Sweat dripped down his neck.
It wasn’t from heat but fear.
Don’t die—
“Stop.” Will pulled back.
For a blind, awful moment, he thought the other angel was going to tell him it was too late and then he heard it. That faint heartbeat.
Will placed a hand on her chest. Finn felt that crackling power roll from him again.
“Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?” he demanded.
“I can’t force a heart to beat once it’s stopped,” Will said softly. “I can heal injuries, but if it stops, I either have to use mortal means…or let the person die. Anything else is interfering. I’ve already done more than I should.”
A soft groan escaped the woman. Her lashes fluttered. For one moment, she opened her eyes, a dazed expression in her dark eyes and then she seemed to focus on Finn.
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as her lips parted.
But in the next moment, Will covered her brow. “Sleep. You must rest.”
And the command, the inhuman power behind those words couldn’t be denied.
Finn couldn’t explain why, but he wanted to beat the man bloody.
Thirty minutes later, she lay in his bed, clean, wearing one of his shirts. As her clothes had gotten pretty trashed on her journey through Will’s gate and they had no other clothes, there was nothing to be done for it.
Finn stood by the window as Will paused to check on her once more.
In the reflective surface of the glass, he studied the man with the silvery-white hair, his clothes white as the driven snow.
They hadn’t been, earlier.
When he’d tumbled through that gate, his nose had been bloodied and there had been a gash on his lip, not to mention other injuries. Those had all healed, but Finn suspected he had only seen the surface.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” he asked as Will joined him at the window. “She somehow got the jump on you.”
“She did. And you might want to try to contain your amusement after—”
“Oh, trust me.” Finn turned away from the window to stare at the still slumbering woman. Her breathing was easier now. It had been a long time since he’d been near somebody who had been injured in a way that didn’t have them hovering near death—just in a whole hell of a lot of pain. Maybe that was why he hadn’t realized how serious it was. He felt like a horse’s ass. “Amusement is not what I feel. What happened? Why did she stop breathing?”
Will sighed, the sound unbelievably weary.
Finn could relate. He felt like he’d just dealt with all the demons he sensed—sensed, but couldn’t see. Or find.
“Her heart stopped. Shock, perhaps. From the pain of what I was doing, all the injuries… I don’t know.”
Finn gave him a narrow look. “There is something you don’t know, oh ancient one?”
The withering look Will gave him faded, replaced by one that spoke of the exhaustion Finn had sensed in his voice. “You’d think after so many years walking this world, there would be nothing that could surprise me. But it still happens. Not only did she get the jump on me, but she has been fighting demons for years—and she knows what they are. She knew I wasn’t mortal the moment she saw me.”
Finn ran his tongue across his teeth as he went back to studying her. Or what he could see of her. She lay with her face averted and the dark wealth of her hair obscured her features. “She psychic?”
Some humans were born with gifts that ranged from the weak to the what the fuck. He’d picked that phrase up from Celeste—a woman Finn had briefly tried to train, one who’d been so hellbent on chasing her death she made Finn look almost sane.
“No. She just…” Will paused.
That odd silence dragged out so long that Finn turned to study him. “She just what?”
Voice flat, face inscrutable, Will simply replied, “She just knows.”
Finn flung himself down on a battered couch—the most comfortable piece of furniture in the room, if you asked him. Skewering Will with his gaze, he crossed his legs. “Mortals don’t just know. They get told or they see something or they pick up with being psychic and all. But they don’t just know.”
“Well.” Will took a chair at the table for two in the middle of what served as a kitchenette. “When she wakes, perhaps you can ask her.”
Finn grunted. “When she wakes? Screw that. You need to get her out of here.”
“If I take her through the gate again, it might kill her. Her body has been through enough stress and while she’s going to heal, she can’t handle that again.”
“Then put her cute ass on a plane, a train, a boat. Get her away from here. Get—”
There was no sound. Nothing to betray the presence.
But both of them were on their feet.
Finn had his pistols in hand, absently spinning the left one as he moved to the door.
Will placed his body between the door and the bed.
“You’re sure the gate isn’t an option?”
“Not a good one.”
Finn grunted. He wasn’t so sure that staying here another second was ideal for her, either.
Then he opened the door.
It surprised him not a bit when he saw the woman he’d glimpsed earlier standing there.
The smile that curved her mouth would have enticed a hundred men, perhaps a thousand.
But he saw beneath it—the human body the demon wore was a macabre mask, a husk that shielded something so obscene, so monstrous, human eyes wouldn’t know what to make of it even if they saw it. The demon’s smile split its face nearly in half, revealing a gaping maw of razored teeth and as it spoke, there was a shadow of a sulphuric stink that Finn could never forget.
Demons and death formed a stench that seemed to cling, like it would never leave the air.
“I knew there was something a little less than unholy in the air tonight,” it/she said, the voices of the demon and the woman combining in a way that would have made Finn’s skin crawl, if he hadn’t long since forgotten what it was like to fear one of these monsters.
Now only hatred breathed inside him.
“Surprised you could sense anything in the air over the stench you throw off,” he said easily, resting one hand on the door, the other at his hip, but with the Colt pointed square at the thing’s chest.
It/she eyed it for a long moment and then shifted pale green eyes toward him. “A gun.” It/she started to chuckle. “Oh, that is brilliant. I’ve never seen one of your kind with a gun.”
He lifted it, pointed it at her.
A loud, distinctive click filled the night air and the laughter, its sound like snakes and breaking glass, faded.
“Well, at least you know what it is,” Finn said, giving the demon a toothy smile. “And we both know what will happen if I pull the trigger.”
“Oh, please do.” It/she winked at him. “There are other bodies I can take, after all. I even sense one just a few feet away.”
“Finn, why don’t you let our…guest…come inside?”
Finn fought the urge to grab the orin, grab it, loose the fire inside him and listen as its screams flooded the night around him.
Burn.
He just wanted to let the thing—and his own rage—burn.
But he stepped aside and let the demon see Will.
If he hadn’t been watching, he wouldn’t have seen the tiny flicker of lashes, the minute tightening of facial muscles. Such a small betrayal of emotion, but it was like a neon sign.
Fear…
Demons fed on it, as long as it wasn’t their own.
And while one lone Grimm wasn’t necessarily enough to make one of the orin quake, all bets were off if the Grimm was the one who wore white.
“Do come inside,” Will said, inclining his head.<
br />
It/she tensed and Finn knew what was coming.
So did Will.
Power flashed through the air and Finn jerked out of the way as Will wrapped an unseen whip of energy around the demon and jerked.
The thing flew into the cottage, only to stop three inches from Will, like it had struck an invisible wall.
A low, eerie sound escaped its lips—caught between a garbled snarl and a hiss—but in the next instant, the noise was choked off. Literally. Finn could see an external force closing around the neck of the demon’s host. “I think we’ve had just about enough of that,” Will said, his voice calm. He flicked a look at the bed where the mortal still slept and with a single gesture, the blanket at her waist came up, covering her more thoroughly.
“Now.” Will’s mouth curved. “Let’s talk.”
Chapter Nine
“Not what I wanted to hear,” Finn said with a sigh. Twenty minutes later, the room was trashed and the carpet was scorched. Fortunately, he always traveled with a lot of cash and his bank account was pretty fat. It needed to be, considering the damage that sometimes trailed in his wake, and there was no reason for mortals to suffer over it.
Will eyed the smoke detector, completely disabled after he’d ripped it out of the ceiling, and then looked back at the demon. It hung suspended in the air, Will’s power controlling its movements, even the amount of noise it was able to make. He’d already worked his mojo to make sure nobody heard anything coming from the room. As it tried, yet again, to scream, Will used his ability to compress the demon’s chest, all but crushing its lungs.
Its legs were scorched, ugly burns clear up to the knees, but there, it stopped. The sleek trousers had burned away, as had the elegant leather boots, but the rubber soles had melted into the host’s skin.
And all the while, Will had kept the demon conscious.
It was a good thing a demonic possession killed the mortal inside almost immediately.
The only one suffering was the demon but as it had taken a human shell for its host, it would feel the pain a human felt.
Will waved his hand and Finn felt a ripple of energy.
The shuddering gasps faded and the demon thudded to the floor.
Will must have blocked the pain temporarily—it was enough that the shock alone could have killed a mortal, but demons were made of sterner stuff than that. They might suffer the human frailties while in a host’s body and they’d suffer the pain, but the pain couldn’t kill a demon.
Finn straddled a chair and rocked it forward, eyes narrowed as he studied the sweating form huddled in front of him.
“Now,” he said, feigning a cheerfulness he didn’t feel. He was tired. He was pissed. He wanted answers and he wanted out of here. And that couldn’t happen until he knew what they were dealing with and then they stopped it. “You ready to tell us what’s going down here?”
A sick rictus of a smile twisted its face. Pain had thinned its veneer of humanity and it had torn at its flesh as it fought to escape the flames in Finn’s hand. Now, with a smile on its human face that was almost as grotesque as it would have been had the demon been corporeal, it came up with a sinuous grace. “You, Grimm. The world. All of it.”
That sounds ugly.
He directed the thought at Will, knowing the angel would pick it up.
Will’s gaze flicked toward him but that was the only sign.
“Be more specific,” Will said gently. “Or I’ll let Finn play with fire again. He so rarely gets to do that anymore.”
It hissed at Will. “You. Traitor. Such a mockery. What would they—”
The demon’s body started to jerk, twisting in ugly, spasmodic gestures.
Finn shot Will a look. “What is it talking about? What are you doing?”
“I’m not doing it,” he said with a sigh, pushing long hair back from his face. Then he shot a look up, one that was both resigned and weary. The body on the floor continued to twist and arch and jerk like it was having the seizure from hell.
When it ended, nearly three minutes later, it looked out at them from bloodshot eyes.
“Foolish move,” Will offered. “I can’t speak of it, either. If you’re old enough to know of that, then you should have already learned that lesson, but nice try.”
The demon spoke and when it did, blood trickled from its mouth. “One day, I’ll see you in hell. Then you won’t be so flippant.”
“Indeed.” Will shrugged. “I’ve had time to acclimate myself so don’t think the knowledge frightens me. Now…”
Finn was still processing that when Will shot out a hand and jerked the demon’s bloodied, broken body upright. He held it straight up in the air, watching it the way one might study a new, particularly foul sort of bug. “It’s time for answers and you’ll give them to me if I have to cut you up, one inch at a time.” Something feral danced in the back of the man’s silver eyes. “I’ll start with your hands since your legs are rather a mess. Then I’ll heal the bits and pieces as I go—can’t have you dying from blood loss as I go. It will take a long time. It could take days to get rid of your arms and legs…other parts.”
Finn lifted a brow, momentarily distracted from the earlier exchange between them.
The demon looked horribly fascinated. Then it swallowed, a ragged wheeze escaping him. “You aren’t the only one who can pass between the worlds, Grimm. There aren’t many of us who can…but we only need a few.”
And then, inexplicably, its gaze flicked to the woman on the bed.
Only she was no longer asleep.
“The journey through a gate kills most. It wasn’t until we started changing them here that they started to survive.”
In the next moment, the mortal’s eyes connected with Finn’s.
Her lips parted as she took a soft, slow breath.
Inexplicably, his thoughts spiraled back.
Violets and summer sunshine.
That was how his Becky had always smelled, even when they’d been kids and they’d run half wild up and down the river.
Now, with her body soft against his, the scent of violets and sunshine surrounded him and her mouth parted, oh, so slowly, under his. That’s it, he thought, dazed. Delighted. That’s it…
Yes, he’d put his hands on another woman and he’d done it more than once, but every time, he’d done it pretending that woman was Becky.
Now he had her in his arms and he didn’t think he’d ever be able to fool himself again.
Tracing his tongue along the curve of her lip, he kept the contact light. The need to pull the fine cotton from her body and learn every last dip and curve was a temptation he didn’t know if he could control. Reaching up, he closed one fist around a branch just over her head, fingers digging in.
Her breasts went flat against his chest as she moved closer.
He stiffened.
She pulled back. “Did I…did I do something wrong?”
“No.” He reached up with the hand he’d held clenched at his side, cupped her cheek. “It feels entirely too right and we…”
Before he could speak another word, she pressed herself against him and this time, her mouth was already open and he trembled—he actually trembled—as she slid her tongue along his lower lip in an echo of the caress he’d given her. She did it again, and again and snarling, he hauled her against him, then turned, bracing his back against the tree so the rough bark didn’t scrape her back.
Then he caught her face with his free hand, angling her head back. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide…wide and locked on his face with an expression of hunger he’d never dared to hope to see on her face.
“Becky,” he muttered. And then he took her mouth, slowly, but so deeply, sliding his tongue into the sweet cavern even as she reached for him, her hands sliding under the worn vest to grip his shoulders, her nails biting into his skin. Sweet, sweet B
ecky…
Her tongue met his hesitantly and he groaned, arched his hips against the soft swell of her belly.
She tensed.
He stopped, pulling his mouth away and pressing his head to her shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Panting, sweat trickling down his spine, he fought to think past the lingering haze of whiskey and want that still clouded his brain.
He might have been able to pull away, set her away and then send her off to her house as he watched from a distance.
Except she eased back, then, as he watched, she slid her gaze down, her eyes wide as they locked on the front of his trousers.
She licked her lips.
He groaned and turned away, once more reaching for the branch overhead, this time gripping it with both hands, every muscle locked tight.
“You…” His voice was hoarse and he had to clear his throat before he could say another word. “You should go back to your house, Becky. Back to bed.”
She slid a hand up his spine and he squeezed his eyes closed as she rose up on her toes, her lips just a breath away from his ear as she whispered, “But I don’t want to.”
“Becky, I’m still half drunk and I want you more than I want to see another sunrise. You need to go back to the house before I—”
She stepped away. The loss of her body pressed to his was one he felt to his gut but he breathed out a sigh of relief. If she wasn’t so close, then perhaps he might be able to—
She ducked around him, now caught, once more, between him and the tree. “It’s strange, I think,” she said, reaching up to touch his mouth. “Five times in the past year you’ve been to that whorehouse.”
He flinched, not just from hearing her use such a coarse word, but because she knew what he’d been doing.
Her eyes dropped to his mouth. “Did you mean what you said before you kissed me?”
“Yes,” he rasped out.
She reached up, laying a hand on his chest. When she slid the first button free, he was certain his heart would leap from his chest. As she moved to the second, he caught her wrist. “What are you doing?”
“I would think you would be able to figure it out,” she said simply. Then she lifted a brow and met his gaze with pure challenge in her own. “After five visits to a whorehouse, lying with some strange woman, pretending she’s me, I think I should be the one who lies with you.”
Furious Fire: Grimm's Circle, Book 8 Page 12
