Salvador pointed at Kynan and said again, “He isn’t human.”
“Well, no.” Maddy moved closer, holding power herself. Kynan set his phone underneath his chair and sat forward, eyes backlit. “I told you,” she said as patiently as she could under the circumstances. “He’s one of the kin.”
“Get a grip.” Kynan glared at all of them in turn, but saved the worst for Salvador. The young man was so ridiculously out of his head with shock that Maddy considered ending the day’s training right then.
Salvador said something in rapid, tense Spanish. One side of Kynan’s mouth curled in a sneer she recognized all too well. In English, Kynan said, “Fuck you thirteen ways, kid.”
“I explained this to you, Salvador.” She concentrated on exuding calm. His reaction was not entirely unpredictable. Sometimes her newbies couldn’t deal with the reality of demons. She hoped she wasn’t going to lose a mage with his gifts. “What you’re feeling is completely natural. Please, take your chair. You’ll settle down, I promise you.”
“What the hell is he?” In English this time. Salvador stared Kynan straight in the eye, and that so wasn’t a good idea. Safely meeting a demon’s gaze usually required hours and hours of practice.
She and Kynan exchanged a look. He had no idea, Salvador, how lucky he was to have had a normal life. Like the others, he didn’t know about magic or demons. None of them knew untrained magic users often died or went insane. They didn’t know they were the lucky survivors because nobody had ever told them. A few barely understood their own magic, and most had no idea what they did was magic. Some, like Salvador, despite his apparent adaptation, did not deal well with finding out demons existed.
Salvador wiped a hand across his face, breathing hard and looking more and more panicked.
This was the whole problem with Kynan. He didn’t look much older than Salvador, and in their ignorance her newbies underestimated him. Salvador lifted a hand, and before Maddy could warn him not to, power surged through him.
One of the wards gave a soft pop. Kynan intervened so quickly Salvador only jumped back swatting at his arms and upper body, rather than suffering serious harm.
With uncalled-for sharpness, Kynan said, “Get a grip, mage.”
Salvador pointed at him. “Demon.”
“No shit.” The phone underneath Kynan’s chair rang. He picked it up and unlocked the screen without taking his eyes off Salvador. He didn’t put the call on speaker. “Go.”
He listened for a few seconds, then the center of her chest flashed hot because Kynan’s power flexed. That had to be Nikodemus on the phone then, infusing his words with an imperative that reacted with Kynan’s oath of loyalty. Nikodemus needed something. Not wanted. Needed.
Kynan’s slow smile turned dark. “No problem,” he said to the phone.
He sealed the house.
Maddy’s center lurched in response to the wards locking down. That kind of magic wasn’t trivial, and he made it look like it was. Salvador shouted and headed for the door. She stopped him because using restraining magic on him was better than finding out whether Kynan would let one of his wards kill the boy. “Kynan?”
But he’d turned his back to her because he was keeping visual with Salvador and the others. He lifted a hand to signal that she needed to wait. He still had his phone to his ear. “What?” he said to Nikodemus. “No.” Another pause. “Not advisable.” A few seconds later, his phone pinged, and he looked at the screen. Three more texts came in.
“Kynan, what’s going on?”
While he was texting back, his phone pinged again. At last, he looked at her. “Nobody leaves.”
CHAPTER 4
“What’s going on?” Winters asked.
Sure, she sounded calm, but the undercurrents of tension had him aching to take on a form suited to dealing with mayhem. He didn’t answer her. With the way he was feeling, he didn’t trust himself to be nice. To anybody.
“Kynan?” Okay. She was less calm now.
His sworn, unsettled and muttering about it being time to kill all the witches, only added to his agitation. “I’m not talking in front of a bunch of humans who think this is playtime. I said nobody leaves.” He lifted a hand to cut off more questions. Great. She was even more pissed at him. He held her gaze, and she returned his silent spite. “Nobody leaves because I said so. Period.”
“Everything was fine until you got here.” She pulled her phone from her purse and tapped the screen. “I’m calling Nikodemus. You need to not be here, because you are beyond difficult.”
“Too bad.” Jesus hell, his skin itched.
But Kynan wasn’t the only one having issues. The young mage, Salvador, started rocking back and forth. Winters pressed buttons and scowled at her phone. Good thing she wasn’t looking at him. His eyebrows would be singed. Salvador’s stare wasn’t helping, either. Had he paid no attention to the warnings about looking a demon in the eye? Salvador didn’t have half of what it took to keep himself out of trouble. “What the fuck is your problem, mage?”
All the young man did was back away, shaking his head. Good. Maybe he’d go sit in a corner and stay dark.
Winters kept poking at her phone.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Out of battery.” She huffed. “If it’s not one thing—”
One of the medallion-shaped wards near Salvador went off with a pop that startled everyone. Not triggered, but close enough to worry about someone getting accidentally hurt. The face in the medallion opened its mouth in a silent, warning scream. His wards did not react for no reason. Winters’ attention snapped to him.
Before he could say anything, Salvador jumped to his feet, slapping the shoulder closest to the darkening surface of the ward. The skinny white witch, Ashley, topped off the joy with an ear-splitting scream. The others didn’t react much, and he thought that was odd because LaShawn and Jing-Mei both had more magic than Ashley.
Maddy headed for the desk with her laptop on it. She plugged her phone into the charger there and still no love, it looked like.
Fucking Ashley burst into mournful sobs, and Salvador paced like he was going to jump out of his skin. The mage kept dividing his attention between Ashley and the ward that had reacted to him earlier continued to disintegrate. The skin across the back of Kynan’s neck prickled, and his sworn launched a chorus of new warnings.
“I don’t think it’s your battery, Winters.” He unlocked his phone’s screen and checked that it still showed the text messages from Nikodemus.
Magekind attacked Tiburon hs
Sessani at SFO 2 wks ago
Tau has full auth
Stand by
Keep M alive
He tossed his phone to her. When she’d finished reading, her fingers moved over the bottom half of the screen. “Shit.”
“What?” he said. She tossed back his phone, and he caught it one-handed. The screen was black and unresponsive.
Salvador stopped pacing, and a tumbler of water on the table near him exploded. Two of the women ducked, Quentin barely reacted, and Ashley screamed like someone was setting her brain on fire.
“Salvador,” Kynan said. “Get a fucking grip.”
He pointed at Kynan, eyes wide, magic not even close to under control. “Demon.”
Kynan shoved his phone into his back pocket and headed for the punk mage. He had enough on tap now that he figured his eyes had changed. Better for these twisted, fucked-up magic users to get a look at what needed to be their worst nightmare: a pissed off warlord.
Winters’ newbies couldn’t always deal with facts they didn’t want to believe. Like, say, incontrovertible evidence that demons were real. The ones who couldn’t get a grip got their memories wiped, enough cash to start over, and a fast escort to the border of Nikodemus’s territory. Salvador was looking more and more like a total wipe.
The guy wasn’t even close to settling down. That much power so poorly controlled wasn’t safe for anybody. He was fucking up everythin
g. He reached the mage, grabbed a handful of his shirt, leaned in, and pushed him onto a chair in the same motion. Nothing held back. “Sit still and shut it down, you little shit, or you’ll wish you’d never been born.”
Salvador stayed put, but he kept bouncing his knees and looking at Quentin or Ashley. “Winters, fix this guy, or I’ll send him home not knowing who he is.”
“What’s happening?” That was one of the witches, the fine one who looked like she belonged in high school. LaShawn was good-looking but way too young for him. Not to mention at the moment, she wasn’t the threat he was worried about. Magekind were dangerous, but mages tended to be violent first and thoughtful later. He kept an eye on the two men. Salvador had quieted down. Good. Really good. Winters was powering up her laptop. A musical chime played, then cut off. The lights flickered for several seconds, and the cause wasn’t him, his wards, or even Salvador. In the kitchen, the fridge motor revved several times, then died.
Winters looked up from her computer. “What the?”
“One of you.” He cocked his chin in the direction of the newbies. “Give me your phone.” Fucking Salvador kept twitching, and Kynan was seriously thinking of tossing him out the window.
Jing-Mei dug into her pocket and pulled out a phone. Hers didn’t work, either. The hot black chick had her phone in her hand, but she looked at him and shrugged. Ashley stood where she was, trembling and twisting her shirt. Jing-Mei raised her hand like she was waiting to get called on. “What’s going on?”
“Everything’s fine,” Winters said in a smooth tone. She closed her laptop harder than was necessary. He took that to mean the laptop wasn’t functioning, either.
Salvador shot to his feet again, and Kynan got a respectable chill from his uncontrolled magic. The mage was sweating. “What the hell?”
“Kynan is currently holding an unusual amount of power,” Winters said in a clinical voice. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see her whip out a marker and start diagramming. “Among the demonkind, he is particularly powerful. With him like this, it’s both easier to recognize the reaction and more difficult to control the response. With a little practice, you’ll get used to it.”
“Someone else,” Salvador said. “Not him.” He whirled to Quentin. “Watch out, bro. Watch out.”
Now that was just weird. LaShawn and Jing-Mei were reacting with their own bursts of magic and nervous tics—the usual inability to remain still. Common reactions when newbies were around a lot of magic. The skinny one, Ashley, was glued into place. To him, she looked like a total vanilla about to barf. There was no change in the level of her magic. At least somebody was calm.
“I don’t like this.” LaShawn rubbed her arms fast and hard.
Jing-Mei flipped one of the wall switches. Nothing happened. Then one of the ceiling lights shattered, scattering glass everywhere. It was sheer luck no one was injured. “I want to leave.”
“Make them behave, Winters, or I’ll do it myself.”
Quentin decided to contribute at last. “He can’t hurt us. It’s not allowed.”
“You want to bet your life on that?” Kynan asked.
“There are rules,” the mage said. “You can’t break them.”
He gave Quentin an exasperated look. “If my wards kill you, that isn’t going to be my fault. It’ll be yours for being an asshole who doesn’t pay attention.”
“You can’t keep us here against our will,” Quentin said.
“Fuck you, mage.” Kynan growled, not human enough. On purpose. “Winters, get them out from under my feet.” He glared at LaShawn next and pointed to her vacant chair. “Sit.”
The face in the blackened ward Salvador had nearly triggered emitted a banshee-like howl, then cut off.
LaShawn ran for the front door. Stupid human.
“No!” Winters raced toward her, but she was too late. LaShawn grabbed the doorknob before Winters could stop her. The nearest ward exploded because he’d sealed the house. LaShawn caromed halfway across the room.
Jing-Mei shrieked, and Salvador crouched, hands over his head. Quentin headed for the back of the room, as far away from the others as he could get. Ashley didn’t do a damn thing. The others were reacting, even Quentin. Not Ashley, though.
“I told all of you to stay put.” He used his thumb to point behind him to LaShawn. “That’s what happens when you don’t listen.” He shut down the lingering magic from the ward that was still hinky from Salvador. LaShawn groaned, but he ignored her. She’d been warned. As far as he was concerned, the girl’s condition was Winters’ problem, not his. Besides, she wasn’t too badly hurt if you didn’t count her turning into a jumbled mass of totally fucked.
With assistance from Jing-Mei, LaShawn managed to stand. She wasn’t steady. “Far as I’m concerned,” he said, “I should’ve let more of the ward hit you. When I say stay put, I mean it.”
Ashley got into the bad behavior act, too. She yanked on the bottom of her shirt and took several lurching steps toward Winters. Not even twenty-five yet, he guessed, but the hard living showed. Not much magic, but then you never knew for sure with the ones Winters pulled off the streets.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “I said stay put.”
Her gaze darted around the room with no focus on anyone or anything. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Kynan gave her a look that should have stopped her but didn’t. “No.”
More shirt-twisting followed. No wonder Salvador didn’t like that one. He didn’t like her, either.
“The helpless routine isn’t going to work with me.” Normally, he wasn’t irritated when he got mistaken for young and inexperienced. He generally enjoyed destroying the illusion. Right now, though, he was annoyed as hell. “I eat helpless witches for breakfast.”
“But—” She took another step toward the bathroom, which happened to be in the same direction as Winters. He didn’t want anybody near Winters.
“No.”
Salvador fell into panic again. Sweat trickled down his temples, and he was panting and getting himself all worked up. “Is he friendly? Is he friendly?”
Winters lifted her hands. “Salvador,” she said in a soothing voice. “This is completely normal. Kynan, could you please dial it back? You’re overloading them.”
“Too bad.”
He would have stepped between Salvador and Winters, except Salvador whirled on the witch who wanted to go to the bathroom. “Who are you?”
Ashley shuddered and backed away. She kept shaking, and Kynan had to wonder whether maybe she was in withdrawal. The newbies were supposed to be clean when they came here, but addiction was tough to overcome. Some sort of drug-induced interaction with her magic would explain a lot. “Get away from me.”
“Who are you?” Salvador got all up in Ashley’s face.
He inserted himself between Salvador and Winters, and gave the young man a shove. “Back off. Winters, deal with him now.” He didn’t like the way this was going. Salvador was a problem, sure, but he was also highly sensitive to magic. He didn’t like not knowing what was freaking the kid out. “If you don’t,” he said, “I’ll kill them all.”
“Something’s wrong with her.” Salvador spoke in rapid Spanish, eyes wide and panicky. He pointed at Ashley. More of the wards reacted, and Salvador stared at him, still wide-eyed. “They want you to kill us,” he said, shaking his head. “Why are they telling you to kill us?”
Hell if the mage wasn’t hearing his sworn. The little fucker was the real deal. “I’ll start with you if you don’t settle down,” he replied in Spanish.
“Kynan, is that really necessary?”
“Something’s going to happen to her.” Salvador pointed at Ashley. “Something bad.” Still in Spanish, he said, “I’m never wrong about these things. Never.”
He moved closer to Salvador. The mage had been keying on Ashley all afternoon. “What do you think is wrong with her?”
“She’s not real.”
Kynan arched an eyebrow.
Maybe the punk had some kind of precognitive talent. He wouldn’t be the first. Another ward went off, and he growled without bothering to make the sound human. What if the problem wasn’t Salvador? A mageheld was the only other reason he wouldn’t be able to feel whoever was responsible for that ward going off. He rapped out, “Winters. Magehelds?”
She lifted her hands. “I don’t feel anything.”
“There’s something here,” Kynan said.
“An indwell?” Winters said. She sounded as doubtful as he was about that possibility.
“How?” he asked. “How could either of us not notice something like that?”
“Watch out!” Salvador darted toward Winters, but Kynan body-checked him and sent him reeling into Ashley. She shrieked and jerked away like Salvador was made of poison. He wished like hell he could cover his ears. Humans were a constant pain in his ass.
Salvador, still speaking Spanish, grabbed his head between his hands and shut his eyes. “She’s going to die. Dead. Dead. Here. Dead.”
“Stay cool,” Kynan replied in the same language. “Winters and I can handle this.”
Things got worse. The fucker who couldn’t keep his eyes off Winters’ ass shuddered. When his spasm was over, he went rigid, then let out a strangled grunt.
One minute Tau wasn’t anywhere that Kynan could pinpoint, and the next, he was wondering how the hell any demon, sworn to Nikodemus or not, could have gotten this close without him knowing sooner. Tau was here, somewhere in this room near Quentin, but Kynan could not see him.
“He’s coming! He’s coming!” Salvador attempted to get past him again, but Kynan stopped him with a stiff arm to the shoulder.
Oh, not good. The kid freaked out as a mass of darkness separated from Quentin. The shadow reshaped as it streamed into a density that had to be Tau—and then he was there. All right then. The rumor that the African mages traveled through dreams and other dimensions constructed of magic looked to be true. Until this minute, Kynan hadn’t believed it was possible, not in the ways he’d heard. Live and learn. Tau had just used Quentin as an exit door. No wonder his wards had reacted the way they had. The real worry, though, was why Nikodemus had authorized the maneuver. Whatever had gone down at the Tiburon house must have been serious.
My Demon Warlord Page 4
