Chosen

by Connor Ashley

  “You’ve made your point, demon. That’s enough.”

  Lana ignored her, bringing her hands to rest on either side of Raj’s neck. She kissed him fiercely, and his body responded to her touch, pulling her closer. When the succubus pulled away, the air shimmered bright with Raj’s essence, and Lana breathed it in.

  Raj shuddered, and a sickly sheen coated his face.

  “Get the hell off him,” Dani snapped. She grabbed Lana by the upper arm to pull her away, but the demon twisted suddenly, her elbow smashing into Dani’s nose. The burst of pain sent her stumbling back.

  “Wait your turn, hunter,” the succubus snapped, drawing another lungful of Raj’s energy into her being. His hands fell limp at his sides.

  Dani cursed under her breath and wiped away the blood dripping down her face. She was way too tired—and too damn hungry—to deal with this nonsense a second longer. “Silas!”

  Her right arm burned as Silas stripped himself from her skin, slinking to the floor. When his body was fully corporeal, the python glanced up at his Carrier. Dani gestured at the moaning succubus, who was reaching for the buttons on Raj’s shirt.

  Silas slipped silently across the marble floor, his black scales shimmering in the bright lights. He climbed up the stool and wrapped himself around Lana’s torso, hissing in her face, a fierce, soul-shuddering sound. Lana froze. Her head whipped around until she found Dani, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Off. Now.” Dani commanded, and the succubus complied. She slipped from Raj’s lap as Silas tightened across her chest, pinning her arms to her side. “Sit.” Dani kicked a chair toward the succubus.

  “You’ll pay for this,” Lana growled, but she obeyed.

  “I’m sure,” Dani said, rubbing the bare spot on her forearm. Now that she had one of the Ink on her side, she wasn’t afraid of the demon’s taunts, even if using her Ink presented other challenges. She cast a glance at Raj, who looked extremely uncomfortable as he crossed his legs and straightened out his shirt. “You good, Romeo?”

  The necromancer scrubbed his face and looked between Silas and Dani. “Am I hallucinating? Where’d the giant snake come from?”

  Dani shifted uncomfortably, but the succubus just laughed. “You don’t recognize the Ink Carrier? You tasted smarter than that.”

  Recognition lit Raj’s features, slowly at first, smoothing out the confused lines on his forehead, until suddenly he snapped his clear eyes in Dani’s direction. “The tattoos. You’re—”

  “Tired of this conversation,” Dani cut in, shielding her now bare arm from Raj’s view. There really wasn’t a point in trying to hide the truth; he clearly already knew enough to be a danger to her, but she couldn’t quell the instinct.

  “But you’re so young,” Raj said, pressing the issue. “I’ve heard stories of the Ink Carrier my whole life. My grandfather dealt with the Carrier, too.”

  “Probably my grandmother,” Dani conceded in the hopes that with some answers, Raj would move on. Though in truth, it might have been her great-grandmother. The Frost women had children young and didn’t live long lives. “Can we focus? I have a soul to save.”

  Dani approached the succubus, who had given up on trying to escape Silas’s hold. For once, the demon actually looked scared, which hopefully meant she’d be willing to cooperate.

  “You know who I am,” Dani said simply, “which means you know what will happen if you piss me off. Silas can send you back to your demonic realm with a single bite.”

  As if to confirm Dani’s false threat—the snakes needed to consume demons completely to send them back—Silas flicked his tongue against Lana’s neck. The demon flinched.

  “Let’s start with your name.”

  “I’d rather claw my way back to hell than give you my true name.”

  All demons had a thing about names. Names held power, and knowing their true name gave the person who spoke it complete control over them.

  Dani sighed. She was already exhausted by the creature and they’d only just begun. “I don’t need your true name. What do you like to be called in this realm?”

  The succubus glanced nervously from Dani to Raj. “It’s Pam.”

  “Pam. Seriously?” Dani had expected something like Veronica or Jezebel. Not Pam.

  She nodded. “What’s wrong with Pam? I like it.”

  “Fine, Pam. I believe Lana is still alive, shoved back somewhere in that sick head of yours. I need to speak with her.”

  “Why?” Pam whined, drawing out the word. “She’s not nearly as fun as me. Completely boring in bed.” The demon looked past Dani, to where Raj was finally getting to his feet. “If you let me go, I can make you forget all about Lana. And your little bodyguard.” At that last bit, Pam jerked her head toward Dani before returning her smoldering gaze on Raj. She licked her lips seductively, until Silas hissed and snapped his mighty jaws in her face.

  Raj stepped forward until he was even with Dani. He crossed his arms against his chest, and Dani couldn’t help but notice the way his tight shirt showed off every curve of his muscles. “Enough games. Let the girl through before I find the necromancer who raised you and make them send you back. No snake bites required.” At that, he glanced at Dani, but she couldn’t read his expression. He should hate her, but that wasn’t the emotion written in his eyes. Even so, she couldn’t imagine he liked having the Ink Carrier at his house.

  But then why is he helping me?

  “Fine,” Pam said, pulling Dani back to the moment. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you all die of boredom, that’s not on me.” The succubus tilted her head back and shuddered, an exaggerated moan falling off her lips, until finally she fell still.

  “Lana?” Dani cautiously stepped toward the bound demon. “Lana, can you hear me?”

  Another moan—this one less sexual, more the sound of someone waking up with a terrible hangover—and then Lana’s head tipped back up. Fear permeated her gaze when it focused on Dani. But then she glanced down at the snake around her body and screamed.

  “It’s okay! Just relax,” Dani said, rushing forward. “Silas, return.”

  Of course, his voice hissed in her mind as he burst into a cloud of ink and etched himself back onto her skin.

  Dani did her best to hide the pain from Raj, who watched closely as the python etched back into her skin. When it was done, she focused her attention on Lana. “See, the giant snake is gone. You’re okay.” Dani knelt beside the still sitting woman. “Do you know who you are? Do you remember what . . . ” She trailed off, not sure how much of the possession to mention in case Lana didn’t recall a thing.

  “You have to bring it back. You can’t get rid of the demon.” Tears spilled down Lana’s face, but her expression was fierce. “Please tell me you didn’t banish her. Please!”

  That was not at all the reaction Dani expected. At worst she was expecting confusion and a totally blank memory. Hell, maybe even some gratitude for giving her soul control of her body again. Not this angry panic. And she sure as hell didn’t expect Lana to want the demon.

  “Hey there, it’s okay.” Raj’s voice was soothing where Dani’s had gone silent. “Let me get you something to drink. I’ve got whiskey, wine, probably a couple beers in the fridge.”

  “Water’s fine,” Lana said, one hand coming to rest at her throat. “Pam forgets I need something other than alcohol to drink.”

  “Wait. Everybody . . . just . . . wait. You know the succubus? You’re okay with being possessed?” Dani stood and ran a hand over her face. What the hell is the world coming to? “I need you to back up and explain.”

  Lana glared at her. “Why should I explain anything to you?”

  “Because your sister Cassie is scared out of her mind and all alone,” Dani snapped, causing the little color left in Lana’s cheeks to fade away.

  “You spoke to Cassie?”

  “Yes, I did. She’s been canvassing the city looking for you. She’s a child, Lana. She needs someone home to look after her.” Da
ni wanted to scream, but when Raj returned with a glass of water, she forced herself to take a deep breath. “Please, Lana. Help me understand what’s going on here.”

  “I did what any parent would do.” Lana paused and downed the entire glass of water, her hands trembling and her eyes filling with tears. “My baby sister was dying. Do you have any idea how hard that was to watch? She’s so young. She was wasting away.”

  “That’s why you came to Obsidian,” Raj cut in, but Lana shook her head.

  “Not at first. We tried everything we could afford. Chemo. Radiation. Acupuncture. Special herbal teas. Reiki. I tried everything to save my sister, but nothing worked. And then . . . And then Cassie gave up.” Lana’s voice broke and she buried her face in her hands.

  Dani remembered the calendar full of notes, the little red X’s that crossed out all the upcoming appointments. “Cassie didn’t want to be too sick from treatments to enjoy the last days of her life.”

  Lana scowled. “She’s a child. She shouldn’t get to decide.”

  “But that’s what finally sent you to Obsidian,” Dani guessed.

  “I’d heard rumors around town, that you could find miracles at Obsidian. I cashed out everything we had left from our parents’ life insurance policies, took out a second mortgage on the house, and went searching for a cure.” Lana glanced down, rubbing one finger along the edge of the glass. “I found a man at the club. He said if I agreed to share my body with a demon, it would remove Cassie’s cancer.”

  “And did it?” Dani asked. The Cassie she’d met still looked frail, but even with the cancer itself cured, it would take time for her body to heal.

  “It did. I forced her to go to her check-up appointment, and Cassie’s doctors called a few days later to say the cancer was gone. They couldn’t believe it. They wanted to run more tests to make sure it wasn’t an error at the lab, but I knew it had worked. My baby sister was safe.”

  Tears spilled down Lana’s cheeks, the relief of the news still clearly overwhelming. But then she blinked, and a scowl creased her brow. “I never even got a chance to tell Cassie the good news. As soon as her cancer was gone, Pam took over completely. She wouldn’t let me out anymore. I was supposed to keep the daylight hours to take care of Cassie, but she took that from me, too.”

  “This necromancer,” Raj cut in, his voice sharp, “who was he?”

  Lana shook her head. “He never gave his name. Just took the money and led me to a back room, where he summoned the demon and made the deal.”

  “Is there anything you remember?” Raj pushed, growing more agitated. “A tattoo or special marking or anything?”

  “I don’t know. He was some tall white guy with a bald head and a beard.”

  “There has to be more than that,” Raj pressed, almost aggressively.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Dani asked, staring daggers at him. She cared far less about which necromancer brokered the deal than how to banish the demon back to hell.

  Her questions seemed to dislodge whatever anger had Raj’s hands curled into fists. He reached for the bottle of whiskey on the cabinet. “The club didn’t sanction this deal. I’m supposed to get fifteen percent.” He tossed back a shot of the amber liquid. “When I find out who did this, I’m banning him from Obsidian. And collecting interest.”

  Raj took another shot, but Dani watched him curiously. Something about his demeanor said this was about more than an issue of lost income. But why would he care? He probably brokered the same sorts of deals all the time.

  Dani shuddered at the thought of Raj in some dark room, raising up demons and binding their monstrous souls to recent corpses. But she didn’t have time to ponder the politics of necromancers. She turned back to Lana. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find a way to banish Pam and get your life back.”

  “No!” Lana shot up from the chair. “You can’t.”

  “Don’t worry,” Dani soothed, “It won’t hurt.”

  “I don’t care about that.” Lana scrubbed the lingering tears from her cheeks, her expression fierce. “If you send the demon away, Cassie’s cancer will come back. She’ll die. You have to leave things the way they are.”

  “I’m sorry, Lana, but I can’t do that.” Dani glanced back at Raj, who was watching her with open interest. “I can’t let the succubus roam the world unchecked. She’s dangerous.”

  “You’d rather condemn my baby sister to death?” Lana’s voice rose with each word until they landed against Dani like blows. “Pam doesn’t even kill anyone! I can see everything she does. At worst, she breaks up a few already rocky marriages. What does that matter when the alternative is losing Cassie?”

  Dani didn’t like the thought of Cassie’s death any more than her sister did, but she couldn’t let Pam keep control of Lana’s body. Especially with Lana still alive. If her effect on Raj was any indications, a living body made Pam’s powers all the more powerful. Lana was only willing to bear the cost to save her sister’s life, but she couldn’t even watch out for Cassie the way things were. Her sister was basically an orphan.

  “Silas. Jasper.” Dani winced as both snakes peeled from her skin. “Watch her,” she said, pointing to Lana. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  Can we bite her? Jasper asked. Can we eat her?

  “No, you can’t eat her,” Dani replied, which made Lana startle as the python and king cobra circled her. “Poe?” She wasn’t thrilled about giving him the chance to lecture at her, but she was running out of ideas.

  The raven burst from her chest with more speed and ferocity than she’d ever experienced before. The power of it left her breathless, and Poe sprung into the air and dove at Raj, talons reaching for his face.

  “Poe, wait! We’re not under attack.”

  But she was too late. The bird dove at Raj, who ducked at the last second, grabbing a lid from the drying rack by the sink to use as a shield.

  “Dammit, Poe,” she yelled when he circled again. “Stop or I’ll return you.”

  This boy is the enemy, Danika. Where’s your sword? You should run him through. Poe landed on the fridge and loosed an indignant squawk.

  Dani groaned. “The both of you, in the next room. Now.”

  Raj didn’t release his culinary shield, but he followed her into a living room. Dani quickly explained the situation to Poe. “There has to be a way to get rid of the succubus without reversing Cassie’s cure.”

  Poe shook his head, the movement ruffling his feathers. The terms of the ill-advised agreement seem clear enough. The cancer only stays gone as long as the demon is inside the elder sister’s body.

  “So, what do we do?” Dani asked, desperate for a solution, while Raj watched her with growing confusion, unable to hear Poe’s words.

  We send the demon back. I’ll teach you how.

  “But—”

  No ‘buts,’ Danika. The deal should not have been made in the first place. Poe hopped closer and nuzzled his head into her shoulder. I know it’s sad, but the girl would have died anyway. This will simply set the world back the way it should be.

  “That’s not good enough,” Dani snapped, drawing away from the bird. “There has to be a way to keep the demon here but keep it contained in some way.”

  “Actually,” Raj interrupted, still keeping a wary eye on Poe. “I might know someone who could help with that.”

  11

  Dani sat in the passenger seat of Raj’s car, the leather soft beneath her, and watched the necromancer as he drove north. Something about the set of his features, the focus pulling at his brow, made her question everything she’d learned ever about necromancers. They were all supposed to be the same. Ruthless. Incapable of empathy. Power hungry to a fault.

  Rajan Dasari didn’t appear to be any of those things, and Dani couldn’t reconcile that fact against everything she’d learned. Perhaps she’d missed too much training. Perhaps there was more nuance to necromancers that her mother hadn’t had the chance to teach her. Or perhaps some were better
at hiding the ways their demonic dealings affected them.

  The heir to the Dasari empire glanced at Dani, catching her staring. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “One, I can tell you’re lying. And two, you’re rubbing your arms. Does it hurt to be this far from your. . . ” He fumbled for the right word. “Your snakes?”

  Dani’s hands stilled on her forearms. She hadn’t noticed the nervous motion. “They’re called the Ink, and no, it doesn’t hurt.” She shouldn’t be telling him any of this. It was too dangerous for the necromancers to know anything about her. She was the last of her kind, and the world couldn’t afford for her enemies to have any advantage.

  It sounded extreme, hyperbolic even, but it wasn’t. She was the only thing standing between demons and their full control of the mortal realm. Sure, sometimes humans who had close encounters with demons became self-proclaimed hunters, but they took down so few demons—and got killed often enough themselves—that they barely even tipped the scale.

  “I don’t understand you,” Dani said at last, turning the conversation away from her many secrets. “Why are you helping me?”

  “You did patch up my head.”

  “I’m sure you say that to all the demon hunters.”

  Raj laughed, but the sound quickly died in his throat. The energy in the car shifted, grew serious. They rolled to a stop before a red light, and Raj used the momentary stillness to look at Dani. Everything inside shouted at her to look away. She didn’t. “I can guess what you think of people like me,” he started, “but most of us are born to this. We don’t choose this life.”

  “You’re an adult. Make another choice.”

  “You try telling a father like mine that you don’t want to follow in his footsteps.” Raj shook his head and stepped hard on the gas when the light turned green. “I might as well tell him I want to marry a white girl.”