The Cassandra Palmer Collection

by Karen Chance

  Rosier glanced around, his expression eloquent. “And this is what you call a rescue, is it?”

  Casanova didn’t get a chance to hear what from Cassie’s expression would have been an interesting comment, because the next moment Rian was back. Which was a bit of a shock since he hadn’t noticed her leaving. “There’s no way through,” she said, and for some reason, she was looking at Cassie.

  Who transferred her scowl from one incubus to the other. “There has to be!”

  Rian shook her head agitatedly. “I checked in every direction. The demons she didn’t consume she put to work. There has to be two, perhaps three dozen, just in the corridors near here, and who knows how many between us and—”

  “Put to work on what?”

  “Brimstone. They’re mining it. I don’t know why, but—”

  “Brimstone?” Casanova asked, confused, only to have everyone turn to look at him with varying expressions of incredulity. “What?”

  “Do try to keep up, old boy,” Rosier said, with a sigh.

  “It’s an explosive,” Rian said, getting between Casanova, who had about had enough, and her boss. “Like TNT—”

  “I know what it is!” Casanova snapped, glancing around. The glowing striations in the stone suddenly made a horrible kind of sense. “That’s why we can’t use magic?”

  “Yes!” Cassie hissed. “And without it we have no way to get through the tunnels and find—” she stopped abruptly. And looked at the crumpled body on the floor. And then she slowly raised her head and looked at Rosier, her eyes narrowing.

  And for some reason, his widened. “No.”

  “You said it was like a suit of clothes.”

  “It isn’t my suit!”

  Cassie smiled, and it was vicious. “It is now.”

  Chapter Nine

  N o, no, no!” Sid yelled. “The charges aren’t set yet! Consume him now and we’ll have to start all over!”

  The pressure abruptly released and John hit the ground, hard enough to rip the air from his lungs and to stab him in the side with his own broken rib. But the outward pain was nothing next to the emptiness inside. Dark and cold and echoing, it made him want to curl into a protective ball around his terrified, savaged soul.

  But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even manage to lift his head when someone grabbed him, jerking him off the floor. “I wanted you fresh,” Sid hissed. “You’re more powerful that way. But I’m not going to lose you after this much trouble!”

  John found himself slung over a shoulder and carted back down the hall, then dropped in a heap on the floor. It hurt, but not nearly as much as it should have. Which was a bad sign for some reason he couldn’t seem to concentrate on at the moment.

  His head lolled to one side, seemingly of its own accord, but he couldn’t see anything. Until he switched to demon sight, but that was little better because the glare of Sid’s power practically blinded him to everything else. It glowed through the demon’s skin like a searchlight through cheesecloth, turning the veins of ore in the walls into a web of silver fire, revealing their true color instead of the tint they borrowed from the stone.

  And yet, there was a gleam of red, a faint flicker against all that light.

  John transitioned back to human sight to find that the darkness had retreated into its host, leaving the corridor dim and prosaic-looking except for that coil of angry red. It was coming from the small jar Sid had just pulled out of a backpack. John watched, mesmerized, as the contents gleamed and twisted, sending hellish flames dancing across the stones.

  Sid sat it down on a flat piece of floor and pulled out another one, this one empty. John didn’t ask what it was for. He didn’t have the strength, and in any case, he had a pretty good idea.

  He forced himself to look away, to search for some avenue of escape. But and all his peripheral vision showed him was more of the same: a small, rock-cut tunnel, a few distant shadows that might have been exits he couldn’t possibly reach, and Sid, muttering to himself. If there was anything helpful in that, John didn’t see it.

  Except, of course, for the obvious.

  “Experience is the best teacher,” Rosier had said, leaning back in his chair. “Why read about something when you can live it?”

  “Because it kills them!” John held out the jar that had contained his latest acquisition.

  It had been a special order, one he’d been so eager to get his hands on that he’d paid a premium for a rush job. Perhaps that was why the hunters had been a little careless, why they’d left some of the final memories intact. Or perhaps their usual clients wouldn’t have cared.

  But whatever the cause, John had experienced everything, just as if it had been happening to him: the desperate flight, the heart pounding terror, the cold wash of disbelief when they cornered him. The hopeless cry—what had he done? And finally, the veil of pain that fogged his senses, as he clung to consciousness, to life, with a frightening effort of will, even as his soul was ripped from his body—

  John had come out of it in a cold sweat, hands shaking, stomach churning, unsure for a moment who he was, where he was. He’d run into the next room in a blind panic, trying to hide from soul hunters who weren’t there, before reality finally caught up with him. He hadn’t found it a great improvement. In the end, he’d lain on the floor in his bedroom, sick and shaken, and stared at the ceiling for a long time.

  Then he’d gone to see his father.

  “So does butchering a cow,” Rosier had said, impatiently. “And I haven’t noticed you becoming vegetarian.”

  “A cow is an animal—”

  “As are some of these.”

  “But not all! Not most! Many of them are sentient beings—”

  “Who have the most to teach us.”

  John had looked at the creature he’d once so admired, and for the first time, seen him for what he was. “Even if doing so destroys them?”

  Rosier saw his expression, and his face closed down. “What did you expect?” he demanded. “A library full of books? We’re demons.”

  “You are,” John had breathed. And walked out.

  It had taken him years, and a wealth of pain, to understand that he’d been right that day, in what he’d told his father. But he’d been wrong, too. Because part of him was demon, with the same unending hunger as all the rest.

  He could feel it now, not taste or scent or any other sense a human would have understood. Just desperate, all-consuming need. It was mewling in his gut right now, begging piteously for just one taste of all that exotic power, that deadly strength, that . . .

  Irin.

  He didn’t know how he knew. But the part of him that was incubus identified it unerringly. He even knew which one, the memory of its power still fresh from their brief meeting in the shop.

  John supposed he knew what Sid had done with those thirty minutes.

  He didn’t know why, because Irin were not easy prey. They had abilities that might have turned the tables on Sid very handily. But then, that was true of John, too, before he lost his magic, and it hadn’t helped him. He could see Sid, the trusted shopkeeper, running after one of his best customers, having forgotten to tell him . . . something. It didn’t matter; it had obviously worked. And now they had the perfect test subject.

  And that’s what he was, John realized, watching the color thrash uselessly against the glass. They couldn’t risk implementing their plan without being sure that John’s watered-down blood would do the trick, so they needed a test. He assumed that, after Ealdris got done with him, she would try to absorb the contents of the jar. Which had to be something unusual. Something exotic. Something most demons couldn’t possibly ingest.

  But John wouldn’t have that problem.

  John never had that problem.

  He stared at the jar.

  He didn’t often get this close to temptation anymore. Incubi needed their victim’s lust, like vampires needed blood; without it, they had no conduit into a person’s power, no way to feed. But there
was no body here anymore, no barrier, and thus no need for a conduit. All he had to do was reach out. All he had to do . . .

  John closed his eyes, but the color swirled through his lids nonetheless, sharper, richer, clearer in his demon senses than it ever could be in human sight. It was breathtakingly beautiful, as they all were. And sweet, so sweet, every single one.

  Even the last.

  You are what you are. Someday, you’re going to have to come to terms with that. His father’s voice echoed in his head, but it lacked any weight. Because Rosier had never understood: John had come to terms with it. He knew what he was, what he would always be, no matter how far he managed to run. He’d had that demonstrated one horrible night in the most vivid way possible. And for years, he’d believed that it was all he ever could be.

  Until he’d met someone who refused to see him that way. Who argued and fussed and tried her best to boss him around, but who never shrank away. Who relied on him and needed him and called him friend. Who touched the scars on his body, and other places, as if they were just another part of him, not evidence of where he’d been, what he was.

  And lately he’d begun to hope that perhaps, just perhaps, there was something even a monster could contribute.

  He stared at the jar.

  And then slowly, shakily, he held out his hand.

  Chapter Ten

  T his is never going to work, Casanova thought, panicking, as several nearby demons turned their way. They were short and squat and had too many limbs, and he had no idea what either of them were. But they looked suspicious.

  Or maybe that was him. He couldn’t tell anymore. He was pretty sure he was having a nervous breakdown, but since that wouldn’t help he concentrated on ignoring them. And on personifying his role as a recruit being escorted to the job by the big boss herself.

  Which would have been vastly easier had said boss not hit the damn wall every five seconds.

  “Stop it!” Casanova hissed.

  “I don’t know how to drive this thing,” Rosier complained, his tail making little furrows in the dust as it swished back and forth, propelling him into a corner.

  “Then figure it out!”

  “There’s a bit of a learning curve,” he muttered, slithering back a few steps. And then smacking straight into the wall again.

  Casanova leaned over and grabbed a scaly arm, jerking him back into the corridor. It was a broad one, which would have done positive things for his claustrophobia if it hadn’t been full of demons. And the hellish equivalent of TNT. And a ten-foot-tall half-snake that was weaving drunkenly along, as if coming back from a night on the town.

  God. That’s where he should be, right now, on the town. Any town. Or better yet, enjoying the nightlife in his beautiful casino. Pressing the flesh with high rollers, schmoozing with starlets, making sure it all ran smoothly, effortlessly. He was good at that—no, he was great at it, maybe better than anything he’d ever done in his life. He wasn’t so good at this, particularly not when it involved touching that hideous thing in order to keep up some semblance of—

  “What are you doing?” he demanded shrilly, catching sight of Rosier’s current activity.

  “Nothing.”

  Casanova was momentarily speechless, disbelief and revulsion warring for dominance on his tongue. Revulsion won. “You were feeling it up?”

  “She.”

  “What?”

  “Well, she’s obviously female,” one hand glided over evidence of that fact with every appearance of appreciation. “And I was merely trying—”

  “It’s a snake,” Casanova said, horror making his voice quake.

  “It’s a lamia, which makes it—her—a sentient being.”

  “It has scales.”

  The disgusting creature licked his lips. “Quite.”

  “And it’s dead!” Dios, how many perversions was that in a single—

  “It’s in stasis,” Rosier said calmly, “it isn’t dead. Although we’re likely to be if I don’t figure out how this body works.”

  Casanova was beginning to think that was inevitable anyway. He’d been envisioning a quick trip through a few short tunnels, grabbing the damn mage and heading straight out the nearest exit. That rosy little vision had lasted all of five minutes, until the small side tunnels let out into increasingly larger ones, populated by pick-wielding demons who couldn’t all be mind-controlled. There was just too many of them; at least some had to be in on this, whatever this was.

  He still hadn’t figured it out and he really didn’t care. Right now, he cared about exactly one thing. “Where is that blasted mage?” he said savagely, as he turned a corner.

  And had the damn man slam into him, hard enough to knock him off his feet.

  Casanova hit the ground, Cassie yelled “Pritkin!” and Rosier cursed. And then the crazy bastard was gone again, as if jerked back by some unseen wire. Leaving Casanova sprawled in the dirt with his ass in the air.

  Which was not such a bad thing considering what was spread out all of a foot in front of his nose.

  “Dios,” he breathed, his fingers digging into the rock as he stared at the lip of a very narrow ledge, over what appeared to be nothing at all.

  Casanova peered cautiously over the rim to see a cavern the size of an airline hangar, if they were also a mile deep and carved out of glittering rock. Demons lined the deeply grooved sides, where jagged streaks of pure ore glistened silver-bright against the stone, like captured lightning. It looked like half the damn mountain was hollow, he thought, awed.

  Right before he was hit by the rest of it.

  He heard Cassie scream as their ledge was engulfed by an avalanche of debris, including dirt, rock and several sharp little pick axes, one of which bounced off his already abused ass. It took him a moment to dig himself out, only to find that everyone else had been smart enough to hug the wall. And were now staring with varying expressions of horror at something behind him.

  He whipped his neck around in time to see that, for once, the danger wasn’t to him. The mage had just hit the wall in a billowing explosion of dust—on the other side of the cavern. How he’d gotten all the way over there, Casanova didn’t know, since he didn’t see a bridge. But that was less of a concern than the fact that they’d come all this way to rescue someone who had just gotten himself killed.

  Only he hadn’t.

  He should have been dead; hell, he should have been a greasy streak on the rock face. But instead, Casanova watched him spin, snarling, and launch himself off the side of the cave—straight into thin air. But instead of instead of plummeting who knew how far to his death, he soared up, which was clearly impossible unless the Shadowland had some crazy rule on gravity he’d yet to—

  “Wait. Are those . . . wings?” Casanova asked stupidly, as Pritkin hit a fat little demon who had also been hovering with gravity-defying ease in the middle of a lot of nothing. And sent him smashing into the wall above them.

  Most of which came down on Casanova’s head.

  “Carlos! Get off the floor!” Rian told him, as he struggled to fight himself free a second time.

  He pulled his face out of the dust to glare up at her, grateful that he didn’t actually need to breathe. “You know,” he said sarcastically. “That never would have—” he cut off as Cassie stepped on his head, scrambling over the mountain of debris towards Rosier.

  She’d survived the double avalanche, but she looked a little worse for the wear, with a bloody streak glistening on one cheek and red dust coating her like a film. But that was nothing compared to her just-shy-of-crazed expression. Which might explain why she grabbed a fistful of those horrible tentacles, jerked Rosier down to her and screamed in his face.

  “Do something!”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “Anything! Everything! He’s going to get himself killed!”

  “He looks like he’s doing all right to me,” Casanova said sourly, dragging his filthy, torn and bloody ass over to the minutely safer area
by the wall.

  “He isn’t,” Rosier said shortly.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Watch.”

  Casanova was, but it looked to him like the mage was winning. The fat demon dove for Pritkin, the air boiling around him like an angry black cloud, only to be sent flying into the midst of a half dozen miners. They’d been hugging a ledge, watching the show, but should have picked a better vantage point. Because they toppled like bowling pins, the pudgy demon sprawled in the middle of them, bloody and obviously hurting.

  But Pritkin was, too, either that or he needed a breather. At least Casanova assumed that was why he didn’t immediately follow up his advantage. He hovered in the middle of the cave, the great white wings that he’d somehow acquired beating the air, while his opponent writhed in pain and black smoke boiled around him.

  Only it didn’t look so much like smoke anymore. More like a swarm of angry insects, which were pursuing the miners the demon had toppled. And while Casanova couldn’t tell what it was doing, every time it caught one, the miner screamed and dropped—and didn’t get back up.

  “What’s happening?” Cassie demanded.

  “Ealdris,” Rosier said grimly. “She’s feeding.”

  “Now? But why—”

  Rosier glanced at her impatiently. “Every time her associate is injured, she pulls energy from the surrounding life forms and feeds it to him. He can keep going indefinitely—or as long as the food holds out, at least. Emrys can’t.”

  “Emrys?”

  “John then,” Rosier said, gesturing violently. “Call him what you will, he is going to die if we don’t find a way to separate those two. Soon.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “I’m thinking,” Rosier snapped.

  “I can try,” Rian volunteered. “If I could drain her—”

  “You’re not powerful enough,” Rosier said curtly. “I might be, but not through a body. That’s Ealdris’s talent, not mine.”

  “But she doesn’t have a body right—”

  “As soon as either of us attacks, she’ll simply draw back into Sid.” He made a disgusted noise. “Sid. You can’t trust anybody anymore.”