Mercy for the Fallen (38 page)

I could taste it there, feel it trembling just out of reach, stealing my breath as it broke with a thundering gasp.  And then my Grace flared, searing me with incredible ecstasy as my body gave in to pleasure.  I felt him shudder above me, his face buried in my neck as he drove into me again and again.  My cries muffled against his hot skin, each stroke sending ribbons of delight down to my toes as I bit back the desire to shout for joy.

Adam collapsed, his heart pounding madly against mine.  Our bodies were still bathed in a warm golden light, and I held him close, perfectly relaxed and content.  After a few breaths, he rolled to the side and pulled me with him, one hand settling possessively on the small of my back. 

“Is it me, or was that even better than it was before?” he said lazily.

“I have more Grace than I did before.”

“That’s not it,” he drawled, and it made me smile against his shoulder.  I’d like to think it had something to do with me and not my Grace. 

“You broke my pretty lingerie,” I sighed, spotting the remnants of lace and underwire lying on the corner of the bed.

“I’ll buy you more.  I’ll buy you a new set every day just so I can tear it off of you at night.” 

“Or, you could take it off of me before you lose control.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

My eyes drifted shut, enjoying the aftermath of my body calming down, still tingly but so, so satisfied.  Until a random thought jarred me back to full consciousness. 

“What’s the matter?” he said, feeling the tension in my muscles.

I hated to say it out loud and ruin the mood, but I couldn’t unthink it now that it had popped in there.  “We forgot to use protection.”  I prepared myself for the major freak out, but all he did was offer a lazy shrug.

“So?”

No swearing?  No accusations?  No dire predictions?  I relaxed against his side again, smiling as he reached up to turn off the light.  “So, I guess nothing’s the matter at all,” I smiled in the darkness. 

Chapter Thirty-Six

I’m such an idiot.  I know better than to believe in happy ever after, but I thought for sure we’d earned some kind of peace.  Not that we didn’t have a fantastic time in Fiji.  Even despite my need to slather Eve in sunscreen every hour we spent in the sun (yes, I know, she would have easily healed a sunburn, but old habits die hard), she had a fantastic time playing on the beaches, hiking through the jungle and exploring in town.  I had a fantastic time watching her scamper over rocks and discovering lizards and swimming like a fish in the ocean.  Adam had a fantastic time doing very little but watching us have fun; he said he was saving his energy for the nightlife.

Not that we went out a single time, despite the childcare services the resort offered.  The instant Eve’s head hit the pillow, Adam spent most of his energy in the pursuit of making up for all the time we’d lost together.  I was glad I needed modest sleep to function, thanks to the Grace, because he kept me up until nearly dawn every night.  I had no complaints, except I wished Eve had Nelo to play with, but demons and sun drenched resorts didn’t make the best of friends. 

It sounds peaceful, right?  It was for the first week, but midway through the second, I started noticing things.  Dark things.  At first I though I was imagining it, but there were definitely eyes on us whenever we ventured out in public.  Not so much during the day, but in the evening I saw things skulking in the shadows. 

On the third day I mentioned as much to Adam, only to find his disinterest  annoying.      

“Sure, there are demons here too.  So what?” he shrugged.

“What do you mean, so what?  Aren’t you the least bit worried about why they’re watching us?”

“They’re watching us because the three of us together is like someone leaving a pile of hamburgers out for a pack of wild dogs.” 

“I want a hamburger for dinner!” Eve declared, and I dropped my voice, not wanting to freak her out.

“You’re not at all worried about them attacking?  Like a pack of wild dogs?”

“Nah, as long as they keep their distance it’s not a big deal.”

“And if they don’t?”

“I’ll handle it,” he said with an even smile.  “I think I’ll have a hamburger too, BunBun.  What about you, Merce?  You want some fries to go with your chicken?”

And that was all he’d say about it.  Maybe he was putting on a happy face so Eve wouldn’t get scared, but I couldn’t sit and enjoy my night knowing we were being watched by demons salivating over our Grace.  What if Eve happened to wander away for a moment? 

The next morning, I started making arrangements to go home.  Adam pouted for a few minutes before realizing I wasn’t going to budge an inch and then helped me pack. 

Only the demons didn’t go away once we got home.  Maybe they weren’t the same demons, but suddenly, it was like Olympia was the new capital of Demonland.  During the day it wasn’t so much of a problem, but when we went out to Cascadia for milkshakes (almost worth braving demons for, you should try them sometime), I could feel them out there, watching… waiting.

I took Eve into the Danger Room comic book store across the street to let her look around, suddenly craving the lights and normalcy. 

The glass door swung open as a tall man shuffled in, his dark hair patchy, as if he’d used a knife to trim it in uneven hanks.  He reminded me a lot of Ubel, the way he stood, the way his lips stretched to cover a mouthful of jagged teeth, his eyes dark pools of glistening hunger.  No aura at all marked him as a demon, and he was definitely more ballsy than his buddies out there in the dark.

Deciding not to screw around, I drew my sword.  “Bad mistake coming in here, asshole,” I said in a low voice. 

“Whoa, no props in the store,” the clerk behind the counter frowned, looking up from his book. 

Negligently, I froze him with a wave of the hand, making myself invisible to human eyes, but I knew the demon would have no trouble tracking me.  The glass walls of the store put the frozen clerk on display, but I had bigger fish to fry. 

“Momma, I want to go home.”  Eve tugged on my purse and I slid it off my shoulder, handing it to her. 

“We will, sweetie, just stay behind me for a minute.  Did Raum put you up to this?” I challenged the demon.  “Tell him I’ll be happy to come and lop off his head too if he keeps it up.”

“Balan no work for Raum,” he grunted, pounding a meaty fist on his chest.  “Balan in the world.” 

I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing.  Knowing Raum wasn’t on our tail had to be good news, but this made the demon a wildcard.  “What do you want?”

“Balan want taste of pretty girl.”  His lips spread wide to reveal sharp teeth. 

“How about I give you a taste of this sword, will that work for you?”

“No work for sword.”  He shook his head, puzzling through my choice of words, obviously not a tower of intellect.  “Girl shines pretty tasty, it calls to Balan.”  His eyes were on my daughter, not me.  In fact, he barely seemed to notice my Grace at all.

“Are you talking about Evie?  What do you mean it calls to you?”

“Girl shine bright like tasty cakes.  Calls to Balan, make mouth water for taste.”  The smile stretched wider, and a ribbon of drool spilled from the corner of his mouth.

Eewh
.  “Back the fuck up, Balan,” I said, flashing out with my sword to nick his shoulder.  “She’s not for you or any of your kind.  Do you get me?”

“Balan not get you, get pretty girl.”

“Outside, now.”  I stabbed him again, but he barely seemed to notice, completely fixated on Eve.  Short of killing him right in the comic book store, I wasn’t sure what else to do.  Then I remembered the sting of the sword and laid the flat of the blade against his neck.  That got his attention and he shrank away from the holy steel.  “I said get outside now.”

Balan scowled.  Lumbering backwards, he ducked under the doorway, his eyes darting between me and Eve and back to me again. 

“Come on, Evie, it’s time to go.”  I scooped her up into my left arm, sword still held threateningly as I squeezed out the door and edged past the demon.  There were two more demons outside, dirty and hunched over, like their backs couldn’t straighten up completely.  I wanted to fly away, but I wasn’t sure if any of them could sprout wings and pursue.  The one time I’d tried to evade Raum in the sky had turned out to be harder than I’d thought it would be.  I didn’t want to take the chance with Eve in my arms. 

A flash of dark wings was the only warning I got as Adam landed light as a cat behind Balan, his sword glinting off the streetlights as he sent the demon’s head rolling.  “Hey, guys,” he said with a nonchalant smile, wiping the black ichor off the blade before he sent it away. 

I stared at him in shock, not quite processing what he’d done right away.  The couple waiting for the light to change sure noticed though.  That is to say, they noticed Balan slump to the ground without a head; they didn’t even look at the three of us.  The man clutched the woman to him fearfully, looking around in fright for some sign of why Balan had gone down, and I grabbed Adam by the arm, dragging him down the block a ways.

“You killed him on the street corner in front of everyone,” I hissed, keeping my voice low despite the fact that they couldn’t hear us. 

“So?  They couldn’t see me.”

“Yes, but they can see him.  They can see he’s not human.”  Two more people had stopped to look down at the dead guy, cell phones already in hand. 

“He won’t last.  Trust me.”

I looked back, peeking through the rapidly gathering crowd.  Sure enough, Balan’s skin began to darken, his clothes steaming as he dissolved into a pool of black sludge.

“And you don’t think that’ll attract attention?”

Adam shrugged it off, not bothered in the least.  “It’s good to keep the humans on their toes every once in a while.  Who wants to go see a movie?”

“I want to go home,” Eve said in a small voice, and I couldn’t blame her.

“I can’t say I’m in the mood for a movie anymore either,” I muttered, rubbing her back in a comforting manner.

“Oh, come on, you guys.  He’s dead, he can’t hurt you anymore.  And it’s a public lesson for the other demons in town.”

The other two I’d seen had slunk off somewhere, and I couldn’t see anyone else around who wasn’t human.  That didn’t mean they weren’t still out there though, waiting and watching.  “How many are there?”

“I don’t know, the usual amount in a town this size.  Wherever there are people you’ll find a demon population to feed from them.  It’s the circle of life.”

“The only circle of life I want her knowing about is from the Lion King, and this is
so
nothing like that.” 

Adam reached over to pat her back.  “You can’t keep her head buried in the sand, Merce.  She’s not a normal kid.”

“I want to go home,” Eve said a little louder. 

“Okay, sweetie, we’re going home now,” I said, striding toward the car, not caring in that moment if he followed us or not.

“You can’t expect it not to happen every once in a while.  It’ll be fine as long as we’re with her at night.”

“They don’t only come at night.”  I knew that from personal experience.

“I told you, I took care of it.”  Adam chased me down, catching hold of my elbows to get me to face him.  “Word will get out.  No one else will dare get so close again.  Mercy, trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”

I wanted to believe him.  The look in his eye told me he wasn’t just being an overconfident smartass, he believed every word he’d said.  “Alright, I’ll trust you.  But I think we should cut the evening short and maybe stick to a matinee next time.”

“That’s my girl,” he smiled, giving my arms a squeeze.  “Alright, let’s get you two home and we’ll have a movie fest on pay per view.”

Too bad the demons weren’t the only things drawn to Eve’s Grace. 

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The picture window had been repaired, the new furniture delivered, the cracked tiles replaced.  On the outside, our family was restored and whole.  But on the inside, there were still cracks that needed more than spackle.  Eve started having nightmares, dreaming about the scary man from the comic book store.  She didn’t like going into town anymore and she flatly refused to go anywhere near that street corner. 

Paranoia kicked in for me, and I started to rethink the idea of registering Eve for school.  Adam soothed my nerves by reminding me she’d be supervised at school, and one of us could pick her up if we didn’t want to trust the bus.  Since she seemed to be looking forward to meeting other kids in the area, I swallowed the worst of my fear and signed her up. 

We never went out at night anymore.  Not wanting to present her like a target, I made sure all of our errands were run during daylight hours, the better the odds in favor of avoiding demons altogether. 

Adam tried to pretend he wasn’t worried at all, but more than once I woke to find him sitting next to Eve’s bed, watching her slumber, Nelo tucked onto his lap.  He always played it off like something to keep him busy since he didn’t need to sleep, but I could tell, I wasn’t the only one worried about what the future held in store for Eve. 

One day I drove home from picking her up at school to find an unfamiliar dark blue sedan parked in the driveway.  At first I thought it might be a new car that Adam had picked up, but it had a license plate frame from Enterprise Rent a Car.  When the pretty blonde woman stepped out, I braced myself in front of Eve’s door, not quite sure what to expect. 

She was about my age, with blonde hair tucked back into a conservative knot at the nape of her neck.  Dressed in a slimming, black dress with a short, fitted coat in a brilliant red, her jewelry was heavy and expensive.  She looked like a lawyer maybe, or someone soliciting money for a charity.   I relaxed somewhat when I spotted her aura.  A deep purple with yellow in the center, I detected no dark patches or even red spots of anger.  She greeted me with a smile and I found myself smiling back. 

“Good afternoon,” she called out, offering a hand.  “I’m sorry to barge in on you unannounced like this.  Your number is unlisted, and I so wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.  I’m Corinne Maxwell.”