Secret Lives (Secret McQueen Book 9)

by Sierra Dean

  Oh yeah, that so wasn’t happening.

  The newly arrived demon looked teeny tiny next to the looming figure of Belphegor, but was still pushing nine feet tall, which made him a heck of a lot bigger than the rest of us.

  The moment he’d emerged, all fighting had come to a stop because the reality of the open gate had quickly sunk in. The cult members who were still alive and not undead puppets, were now seeing their plan in action, and I think maybe one or two of them were second-guessing their life choices.

  One guy made a break for it, and no one stopped him.

  No judgment here.

  Flames had surrounded Sig now, completing the circle. He didn’t show any sign of getting up, even though the only thing keeping him from falling into the depths of Hell below him were a few hastily drawn spray paint lines.

  There was only one person who was going to get his ass in gear.

  “Ingrid,” I screamed. “You have to get Sig.”

  He wasn’t going to move without her. He was crippled under the weight of thinking he’d lost her, and it wouldn’t be until he saw her face that he would realize there was still something left to fight for.

  A few feet away from me, Holden was going hand to hand with one of the vampiric cult members. At least I assumed the guy was a vampire, because he was holding his own with one of the Tribunal Leaders. Holden threw a vicious right hook at the guy, getting blood all over his knuckles and his nice, tailored gray suit.

  That’s what happens when you wear a custom Gucci suit into battle, I guess.

  Emilio was just outside the melee, his gun trained expertly as he avoided our people and did his best to stop the goons from getting back up again whenever we took them down. Siobhan, likewise, was keeping her distance but doing killer work with her headshots, and Shane was busy diverting the cult members from advancing on either Emilio or Siobhan.

  Still, we felt wildly outmatched here. Even though I’d managed to behead several of the dead cultists, there were more, always more, and at least ten of them stood between Ingrid and Sig.

  “Harry.” I looked around wildly for my demon sidekick and spotted him with one of the cult members in a suffocating chokehold. “Get Ingrid to the circle.”

  He obediently dropped the cult member into a heap on the grass. Before Harry could get anywhere near Ingrid, the ground began to rumble, and in two giant steps, Belphegor was standing above us. He plucked Harry up off the ground as if he were merely a toy, holding him almost daintily around the neck.

  “You. Betrayer. You dared to use my name as your own.”

  My ribs trembled and my chest hurt just being this close to the demon. Harry, who had a large fist around his throat, couldn’t say anything at all.

  “You dare pretend to be a prince of demons, one of the most terrible of our kind? You think you have that power? That presence?”

  Again, Harry could not reply, but I was gathering that this was more of a one-demon kind of conversation anyway.

  “What a pathetic mockery you are, Sirruner. A lesser demon of such grand ambitions should not attempt to step on the necks of those greater than him. You aren’t even worthy of licking the shit from my boots.”

  Harry’s face was almost purple. I dove for Belphegor’s fist, but I was too late. He lifted Harry over his head and ripped him in half.

  Blood spilled down, soaking me head to toe, and then Belphegor dropped the pieces next to me.

  I choked out a gasp, looking at the dangling bits of intestine hanging out of the body, his once-handsome face now expressionless and empty. I gagged but fought against the bile pressing at the back of my throat and wiped the thick blood out of my eyes.

  Two more cloaked figures decided this was a good time to cut and run. Belphegor caught hold of one of them before he could get away and growled, “Cowards.” Then he bit off the top half of the man’s body and hurled the rest across the field, where it knocked down the other retreating figure. She screamed.

  A half dozen small birds, black as ink and with bat wings instead of feathers, emerged from the pit and immediately set about clawing and biting anyone near them, whether they were cult or my people. Holden slapped one of them right back into the pit, and it gurgled profane-sounding Latin at him.

  Enochian, I corrected myself. Harry had told me the demons spoke Enochian.

  Belphegor made to reach for Ingrid, who was almost through the line of remaining cultists. I stopped staring like an idiot and realized that if we were going to stop this, I’d need to put on my big-girl panties and go a couple of rounds with a very large demon prince.

  I drove my sword directly into his bare foot, which was only a few feet away from me.

  Belphegor howled and recoiled from Ingrid.

  “How dare you?”

  “Like this,” I snapped, pulling the sword free and then slicing it across his heel, severing the tendon.

  I was already running away when he began to scream. I needed to get clear of the rest of the fight and make him follow me. My group could deal with the cultists and the smaller demons, but this motherfucker was all mine.

  Demons are thankfully, at their core, like any other evil being. Their needs are simple, driven by base emotions like rage and lust, and what Belphegor wanted in that immediate moment, even more than he wanted Hell on Earth, was to turn me into a hat he could wear.

  He thudded after me, only slightly slowed by his new injuries. But now he was distracted from the rest of the fight and wouldn’t be bringing any of the dead back to life.

  Even if this only bought a few seconds, that was enough time for Ingrid to get to Sig and for the group to close the gate.

  I hoped, anyway.

  As I ran, a vivid memory came to me, so sharply it almost hurt, and for the first time since she’d shown it to me, I understood what it was.

  I could see the pattern as if it were burned into my eyes, and as I looked ahead to the blackness of the Lawn, every time I blinked, the figures were visible on the ground.

  My heart skipped a beat, a new thrill of excitement urging me on, as I finally knew precisely what I had to do next.

  In spite of running as fast as I could go, Belphegor easily caught up with me in a few quick strides, and I had to tuck and roll to avoid being scooped up by his massive hand.

  I dug my sword into the grass and used it to get back to my feet, then dragged the blade behind me as I darted backwards, looping around behind the demon.

  “You cannot possibly hope to outrun me, little one. Stay still, and I will make your death fast.”

  “No, thanks.” I shifted directions, my blade still in the ground, tracing my steps back and ducking under his legs as he attempted to spin around to locate me. He stomped the ground where I’d been, narrowly missing smushing me under his giant feet.

  “We will not be stopped this time.” He sounded sure of himself, the way only the really big villains could. As if there was simply nothing powerful enough to stand between them and what they wanted.

  “You guys are going to, what, overrun the planet, turn it into a new Hell, that sort of thing?” I stopped running for a moment and played with the sword, acting bored by the entire discussion.

  “Yes. We will bathe in your blood. I will make a throne of skulls, and turn this sad little city into a hellscape of my grandest imagining.” He made another move to stomp on me, and in my efforts to look cool I almost didn’t dodge in time. Smarten up, Secret.

  I caught my breath before speaking again, hoping my voice wouldn’t come out in a squeak. “See, there’s a problem with that. You might not know me very well, but if you did, you’d understand that I don’t really like it when people try to take over my city, and things tend to end in a kind of messy way for them.” As I spoke I moved within reach of him, intentionally this time.

  He let out a bark of a laugh, and in an instant he had gone from standing still to grabbing me around the waist along with my sword and lifting me entirely off the ground.

  I had forgo
tten how quickly he could move for such a big creature, and his grip was so firm I worried I wouldn’t be able finish what I needed to do next since I’d be too busy struggling to breathe.

  “I don’t care what you want, little one.”

  “That’s too bad,” I wheezed.

  “Why?” He seemed genuinely curious, his bright orange eyes narrowing at me like he might actually want to hear what I had to say.

  He’d plucked up my sword at the same time he’d gotten a hold of me, and as he squeezed, the blade bit into my flesh.

  It wasn’t exactly how I’d planned it, but it would do the trick.

  “See, the blood of that vampire over there? The blood that was powerful enough to open up your precious Hell gate? That blood is in me too.”

  Belphegor’s brows knit together, and I could tell he couldn’t quite understand what I was saying.

  “And that blood is about to make you my bitch, Belphegor.” The moment I said his name, the lines I had been etching in the grass lit up in a bright, blinding white. The blood dripping down my legs from where the sword was cutting into me was enough to complete the seal.

  While he’d been busy telling me how he and his buddies were going to rule Earth like Hell, I had been drawing the design Calliope had shown me.

  A binding circle.

  One that would only work if I knew a demon’s true name.

  This cocky mofo hadn’t realized that by lipping off about who he was, he had given me precisely what I needed to rule over him like he was a pawn in my own private game of chess.

  Belphegor roared and dropped me as if I was suddenly red hot. I scrambled backwards as soon as I hit the ground.

  “Belphegor, I bind you. You will do no more harm on this plane. I bind you from coming here again. I bind those who would follow you. Belphegor, Prince of Hell, you are under my command, and I bid you, return from whence you came.”

  The grass shuddered beneath us, and a hideous cracking sound sent me stumbling even farther back. For a moment, I worried the entire park was going to split apart where we stood and all that would be left was a giant, open pit into Hell.

  Instead, the area beneath the circle I had drawn dropped away, just like the one the cult members had made, and Belphegor stared at it in utter disgust.

  “You will come to regret this one day,” he roared.

  “Yeah, probably. But for now I’m pretty happy about it.”

  Before he could say another word, he fell through the opening in the ground, and the second he was gone, the pit vanished. All that remained were the fine tendrils of smoke rising from the fading lines I’d drawn; otherwise I might have been convinced I’d imagined the whole thing.

  That was why you always paid attention when Calliope showed you things.

  Shouting and gunfire brought my focus to the fight still happening across the lawn. Ignoring the giant cut in my thigh, I limp-jogged back to the original pit field and found that for the most part, my friends had handled themselves creditably. The group was holding back the newly risen demons—most of the hideous bird creatures were on the grass with arrows sticking out of them—and they were giving Ingrid the coverage she needed to get to Sig.

  She moved across the glowing lines like they were a tightrope, arriving in front of the vampire with her hand out.

  “It’s time to go,” she told him, and for the first time since he’d been dragged out here, Sig lifted his head.

  A cult member began running towards them, looking like a man bent on murder. I pulled my gun from its holster under my jacket and took one clean shot at his head, sending him staggering to the ground, where he lay still, his mission incomplete.

  The second Ingrid had Sig out of the circle—his white skin raw and burned—I went to the edge and drew my sword through the burning lines. Echoing, eerie voices below screamed in anger as the pit closed up over their heads, leaving only ash and smoke behind.

  Siobhan stood a few yards away on the back of the fallen gray demon that had been the first one out.

  Leave it to the druid archer to take down a demon single-handedly just so she could relieve her babysitter with minimal overtime.

  Ingrid and Sig came over, and it was strange to see his tall body so hunched and damaged. Some of the burns were healing in front of my eyes, but we’d need to get him fed soon.

  Sig disengaged from Ingrid and limped slowly towards me. When we were this close, he was over a foot taller than me, even stooped. He took my face in both his huge palms and tipped my chin up so I could meet his exhausted gaze.

  “How did I know you would be the one to help us?” He gave me a faint smile. “Even when I have no power over you, you still come for me.”

  I returned his smile, wrapping my fingers around his wrist and leaning my cheek into him embrace. Now that the dust had begun to settle, I could let myself feel good about what I’d done here.

  We had saved Sig.

  “Ingrid did all the hard work. And you know, you could have fought to save yourself, you big idiot.”

  His hand twitched. “I didn’t know if there was anything left to fight for.” His gaze darted to Ingrid, and his expression was heavy with both sadness and relief. It felt strange to be able to read his usually stoic face so easily.

  “My rule of thumb, and you can borrow it, is that it’s always worth fighting when the fate of the world is in the balance.”

  He paused for a moment before speaking. “Someday, Secret, you may live to be old enough to know that there’s only so much someone can give when their reason for living is gone.”

  Ingrid had drifted away from us, but the way she lifted her head to stare at him told me she had heard him perfectly well.

  “I am glad you saved me though,” he said. “And the world.”

  “Me too.”

  He went back to Ingrid, and the way they looked at each other, I had to turn away. There was something so incredibly deep and meaningful in there shared connection that it made me feel like I was intruding. And it reminded me of what Desmond had told me earlier that night, about how he would die if anything happened to me. I knew now the same was true for Ingrid and Sig. They were soul mates, like Des and I, even if there was nothing romantic between them.

  The rest of the crew were busy checking in on each other and sharing hugs. Shane and Siobhan were already making a quiet Irish exit, heading out of the park together to relieve their sitter. Emilio, who had noticed my bloody leg did some quick, expert triage, bandaging me up with half of his shirt. I’d need to see a real doctor—and soon—but it was enough to keep me from bleeding out for the time being.

  As soon as I realized we’d really done it, I sank to the ground next to the top half of Harry’s body and let out a shaky sigh.

  “You deserved better than this. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not,” said a voice from behind me.

  When I glanced over and saw a tall, auburn-haired man in a black robe standing above me, I leveled my gun at him as I scrambled to get back to my feet.

  “Whoa, whoa.” He raised his hands in a gesture that said Don’t hurt me, and I narrowed my eyes at him, silently demanding he give me a reason not to pull the trigger. “I never really liked that body much, anyway.” He nodded down at the half-a-corpse next to me.

  “Harry?”

  “Still not crazy about that name, you know.”

  And then the lights in New York came back on.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Los Angeles, three weeks later

  The sky overhead was a bright orange purple, a multi-tonal sunset unique to Los Angeles. Maybe it was the smog, but I preferred to think of it as that special kind of California magic.

  My FBI-issued black SUV was tucked neatly in a back alley, and I was sitting low in the driver’s seat, my sunglasses still on, though soon I wouldn’t need them anymore.

  I’d been sitting like this for the last seven hours, and by now my ass was really starting to protest.

  My phone buzzed with
a text alert and when I saw Desmond’s name on the screen my heart leapt.

  Working? he asked.

  Always. Busy day?

  Always. What are you wearing?

  Ziiiing. The words shot a spear of excitement right to my lady parts. Unfair.

  My sexiest black tactical gear, I replied.

  Hot. I can’t wait to see that this weekend.

  For the first time in a long time, he was making his way out to see me, rather than me coming to him. It was also part of a planned trip to visit the local king and hopefully argue a case that would allow me to keep working here if and when I let Des bite me.

  Baby steps, but I was thrilled to see him working with me rather than against me on this.

  Love you lots, I wrote back.

  More than bagels?

  More than bagels.

  Good.

  As the sun dipped out of sight, the passenger door opened, and a handsome young redheaded man with a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks climbed in beside me and handed me a fresh cup of coffee. He placed a box of donuts on the armrest between us and quietly shut the door behind him.

  “Thanks.”

  “I miss anything?”

  “What do you think?”

  He sipped his own coffee and brushed his thick hair back from his forehead. He’d been trying different styles with it lately, and while this new cut suited his face, he spent entirely too much time preening for my taste.

  “Who are you trying to impress?” I asked, slipping the coffee into the empty holder.

  The floor in the backseat was already littered with cups and takeout boxes from the hours we’d been sitting here.

  “You never know, maybe there’ll be a cute girl somewhere who I need to look good for.”

  I snorted. “On a stakeout?”

  “Maybe I’m secretly in love with you and hoping you’ll come to your senses one day and realize you love me too,” he suggested.

  “That’s about as likely as us ending this job before dawn.”

  Harry chuckled, but thankfully also stopped playing with his damn hair. His new body had taken a little getting used to, but I preferred it to the look of the first cult leader he’d been in. This guy—who had also been an evil douche in his lifetime—had the soft features and warm brown eyes of a nice guy. He didn’t look evil, which was pretty remarkable considering there was now a demon living inside him full-time.