DAEMONEUM

by Laney McMann

  Running his hand about a foot or two off the ground directly underneath the flown fuse, the same way he’d seen Cole do so many times, he swiped his hand through midair.

  “What are you doing?” Giselle eyed him.

  “Shh.” He put a finger to his lips, listening for electricity. “It’s here.”

  Giselle’s eyes rolled. “What’s there?”

  “A gate.” Jake rushed over, hands open wide like Danny’s, and a crackle of electricity popped audibly just as the slightest tinge of silver shone in the air. “Shit. It won’t open.”

  “We need Cole.” Danny remembered all the times Cole had reopened blacked Leygates. He’d done it so often Danny had started to refer to him as master of the gates.

  “We just need more power.” Jake rubbed his hands together creating friction. “G, you too. Lindsey. If we combine our coronas we can create enough energy to reopen it.”

  The four of them opened their hands and a flood of multi-colored light penetrated the air. A flicker of silver shimmied like a snake two feet off the floor and a spiral of dark gray energy rose like a cyclone out of the ground.

  “It’s now or never,” Jake said.

  Danny rolled his neck on his shoulders and glanced at Giselle. The last time they’d jumped into a foreign gate, Cole had been electrocuted and ended up with Kyle in the Infernal Plane, and then in the hospital. “You should stay here.” He gripped his telums, one in each hand. “Jake and I will go, and we’ll come to get you if it’s all clear.” He didn’t know what he was saying. Wherever the gate led was where Dracon would be. It wouldn’t be all clear, but he couldn’t let Giselle come with him.

  She shook her head, holding his hard stare. “I’m not staying here.”

  “What’s going on?” Jake looked between them.

  “Remember when we found out Dracon had been experimenting on babies before he’d been successful with Kade?”

  “Yeah …”

  “Dan, don’t,” Giselle warned.

  “He needs to know, G.”

  “Why?” Her tone was hard. “Why does Jake need to know?”

  “Did he do something to you?” Jake was on his feet, staring at Giselle. “Did Dracon do something to you?”

  She didn’t meet his gaze. “There were a lot of pictures of kids when we were here before,” she said in a small voice. “One of them was of me.”

  He let out a staggered breath that was matched by the curse that escaped his lips.

  Giselle shrugged. “Turns out I wasn’t always a Primeva.”

  Jake went chillingly silent. Danny couldn’t blame him. There wasn’t much a person could say to a statement like that.

  Lindsey glanced between Jake and Giselle. Danny couldn’t blame her, either. It was clear by Jake’s reaction that his feelings for Giselle were more than friendship.

  “So, you’re staying here with Lindsey,” Danny said. “Jake and I will go through the gate.”

  “Agreed,” Jake confirmed, still staring at Giselle.

  Lindsey appeared to be teetering between agreeing with them, punching Jake in the throat, and jumping into the Leygate before anyone could stop her.

  “You’re staying,” Jake told her with all the authority of a true Alpha. “I’m not asking, I’m telling you. Keep Giselle safe. That’s an order.”

  Lindsey clenched her jaw, looking between him and Giselle again, and nodded curtly with a deathly stare, but without a word.

  “This doesn't change anything, G,” Jake said. “Not to me.”

  She looked away from him.

  Danny gripped his telums. “We’ll be back.” He jumped into the deep gray vortex.

  Jake followed with one last piercing glance at Giselle.

  Danny’s feet hit hard against a dirt floor, kicking a plume of dust up. Jake landed next to him, extending his arm out to keep from crashing headlong into Dan. The space was dark, and familiar. He took a cautious step forward.

  “Hello, Mr. Roberts.” Dracon’s voice chimed inside Danny’s head, and he whirled around, as the nine foot tall demon came into unclear view at the far end of the darkened tunnel. Even if he hadn’t recognized his voice, or been able to see him clearly, Danny would never forget the way Dracon smelled. Reptilian. “I have been waiting.” His voice was drawn, his breathing irregular.

  Danny squinted in the dark, trying to bring the demon into clearer view.

  “I have been keeping an eye out. Making sure my guards know where you are.” He leaned heavily against the wall. “You and Mr. Spires killed some of my best protectors when you stumbled upon my hiding place a few days ago. Then we had to relocate. I knew the Principals would soon come looking.”

  Danny didn’t say anything. Dracon was definitely hurt. Badly hurt. Danny didn’t know why, but it knocked his breath away to see the demon struggling to stand.

  “I told my guards to allow you entry this time. You found my little hideout underneath my house?”

  “We did,” Danny answered, crystal telums concealed against his palms. “You cleaned. Needed it.”

  He smiled slightly. “I knew you would return. Dig around a bit more, perhaps find the gateway I created that would lead you here—if you were talented enough. The young are far too curious for their own good. Like cats. It gets them into trouble.” Dracon slid down the wall to a sitting position, and Danny realized he was covered in blood—fresh and dried blood. He had no idea what to do. Attack a helpless being? That made him no better than Dracon. Jake seemed to be equally paralyzed, and staring.

  “Don’t be concerned about your sister. She is fine, as you have seen all of these years. Primeva perhaps, but unharmed otherwise. She was one of the lucky ones. A strong girl like my Kadence. I knew all along they would become fast friends when we moved here. They have more in common than either knows.” Dracon’s eyes shifted to Danny’s left. “Mr. Phillips,” he smiled with pointed teeth, “it is nice to see you, as well. The last time we were unable to speak.” He smiled wider, leaning against the wall with a gasp of obvious pain. “I believe you were too … busy helping Mr. Spires rescue Kadence from my grasp,” he breathed.

  Jake stared at the demon, blue eyes wide. “You look worse for the wear,” he said, “hitting the side of a mountain wasn’t good to you.”

  Dracon laughed, and erupted into a coughing fit. “But … I survived,” he finally managed to say.

  Jake bowed his head slightly in agreement, looking sick to his stomach. “I see that. I would say I’m sorry to see you suffering like this, but in light of what you’ve done, I’d be lying.”

  “I have only done what I felt was right, same as the Primordial.” He spit blood onto the ground near his feet. “We all have beliefs, you know. Just because you believe mine wrong does not make it so.”

  “I could say the same,” Jake responded. “Killing the innocent, however, Turning the innocent, is something you will never convince me is right regardless of what your beliefs may be. From the looks of it, Karma came to claim you before we did.”

  Dracon regarded Jake. “Yes. You know,” he propped himself up by his arm, his black talon dirty and blood stained, “I watched your movements for quite some time before you came to … my home asking Kadence to the dance. I had my eye on you for years when you were very young. Before you moved to Boulder.”

  Jake didn’t respond. His stance was stiff.

  “Your family moved a lot, same as I did.” He let out a ragged breath and propped his head against the wall. “I wondered … whether you would be a good candidate for my tests when you were born—perhaps using the fusionem crystal on a true born Primeva ... rather than a true born Primori would yield an interesting result. So much of what I had tried failed. But then … my Kadence showed very positive reactions to the fusionem crystal, and I knew I had finally succeeded.”

  He slid down the wall, and Danny instinctively took a step forward, but Dracon caught himself and grinned, eyeing Danny. “Primori,” he said. “You are born with an inherent goodness. I h
ad it once, too, before … before I chose this life. Even as I lay here dying, the enemy of your cause, you feel the need to help me. Your Alpha chose his Beta well.”

  “Why did you want us to come here?” Danny asked, refusing to let kind words sway him. “Why tell your guards to let us in without a fight? What do you want?”

  “I have made a lot of mistakes,” he breathed, coughing up blood again. “And been persuaded … by people I should have better sense than to involve myself with. It is strange how dying makes a person see the light. We do not notice it until we have … fallen into utter darkness.”

  “What do you want,” Jake repeated Danny’s question.

  “At one time,” Dracon said to Jake, “I thought you ... had feelings for my daughter.”

  “We’re friends,” he said with no emotion.

  “You dated Giselle for a little while. Unrequited love does not go down easy, does it?”

  Jake grinned maliciously. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “No?” Dracon smiled, and Danny noticed his pointed silver teeth were turning red. “Primeva truly are ... a different breed from Primori. Most of them. Not as giving.” He shifted his focus onto Danny, gripping the dirt ground to keep himself upright. “I have given my daughter a great gift,” he said.

  “Your niece,” Danny interrupted.

  “I raised Kadence. She is ... my daughter by all means except for paternal blood.”

  Danny conceded. There was no sense arguing the specifics.

  “As I said, I have given my daughter ... a great gift,” Dracon went on, struggling to breathe. “Greater than even I realized. It will help to keep her ... safe from the one ... who wishes to control her. Tell her that. Tell her that … I am sorry for everything. I allowed hatred … and envy to rule my life. Tell her that I love her.” He spat out more blood and drew in a ragged, wheezing breath. “I wanted to tell her … these truths myself, but there is no more time. I always liked … Mr. Spires. That was not a lie. He was chosen. He is the one who holds the other key. The two Rubeums … the two … hold the keys.”

  Danny glanced at Jake, confused.

  “Don’t let … the Patriarchae separate the Rubeums.” He slid to the ground and onto his side. “Tell my daughter.” He stared into the endless blackness overhead. “Save her.”

  Danny was shocked to find the Leygate still open for him and Jake to travel back through after leaving Dracon, lying dead on the tunnel floor. Shocked even more that no Nefarius had shown up to kill them. His brain was spinning with the message he’d received to give Kade. And although he’d witnessed death so many times, seeing Dracon die in front of him, helpless, left an emptiness inside him he didn’t understand. Dracon was one of the Devil’s Children, a life he'd chosen, and like he’d said, an enemy to the Primordial cause, to his own niece, and to Giselle, yet Danny knew he was a man, too. A Primori once, and somehow that made all the difference.

  Stepping out of the Leygate in somewhat of a daze, his eyes shifted around his surroundings. Foreign. He assumed they would land back in Dracon’s underground room when they went through the Leygate, and not on the Brotherhood’s atrium roof.

  The massive garden Plumb tended along with a lot of the Primori kids surrounded him with green plants, empty terra-cotta pots, and giant bags of potting soil. It had always smelled clean to him—fresh, but the odor on the roof was so bad he gagged. Jake appeared next to him through the swirling energy of the Leygate.

  “Nice of you guys to meet us here,” Giselle said with sarcasm.

  “Oh, my god, what is that smell?” Jake glanced at a bucket of nasty water filled with god only knew what and eyed Giselle. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Brotherhood’s roof.” Danny glanced behind Jake at the swirling silvery gray vortex as it popped closed. “What’s going on?” he asked his sister, who looked windblown. “What are you doing here?”

  “We tried to follow you,” she said. “But we almost didn’t make the jump.”

  “I told you to stay there,” he scolded her. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, but nothing about it felt normal. We just kept spinning and spinning and the gate finally spit us out here.”

  “On the garden roof?” Danny’s brows cocked up. “What the hell?”

  “Why do you have an atrium on your roof?” Lindsey tilted her head back and looked straight up. “How high is it?”

  Danny shrugged. “Twenty-five, thirty feet, maybe.”

  “All screened?”

  “Yep,” he said. “It’s like a giant pool cage.”

  Jake edged along the side of the roof, eyeing the two-story drop to the snow-covered ground below. “Looks like the Eldership is still here questioning Plumb and all the kids.” He pointed down. Several Stella Urbem guards roamed the premises.

  “Great. Probably searching for Cole.” Danny walked back to where the Leygate had been. “We need to open this up again and get back through. We can’t be here.”

  Jake waved his hand above the ground, searching for the faint colored streams of energy the Leygate left.

  “And go back to Kade’s dad’s house?” Giselle shook her head. “No. Something was wrong with the gate. I’m not going back through it. And what happened? Did you find anything?”

  “Dracon’s dead,” Danny answered. It was all he could say. “And if I had to guess, I’d say we just figured out how Kade’s Astrum necklace ended up in her bedroom here a few weeks ago. Dracon left it for her to find.”

  “He’s dead?” Giselle asked. “You're sure this time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was almost dead when we found him—or when he found us, I guess,” Jake added.

  “You can explain later.” Lindsey glanced over the side of the building. “Can we get down without being seen?”

  Danny dead-eye stared at her. “What do you think?”

  “We’re gonna have to come up with something.” Jake stood up. “The gate won’t reopen. No energy traces at all.”

  Danny tracked through the garden to the only door that led into the Brotherhood. “Locked.”

  “We could unlock it.” Jake’s fingers crackled with electricity.

  “Too risky to go inside with all those guards, anyway. You said Cato was here before.”

  “Let’s just cut the screen.” Lindsey trailed her fingers along it. “We’ll all shift and fly out.”

  “It’s too strong,” Danny said, hands on his hips. “Stainless steel mesh. Security screen. Guards against Daemoneum getting in—and us getting out.”

  “So, we’re stuck up here.” Jake pushed on the screen. “Which I hate to point out feels an awful lot like a trap.”

  Chapter 31

  Kade and Cole exited the masquerade ball, his arm around her shoulders, as they walked onto the front cobbled walk into the garden. “Where did Heru go?”

  Cole tapped his neck with his fingers. “Probably wandering around, as usual. Have you noticed he never stays still for long?”

  Kade grinned. She’d noticed.

  “We could go back inside if you want? It’s chilly tonight.”

  “I’d rather wait out here if that’s okay. I think the fog stuff, and the drinks, gave me a headache.” The cool night air was slowly making her feel normal again. So normal she felt a little embarrassed about how she’d acted with Cole.

  “I tried to warn you.” He led them to an ornate wrought iron bench beside the fountain with lotus flowers and sat down.

  “I’m sorry about before,” she said. “I kind of—”

  “Attacked me?” He gave her his cocky grin, eyes still a bit dark.

  Her cheeks warmed. “Yeah.”

  “Don’t get shy now.” He leaned over and kissed her. “I kind of loved it. I didn’t want you to stop. You have no idea how much willpower that took.”

  “I have some idea.” She leaned into the warmth of him.

  “Where the hell is my uncle?” Cole glanced around, and placed his fingers on his throat again. “He alw
ays answers when I call.”

  “Which way did he walk when he left?” Kade asked. “How long ago was it?” She had no idea. “Maybe he’s waiting outside or something.”

  “Maybe.” Cole didn’t sound convinced.

  “We could walk,” Kade said with a shrug. “See if he’s waiting around for us down one of these side streets. He said he wasn’t going far.”

  Cole stood, offering her a hand.

  “You’re so chivalrous.”

  “I try.” He ushered her down the cobbled walk, out of the garden, his entire stance suddenly fixed and alert. “Stay close to me.” Holding her right hand, he shifted them off the walk, dipping underneath a dark eve along the side of the palace ballroom.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve got company.” Cole let her hand go, keeping her tight against his right side, and both of his crystal telums made a distinct brushing sound against his palms.

  Kade’s gaze roved the night, but she saw nothing, heard nothing. Trusting Cole’s instincts, she remained still beside him, eyes shifting everywhere in the dark.

  As fast as lightning, Cole’s left hand whipped up and sliced through the air with a red tinge of his corona, and he embedded his telum in the concrete wall beside him.

  A bird screeched in pain, followed by a human yelp. “What the hell?” A man in a long dark trench coat and straggly blond hair that fell to his shoulders stood beside them, holding his bleeding hand.

  “If you’re going to sneak up on me, I’m going to act first and think later,” Cole snapped. “What are you doing here, Jimmy?” He wiped his blade on his dress pants, and his body tensed. “Where’s my uncle?”

  “He …” Jimmy shook his head, panic in his wide eyes.

  “He what?” Cole shouted.

  The man shook his head again. “We have to go. They’re coming.”

  “Who’s com—” Cole’s words died as he glanced up. Kade followed his stare. Approaching at great speed were more Shadows than she could count, thousands, blocking the waning moon, the wispy shapes shifting in silver-gray through the night sky.