracted his long, lean frame from the sports car, his attention also drawn to Cole and me as snow blew into my eyes.
A shark seemed to be eating my intestines and I sucked my lips between my teeth to keep from letting out any sound of distress. Cole hefted my butt up onto the hood of my car, steadied me once more against his strong body and stuck out a hand to Dru. “Stay back. You’re causing her pain.”
“What?” Dru and I spoke at the same time, his voice carrying a lot more weight than mine.
I hated being weak. There’d been a time in Maria’s court where pain didn’t exist for me. She’d conditioned it right out. Or maybe I should say, my demo
n lived for pain back then. Reveled in it.
After hundreds of years of repressing my demon, however, I’d begun to feel again. I’m no wimp, but this pain—and the earlier one in my head—was at a level I hadn’t felt since my early days under Maria’s torture. It made me feel vulnerable…a sensation I was determined to slay as effectively as I did supernaturals who crossed my vengeance path.
To overcome my weakness, though, meant letting my demon rise. Giving her more headroom than I had since the night I let Toel egg her out for a fight. She’s a tough one to control, and in this situation, an unnecessary risk, but I had to do something to salvage my pride and not look weak.
Inside me, she gladly responded to the invitation and it took me a moment more of gritted teeth and warring emotions to get her on a sufficient leash.
“She’s sick,” Cole said to Dru. “And you’re making it worse. You need to leave.”
I swallowed hard, looked at Dru and realized Cole was right. Again. Damn, even exhausted and strung out, he was thinking on his feet better than I was. But what the hell was going on? Why was Dru’s vamp blood making me react like this? “This is more than my demon resisting the call of your family’s blood, Dru. I don’t know what’s happening, but Cole’s right. You need to leave.”
Dru looked as pained as I felt. He started to step forward, instead stepped back a few feet. “It’s Nudra’s blood, Kali. It’s at war with your demon blood and it’s losing. You need more of it.”
I pushed Cole back and slid off the car’s hood. “I’m having withdrawal?”
Dru’s gloved hand tapped against his trench coat. “That’s why I’m here. It’s been bugging me all night. This demon-vamp thing is new to me, but I saw your reaction in the club last night and I knew it wasn’t normal. I did some research and it’s a possibility Nudra’s death didn’t stop the effects of his blood on your system. You need more vamp blood.”
Hell with that. I almost felt relieved. “If it’s withdrawal, all I have to do is ride it out.”
He shook his head, eyes studying me intently. “You can’t ride it out, Kali. I know you hate our kind, but in a sense, you’re one of us now. If you don’t drink, you’ll die.”
Sick joke. That’s what this was. “But I’d have to drink from Nudra again and he’s dead.”
Everyone was quiet as realization sunk in. If Nudra was dead and I needed his blood to live…
Then I was one dead demon.
Chapter Ten
“Drink mine.” Dru held up a hand, revealing his wrist under the glove. “I’m a royal. I can save you.”
“Oh, hell,” Cole swore under his breath. He turned his back on Brianna and Dru, stepped in my line of sight, and blocked them out. “Be careful, Kali. This smells like a trap.”
Lot of those going around it seemed. I stewed it over, my brain feeling as heavy as the circling clouds and wet snow. I lowered my voice. “I’m already vamp queen. What would making me his blood slave gain him?”
Cole’s dark brows drew together and the tic under his eye started up again. Snow dotted his hair and stuck on his whiskered cheeks. “He’s wanted you in his bed since the first time he saw you.”
Dru was a big flirt, and while I was sure he wouldn’t turn down a roll in the coffin with me, I sensed he wasn’t offering his blood for that reason alone. We were friends. I’d helped him with Toel and he’d made my transition to queen of the Undead reasonably easy.
On the other hand, vamps traded blood and sex as readily as I downed copious amounts of spaghetti and meatballs. Being the political creatures they were, they used blood and sex to get what they wanted. And unfortunately, the two went hand in hand.
I was demon, not a vamp, and a strong, three-hundred-year-old demon at that. I struggled to control the seven vices that made up my entity—and occasionally I gave into those vices with wild abandon—but I could control them if I wanted to.
Shifting to look around Cole, I asked Dru, “How long do I have?”
Dru lowered his hand. “The longer you go without vamp blood, the weaker you’ll become. Could be weeks. Could be days. There’s really no precedent, only a few legends older than I am that talk about this crossbreed sort of thing.”
Crossbreed. A conversation I’d had with Lucifer in November pinged my brain. You are one of the vitiums of Mary Magdalena.
Mary Magdalena had been possessed by seven demons. They were exorcised from her by Jesus Christ. She then became the most beloved disciple Jesus had on earth.
Or so Lucifer claimed. He also claimed I wasn’t a demon in the normal sense of the word. I was a freak—some weird crossbreed of good and evil.
I glanced at Cole, saw the tension on his face. Dru had the same expression. This wasn’t either of their decisions, though. It was mine. “I need more information. About this process and what it’s doing to me.” About what I really am. “And if I do decide to go through with it, I need your word you won’t use this against me or the Council.”
Hope lit Dru’s eyes. “Of course. I’m offering this out of friendship, nothing more.”
Cole made a rude noise in the back of his throat, took my arm and prompted me to get into the car.
He held open the car door, but I stood a moment longer letting my demon read the Master of Chicago’s Undead. He was strong, physically, mentally and psychically. Exactly the type of strength I was going to need to fight Maria if and when the time came. And I had no doubt it would come.
The wind lifted the end of my ponytail and blew it across my eyes as if an invisible force was trying to break the connection between us. Dru sensed it, tilting his head but not breaking eye contact with me. Brianna tensed, whether from his sudden awareness filtering to her or her sensing the presence on her own. She shifted closer to her Master, put out a protective arm.
A second later, Cole was at my back, weapon drawn. “Kali? What is it?” he murmured in my ear.
I was afraid to speak and scare it away, so I held completely still and carefully transferred my attention from scanning Dru to scanning the air in front of my face.
Kalina, a voice whispered right in front of me. Bambina.
My earthly mother never called me my given Italian name. She’d always called me bambina. Daughter.
So had Maria.
The smell of thick, heady perfume filled my nostrils. Roses, I thought. And then, ancient paper. The swirling snowflakes became a tornado, flying faster and faster into a human form, the white flakes glowing, iridescent.
A ghost from my past that defied all reason.
My heart clenched. “What do you want?”
A throaty laughter came from the tornado shaped like a woman. Fingers of dark magic reached for me, pricking my skin right through my cape wherever they touched. Punching through my resistance and grasping onto my emotions. The world around us faded and Maria came into sharper contrast, her striking blue eyes piercing, red hair flying around her head resembling Medusa.
Familiar feelings of anger, pride and the deep-seated need for revenge rose inside me and then were sucked away as she absorbed them. My body swayed, the magic whirlwind carrying me away. Drawing my demon out. Kalina…
For a second, I let my demon succumb, but it was only in order for me to get a good look at the entity in front of me. She smelled like Maria, laughed like Maria, even had the queen’s features. She exuded a special brand of dark magic I’d only ever felt while around the queen, and she was definitely a succubus. But there was something not right about this entity. Something that didn’t match.
Maria had never glowed.
Was it the fact she was a ghost? I’d have to ask Neve. Never in all my years had I seen a ghost light up. Didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.
A demon as evil as Maria, though? Far stretch for me to believe her ghost would glow with something akin to angelic light.
My demon struggled to break free from her leash, snapping and clawing at me and straining my hold over her to the breaking point. The clouds pressed down arou
nd us, ominous and suffocating.
No. Bringing my fingers and thumbs together, I raised my protective magic. “Vengeance is mine,” I yelled into the wind and pushed my hands out from my body.
My shield was weak but it held as I shoved a wall of magic at the entity, at the clouds, at the snow storm trying to engulf me. My heart thumped hard at the strain to shove the evil away and, at the same time, contain the evil inside fighting to free itself and join her.
Magic flowed, rising and falling, pushing and pulling. I held on, and from somewhere outside my wall, a new thread of magic flowed toward me. Like a strand of DNA, it locked with my magic, curling around me and renewing my strength. Together we succeeded at slamming her back.
And just like that, the wind died, the ghost disappeared, and the clouds lifted.
Snow fell in gentle spirals and a salty ocean scent teased my nose. My demon slunk back into her hole and a gentle calm settled in my bones. “Rad?” I looked around, but only Cole, Dru and Brianna were there, staring back and asking if I was okay.
Shaking from head to toe, I nodded and leaned on the car, my eyes continuing to scan the parking lot, buildings and front drive. Rad was nowhere to be seen, but I was sure I’d sensed him.
My phone buzzed inside my cape. Loud, bee-like.
Rad.
I checked my messages and sure enough, Rock God had sent me one. More than one. They all asked the same question: R U OK?
With shaking fingers, I texted back. Y
Dru rushed toward me and a new pain ripped through my stomach. As I wrapped an arm around my waist and bent over, Cole once more stepped between the two of us. “Back off, bloodsucker.”
Angst creased Dru’s forehead and face, but he did as commanded, moving far enough away, the pain eased. Cole’s hands poked, prodded and rubbed my back, my arms, my neck. “Fight it, Kali. Whatever the hell it is.”
I straightened, blew my bangs out of my face. “I’m okay.” And I was until I looked up and saw Damon watching out one of the Institute’s windows.
“Was it Maria?” Cole asked.
If it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck…or in this case, a succubus demon ghost…it probably was. Though the light show I’d just seen gave me pause. “I’m still not sure what the hell it is.” I gave Dru a weak wave, slid into the car. “Let’s get out of here before Damon goes archdemon on us and confines me to my room. I need to think and I can’t do that with him in my face.”
