by Misty Evans
Don’t take it personally.
Show no fear.
Act like an equal.
I feinted with the stake over Toel’s heart, and as he went for the block, I stepped toward him, hooked my leg behind his and swept his leg out from under him using his off-balanced weight and my upper body to propel him backwards. The flip-flops he always wore were an obvious weak spot—I’d noticed that the last time we fought—so I used that to my advantage.
He swore, grabbed the stake and tried to push me away. My nose picked up the scent of metal and I knew Cole was somewhere behind me. He knew better than to jump in, and, knowing my bodyguard, was probably enjoying the show.
Toel’s preternatural strength was up there with the big boys, but mine was still superior and I hadn’t even broken a sweat. Sort of like Spiderman meeting the Hulk, only my skin wasn’t green and I was a whole lot prettier.
Once you have an opponent pinned on the ground, you don’t let up. This fighting stance is up close and as personal as it gets, but the moment you hesitate, you lose momentum. In turn, you lose the advantage. So I straddled Toel’s hips, securing him to the floor and grinding my pelvis down on his. Immediately, I felt his response. Once a vamp, always a vamp. They just can’t control their blood lust or sex lust, and distraction has always been one of my favorite weapons. If my wrist hadn’t already healed, I would have waved the wound in front of his nose.
The last time I’d fought Toel, I’d toyed with him. Let him have the upper hand and get in a few good hits in order to rile up my demon. This time, she was on the frontline, ready to go to work. No need to be coy or play cat and vamp games. I’d had enough of Toel, and although I’d promised Dru and his brothers I wouldn’t kill il bastardo, anything less would come back to bite me in l’asino. Not just me, all of us.
But I had to have one last minute of fun. After all the crap Toel had put me and the Chicago vamps through, and because he’d killed his own father without any remorse, I had to make him regret the fact he’d ever crossed me. So for a few seconds, I let him try to wrestle the stake from my fingers. Let him believe if he just exerted a little more effort, he could throw me off and gain the upper hand.
I let his arrogance and overconfidence undo him.
My free hand held his arm down, the other held the stake. His free hand also grappled with the stake, forcing it high and off to the side. Inch by inch, I surpassed his strength and brought the smooth cherry wood point directly over his heart.
No longer swearing, he tried to buck me off. I clenched my bent legs tighter along his sides and my demon laughed. Nothing like a good bronco ride.
When that didn’t work, he raised his head and spit in my face.
Don’t take it personally. If I was looking into the face of my killer, I’d do the same, and I wasn’t about to show any weakness. Emotions would not trip me up. I was a machine and this is what I did. Took revenge. Secured justice.
“Vengeance is mine,” I whispered in his face.
Before I sunk the stake into his worthless heart, I smelled the heavy scent of wood smoke, and Cole yelled, “Kali!”
A wall of magic hit me with the force of a freight train, lifting me off Toel’s body and slamming me against the ceiling.
Chapter Twenty
The stake fell from my grasp, dropping worthlessly on the floor beside Toel. He stared up at me in full shock mode, a certain archdemon next to him.
“Let me down,” I growled, fighting the magic pinning me to the ceiling. It did no good. The only thing I could move was my mouth.
So I let fly a string of curses at Damon when he refused to drop his outstretched hand and release the powerful restraining magic holding me. “Toel will be dealt with properly by his brothers and the Undead Nation.”
My demon was furious. Furious that she’d been interrupted and furious that Damon could best her. I’d always known he was far more formidable than he’d ever revealed at the Institute, but it still stunned me that his magic could so completely overwhelm mine. On one level, it was pretty cool. On another, it was alarming.
Archdemons. My new enemy.
A warm trickling sensation invaded my mind, sending a shiver down my spine. The trickle became a strong pressure, pushing against my frontal lobe. I’m not your enemy, Kali. You lost control. I’m taking it back.
Merde. Get out of my head!
Not until you have your demon tamed again.
Never, my demon screamed, but I mentally shoved her back.
I have her under control.
He cocked his head. Your actions say otherwise.
You don’t understand…
Now I sounded like Dalinda and a hundred other supernaturals I’d confronted over the years. Maybe Damon was right. I thought I had the upper hand with my demon, but did I?
Had I ever?
She chuckled, low and deep. Ran a caressing hand up and down my spine, making it tingle and setting my jaw on edge.
Damon wasn’t my enemy. The demon inside was.
She wasn’t going back in her cage without a fight. As soon as I grabbed for her with an internal fist, her claws came at me. My vision blurred and my body seized. Not even Damon’s magic could stop the bucking and arching as seizure after seizure racked me from head to toe.
I was aware of everything and nothing. Cole calling my name and demanding that Damon release me. Toel backing up to make his escape and Dru emerging from the shadows, his brothers a solid wall of King and Master vamps behind him, blocking Toel’s way.
On the flip side, the internal war between my two selves raged on. Black, evil magic warred with the shackles and chains I tried to bind it with. Why? my demon shouted inside my head. Why did I fight my nature when it felt so good to give in? Why did I believe I could ever imprison her for long? I was evil. No matter what I did to balance it—no matter how many humans I saved or how much justice I served—I was going to hell. In the end, none of the humans would know or care what I’d done to keep them safe and the supernaturals I’d taken revenge on would enjoy exacting their own revenge when the world ended and I fell into the pit with them…if I wasn’t already there.
Her words flooded my brain, and she was smart. She used my own fighting acumen on me. She stopped the violent assault, and instead, beckoned me to join her. Her magic turned feather soft, cradling my battered senses and exhausted psyche. Under my closed eyelids, light danced and formed interesting runes…ones I hadn’t seen since my mother was alive. A memory from the distant past encircled me. I was a small girl sitting in Mama’s lap. She rocked me and soothed my cries. Everything will be okay, Kalina. Big girls do not shed tears for all to see.
My demon, like my mother, wrapped her arms around me and a new mental and emotional wall went up. A protective wall. I could rest now. I could let her take care of…
The magic pinning me to the ceiling released and I fell through the air like a sinking rock, landing flat on my face and interrupting the dream. I sputtered and opened my eyes.
Damon’s Italian loafers came into view and suddenly I was flipped onto my back. “Don’t you dare give in to her.” He slapped my face, shook me hard. “Fight, dammit. You’re more than your sinful nature, Kali. More than just a demon. Don’t let her win.”
And then the pressure of his mind assaulted mine. Non arrenderti mai!
Never give up. Easy to say when you’re not fighting the monster inside who’s suddenly turned into your mother. I opened my mouth to tell him I was okay, that I was me again, but nothing would come out. I was mute.
His eyes narrowed and he shook me again, which pissed me off. Like I hadn’t been manhandled enough in the past few minutes. Raising a hand, I punched him in the stomach.
Bad move.
Thinking I was still controlled by my demon, he grabbed my throat with one hand and placed the other on my forehead.
Exquisite supernatural power raced from my forehead to my toes, once again making my body seize. Unlike my demon’s magic, this was astonishing in its magnitude, magnet
ic in its dominance. A rolling darkness pervaded my senses, one that smelled like dusky wood smoke and rich-scented sovereign earth. The blood in my veins sighed with a weird kind of relief, my cells welcomed it. The darkness offered release. An end to the fighting.
Death? I asked Damon as the weight of what he was doing brought burning tears to my eyes.
Not death. Sleep. Surrender. Everything will be okay.
Everything will be okay. It was a lie, of course. Just like it had been with my mother. Like it had been with my demon. Nothing was ever okay.
For half a second, I fought the darkness, fear pumping hard in my veins, my heart beating against my chest like a timpani. But Damon’s hands were warm and firm, his voice cajoling and his magic, undeniable. Fighting was a moot point. In the end, he was taking me under.
I fought anyway. This felt like more than sleep and self-preservation is a strong motivator.
But my fight didn’t last long. His magic was too strong. His supremacy, too formidable. He reached under my skin, through my walls, shields and safeguards. He touched me where I could no longer defend myself…a place I didn’t know existed.
A falling sensation…a flash of light…and then everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-one
I woke in darkness. Complete darkness and an odd feeling permeating me inside and out. As if my center of balance had shifted. Along with that, my highly perceptive senses seemed to be heightened even more.
I wasn’t sure I was truly awake. Maybe I was still wandering around in my dreams—nightmares, really. Maria, Toel, Rad. Dru and his brothers. Noctifectors in their red uniforms, gutting me with silver daggers. Vampires forcing me to drink their blood. One nightmare faded into another with no reprieve. I was staked, crucified, tortured. Struck with lightning over and over. Dying, only to be resurrected so I could suffer and die again.
But this cold, hard place I woke in was less mystical, more solid.
The floor where I lay was metallic, the icy feel of it cutting through my clothes and raising gooseflesh on my skin. It sunk into my bones and made my normally hot blood congeal. My heart beat a slower pace but seemed efficient at moving the thicker blood through my system.
I sniffed and smelled well-refined steel reinforced with restrictive magic hexes. Old hexes. Older than me and directly linked to the earth.
Sitting up, I reached out to touch the wall, running my fingers over its smooth surface. My eyes fought to find even a trace of light but there was none.
I breathed deep, searching for smells that would clue me in to my location. A faint scent of smoke drifted in the stale air. Very faint. Damon had been here, but not recently, and that was the only scent I could find.
I switched my focus to listening, straining my ears to catch even the slightest sound. The only thing I detected was the racing beat of my heart and the pump of blood in my veins. A touch of claustrophobia hit and the unbalanced sensation intensified. My pulse jumped and a band of anxiety tightened around my chest.
No light…check. No fresh air…check. Total isolation from the outside world…check.
No doors, windows or furniture…check, check and check.
I was in prison. Not just any prison. Damon’s solitary confinement cell in the basement of the Institute.
How inconvenient.
How annoying.
My boss assumed I’d gone off the demon reservation and had locked me up tight. Couldn’t blame him, but I was irritated. And claustrophobic.
Breathe. This is all a misunderstanding.
After a minute of concentration, the worst of the anxiety passed. My pulse continued beating at a healthy clip and I had to keep one hand on the nearest wall so I didn’t fall over from vertigo, but the tightness around my chest eased. On a whim, I tried using my magic to find an exit point. My demon slept deeply, probably because Damon had put a lethargus curse on her, sending her into a magical coma of sorts, and my magic core felt sensitive and raw. Nevertheless, I touched fingers and thumbs together to see what would happen.
Energy sparked—I did a mental fist pump—and then it promptly fizzled out.
Okay, then. Next idea, Kali?
I had no weapons, no magic, no way to communicate with anyone.
Wait. I did too.
Damon, I mentally called to him. Are you there?
No response.
Come on, Damon. Let me out.
He was silent. Bastardo.
Solitary confinement? Really? Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?
While it was possible the magic and steel interfered with our psychic link, I had nothing better to do than to keep calling to him. Look, I know it looked bad at Dalinda’s but I was in control the whole time. And I’m fine. My demon’s back in her cage.
Nothing.
I know you’re listening.
Nada.
I continued ranting for a few more minutes but he didn’t respond. Frustrated, I considered my opponent. What made him tick? What was his biggest weakness?
The archdemon and I had worked together since I was hired by Damon’s wife back in Spain in the late 1700s to take revenge on him. She’d been my first client after I’d left Maria’s court behind. Believing Damon was cheating on her, she’d hired me to settle the score. Turned out, Big D was an archdemon setting up Europe’s first Bridge Institute. He wasn’t cheating on his wife with another woman, he was cheating on her with his job.
Figuring out what made Damon tick had been an ongoing hobby of mine. I still hadn’t nailed it down. Figuring out his biggest weakness wasn’t any easier. One thing I did know was he liked me. He wanted more from me than I was willing to give, personally and professionally.
Damon? Talk to me. Please. I’m going crazy here by myself. I know you think I overstepped my limits with Toel, but if you’d just listen to my side of things.
Ah, yes. Bargaining. Not an approach I liked using in my line of work. I heard a lot of it, but I never used it myself. I found it demeaning.
But apparently, it worked.
Sharp pressure filled my head and I pressed the tips of my fingers to my temples as Damon’s voice rapped against my temporal lobes. I’ll be down shortly.
Score. Time to get out of this hellhole and back to work.
Standing up, I fought the unbalanced feeling still worming its way around my brain stem. The absence of light and fresh air intensified the claustrophobia, so I paced, keeping one set of fingers on the walls to guide me so I didn’t walk into them. I was wearing some kind of cotton tunic that hung to my knees. It had been washed a lot, but when I lifted it to my nose, I caught a whiff of Damon. His scent and his magic were embedded in the cloth. This was his shirt.
Weird.
Weirder still was when a wave of magic hit the steel off to my right and a previously invisible door opened.
My visitor was backlit, and since I’d been in complete darkness for a long time, my pupils wigged out on me over the sudden light. I slammed my eyes shut. “Damon?”
The smell that hit my nose wasn’t of wood smoke. It reeked instead of unrefined wool, holy water and wax candles. The trappings of the Catholic Church.
Dio cano. It was the Templar knight priest.
Run.
Blinking to regain my vision, I backed against the wall, anxiously touching my ring fingers and thumbs together. Stupid, right? My magic was dead in the water, but self-preservation is a hard instinct to overcome with mere logic.
Run.
Logic also told me I was overreacting to the presence of the priest. Didn’t matter. Maybe the dreams I’d had while I was out were still playing games with my mind, or the fact I had no weapons and no magic and every priest I’d ever encountered wanted me dead.
Time to go on the offensive. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, wondering what weapons his hands hid inside his bell sleeves. “But I will if necessary.”
He didn’t answer. His face, in fact, didn’t change. Only his eyes offered a response. They slid from
my hair to my face to the shirt hanging off my frame. Did he think it preposterous that I could hurt him or was he silently laughing at how I looked?
Didn’t matter. I was offended either way. “Just so we’re clear, human, I’ve taken down bigger fish than you with less.”
His left eye twitched. He stepped forward.
For all my big talk, self-preservation was still paramount. I edged a step away. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”
“Spiritu sancto.” One of his hands appeared and he made the sign of the cross. “I’ve come for you, vitium.”
Chapter Twenty-two
There was that damn word again. Vitium. Vice. “Well, Spiritu sancto, you can’t have me.”
I squeezed closer to the wall, slid sideways and eyeballed the opening. If I could just get past him and out that door…
Another figure stepped from the light into the doorway, his shoulders nearly touching the sides. While his features were shadowed thanks to the priest, the fine cut of his suit and the expensive loafers were a dead giveaway. “Relax, Kali.” Damon entered the room, raised a hand and magical light illuminated the cell. “The priest is here to help you.”
I eyed my boss with serious confusion. “You feeling all right, Damon?”
“Yes.” He frowned. “Why?”
“Priests don’t help us. They send us to hell, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Salmad is not here to harm you.”
Whoa. More confusion. “Salmad, the mad priest? But he lived in Rome when I did. That’s three hundred years ago. Humans don’t live that long.”
“My given name is Belphagor.” The priest lowered his hood and glared at me. His head was shaved down to a quarter-inch of peach fuzz that glowed white under the overhead light. His eyes were a sharp blue, one that reminded me of the rare blue beach glass Neve sometimes found along the lake. “It is true. I lived as Salmad, the mad priest, and was left for dead in Rome, if you recall.”
There was something in the way he glowered at me. Something more than a priest hating a demon. It was rare, but I’d seen that look a few times in others’ gazes. Especially in the Italian Court. “Have we met before?”
