Kaliya Sahni: Volume One (Kaliya Sahni Volumes Book 1)

by K. N. Banet

  And its eyes.

  They were blood-red set in black.

  No. I can’t think about that right now.

  I unsheathed my sword and ran to help Raphael, finally breaking out of my fear. The demon saw me coming and roared, surging back to its feet and throwing Raphael off. I dove to the side as it jumped for me. Before it reached me, bindings grabbed its legs and held it in place. Cassius strained with his hands out as if he was holding it with his bare hands.

  Sorcha screamed as she ran for it, blade held high. It was fucking something, that war cry with fae magic backing it up. It invigorated me, and I got to my feet, keeping the demon’s attention as she shoved her sword into its side. When she pulled it loose, black blood poured out of it like a fountain, then slowed and stopped completely. The demon acted as though it hadn’t even felt the attack.

  It surged again, this time going after Raphael, who met it with a brutal hit as it broke free from the shadow bindings Cassius had employed. As Raphael grappled with it, I ran and jumped, grabbing a handful of its strange fur, and pulled myself on its back as though I was trying to get on a really pissed-off horse—easier said than done. I drove my talwar into its back between the spine and made it roar and buck harder. With a swipe of one of its front feet, it sent Raphael ten feet away, rolling in the dirt and hitting a tree. I held onto the hilt as it tried to knock me off. I grabbed my thigh dagger and stabbed it with my left hand. Black tar-like blood poured for a second then healed.

  Nothing seemed to work.

  The demon wasn’t stupid. It felt the hits, but it didn’t react in pain. I hadn’t counted on it having the mobility of something with arms, either. Reaching around its back, it nearly grabbed me. I only escaped because I was just out of its reach. It tried again, and I moved farther away, losing my grip on my sword for safety. Using its fur to hold on, I clung for dear life while still trying my damnedest to stab it to death. A shadow reached out and grabbed the hand-paw thing and yanked it away. Bone crunched as Cassius pulled it into an unnatural position and broke it.

  The demon tried to readjust, getting into the right position for it to align correctly and heal.

  “KALIYA, GO FOR THE HEAD!” Sorcha screamed.

  She was right. I knew she was right, but the damn thing was moving so much, I was too unstable to move very far. I got my sword back, pulled it out of the demon, and tried to crawl up. It used its left arm now to try to grab me.

  The damn thing is intelligent enough to figure out a fight. Fuck.

  Raphael was there suddenly. He didn’t look remotely human anymore. His skin was nearly all black as he looked up at me with his red eyes set in the black void. He grabbed the arm and yanked it down as well, roaring at the exertion. I crawled farther up the demon’s back, realizing it seemed to get bigger while we fought it. I was now nearly eight feet off the ground. It hadn’t been this big when I first saw it.

  I made my way to the back of its neck and shoved my sword into the back of its head, sending it out the other side of the demon beneath its jaw. I had to be a butcher. I yanked it to one side, my muscles fighting to pull the blade through the demon. Once the sword came free, the demon’s head lolled to one side, displaying a gruesome show of what was inside. I had cut the spine, so there was nothing strong enough to hold the head in position.

  I jumped into the right position to finish the job, raised my sword, and hacked down into the gore I had exposed. It wasn’t a clean job. It took some sawing and more hits to finally separate the demon’s head from its body.

  “Get the head away!” I ordered.

  Sorcha grabbed it by its fur, pulling it across the ground. I didn’t get clear from the body in time. It was still moving. One of its massive front paws hit me and sent me several feet away.

  “Get away from it,” Cassius yelled from his position. Raphael dove clear of another attack and ran to help as Sorcha struggled to get the head away from the body. It was still actively looking at us and trying to make noises.

  We all watched in horror as the body flailed and tried to break free from Cassius’ bonds as the black tar didn’t stop pouring out this time.

  Cutting the head off always works. Cutting the head off always works. Cutting the head off always works.

  I hoped if I chanted it long enough, it would prove true.

  It felt like an eternity, but the body stopped struggling. The demon’s eyes closed.

  And it died.

  Everyone was still for a long time. It was unheard of, what we had just done. We had killed a demon. I stared at the body, then found Raphael, who was slowly coming back to his human appearance, the black veins slowly receding. He had the sticky black tar all over him. So did Sorcha. I looked down at myself and saw I wasn’t free of it, either.

  “We need to burn it,” I said softly, looking back at my friends. “We have to burn this, and we have to…we have to…”

  We killed a fucking demon.

  “We’ll figure it out,” Cassius said, walking to me and holding out a hand, but Raphael’s growl stopped me from taking it. Cassius’ shock was apparent, but he stepped back as my lover walked over and helped me up instead.

  On any other day, I would have been pissed he was getting possessive, but my better judgment and own dazed mental state kept me from acting on the small feeling of anger. I didn’t say a damn thing as I walked around him and went to the head.

  “Why don’t you three…finish the cleanup inside and prep the building to burn?” I said, swallowing. “I’ll handle the body.”

  “Why?” Sorcha walked over and looked at the body.

  “I’m the most experienced at it,” I answered.

  “Let’s go, love,” Cassius whispered.

  “Go with them, Raphael,” I ordered when he tried to come to my side. “You don’t want to see this.” He hesitated, then followed the others inside, leaving me alone with the dead demon.

  Disposing of supernatural bodies was nasty business. Protocol was simple—dismember, separate, burn, leave no trace. We didn’t care if we had to set a whole fucking forest on fire if it meant wiping away a trace of something’s existence. Vampires were easy. Burn ‘em. There were some particularly cruel ways to do that, sanctioned by the vampires themselves, but they were still the easiest supernaturals to dispose of. They turned to dust naturally.

  Everything else burned like a human body would, so I wasn’t normally concerned.

  I had no idea if protocol covered a demon.

  I grabbed my sword from the dirt, where it had landed when I was knocked back. Without thinking about it, I went about dismembering the body.

  With the others gone, I could pay attention to small details, my head clear, even while I did the disgusting work of disposing of it.

  The first thing I noticed, once I got the first arm off, was it was shrinking. Some creatures returned to their base shape when they died, not all of them, but some. I had no idea if that was what was happening, but I paid close attention as the fur began to come off and got caught in the wind, leaving black skin bare. The fur itself didn’t just float away, though. It turned to ash, broke into tiny particles, then ceased to exist all together.

  I was through the second arm and onto the first leg when I realized it was growing easier when it should have been harder. I was more tired, and hacking a body up of any variety wasn’t easy. I had no super strength, only my own conditioning. That only got me so far. But it got easier instead of harder.

  When I looked down at the foot, my stomach twisted. It made me drop my sword, and I staggered back, covering my mouth as the contents of my near-empty stomach threatened to come up.

  I was paralyzed now as a horrifying realization settled in. I watched as that black skin receded, leaving black veins, which then also left, leaving dark, very human skin, the fur all gone now. The body was shrinking, and I was too paralyzed to call for anyone as the knowledge tried to find a place in my head that didn’t make it want to scream.

  I wanted so badly to s
cream as I watched as human skin continued to overtake the body. The arms I chopped off were completely human now. The chest was the last.

  I turned to look at the head where Raphael and Sorcha had left it, and that was what did me in. I rolled and went to my knees, throwing up.

  We hadn’t killed a demon at all.

  We’d killed someone like Raphael.

  I threw up nothing, retching as I tried to come to terms with this new fact. It upset me in a way nothing had ever before.

  It could have been him. Gods, it could have been him. That’s what they made him. He’ll never be happy if he knows this. He’ll never be okay. He’s too good.

  How do I fix this?

  Can I fix this?

  Another unsettling thought went through my mind.

  He can turn into a demon. They’ll kill him. He’ll never see the light of day again. If they know, they’ll take him away from me. They can’t.

  I looked up at the body again, and I was decided.

  He doesn’t need to know.

  The Tribunal doesn’t need to know.

  They’ll never know.

  No one will.

  I got to my feet and started collecting the parts, but I wasn’t fast enough. Sorcha was the first one to leave the house, and her gasp told me she saw everything I didn’t want her to see. I rushed for her and clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “Silence,” I ordered, hissing as I bared my fangs, a deadly threat I fully intended to follow through with. “You will tell no one what you see right now, Sorcha.”

  Her moon-grey eyes were wide, but she attempted to nod.

  I released her slowly, and she attacked, punching me across the jaw and sending me to the dirt. It was such a sudden attack, it left me dazed.

  “Don’t ever threaten me again,” she growled, and I saw her glamor drop and her magic glow off her. She glared at me. “You will be in for a fight you might not win, and he deserves to see this.”

  Those words brought me back.

  “No,” I begged softly. “He…he can’t, please.”

  “He’s a grown-ass man, and he gets to make that decision.”

  “I’m trying to protect him!” I roared, jumping for her as she tried to head back inside to get the guys. Cassius was there suddenly, grabbing me out of the air.

  “What is wrong with you?” he demanded, a hand around my throat to keep my fangs away from him. I went still, realizing I had gone way too far. I watched as his eyes went wide. He could see the problem behind me. His hand faltered, and he released me, but it was too late.

  Raphael was behind him, standing on the porch, able to see the devastating truth.

  “I didn’t…I didn’t want you to see this,” I whispered. “I…I didn’t know until it started transforming back, and I don’t want you to look at yourself as a monster anymore.”

  He walked slowly down the steps toward the body and the head. I turned and watched as he picked up the head of a human man with red eyes set in black, black veins still radiating out—just like Raphael’s.

  “I understand,” he said so softly I nearly missed it. “I am a monster.”

  “No,” I snapped. “You aren’t! You aren’t a monster, Raphael.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, looking in my direction. “It’s fine. I can…I can handle this. You were right. You said it once, Kaliya. We’re all monsters, aren’t we? This is what Mygi made me. It attacked us, so we did what we had to do to survive.”

  “I think we need to finish this,” Cassius said, taking charge as I felt as though I was falling apart. Raphael didn’t seem nearly as okay as he was trying to sound. He dropped the head and took several staggering steps until he fell against the SUV and hit the ground.

  Sorcha and Cassius finished the job. They took each body part into the house, one by one. Less than thirty minutes later, the house was a blazing inferno, and my friend was trying to pull me off the ground.

  “We need to go,” he said gently. I got to my feet and saw Raphael get into the SUV.

  I didn’t know if I felt guilty because Raphael saw what he did or if I was regretting trying to hide it.

  We drove for a long time, and I had no idea where Cassius was taking us. Far from the scene of the fire, to be sure, which would probably cause some major problems for humans in the area, but it had to be done. They didn’t need to know what sort of monsters waited for them in the darkness.

  14

  Chapter Fourteen

  No one said a word the entire drive, not even as Cassius parked at his house, all the way back in the Phoenix area. I debated apologizing, but I was scared. I felt like a child who needed to own up to breaking the favorite china, but instead, I had threatened a friend and tried to keep a life-altering truth from my lover.

  It was more serious than anything I had dealt with as a child or even as an adult, and I had dead bodies in my past that I could never run from.

  None of us got out of the SUV once Cassius cut the engine.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally whispered. “I have no excuse...for any of it. I just…I wanted to dispose of it. If I was the only person who knew, then no one else could. I don’t want to think about what the Tribunal would do if they…” I tried to remain coherent, but I trailed off when it proved impossible. “But no excuse. I should have asked if you all wanted to…”

  Only part of me believed the words coming out of my mouth at the end, while the darker part of me believed I was right. A constant struggle—protect my mate or to be a good friend and lover. I was struggling to find the middle ground, a place where I felt like I was doing both.

  “You wanted to protect me,” Raphael said quietly, sounding strangely detached. “It’s admirable.”

  “If you ever lay hands on Sorcha again, I’ll drop you in the darkest corner of the fae lands and let you go mad,” Cassius threatened in a deadly serious tone. He could, and he would. “I love you, Kaliya, but if you dare cross that line again, I will fucking end you.”

  I sank in my seat, knowing I was only heartbeats away from ending one of the few friendships I ever had. I didn’t want that to happen, so I remained silent under his stare until he sighed and turned away from me.

  I slowly turned back to Sorcha, who studied me with her large eyes. Slowly, she nodded in respect, and I felt that understanding.

  “We’ll talk later,” she promised.

  I nodded in return.

  “We need to make a decision right now,” Cassius said, letting the emotional moment pass, turning very cool and professional. “Who do we tell about this?”

  “No one,” was my immediate response. For a moment, I thought they were all going to yell at me, but I was proven wrong.

  “The Tribunal can’t know yet. Neither can Mygi know that we know,” Sorcha added. “They’ll put Raphael to death just to destroy a potentially serious problem. We saw a demon. We killed a demon. Kaliya watched as that demon became a human, meaning it wasn’t a demon at all. It was the same as Raphael. But that’s not the entire rub, is it?”

  “No,” Cassius said softly, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “It was out of control. If they see that in our memories and that’s all they have to go on, they’ll assume Raphael will become an out-of-control demon as well. We can’t let that happen.”

  “So, we’re positive that…that it was a demon,” Raphael whispered. I felt a thump on the back of my chair and twisted to see him. He had fallen forward, and his skin looked a nasty shade of green. “I’m a demon.”

  “No,” I said softly. “You…you might be part demon. It’s…I’ve never heard of them being described like you, which is why I never put it together.”

  “There’s never been real living evidence that it’s possible,” Cassius pointed out, sounding concerned. “It’s an old legend, from the dark times of humanity, legends that predate the existence of vampires.”

  “Who’s that old?” Sorcha asked. “Not me. Not anyone here, I think.”

  “Who’s the oldest p
erson alive?” I asked, rephrasing the question. I looked at Cassius, frowning. “Your father is an obvious choice.”

  “Some of my aunts and uncles, but…they’re fae royalty and not to be trusted. There’s…well, you know him…Hasan. It’s said he’s been around since before vampires existed. Just a rumor, mind you, but he’s ancient Sumerian, which my father genuinely believed for his own reasons. The oldest ‘civilized’ society.” He quoted with his fingers. Supernaturals and humans went back farther than that, but there were so few back then. I didn’t know much about those years.

  “I don’t know if I trust Hasan with this,” I murmured. “He’s a member of the Tribunal, and…he might find this too serious not to tell the others.”

  “Then I don’t know,” he said

  We sat quietly. I was beginning to feel cooped up and undid my seatbelt.

  “We’ll keep talking inside,” I declared. “Unless you’re okay with taking Raphael and me home.” Home sounded good, and I had an idea, but I could only do it from home. I didn’t feel secure anywhere else.

  Cassius looked at me steadily, then turned the engine back on.

  “Sorry. I should have done that to begin with,” he said, rubbing his face as the garage door opened again. I buckled my seatbelt, so he would start moving.

  We made it to my home in record time. I jumped out and gave Cassius and Sorcha one more look. Raphael didn’t wait, heading in and using his thumbprint to disengage the security.

  “I am sorry,” I whispered.

  “You are driven by forces that as a fae, I don’t understand, but…” Sorcha smirked as she moved into the passenger’s seat. “As a woman, I do, to a point. Don’t threaten me again.”

  “You both have too much patience.” I didn’t know how I ended up with two friends like them. I felt terrible.