Demon's Kiss (13 page)

She wasn’t usually the type to initiate change, preferring the safe and solid reassurance of routine, but if change rolled over her, she
dealt
with it. That’s what Gram had taught her to do, what life had taught her to do. She’d thought she could handle anything. Anything. The emptiness of growing up without her parents. The horrific memories of the crash. The sadness of Gram’s death, of being so alone. Only now, she wasn’t so sure. Now it wasn’t the natural course of life, of death, of highs and lows, she had to face. Now it was about making choices, making changes, accepting the impossible.

Now it was about
hybrids
and demons invading her world, threatening her safety. Her life.

It was about magic, and it was about a sorcerer.

Ciarran D’Arbois.

The air crackled, alive with unseen energy, electric heat connecting them. Heart pounding, she held his gaze.

Closer. He leaned closer until their breath mingled, and her heart pounded, and she ached to feel him close the last of the space that separated them, to press his body full against her, to make her feel warm instead of cold to her core.

He inhaled sharply.

“Your two minutes are up.” His low voice rumbled through her and he slapped one palm against the wall, pushing himself back. She turned her face away, flustered, forcing her attention to the task at hand. She’d lived here for almost two decades, and now she’d had two minutes to gather up her life.

Nodding, she stepped past him and grabbed her albums and photos, focusing only on her task and not on the destruction that surrounded her.

Resolve flooded her. She wouldn’t let the
hybrids
win, wouldn’t let them steal all the lovely memories of her home. She had grown up here, just her and Gram, and
those
were the memories she would choose to hold.

“I know you thought this was a really bad idea, but thanks for bringing me. That was . . . um . . . nice,” she said, struggling to keep her tone even as she shoved the pictures into a bag.

“Nice,” he repeated, a hint of incredulity shading his tone. His eyes narrowed. “It isn’t a word that describes me, Clea. I am anything but nice.”

And yet, he
was
. Nice. Nice enough to buy out half the store to feed the homeless and buy them blankets and even food for Pickles.

“Don’t think it,” he said in a dusky murmur. “Don’t make me something I’m not.”

Reaching out, he went to take the bag from her. She held firm, and their fingers touched, hers caught beneath his. Just like she had that morning in the kitchen, Clea felt a harsh flow of power slam through her. She jerked as though she was hooked up to a live electrical wire, and she cried out in shock as her body twisted tight.

With a snarl, Ciarran wrenched away, his expression one of pain.

Heart hammering, Clea fell back, rubbing her hand, half-expecting her skin to be singed black.

Her gaze shot to his. He watched her, his expression hard, making her think of danger and power, bringing a nervous edge to her movements. She shivered, torn.

Maybe what he said was true. Maybe he really was anything but nice.

Taking her to his bed would have been almost too perfect. He enjoyed the thought of having her in his thrall, of using her body for his release, then using her power as conduit to open the portal and liberate the Solitary. Now she would pay the price for her rejection. Instead of a gentle, sweet ride to her demise as he had originally planned, she would find her death both brutal and bloody.

Such pleasure he would take in sucking her magic from her core, and then sucking the marrow from her bones.

Asa glanced at the three
hybrids
that stood to one side, practically vibrating with eagerness. Their lives were forfeit, sacrificed to his great plan. They just didn’t know it, yet. He reached out, unsheathing one gleaming nail, honed to the sharpness of a high-quality paring knife, and ran it along the cheek of the nearest
hybrid,
leaving a thin line of blood in its wake. A reminder. A promise.

The man shuddered and tensed but said nothing. Wise
hybrid
. To complain was to earn a far worse fate.

“Wait,” Asa commanded, his voice barely above a whisper. “Wait until she is clear of him. You will take the human female alive. Unharmed. At all costs. Do you understand?”

They nodded as one, the black spheres of their eyes turning toward him, then away, their terror palpable, and he felt a moment’s impatience with their weak nature. He looked forward to the opening of the wall between dimensions, to the flood of lesser demons that would pour through unfettered by human keepers, an army of worthy soldiers, his to command. All would be as it should, demons taking their rightful position, humans serving as feed for a superior race. He would be second only to the Solitary. And one day, as his power grew, he would be second to none.

“If you fail, I will not kill you.” Asa walked a slow circle around the nearest
hybrid,
the one he had set as the leader of this small group. “I will slice you open, gut you, and eat your intestines one inch at a time. Do you know how many days you can live like that, with the pain and the infection gnawing away at you? Days and days and days. Perhaps weeks. Think of it. Weeks of unbearable suffering. And then perhaps I will heal you. Only to begin it all again.”

The
hybrid
made a choking sound. Asa laughed softly, enjoying the sensation of their fear rolling over him. Foolish creatures. They would fail. Three
hybrids
against the sorcerer. The odds were laughable. Ah, but the information he would gain from watching D’Arbois fight. That was invaluable.

“Alive. I want Clea Masters alive. Not a single scratch marring her skin. Not a filament torn from her clothing.” Those pleasures he reserved for himself, for after she had unlocked the doorway to the demon realm.

Again.

Just as she had unlocked it two decades past. An unbelievably rare human female born with more than just a spark of magic, she had been his key to the human world. Even as a small child her magic had been strong, strong enough to open a portal. Trapped beyond the wall in the demon realm, he had called her, drawn her, used whatever foul sorcery had been within his scope, pulling human and
hybrid
alike into his perfect plan.

His
hybrid
minions, free to do his bidding in the mortal realm, had made certain that her parents drove to the exact location he needed, on the exact date, with their precious daughter dozing in the backseat. He had made certain that the car had carried the child to the particular place, that her father had lost control exactly as needed. Clea’s injuries were so severe that her waning life force let the kernel of magic at her core glide free, and that magic was the key that had slid so fluidly into the lock.

Such effort, such lengthy weeks and months and years it had taken to put all in its place.

But he had had nothing but time. Endless time.

For an eternity he had been trapped in the demon realm. He. Asag. Ancient demon of plague. He had been forced from the Earth by the stinking
Pact,
forced by a pact signed in sorcerer and demon blood to stay on his side of the barrier, to limit his darkness and death to the demon dimension, where there was little enjoyment to be found in his unique skills. He had been trapped there by ancient powers, locked in by the Compact of Sorcerers.

Centuries he had waited for a human child to be born, a child who bore not merely a speck, but a large measure of magic. And she had come. A female child. Clea Masters. She had come, such a surprise, so much more powerful than ever he had imagined possible, justifying his wait, his patience.

That night, the night he had breached the wall, he had cared nothing for her fate. She had been merely an instrument of his success, an inexplicably magical human child whose death would mean naught to him once she had served her purpose. Her purpose had been to open the doorway, to breach the wall, to set him free.

Open it she had, ripping the barrier between dimensions, no small crack, but a great, groaning tear. Her magic had been that powerful. Stunningly powerful.

Yet, one stumbling block had remained. A demon could not walk the world of man without a keeper, and he, Asag, was fettered by the need for a mortal who would summon him. That challenge had been readily overcome. It was so easy to control the mother’s thoughts, a dying woman who cared only for her child. Easy to plant the seed of need and desperation with a silent whisper in her mind, to fan her anxiety and convince her to call him forth, to convince her that she called a guardian angel. The mother’s dying breath had bid him to enter the human world. Such perfect timing. She had lived long enough to bring him through, but not long enough for his power to link them. She had died as she breathed the last word of the summoning, believing she protected her child.

He had set the stage to perfection, her words and her demise letting him, a demon of immeasurable strength, into the realm of man, invited, yes, but unsaddled by a keeper—a development that had been unexpected but so very welcome. The mother’s death on the exact exhalation that completed the summoning invocation had left Asag unfettered by his summoner.

His satisfaction had been immense.

Ah, he could still recall every nuance of sensation as he had stepped into the human dimension, taken human form and guise, the senses he had almost forgotten through the long years of his imprisonment exploding with corporeal delight. The sound of the breeze rustling through the trees had been a nearly forgotten pleasure. The metallic perfume of death, and the sulfur sting of the fire that had consumed the vehicle had filled his nostrils. The weeping of the dying child had been a symphony to his ears. The lovely texture of sharp, sharp bone poking through torn skin as he touched her dead father, and the sticky warmth of fresh blood that spurted from severed artery and vein, a tactile delight.

He remembered the dead woman, Clea’s mother, and the precious taste of her as he had squatted low to the ground and bent to run his tongue along her neck, the taste of her terror yet lingering on her cold skin.

Death had fascinated him, and he had dallied, wanting to witness the demise of the child, wishing it could take longer, that the pain and fear could be drawn out for his voyeuristic pleasure.

The delay had been a mistake, to be sure. One that had cost him immeasurably.

The Compact of Sorcerers, ever vigilant in the need to watch the wall between dimensions, had sent a guardian. The one called Ciarran D’Arbois.

Asa licked his lips now as he recalled his attack, fast and brutal, recalled the feel of sorcerer flesh giving way beneath his teeth, the rich taste of blood flowing into his mouth as he tore open D’Arbois’ shoulder, his wrist. He had sunk his talons deep into the sorcerer, wrestling him toward the breach. Despite being distracted by the child and weakened by Asag’s attack, he had been a worthy opponent, inflicting nearly as much damage as he received.

And the child, Clea, had watched, wide-eyed, terrified, her fear fueling Asag’s power.

Bleeding and torn in a dozen places, D’Arbois had almost gone through the portal, almost fallen into the dark, stinking pit of brimstone and damnation. A sorcerer sealed in the demon realm, he would have been torn limb from limb, again and again, destined to suffer unspeakable agonies for all his immortal eternity.

At the last moment, the tide had turned, and instead of D’Arbois being pushed through the breach, it had nearly been Asag who was relegated back through the portal. D’Arbois had struggled, fought, with all he was, and in the end, he had escaped.

But not without paying a forfeit.

Asag had pushed the sorcerer’s hand through to the demon realm, enjoyed the struggle, the pained hiss as flesh was torn away by a demon on the far side, one intent on taking D’Arbois’ form for its own, using the sorcerer as a bridge. But it was the transition itself, the shift of the hand into the forbidden realm that determined the final outcome, a most unusual set of circumstances and one that allowed a unique result. In his weakened state, D’Arbois had not been strong enough to battle the dark rot, and though he had cast out the demon, the seed of blackness held. It had settled in his hand, the malevolence, the evil, and Asag had believed that it would soon devour the whole.

Such would have been a worthy penance, for the battle had cost Asag, as well. Cost him his strength, his dark sorcery. He had been left almost mortal in a mortal realm. Not Asag any longer, not a great and powerful demon, but Asa, a weakened husk destined to spend decades searching for the treasured morsels of magic buried in human vessels that he required to rebuild him to his former glory.

For that, he owed D’Arbois. For that, it became personal.

But now, he was so close, close to reclaiming his full strength and vigor, close to reclaiming his name—Asag. Close to payback. Against D’Arbois, who had apparently appointed himself the girl’s guardian. Against the entire hated Compact.

Betrayal was a savory feast.

One sorcerer had recently chosen to ally with Asa, to betray his own. The irony was truly delicious. The sorcerer had made small forays at first, his intentions so transparent. He had provided nearly worthless tidbits of information in exchange for answers to questions he posed. Asa had seen through the ruse right from the start. A sorcerer who pretended to ally with demons in order to ferret information for their ultimate defeat. Only the sorcerer had sunk deeper and deeper, a slow slide from altruistic intent to true betrayal. The sorcerer had tunneled so deep into the enemy camp that his boundaries, his convictions, had blurred, leaving him hard-pressed to distinguish friend from foe, truth from lie.

Such a delectable paradox.

Now the only thing Asa needed was the conduit. Clea Masters. And to get her, he must battle D’Arbois. How convenient that they had returned here, as he had suspected they would. Humans were so predictable, and despite her core of magic, Clea was human.

Asa glanced at the
hybrids.
They were tonight’s sacrifice. A necessity. He needed to judge the sorcerer’s strength, needed to watch him fight, study his methods. D’Arbois was strong. For two decades he had held the demon aspect of his own nature at bay, confined by magic-forged alloy, hidden from view in a simple black leather glove, his wrist marked with wards and ancient spells, his forearm guarded by the symbol and breath of the dragon current. As though wards and tattoos would be sufficient to confine his new nature.

But somehow, it
had
been sufficient for twenty years, a state of affairs that was utterly confounding.

Asa knew the sorcerer struggled daily, without a moment’s peace or relief.

Yet, D’Arbois’ suffering was little enough, for Asa doubted it matched his own. His strength had been sucked back into the demon dimension, his power weakened to such a state that he had barely retained enough to don human guise. Slowly, so slowly, he had taken mortal lives, feeding on any spark of magic he found, a commodity so precious and rare in this human world. It had taken him decades to stoke his power, and all the while he had watched Clea Masters, followed her life, followed the growth of her power.

Ah, how he had suffered, the temptation of her magic seed so great. He had longed to devour her, to take her strength inside himself, to feed on her in a wonderful blood-soaked frenzy. But if he had taken her, the opportunity to use her as conduit would have been lost. He would have doomed himself to an eternity as he was now, yearning for the doorway to open, for the chance to bring forth the Solitary, the great ancient evil that could restore him to his full glory. He could not eat her because he needed her.

It was too perfect that the sorcerer had found her; too perfect that she yet siphoned his magic, just as she had twenty years ago; too perfect that it would be the pilfered magic of Ciarran D’Arbois that would return Asa to his rightful place as Asag, demon of plague, death-monger of the mortal realm.

Too perfect.

The front door of the apartment opened, and Asa melted into the shadows as he watched the sorcerer step through the door, his body shielding the girl.