The Demon King (22 page)

All grew still in the room. Except his
heart. It hammered away with brute force.

“
The night before I
conceived you, my body was transformed. I was young again, barely
twenty maybe. There was no age attached to me. And still, there
isn’t.” She looked down at herself and gestured. “As you can
plainly see. A bonus is that I can change my appearance to some
degree, especially my eyes. But what was important was that my body
was suddenly at its peak of health. That was what Aster had meant
when he’d told me my age wouldn’t be a problem. My ultimate reward
for agreeing to give you life was eternal youth.”

She swallowed hard. “I
earned it, though. The conception wasn’t easy. It couldn’t be. Your
father’s people are cursed, after all. Conception will not work,
will not take… unless it hurts. For
both
of us. The burden your father
endured,” she shook her head. “It was worse than mine. Far
worse.”

There was a very long pause
after this, and Laz found himself turning away from her. He ran a
hand through his hair… that hair that had grown so much darker over
the last few months. He closed his eyes. Something akin to insanity
gently rapped at his mind’s door. Could he believe any of this?
Could he
afford
to let himself believe?

Could he afford not to?

“
He told me your eyes would
be like mine,” she said behind him. “And they are. But your hair…
it grows less and less like mine and more like your father’s every
day.”

Another pause.

“
Why do you think you chose
the name Lazarus as your last name?”

Laz slowly turned back around to face his
mother. She had crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head
to one side. Their eyes met, and he knew she could tell he was
barely digesting things at this point. She sighed. “That wasn’t
given to you. Rosa’s last name was Dixon.”

Laz’s brow furrowed. “You know of Rosa?” His
voice was thin. He could barely talk. He sort of didn’t even know
what he was saying.

“
Of course I do. I chose
Rosa for a reason. She had all of the mothering instincts I wanted
in the person who would raise you. She was a good person. One of
the few who become police officers for the right reasons. I turned
my eyes brown so she wouldn’t automatically link me to you, then
took you into the precinct where she was working when she was
alone. Rosa Dixon wanted to make the world a better place, and I
knew she would raise you the way you needed to be raised. I was
right.”

She took a deep breath. “You were named
Steven after her father, a policeman she emulated. You kept his
name for her. But Rosa’s last name was Dixon. So why did you change
yours to Lazarus?”

Laz couldn’t answer. He
didn’t really know. At least… he didn’t
used
to know.
Before
. He’d always assumed he’d
taken such a strong liking to it because it had a nice ring. He
just plain and simply
liked
it.

And then he’d actually proven his namesake
right and come back from the dead to become the Akyri King. When
that happened, Laz began wonder whether his choosing the name was
prophetic. In the back of his mind, he’d continued to wonder, and
he had continued to become increasingly confused. He’d had no idea
why fate turned out the way it had.

But he knew now.

“
Your name is not Lazarus,
but Lazaroth,” said Lenore. “In the language of your realm, it
means ‘Of the throne.’ When demons are conceived, their parents
place within them a piece of their souls. You carry a piece of me
inside of you, Laz, and you always have. But you carry a piece of
your father as well. Your name is as ancient as your people, nearly
as old as time itself. And because of your father – so are
you.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Demon Realm, 1982

It has to hurt to work.

This was the thought Astaroth kept foremost
in his mind as the tool of his torment made contact time and again.
He felt his blood run, felt it burn like acid against his skin, a
race of blood that was meant to see neither the light of day nor
the dark of night. He knew it would run forever more, and burn all
the while.

The chains around his
wrists were unnecessary; he
wanted
this. He wasn’t going anywhere. But they dug into
his skin, and he knew that ultimately they kept him in place, as
the worst of the pain struck and the strongest of his will
threatened to waiver. He’d told them to do it. He’d all but placed
those chains there himself.

His servants were following his orders. He
felt their hesitation with every withdrawal of the whip. They were
going against their very nature in seeing to his destruction rather
than his protection. It didn’t help that this was no ordinary whip.
This was a weapon meant to mar the flesh of a demon. One strike
would have felled a mortal… and possibly devoured its soul. Demon
tools tended to do that, devour souls. Astaroth supposed it was
part of their eternal Curse. The things his people created, even
the most benign of them such as books or jewelry, were wrapped in
that Curse, more often than not bringing misery to those who used
them.

Or to those were
used
by
them – as
he was now.

He was fortunate that demons could not lose
their souls, or he suspected he’d have released his just then. A
demon’s soul was inexorably tied to their body, forever locked
within it. The mind could never die… because the demon would never
die. No matter what it endured, it would live on. That was another
part of the Curse.

A boon, however, a precious twinkling
diamond in the dust that was a demon’s existence, was that if it
mated with a mortal, its child would receive a piece of its
mother’s soul.

No other race could claim this. For them,
each infant was a product of its environment, its DNA, and its
circumstances. But a demon’s child was born with the wisdom,
intelligence, empathy – or apathy – of generations before it. These
traits were passed down to demon children as surely as green eyes
or red hair.

It was Lenore who had the
soul for his child – the beautiful, irreplaceable soul. With each
life experience, with each growing, learning thought, she fed that
soul, fed that
mind
. “I think, therefore I am.” It was a mortal saying. Had the
mortal who’d coined it realized that the soul was in the
mind?

He wondered about this as leather laced with
the shards of various metals laid waste to his back. He wondered a
lot of things, scatteringly, chaotically. He was losing his grip on
reality and on his ability to think through it.

It has to hurt to work.

That was why so few demon children were born
any longer. The men who could withstand the ceremony were sparse
and far between. But surely there was no demon who had ever
suffered as he did now? He smiled and laughed, flashing fangs in
the fire-lit darkness of his self-made torture chamber. His
laughter was deep and harsh in the room’s respectful silence. The
swishing of the whip stopped, its wielder at once uncertain.

It was the first sound the king had made in
hours. Not a single whimper not one tiny cry had escaped his throat
in all of that terrible time. And now he laughed.

They were right to worry.

But Lord Astaroth, King of the Demon Realm,
slowly bowed his head, resigned. He felt his wet black hair against
his forehead as he laid it against the chains surrounding his left
wrist. He closed his eyes and imagined the woman he loved and the
child they would be able to have together… if he only kept going.
If he didn’t give up.

He knew he had only come half way. There was
still so far to go.

“
Continue,” he commanded
softly, his voice nonetheless loud and clear in the stone
chamber.

There was one more moment, one precious
space of seconds, in which his servant hesitated. And then the air
was once more filled with the sound of a weapon slicing through the
air, and flesh being torn asunder beneath it.

*****

Boston, Current Day

“
They’ll never heal.”
Lenore shook her head, placing her hand to her forehead. “The marks
his torture left on his back… they aren’t just scars. They never
fully mended.” She thought of what Astaroth had done to himself,
and looked down at her perfect, unmarred skin. She gritted her
teeth. “Sometimes they even bleed,” she continued. “And his blood
runs. Blood that burns his skin as it escapes. A demon’s blood is
like liquid fire.” It was never meant to be spilled. A demon was
meant to live forever, and that blood was a living testament to the
inhumanity of that covenant. It was like magma and acid.

That was already bad
enough. But Astaroth had used up so much of his magic to make this
safe haven for her, he was weak
and
in pain. It was why he was hiding. He’d never
been more vulnerable than he was now.

She was thinking about this, and about pain
in general and how and why life demanded so damned much of it, when
Laz suddenly asked, “Why Rosa?”

Lenore looked up, surprised by the change of
subject. Her son’s eyes shone like London blue topaz, brilliant and
keen. Why Rosa? She’d already told him that… but as she gazed into
his eyes, she realized that wasn’t what he meant. Strong set jaw,
hard look. He was so like his father.

And that was what she’d been afraid of.

“
After your father and I
had to go through what we did to bring you into this world… I
started thinking. I knew you would be like him. He said you would
have my soul but,” she shook her head. “Your blood would be like
his.”

“
My blood doesn’t burn,” he
said. His voice was as hard as his eyes. “I’ve spilled it enough
times to know.”

She swallowed hard. “Not yet, Laz. But soon
it might. You’re changing. Don’t you see that?”

Lazarus swallowed hard too; she could see
his throat work as he looked away. Every vein in his arms was
showing where he had them crossed over his strong chest. He was
becoming his father’s equal, his twin almost, in every way but one.
His eyes would always be hers.

“
I began to fear for your
future. I thought about you and anyone you might one day love, and
I realized that if you wanted to have children, you would be put
through the same hell. I couldn’t bear it. I started to hate
everything about it, everything your father stood for.” She shook
her head fiercely. “I know now that it isn’t his fault. It’s the
Demon’s Curse. But you’ll suffer it the same. Just as every
generation suffers the repercussions of the sins of generations
past. I wanted to delay that as long as possible. Inevitably, if
that was an option.”

“
So you gave me to Rosa and
hoped she would purify me?”

Lenore blinked. “I thought if I exposed you
enough to humanity, if I kept you from Aster and his people–”

“
That the truth would go
away.”

She froze. He was staring her down now, and
the intensity of that gaze was so strong that she could barely
stand to look at him. Slowly, and with a sinking feeling, she
admitted, “Yes. More or less.”

Laz pushed himself off the
counter and approached her slowly. “And how did that work out for
you…
mom
?”

Lenore felt strange. Before her very eyes,
her son was changing. It was in the sound of his voice, the way he
held himself, tall and dangerous. “It didn’t. The king in you is
coming out. Your time to take your father’s throne draws near.
That’s become painfully clear.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“
Who isn’t here?” asked
someone at the Table. It wasn’t their usual table. It was an
impromptu gathering spot, chosen on the fly, and at this point,
Roman was thinking that may be safer than anything else – acting
without planning. If the good guys didn’t have information, then
the traitor couldn’t have it either.

“
The Time King is missing,”
offered Evie. Roman looked down at his wife, his mate, his queen,
and his life. She’d nearly been taken from him today. But she sat
beside him at the round table in the empty office looking as
stunning as usual, and as composed as a queen. Roman forced his
fist to relax where it had curled tight and looked at the station
where William normally sat. It was empty.

“
But so is the Dragon
King,” said Chloe Septeran, the Warlock Queen. He looked up at her,
and she nodded at Arach’s seat. It too was empty.

“
And Steven Lazarus is
missing,” added her husband, Jason Alberich. Of
course
the Warlock King would notice
if an Akyri was missing.

“
I know where Lazarus is,”
said Roman.
At least there is
that
, he thought. At least they could
cross the Akyri King off the list of suspects in line for traitor.
The man had found his queen. The fact that it was Dahlia Kellen
would have made Roman laugh under different, better circumstances.
She was somewhat of a legend.

But these were not happy times.

Roman turned to one of his servants, who was
waiting at the door for any last orders. “See if you can track down
Arach and William,” he whispered. “Ask Pi for assistance. He moves
quickly.” Pi was a fire elemental, and he could appear and
disappear in hearths across all of the realms, and he could do it
in the blink of an eye. It would seem fire was such a pure element,
it knew no boundaries.