Blood Trinity (6 page)

Two years … Two friggin’ years and they weren’t a bit closer than they’d been while shackled in the cave. Meanwhile a traitor was moving undetected in their ranks, and who knew who else he’d killed and betrayed.

“That’s great.” She’d wondered many a night if they’d ever find out who’d betrayed them in Utah. Whoever it was, they were resourceful and smart.

“It
would
be great if I didn’t have to worry about you out here on your own chasing demons. Give me an hour to make this meeting and we’ll go together.”

Was he nuts? She looked up at the pale night sky again. “Don’t have an hour. Clock’s ticking and I can handle a Cresyl demon. If VIPER gets word of this first, you know what they’ll do to me. Sen has zero tolerance for anything with my name on it.” She stopped at the corner, her hand automatically at rest on the dagger handle.

“I doubt he’ll hear about the killing before Monday. We’ll find the other demon first.”

“What if we don’t, Z? What if he does find out before Monday?”

Tzader looked away, bitter worry clouding his gaze. “Then I’ll make sure Brina knows. She’ll be there for you.”

Yeah, right. She’d sooner trust a cottonmouth not to bite her in the woods.

Evalle didn’t consider Brina as supportive and benevolent as Tzader did, not when it came to Alterants. Brina was the counterpart to Sen, since they were both in liaison positions, but with one difference. Whereas Brina was an advocate when acting as liaison between Beladors and their goddess Macha,
Sen was strictly a conduit between VIPER agents and the Tribunal.

Sen enforced Tribunal decisions. No advocacy.

Especially not where Evalle was concerned.

Macha and her Beladors had to abide by Tribunal decree. To go against it would turn all Beladors into enemies of the VIPER coalition. They would all be marked as outlaws and ordered for execution. If that happened, Evalle’s tribe would battle on all fronts, not just with predatory nonhumans and other powerful beings.

She shuddered at that thought. “Brina would
never
speak up for me.”

“Have a little faith in her. She
will
intervene if I tell her you didn’t shift and kill a human.”

And Evalle was supposed to trust in that? She could feel the prison door already closing on her.

She clenched the handle of her dagger. “I might show faith in Brina if she’d ever shown some in
me
without you asking for it first. Regardless, she can’t stop the suspension. If I don’t find proof of what really did the killing, I am screwed. You know what VIPER will do if I don’t find the flaming demon to prove otherwise.” She held up her hand when Tzader’s eyes thinned to his look of lecture mode. “Neither of us has time for this argument, and I’m not walking into VIPER without something in hand to prove my innocence. Call me after your meeting and we’ll team up.”

“I can hunt after daylight, so don’t take any chances. Do you even know where the other Cresyl is?”

“Not yet, but I will soon even if I have to rattle every Nightstalker in the city.” But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. She’d try Grady first.

Even though he was a pain in the butt and made her work for every piece of intel she squeezed out of the old ghoul, he was one of the best informants when it came to anything supernatural.

Tzader looked around the street, taking stock of everything seen and unseen. “Your bike in the area?”

“Parked on the next block.” Her cell phone buzzed with a text message. She reached to pull the phone from the back pocket of her jeans.

He checked his watch. “I gotta go or I’ll be late. I’ll call you soon as I’m free, but worst case I’ll swing by your place after daylight.”

“Okay.” She lifted the phone into view as Tzader’s swiftly moving form disappeared in seconds. The text was from Kellman, one of two teenage male witches who lived on the streets because they had no family and no coven.

The message was simple: SOS … demon.

She took off running and punched up the GPS program Quinn had installed in her phone that would trace back a cell call to a location.

Please, please let the demon threat be the Cresyl’s mate. For once in her life, let her be lucky …

With fewer than ten demons seen in this region in a year, that was a good bet.

At the next intersection, she hung a left and pulled out her remote key, pressing it when she got within fifty feet of her motorcycle, a metallic gold Suzuki GSX-R. She adored her gixxer, which bolted down the highway like a bullet. The headlight flashed once, scaring away the vagrants huddled around the bike. She kinetically freed her full-face helmet from where it was hooked over the mirror on the handlebar and strapped it on as she straddled the bike, then fired up the engine.

Pulling away from the curb, she rolled on the throttle sharply. The front tire lifted off the ground for fifty feet.

In twelve minutes, she was cruising along Metropolitan Parkway. She turned onto the cross street indicated on her cell phone, drove a quarter mile and stopped in front of a brick building for a trucking firm that was closed on Sundays according to the schedule on the door. She listened for the boys above the low buzz of her engine.

Nothing.

But that being said, the air reeked of a distinct sulfur stench.

Strong. Vibrant. Deadly.

The smell of well-fed demons.

And inside were two scared kids….

Now that Evalle knew where the demon was hiding, she quickly parked. This wasn’t the best place to leave a GSX-R after dark, but no one could steal the bike. Someone from Quinn’s extensive network of contacts had warded the bike to prevent the engine from firing unless Evalle was sitting on the seat. It really paid to have friends with mad psychic skills.

The bike had to be within her energy field for the wheels to even turn. Go team.

She traded her helmet for the dark sunglasses and left on foot to hunt, picking her way toward the building. Silence followed in the wake of her soft steps, as if no threat lurked nearby.

She knew better.

The air stank of evil.

Her demon was here, and the dead quiet meant the Cresyl knew Evalle was here, too.
Come get some …
Shadows whispered, stirring the hairs on her arms as she sensed a presence she couldn’t find.

She stomped her boots, and blades shot out around the soles.

No underestimating her opponent this time.

The nasty sulfur stench grew stronger the closer
she edged. A solid sign that she was on the right trail, but she hadn’t heard a sound from the boys.

Please don’t be demon Kibbles ’n Bits …

Surely she’d gotten here in time. She couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to the twins. The boys annoyed her at times, but they were like family to her.

No wonder they annoy me …

She paused at an electric gate, which ran between the brick building and a long warehouse and closed off a wide driveway to the rear loading dock area.

She sized up the ambush potential.

Definitely a trap.

But who or what was the demon trying to catch? Kardos and Kellman were homeless teens no one cared about. No one but her and the Nightstalker Grady, who helped her keep tabs on the pair.

Using her telekinetics, she unlocked and lifted the gate so she could enter. She simultaneously sent out pulses that would interfere with any and all electronic surveillance or alarms the company had. As the gate moved, metal gears squeaked in protest, making her cringe, as it not only alerted the demons about her presence but also telegraphed her location.

Damn, why couldn’t her telekinesis come with WD-40?

She froze for a second, waiting for them to pounce. After a few mad heartbeats, she started forward again.

When she reached the back lot, one security light above her head shed enough light for a human to easily navigate the enclosed area. Thirty-foot-long metal shipping containers were stacked along the far side.

Everything was too quiet.

Tzader’s warning dug into her thoughts, reminding her not to fight demons alone.
You’re not immortal or impervious …
One mental call for help would bring the closest Belador running to give her support.

She considered that idea for all of a nanosecond.

Beladors
would
come—grudgingly—if she called. Screw that, and she wasn’t bothering Tzader. His meeting was too important.

I can’t put this off with those two boys at the mercy of a Cresyl demon.

She drew a shallow breath and walked further into the parking lot. The closer she got to the demon the more foul the air turned. Would the female Cresyl be in her demon form, or could the thing have fed on another human and now be masquerading in that poor soul’s body?

Where were the twins? Her panic for their safety was rising high.

A scraping sound above her drew her gaze over her shoulder, up to where two identical blond males clung to a galvanized pole mounted thirty feet off the ground that supported the halogen security light. One of the boys kicked his boot against the
brick wall and struggled to keep a grasp, but neither uttered a sound.

Thank the goddess they were safe
.

The demon had muted them—something
she’d
wanted to do to the back-talking Kardos on occasion—but this wasn’t funny.

Evalle needed something to break their fall. She spied a Dumpster and lifted her hand to telekinetically move it into place.

All of a sudden a blast of energy knocked her backward. She hit the brick wall four feet off the ground and slid down, scraping her arms on the rough edges but landing on her feet.

Ready to fight.

Her hand went to the dagger in her sheath and paused.

The demon that leaped into view from between steel containers on the far side of the parking lot was not a Cresyl or a female.

Scrolled ink designs ran along one side of his face, moving like a tangle of angry snakes. He was pushing eight feet tall, and she had a bad feeling this one could grow larger. She based gender this time on the very human fit of his jeans that were tight enough to leave no doubt about his endowment or sex.

Ah, crap, he was shifting from human to demon form.

What kind of demon was this thing, and what
was he doing here? Who had opened the hellmouth downtown?

More to the point, how did she close it again? Preferably with the demons on the right side of it. ’Cause no offense, she was getting tired of the cleanup.

He locked his hands—that now had claw tips—together in front of his chest. A supersized black hoodie covered thick shoulders, but he was still shifting. Horns had already started growing from his thick forehead just above each eye. His nose widened and lengthened to a curved tip. Ew! Boar demons were ugly. A thin red tongue lashed out from between pointed teeth.

And what the heck had happened to his ears? They were cauliflowered like a battered boxer’s instead of pointed.

The back of his pants ripped open, and two tails grew six feet long with spikes at the end.

Now she knew what he was.

A Birrn demon, far more dangerous than a Cresyl.

Oh, yay! Just what her suckass night needed.

If the stories she’d heard were true, he should smell like tar or burned rubber, not sulfur … unless …

He’d eaten the Cresyl.

Great. Just great. Even better. He’d eaten her evidence. Did everything have to conspire against her tonight?

But a Birrn wasn’t a free agent. He answered to a master, so he wouldn’t be here unless he’d been sent. VIPER would definitely go after whoever sent a predator here. If Evalle could show up with this thing smelling of Cresyl, even Sen would hesitate to point a finger at her for the dead human.

She hoped.

The demon bellowed as both horns curled and thickened at full extension.

“Hello, Mr. Ugly. Care to explain why you ran my friends up a flagpole?” And here she’d thought only bully humans were that cruel.

“I want your power,” the demon whispered, a deep and menacing sound.

Was he hunting any and all powerful beings or … just her?

“Um yeah … no offense. Think I’ll hang on to it for a bit.” Evalle crossed her arms and glanced over her shoulder. “What about those two?” Had he sucked them dry?

“Bait.”

Okay … how did he know anyone would come to help the twins, much less someone with my level of powers
? She’d chalk it up to a good guess, but his kind really weren’t that smart. “Let them go and we’ll chat.”

He shook his head in an easy motion. “Bait always dies.”

“Bad news for you then.”

The demon pulled back. Dull confusion fogged his glowing red eyes. “Why?”

“Cuz you’re not bright enough to come after me yourself, which makes
you
somebody else’s bait.”

Worry skipped through his gaze for a split second, just long enough for Evalle to take advantage of his lack of attention. She whipped both arms away from her body, throwing an arc of hot energy at him that knocked him backward. He slammed into the steel shipping containers, which crashed down on him, the sound shattering the predawn quiet.