by Misty Evans
Coercion. A useful tool at times.
“Let’s take this upstairs,” I whispered against Damon’s lips. “To your apartment. I’ve waited a long time for this. I want it to be special.”
He slowly pulled back, his eyelids lowered with lust. “I don’t want to wait. I’ll have you here and then again upstairs.” He nuzzled my neck. “I want to bury myself deep inside you. I want to hear you scream my name.”
I was going to scream all right. And so was he once the effect of Maria’s touch wore off and he remembered this conversation. Too bad I couldn’t run with Damon’s plan for a few earth-shattering minutes just to piss off Yasmin, but we’d already gone too far with this escapade.
“I don’t do sex against a cold, stone wall, Damon.” I let my demon peek through my eyes so he knew I was serious. I was lying, of course, but still serious. Rad and I had done it against every surface around, but up against a wall wasn’t my preference. Gravity tended to be a bitch. “We’ve waited this long, we can wait another two minutes until we’re in the privacy of your apartment.”
I sounded like an ad for abstinence. Damon growled low in his throat and the hair on my neck rose to attention. Something inside made me want to bare my teeth and growl back…and it wasn’t my demon.
Miracle of miracles, my words sank in and Damon released my hands, giving me another deep kiss as he did so.
That was all the opening I needed. The second he broke the kiss, I raised my protective magic and punched him hard in the stomach.
He was in the throes of lust and distracted by thoughts of what he was going to do to me once he got me upstairs. That was probably the only reason the sucker punch worked. He doubled over, and when he did, I used one of Cole’s favorite leg kicks and sent Damon sprawling to the floor.
He spun sideways on the way down and knocked his head hard against a metal pipe. It didn’t knock him out right away and he rolled over and tried to lift himself up. The damage was enough, though, to send him back down, unconscious.
Run, my demon told me, and this time, I listened. I jumped over Salmad’s limp body—when Damon came to, he’d take care of him—and took off for home.
Chapter Twenty-five
Home was over three miles away. I didn’t have weapons, didn’t even have my cellphone. Trekking through the South Side of Chicago in my current state of dress without weapons and no way to contact anyone in the middle of December seemed, as Damon would put it, imprudent.
I stopped before I got out the basement door. If I could sneak upstairs to my apartment, I could get out of Damon’s old shirt, get back into my own clothes, secure my weapons and grab my cellphone. But I ran the high risk of encountering Yasmin or Kirill.
Explaining how I’d escaped my cell after being imprisoned for letting my demon loose, and why Damon and Salmad were both unconscious, would take a lot of time and energy. I strongly doubted the other archdemons would be receptive to my story. Yasmin especially wanted to think bad of me and put me in hot water. I figured it was better to let Damon handle them and explain the situation once he was awake.
Cole was an option. If I could locate him, I could hide out in the locker room next to his gym and he could retrieve my things. The gym was also in the basement and Yasmin and Kirill rarely ventured any lower in the Institute than the first floor kitchen.
Making my way cautiously from the dank prison wing to the warmer, well-lit gym, I prayed Cole was working out or giving lessons to Dru’s vampire warriors and I could catch his attention while staying covert.
He was indeed giving a certain vampire a lesson when I peeked into the gym from the locker room door. Brianna was pinned to the floor underneath my bodyguard. They were both laughing, and the sound rang through the otherwise empty gym and bounced off the high ceiling.
When was the last time I had heard Cole laugh? I couldn’t remember. He was having fun, and it was about damn time.
I backed away from the door and pressed my hands against the concrete wall, a tiny bit of sadness and jealousy pinching my heart. Cole was one of my closest friends. I trusted him with my life. But in the past month, all I had managed to do was stress him out, exhaust him. He deserved a few minutes of relief. Of happiness and laughter. I just wished I was able to make him laugh like that.
Maria was in Damon’s prison cell. Toel was no doubt in something similar at Carpathia House. No way was I interrupting Cole’s time with Brianna. I was on my own, but I had my magic and I wanted to go home. Alone. So imprudent or not, I snuck out of the Institute in my bare feet and started running.
By the position of the moon in the night sky, I assumed it was between ten and midnight. The snow was knee-deep, the air bitter cold. The usual gray Chicago sky was instead a blue-black color, and for once I could see stars twinkling and creating their heavenly patterns.
Even though it had been dark for hours, I had to keep off the streets and out of sight as I ran through the snow, jumping snow banks and avoiding streetlights. There were sections of trees, ravines and empty lots between the Institute and my place that were easy to cross, but more often than not, I ran into row houses, fenced in yards and an endless grid of streets. Lots of barking dogs. Neither the lateness of the hour, nor the cold winter air, deterred good South Siders from gathering on front porches, snow packed sidewalks and under basketball hoops in the sparsely laid out parks. Hip-hop music, cars without mufflers, and random voices punctuated the crisp air as I stayed in the shadows.
A distance that normally took fifteen to thirty minutes in my car, depending on traffic, took over an hour. By the time I arrived at the church I lovingly called home, I had frostbite from my toes to my knees, my hands were frozen into fists and my face felt like it would shatter into a hundred tiny pieces if I smiled.
Good thing I was a demon. I would heal and heal fast.
Since I’d taken the back way to get there, I came upon the church from the side with the old graveyard. The last snowstorm had dumped several inches, and here in the cemetery, the snow was undisturbed. Moonlight filtered through the thick canopy of overgrown trees and vines to touch the snow and partially visible headstones in random patterns. They reminded me of crooked teeth. Where the moonlight landed on the snow, the snow sparkled.
To most, the cemetery appeared creepy, but to me, it was peaceful, and even in my frozen state, I wanted to simply sit down under one of the giant oak trees and catch my breath.
But I’d already pushed my luck enough that night. I needed to warm up, eat and sort out what I’d learned about Maria and myself.
At the back door, I placed my frostbitten fingers against the large stones of the church. The earth magic wards I had on the building responded, tickling my palms. No one was inside, not even Rad.
What day was it? Was he still in New York? I had no idea how long I had been in lockdown. It could have been days or weeks. I was too tired to care. I released the back door lock with the touch of my hand and entered.
Five minutes later, I had drawn a hot bath and made myself a giganto mug of steaming French roast coffee. I’d also gathered several weapons from the stash hidden in a safe under my closet floor. I felt naked without Volante wrapped around my arm, and I was pissed that I had lost the stun baton, but having a premium wooden stake and a silver dagger at my fingertips eased my nerves. I added a few drops of lavender scented bath oil to the hot water and sank my chilled body into the tub.
Once I was situated and the scented water relaxed my muscles, I sipped my coffee and dialed Di’s home number from a cheap, pay-as-you-go cellphone that had also been stored in the safe. She didn’t answer, so I left a message letting her know I was fine and asking her to call me when she got my message. During the week, she worked nights with me at Sweet Investigations and slept during the day. On the off chance she might be at the office, I called there too. No one answered and I was transferred to voicemail. I hung up without leaving a message.
My skin turned prune-like after half an hour, so I forced myself out of t
he tub and dried off before slipping into my favorite pair of Hello Kitty pajamas. In my bedroom, Rad’s makeshift bed looked as inviting as my queen size bed at the Institute. I brushed a couple of sheets of music off the blankets, crawled under them and fell asleep with the stake from my stash in one hand and the dagger in the other.
Sometime later, I jerked awake. There was a body next to mine and unfamiliar voices in the room. Before I opened my eyes, I grabbed the person next to me, pinned him to the floor and rolled on top of him, raising the stake over my head. The scent of jasmine tea filled the air.
“Kali! It’s me.”
Maddy’s voice penetrated the sleepy fog in my head. I looked down at her face, released my grip on her shirt and lowered the stake. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She pointed to the flatscreen on the wall. “Watching movies and keeping you company. Cole wasn’t here. Rad wasn’t here. You looked like you needed sleep. I figured I’d keep an eye on things while you did.”
I climbed off her, crawled back under the blanket and laid my arm over my eyes to block the light. “You smell like vanilla and sugar.”
She shifted and I heard the clang of cheap metal. “Di and I baked cookies. Want one?”
I glanced at the red tin filled with iced cutout cookies, all in Christmas shapes and colors. “Where are the demons and balls of fire,” I joked. “You don’t really expect me to eat an angel, do you?”
Handing me a reindeer with red sprinkles on his nose, she rolled her eyes. “Just try one.”
The cookie was soft, just the way I liked them, and the frosting tasted like real butter and vanilla flavoring. I sighed, content to eat the sugar cookie while the TV flashed and flickered over the walls and floor. On-screen, a single mother fought to keep her three kids from being taken away from her on Christmas Eve. “Why do you watch these shows? They’re depressing as hell.”
“No they’re not. If you would actually watch one from beginning to end, you’d see they always have a happy ending.”
“Real life isn’t a fairytale.”
“God, Kali. They’re movies, not real life. I know the difference, and if I want to watch movies with happy endings, I’m entitled.”
So she was. I sat up, nudging my shoulder next to hers as we both leaned against the wall for support. “You have two choices, you know. Either you go see your parents and tell them you’re a vampire, or you mourn the loss of your family and move on.”
She sat silently watching the TV, but I could see her mentally stewing over my Damon-esque advice. “My mother always baked hundreds of cookies at Christmas time. Every night after dinner we would make a batch of whatever new recipe she found in her magazines. I’d wake up every morning to the smell of cookies. Then she’d put together half a dozen different kinds in tins like this one and on the weekends, we’d deliver them to people at church, the nursing home and our neighbors. She would even stuff the mailbox with a Ziploc bag for the mailman.”
Maddy wasn’t one to cry, but her voice wobbled. “My mother loved baking those cookies. It was our thing. We always did it together. I wonder if she’s baking any this year.”
I put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll go with you if you want to tell them what happened.”
She tilted her head, leaning it against mine. “They’ll never accept who I am now.”
Real life. Always a bitch. “I’m told miracles can happen.”
“That would be one big-ass miracle.”
Was it any surprise I liked this kid? “I think we make our own miracles. We just don’t realize at the time that we’re doing it.”
She straightened, grabbed the tin of cookies and set it between us. “And what miracle are you currently working on?”
“Staying out of solitary confinement.”
“Is that why you’re here alone? Did you run away from Cole?”
I snagged a snowman and bit his head off. “Damon. What’s the status on Toel?”
“Dru scheduled a trial for the end of the week. Why are you running from Damon?”
“Misunderstanding.” I finished the cookie. “Why a trial? They know Toel killed Vlad.”
Maddy shrugged. “Vampire politics. How’s your blood thing? Are you still having withdrawal?”
My stomach rumbled, but it wanted another cookie, not vamp blood. This time, I chose an angel. She was decked out in pink and yellow frosting and sported tiny silver balls on her wings. A definite Di creation. “Actually, I feel better than I have in weeks.”
“Maybe Dru’s idea worked.”
I stopped the cookie halfway to my mouth. “What idea?”
“The one with his blood.”
“I didn’t take him up on that. No way I’m becoming his blood slave on top of being queen.”
“But Cole said…” She frowned, then shrugged. “Whatever.”
Not whatever. “What did Cole say?”
She played with an ornament cookie. “I was worried about you after I heard what happened with Toel, so I went to the Institute. No one would let me see you. You must have been in solitary confinement already. When I asked Cole what was going on, he said it was for your own good. Like an intervention. You were going to die without Dru’s blood.”
My stomach soured. I tossed the angel back into the cookie tin. “Was Dru at the Institute?”
Her nod was tentative. “But if it worked, it’s a good thing, right? You don’t want to die.”
I bent my knees, set my elbows on them and scrubbed my face with my hands. This couldn’t be happening, but it made sense. My dreams, the way I felt when I woke up in the cell. Even when I was running home, I felt stronger, faster, like I was one with the shadows.
Combining Undead blood with demon blood was a dangerous science experiment. If the vamp blood was from a direct descendent of Vlad and the demon blood was as old as mine—never mind that I might be one of the seven original vices cast out by Jesus—and the science experiment morphed into Frankenstein on a super colossal scale of holy shit, we’re all fucked now.
“Why would Damon do that?” I was talking to myself more than Maddy. I hung my head between my hands, the implications beating against my brain like a jackhammer. “Porca miseria. How dare he do this to me?”
Maddy scrambled up and headed toward the door. “How about I make you a nice cup of tea? Di always says tea relaxes the nerves.”
“I’m Italian, Maddy. Coffee, no tea.”
“Strong coffee, coming right up.”
She scrambled out of the room. I sat back, mindlessly watching the TV for several long minutes. To say I was in shock was putting it mildly.
But after the shock wore off, I was pissed. Retrieving the cheap cellphone from the bathroom, I dialed Dru’s number. He picked up on the first ring, but since I wasn’t calling from my normal phone, he didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“I’ll give you a one hour head start.” My hand gripped the plastic phone so hard, I heard the case crack. “And then I’m coming after you.”
I disconnected before he could respond and threw the phone as hard as I could. It hit the wall above the TV and shattered into a dozen pieces.
It would give me great satisfaction to do the same to Dru’s head.
Chapter Twenty-six
I ventured downstairs to the kitchen, refilled my mug with Maddy’s coffee and stared out at the cemetery. Maria’s ghost was contained in Damon’s cell but what we were going to do with her? Could we keep her there forever?
Once again, I wondered if I could get the cemetery ghosts to talk to me, give me some information. While they weren’t at the supernatural level Maria was, they’d still seen and experienced dark magic here. A war of some sort. And the cemetery held a portal between worlds. I’d warded it to keep the portal closed, and to keep the ghosts inside the graveyard and humans out of it, but I’d also used it to send Lilith back to hell. That portal might be a better magical prison cell for Maria’s ghost than Damon’s solitary confi
nement.
Maddy poured herself a cup of coffee and canted one hip against the sink. “What did you break upstairs?”
“Cellphone. How many days has it been since I attacked Toel?”
“Five or six, why?”
Wow, guess I was really out, thanks to Damon’s magic. “How many since Dru fed me his blood?”
“Um, three I guess. You’re like super-supernatural now, huh?”
The landline on the wall rang. I knew without looking at the Caller ID it was Dru. I set down the mug. “I’m not sure what I am.”
“Want me to answer that?”
I walked across the floor, snatched up the phone. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
Dru’s voice rang with concern and a touch of irritation. “I saved your life.”
“I didn’t ask for your help, and by the way, what you and Damon did was sentence me to death. A demon with Vlad’s blood in her is a nuclear bomb with a hair trigger.”
There was a long pause, and I swear, in my mind I saw him sitting at his enormous walnut desk in the office at Carpathia staring at me with his intense eyes. “You can handle my blood. You can control its effects on your system. Neither Damon nor I would have followed through if we thought you’d detonate.”
“You had no right to force it on me.”
Again, I could see him in my mind sitting forward and banging a fist on his desk. “We saved your life, Kali. If you hadn’t taken my blood, you’d be dead right now.”
“How do you know that? Damon had me in a coma.”
“We woke you three times. Every time, you were so weak, your demon didn’t stir when prodded.”
For once, I had no comeback. Maddy was staring at me. What did it matter? Like Maddy, I was a victim of a vamp, but there was nothing to do but move forward. “So what now?” I asked, keeping my voice unemotional.
