“At least you had the presence of mind to cast illusion. When did you discover you could use your ability?”
“Huh?”
Oh. I was pretty sure that was what the “warm blanket” was, but now I knew for certain. I felt it skimming along my skin, draping me from the inside out.
“Just now. It happened automatically, actually.”
“Not automatically. Subconsciously. Your Vessel instincts are kicking in to protect you since your brain has apparently taken a leave of absence.”
“Excuse me? Did you just call me stupid?”
“Stupid would imply you have no intelligence whatsoever. I am well aware that you are quite clever, so I would define this as either rebellious or apathetic behavior. Which is it?”
I made a disgusted sound, while smiling inside at his backhanded compliment.
“What is it exactly I’ve done to warrant the label of rebellious or apathetic?”
“You’re standing in the middle of demon hunting ground. This den of debauchery lures demons for hundreds and hundreds of miles. You are a Vessel, a prize above all prizes for a high demon. The illusion you cast would certainly fool a lower creature, but not one in the upper hierarchy. So either you are being rebellious in disobeying me, or you are simply indifferent to keeping your soul intact. Which is it?”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Maybe I was stupid. No. But I wasn’t being rebellious or apathetic about my well-being. My green-eyed feline lifted her head with wide eyes to remind me why I came, but I glared at her to keep her hissy mouth shut.
“Okay, you said to not go out alone. I wasn’t alone. Malcolm was with me.”
Did he really just roll his eyes at me?
“You might as well have been stripped naked, hanging from a balcony on Bourbon Street and screaming ‘Come and get it.’ That boy could have done nothing if you were spotted by any form of Flamma.”
Now that was an image I didn’t want in my head. I was slightly disturbed it was in Jude’s. Switching gears quickly, thank you very much.
“Well, you didn’t explain any of this to me. Perhaps if you were more forthcoming in explaining all of these rules I’d make better decisions,” I said, feeling the color coming back into my cheeks.
“You are right about that. I will certainly be outlining the rules more clearly so you’ll not misbehave in the future.”
“Misbehave? Who do you think you are? My overprotective brother? Never had one. And I don’t need one now.”
He moved even closer. I started to step back. A strong arm shot out, gripping the top of my shoulder. His thumb pressed gently along the side of my neck over the cuff of my denim jacket. Surely he felt the quickening speed of my pulse. Was that his intention?
“No. I am not your brother. Nor do I want to be. However, I am your protector, whether you would choose me or not. If you value your life, or at the very least, your eternal soul, then you must trust me and do as I say.”
Speechless, I nodded, unable to think clearly for the moment. His thumb continued to stroke my skin. I can’t begin to describe how distracting that was.
“Good.” His gaze slid to my lips. I wished he wouldn’t do that. Or maybe I wished he would. Often. My thoughts spiraled in a million directions, unable to move in any coherent way. I tried to cut the tension crackling between us.
“Demons have a hierarchy? Like a class system?” I was aware I was nearly whispering, my questions sounding feeble and irrelevant.
“Yes. There is a hierarchy in heaven. There is a hierarchy on earth. There is a hierarchy in hell. That is the way of the world—every world.”
“I don’t know the difference between a lower and a high demon. You’ve told me little about them, except for the fusing thing.”
He nodded in agreement. Small victory, but victory nonetheless. He still hadn’t pulled away. His thumb trailed down over my collarbone. Since the moment he touched me, a pervasive warmth had slipped in over my own protective blanket, draping down over my chest and limbs.
“So, Little Red wants to play in the deep, dark woods,” he mumbled almost to himself. Creepy metaphor. “Let us go straight to the wolf’s den, then.”
His hand dropped to mine, swallowing it whole. The mantle of electric warmth continued to spread, sealing to my body like a glove. It didn’t feel suffocating. On the contrary, the sensation comforted me like a cozy fire in the dead of winter.
Jude pulled me toward the stairs. I took two steps to his one. “Wait, where are we going?”
“I had an appointment tonight. You might as well come with me. Actually, this turn of events will be quite enlightening.”
He gave me a wicked grin. The sudden image of a mischievous child dangling a minnow over a shark tank popped into my head.
“What kind of an appointment?” I didn’t like the sound of this.
“As you said, I have not been as forthcoming as I should’ve been,” he said in an obvious tone of mockery, leading me across Decatur along the left side of the Square.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Evasive bastard.
“Smile. You are about to get many answers to many questions. I am going to introduce you to a high demon.”
Chapter Eight
“What! Are you out of your freaking mind!”
He led me down Royal Street, slowing his stride so I might keep up.
“Some might say so.”
“Why didn’t you tell me there was a high demon in New Orleans? And why in the world would we be going to meet him?”
We took a right on Toulouse. He pulled me closer. I knew it had nothing to do with a desire for intimacy, but more to become my shield.
“My intentions were to educate you on the nefarious underworld that has surrounded you your entire life when we met on Monday. However, due to the fact that you foolishly decided to play spy under the guise of strolling with a lover under the moonlight, I have decided to accelerate your schooling. Training starts tonight.”
Geez, could this get any more humiliating? I had to defend myself on at least one point.
“He’s not my lover.”
A sidelong glance. What did that look mean? Ugh. I hated when my voice sounded sulky and petulant. I felt like a grade-A moron already, but Jude had a way of making me cower farther into my shell.
I continued to brood in silence as we ambled down Toulouse, until a sudden harrowing sensation gripped my heart in a vise. I stopped, jerked my hand free and peered over Jude’s shoulder, realizing exactly where he was taking me.
“I’m not going in there.”
My voice had dipped very low, almost inaudible. My Vessel senses skyrocketed. A new layer of warmth sealed my whole body in a snap. I stiffened into an unmovable line in the middle of the street. Jude faced me, but my eyes remained on the entrance beyond.
“Genevieve, I won’t let anything harm you.”
I shook my head.
“I’m not going in there.”
A primitive fear scaled my body, yelling, screaming for me to run. Run now. Run fast and far away. My eyes would not unlock from the doorway, over which was a sign in the shape of a battle-ax with emblazoned red letters reading “The Dungeon”.
Mindy and I’d been partying with our friends in the Quarter many, many times. Every now and then, we’d straggle down Bourbon Street to sing karaoke at the Cat’s Meow, have a hurricane at Pat O’Brien’s, or dance to a tribute band at Krazy Korner. But, never, and I mean never, had we veered off our path to this place. I’d always given it a wide berth, and now I knew why. Even before the universe knew what I was, a part of me already recognized this place as an epicenter of evil. My VS radar had blown off the charts within ten yards of the door.
“I’m not going in there,” I repeated, knowing full well I sounded like a monotonous robot. I stood in the middle of the street, frozen, trembling.
Warm hands cupped my face, shocking me to gaze up at the owner. Jude blocked my view of the sign, forcing me to look only at him. His mask of metal melted into softer lines. His gaze held something I’d never seen before—a gentle, coaxing tenderness. I pulled back from the brink.
“Genevieve.” He used the sultry voice. I was listening. “I will not let anything harm you in this place. No one will even touch you. Do you understand?”
For a moment, I only stared, feeling the sensation of his warm palms against my cheekbones, mesmerized by the flecks of gold in his eyes. At the same time, he poured another layer of armor, of illusion, over my own. I could drown in this sense of serenity. I was safe with him.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I finally muttered.
“Good girl.”
A small smile, then he took my hand and led me into the mouth of hell.
I glued myself to his back as we passed down a dark, narrow passageway into an open, empty courtyard. He let me move ahead, guiding me into the dimly lit bar with his palm at the small of my back, never removing his hands from my body. I guessed that he must only be able to cast illusion on someone else if he were physically touching them.
Immediately upon crossing the threshold from the courtyard, I felt a physical punch of fear slam into my soul as if my spirit might just up and vacate the premises with or without me. A large hand slipped under my hair, wrapping firmly but gently around the nape of my neck. I shivered, hoping Jude would assume it was from the dark decor of the club and not the effect his touch had on me.
Mindy’s favorite new club, Tartarus, was like glitter-Goth or the freakin’ Mickey Mouse Clubhouse compared to this joint. Painted skulls adorned posts and bar tops. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were real skulls. Wooden cages instead of booths sat in every room, where black-bedecked patrons did unseemly things to each other. Wait, what
were
those two doing? Eww. Good God. Get a room.
As we rounded each corner, sinister demons stared from artwork adorning the walls. The one that disturbed me the most was the horned devil in black and white, holding a goblet of red liquid in one hand and a still-beating heart in the other.
The patrons paid no attention to me but watched Jude with a fierce scowl. I’d already targeted two passersby as demons with red-glinting eyes, including the biker dude behind the bar. Most were simply humans who lived left of center. An albino-pale guy with a shaved head passed us, dressed completely in black from head to toe. He held something in one tattooed hand, a chain, which draped over his left shoulder. I followed the silver line connecting to a spiked choker wrapped around a petite brunette’s throat. Ghostlike with black lipstick, she wore a red corset and skintight leggings. She actually smiled at me as she passed. My VS reached out, touching on the girl’s psyche for the briefest of seconds. In that moment, I knew the girl was not being kidnapped or oppressed in any way. Quite the contrary, she was filled with ecstasy in her current state as a demeaned animal.
Seriously?
I would never let a guy chain me like a dog and drag me around. Then I laughed inwardly at my absurdity as Jude guided me by the back of my neck up a narrow stairwell, leading me like a marionette.
My wandering reverie stilled as we mounted the stairwell. Bone-deep dread pounded into me. As we reached the second floor, a song blared at an ear-splitting level. I recognized “Burn” by In This Moment right away. Couples were sort of dancing, grinding in a slow, fluid motion—an odd paradox to the violent beauty of the song.
The vocalist, Maria Brink, didn’t exactly sing the lyrics, more like said them in a singsong way. Words about suffering as a blessing, death as life, and burning right before your eyes. The air of this place scraped at my Vessel shell, trying to get in. I trembled but fixed my face like stone, locking my jaw. Jude stopped me, leaning close.
“Breathe, Genevieve.”
His lips brushed the top of my ear. I hadn’t realized it, but he was right. I’d actually stopped breathing. On the far wall sat a throne below a mounted dragon’s head. In the corner of the room was a wooden perch where a huge black raven stared at the crowd. For a second, I thought it was real, but it didn’t move or blink. I wondered how long the lifelike statue had been there. The eerie words of Edgar Allan Poe filtered through my mind:
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting…and his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.
The urge to run kept shoving at me.
A throng of Dungeon groupies sipped from goblets in true Goth style surrounding the one on the throne. I wondered if I’d stepped into a vampire coven, but as we all know, vampires don’t exist.
Maria Brink screamed the word “burn” in a long, agonizing wail as if she were literally on fire. The sensation of walking directly toward a dark creature who would snatch the chance to own me like an animal, like the girl on the leash, with a woman screaming about burning alive sent me into a state of surrealism. I might have an out-of-body experience at any moment.
The man, if you can call him that, wore black dress pants, an expensive-looking white button-down with silver cuff links. He held a clear glass with crimson liquid and whispered intimately to a corseted, red-lipped blonde propped on the edge of his throne. I noticed a pewter skull ring on his forefinger. Silver studs pierced pretty much everything, lining his earlobes all the way up the cartilage. If it weren’t for all the metal crap in his face, he might’ve been attractive. The blonde’s cleavage spilled out of her top when she leaned forward for his pleasure. The creature’s eyes grazed her a moment longer before turning his attention to us.
Annoyance skittered across his eyes when he saw Jude. And something else. Jude nodded.
“Dommiel.”
The man pulled himself more upright, taking a sip from his glass.
“Greetings, Jude,” he crooned as if a Dominus Daemonum stepping into his lair were an everyday occurrence. He tipped his glass up in a toast, “To the saint of lost causes.”
I didn’t miss the underlying insult. I glanced at Jude, seeing his eyes wiped clear of any light, his expression like granite. Apparently, he caught it too. Jude had that look about him when he’s examining every minute detail, trying to discover what’s hidden beneath.
Fixing my gaze on our host, I shuddered. His eyes had flickered to me. Though I couldn’t tell their exact color as he observed from the shadows, one thing was for certain. There was no sign of the fiery-red hue coloring the irises of the other demons I’d seen so far. There was also no doubt in my mind, body or soul that this thing was in fact a demon. A high one.
“Mmmmm. You’ve brought me a gift?” he asked, letting his gaze rove up and down my body. “Overdressed but quite delectable. Come on, Jude. I’ll give you mine if you give me yours.”
The blonde slid Jude a seductive smile, tilting her voluptuous body so he could see all she had to offer. Apparently, this proposition was nothing new to her. My green-eyed monster laid her ears back and hissed.
Jude repositioned himself directly behind me, moving his hand to wrap around my right hip. It was an act of possession. Not in any romantic sort of way, mind you. This was the way Jude did things. Subtle moves to let you know where you stood in his book. Right now he was telling this Dommiel dude I was in no way up for grabs. I pressed back into the wall behind me, the six-foot-five wall of muscle and badass attitude, just so our host knew how
I
felt on the topic of swapping. Dommiel smiled, revealing a row of perfect gleaming-white teeth.
“So, Jude. If you’re not here to share, then for what purpose do I owe this pleasure?”
His words lilted like liquid, one word pouring into the next.
“There’s another high demon in your territory.”
An unpleasant frown deepened Dommiel’s brow, hooding his eyes further.
“None of my brethren would venture into my domain without proper homage.”
“None, Dommiel? You don’t know your kin like I do.”
Jude’s voice rumbled low and deep, vibrating through his chest to my back. Dommiel clinked his skull ring against the glass in thought.
“You are lying, Master of Demons,” he replied with poison in his voice. “It is against our rules. Why have you come here?”
Rules. I needed a seriously long discussion with Jude on more of these damn rules.
“Obviously, there is something you do
not
know.”
Cold drifted over me, like a draft when you’re cozy in your warm bed and someone yanks the covers off you. I sucked in a short breath, knowing Jude had lifted his shield of illusion. Fear reared its ugly head, threatening to swallow me whole. His hand tightened on my hip, a warning to keep still.
Dommiel watched me with interest. There was a shift in the air. He set his glass down on a table at an insanely slow pace. A dawning flickered over his features. His creased brow straightened to a blank slate, then contorted into a mixture of feverish anger and desire. He growled deep in his chest. I don’t know what happened next, because things moved literally too fast for me to see. One second I was pressed hard to the front of Jude; the next I was behind him. He had Dommiel on his knees before him with a long dagger pricking the hollow of the demon’s throat. Seriously, I was standing there fearing for my life, then I blinked and Dommiel was cowering before Jude.
The raven in the corner cawed. It
was
real! The groupies shrank back, losing their façade of Goth-cool, except for the one who wasn’t human. A lower demon, which I discerned more easily now that I’d been in the presence of one of his superiors, lurched forward. Jude put his free hand palm out and chanted three words in Latin. The demon bounced off an invisible wall and fell to the ground in a stupor. Jude then gripped Dommiel’s shoulder and pressed the dagger blade so that a drop of black liquid trickled out, staining his pretty white shirt.
Jude inclined his head to Dommiel. From this angle, I could see that first emotion shining bright in Dommiel’s eyes, the one he’d hidden the second he saw Jude walk in the door—pure, raw fear. His lips bared in a snarl, revealing a row of pointed teeth, two canines much longer than the others. What the hell? I thought vampires didn’t exist! The grating tone in Jude’s voice made me take a step back, and he was on
my
side.
“If you or any one of your minions come near her, touch her, think of her or even breathe her name in your sleep, I will hunt you down and send you back to the
real
dungeon in such miniscule pieces that they will never…” Jude paused, shoving the point an inch into the demon’s neck. Black oozed out. “They will
never
put you back together again.”
Dommiel made a choking noise but nodded obedience immediately. Jude dropped him, grabbed my hand and led me back out the way we’d come, still holding the dagger in his right hand. I didn’t protest. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Before we’d descended the stairs, Jude had shielded me again. I felt an electric snap, diluting the fear I’d been swimming in since he’d removed it. He slid the dagger into a sheath under his jacket as we made our way past the courtyard and through the claustrophobic pathway into the street.
We walked two blocks without saying a word. I had no idea where we were going now, and I didn’t really care. My mind raced, repeating the scene over and over. My emotions stewed into a whirlpool—fear, safety, anger, relief, then finally pissed-off-beyond-belief. We’d moved past Jackson Square onto Ursulines Street. The crowds thinned. Only a group of three ambled down the walkway, laughing as they went. The joyful noise of the city infuriated me more. Everyone was going about their happy little lives, not knowing that creatures of the underworld lurked at every corner, waiting to prey on them.