by Megan Derr
"What's the bad news?"
Ned reached up and stroked his fingers along Jackie's face, traced his lips with his thumb. Finally he said, "Marion got away. He can't use magic himself, but he made certain there were tricks aplenty put in place for him."
"Aw, hell," Jackie said with a sigh. "I guess that means my plan to stay here with you for a week straight is going to have to be delayed." He started to ask if they had any idea where Marion might've gone, but the way Ned tensed against him drew him up short. Jackie frowned and reached up to capture the hand still resting lightly against his cheek. "Something wrong, darling?"
"I—" Ned stopped, eyes a tumultuous swirl of red and orange and gold, like a brisk wind through autumn leaves. "You must know by now what's wrong with me. He bragged about you knowing."
"Ah," Jackie said and nudged him aside enough to sit up. "I know, yeah. I figured it out while I was locked up in a cage in the basement. Didn't have much else to think about. I'm not following why you think that'll make me quit whatever we've got going between us."
Ned's mouth twisted, eyes doing a dark, dull red. "The soul of my consort is sunk into my skin. I'll never forget the way he screamed and begged, the way he went mad in the end. All for what—so I would never need a territory? It's so stupid and pointless and wrong. I sicken myself."
"It's not like you did it to yourself," Jackie said, cupping Ned's face with both hands. "I know if you could fix it you would in a moment. I'm sorry you were made to suffer like that. I'm not sure I'd still be sane after going through something like that."
"I'm not sure I am," Ned said. "Don't know that I ever got a chance to be. I'm just a crazy, broken demon with half my power, no territory, and no consort."
Jackie kissed him. Ned trembled under his hands, giving a soft gasp before he gave over entirely to Jackie, pushing gently until Jackie toppled. Ned settled on top of him, returning the kiss with a desperate edge that made Jackie ache. Everything Marion had told him flitted through his mind, but Jackie ignored it. He didn't care if all that multiple consorts babble was true or not. He didn't give a damn about anything except Ned and convincing him there wasn't a single thing wrong with him. He pushed hands up under Ned's t-shirt, mapping his skin, tracing his countless scars. Maybe if he memorized every one of them he could share or take away the pain.
Drawing back, Ned stared at him with eyes like late afternoon sunshine, tongue flicking out to touch his bottom lip. "I don't understand you, or why I can't—you're almost like—but you can't be."
"Would you want me to be? Marion made it sound like maybe I could be, that more than one consort exists for demons."
"No," Ned said, voice ragged, harsh. He pulled Jackie up, wrapped arms tightly around his neck. The angle was awkward, and Jackie had to brace himself on one hand, but he held Ned tightly back with the other. "If I actually have another consort, you could be used against me, too. Without a territory and my full power, I can't—I'm not as good as a real demon. I can't protect you like they could. I don't want another consort. I just—"
Jackie squeezed tightly then turned sharply, reversing their positions and bracing himself over Ned. "Honey, I don't need you to do all the protecting. We can protect each other, and we've got a whole bunch of friends now, too. Once Marion is taken care of, there won't be anyone of that caliber of evil to deal with ever again. You're real enough to me. If you don't have it, I don't want it."
Ned jerked him down, kissing him so hard Jackie's lip split, the fingers in his hair pulling hard enough to make him wince, but Jackie just went with it, kissing back full measure until Ned slowly stopped shaking and the kissing calmed to something soft and gentle. "You're crazy, Sheriff."
"So I keep hearing," Jackie said, pressing their foreheads together and smiling faintly. "But I'm pretty sure I'm in good company, 'tween you and my assortment of deputies." The laugh Ned gave him was quiet, hesitant, but a laugh all the same. Jackie brushed another kiss across his mouth before reluctantly drawing back. "Speaking of my deputies, where is everyone and what's going on right now? I assume they're trying to find our runaway?"
Ned sighed as Jackie moved off him, swinging his legs to sit beside him on the edge of the bed. "Your pa went to go talk to Prince Amr about the Dracula and everything else, since we haven't exactly had a chance to do that until now. Phoenix and Wyatt have been going over all the notes they took from Marion's house before they burned it down. Emma is watching over Firebrand. He can't do anything with the binding you put on him, but we want to be careful." He looked up at Jackie and smiled. "That was a hell of a binding, cowboy, especially given you drew the damn thing on a bathroom floor with lipstick."
"You found it?"
"We went through the whole damn house before we burned it to make certain there wasn't anything we needed to take with us or someone else holed up being hurt. Saw what was left of your spell circle. Where'd you get the collar?"
Jackie touched fingers to his throat. "It was on me to start, but after I set Marcellus' soul loose, it sucked the magic right on out. Probably took some of my magic with it, come to that. Would explain why I had so much trouble later on when that damned golem was beating me. I'm just glad the damned spell worked. If I hadn't trapped Firebrand, none of us would be here. I should probably recast it soon, though, to make sure there aren't any holes he can eventually crawl out of."
"Your pa was planning on doing that tonight, I think, but there's no telling how long he'll be with Prince Amr." He gave Jackie a wry smile. "They've got a lot to talk about."
"Hopefully things will simmer down now," Jackie said with a sigh. "Suppose we'd best get a move on. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish." They stood up together, and Jackie couldn't resist tugging him close and making a thorough exploration of his mouth, sucking at his lower lip before licking into his mouth for a kiss that left them gasping for air. Drawing back, he rubbed a knuckle over Ned's mouth. "You're too distracting by half, demon."
Ned snorted softly. "Me? You're the one with the wild energies." The levity abruptly fell from his face. "They were faded as hell when we found you, nearly gone, nothing but pain in its place. If we'd gotten there any later…" Ned leaned against him, forehead against his chest, fingers clinging to his sides. "I'm not sure what I would have done, but it wouldn't have been pretty. I wasn't going to let them take someone from me a second time. I've always tried so hard to stay away from people and to be extremely careful when I just can't help it, but then you walked into that damned penthouse… and it was like I woke up for the first time. I didn't know paying a debt would cause so much of a ruckus."
"Well, I was damned certain I wasn't letting anyone else get under my skin and doing pretty damn well at that. Then this crazy ass demon got rowdy and pushed me around and knocked me out cold." He laughed softly as Ned leaned up to kiss him again. "Good thing I'm used to my plans never working." He brushed his knuckles along Ned's cheek. "I wasn't going to let them hurt you again, either. I'll kill anyone who tries." Jackie took one last, lingering kiss, cradling Ned's face gently, before finally stepping back far enough to resist temptation. "I mean it now, let's go."
Turning on his heel, he led the way out of the bedroom. He stared at his living room a moment—what he could see of it anyway, beneath enough books, papers, and boxes of junk to fill… well, to fill the mansion of a crazy, black-hearted bastard. Jackie sighed. "Wyatt, did you really need to keep all that? Better off burning it, you ask me."
Wyatt's head jerked up, and the papers in his hands fell and scattered across the floor as he threw himself off the couch. Jackie grunted as arms wrapped so tightly around his neck they choked him. He hugged Wyatt back. "Simmer down now, kid, I'm just fine."
"You're an idiot," Wyatt muttered into his shoulder. He glared as he let go and drew back, but it didn't quite hide the fact his eyes looked a touch damp. "Some gunslinger, losing your guns and then getting your ass kicked by one stupid golem."
Jackie ruffled his hair. "After I managed to bind Fire
brand. I think I did alright."
"If you call broken ribs, a broken wrist, a broken nose, sprained ankle, extensive bruising—" Wyatt glared over the hand Jackie had clapped over his mouth.
"I'm fine, and I hear tell I have you to thank for the healing," Jackie said. "So thank you. Might be able to make a half-decent deputy out of you yet." He pulled his hand away, tweaking Wyatt's nose before withdrawing entirely. "So what exactly are you doing with all of this? Where's Phoenix? I thought he was helping you."
"I think he went to get something to eat. Well, someone to eat. Whatever. Look at this!" Wyatt spun away and climbed through and over the mess back to the couch, gathering up all the scattered papers on the floor in front of it. He straightened the bundle as he returned to them, tripping over one box and then nearly falling entirely when he hit a second. Jackie shot a hand out to catch him. Wyatt made a face. "Thanks. Here, look at this—" He thrust out a handful of papers.
Jackie took them, but the writing was gibberish. "I think this is English, but it's not strung together in any way that makes sense to me."
"Huh?" Wyatt frowned. "Oh! No, no, the next one. Sorry, I thought the translated stuff was on top. He wrote all of his notes in code, and he switched the code up every time he started a new journal. It's why I still have so much to go through. But look—" He jabbed at the paper before Jackie could read it. "This is the next stage." Heaving a sigh at Jackie's blank look, he took the papers back and waved them about. "The next stage! Firebrand and Ned were stage one—two different methods for building a perfect vessel to determine what would be most viable. One is a combination of human, djinn, and werewolf. Powerful but extremely volatile. The other is a demon free of his bonds, but at the cost of cutting his power in half. Fascinating, even incredible if, like Marion, you think this sort of experimentation is acceptable. Anyway, these papers here detail out stage two, which was improving upon the stage one vessels and dropping in Marcellus' soul. Of course, the ultimate goal is stage three—"
"How can there be a stage three?" Jackie asked. "He said he wanted to save his son." But no, now he was thinking upon it, he remembered Marion saying something about being more ambitious than that. "He wants to use all this to finally put the Kings in control of everything."
Wyatt gave him a look. "Well, yeah. But not just that. He wants to fix himself."
The hours he'd spent listening to Marion rant and rave replayed in Jackie's mind. He sighed. "Hell, I kind of remember him saying that, and it seems obvious once you spell it out. He came from a magic family, but doesn't have any himself."
"Exactly," Wyatt said. "My aunt and uncle were like that, except they wanted other things that people had, and over time it just … well, they were always rotten at the core. My whole bloodline is rotten at the core." Sadness flickered across his face, but he just shook it off again and barreled on. "I've only just reached the stage three notes, but it looks like once he'd performed further tests on the stage two vessel he was going to create a vessel for himself, something even more powerful, obviously. I would hazard he was going to keep the demon vessel for himself, but my theory is that he wouldn't be content with that. I'd bet you anything he was going to attempt to splice other things in there. Just think what he could do if he managed to combine Firebrand with Ned and weed out their weaknesses."
Ned cursed. "He would be someone strong enough to threaten all abnormals. I cannot believe he has slipped through the cracks for so long. We need to find him."
Wyatt shuffled through the papers he was holding. "Working on it. The problem is that we have no idea where he went. Anything that mattered to him that we know of is long gone, which means we have to look through all this mess to see if we can find something else. This page here is a list of names. I've translated eleven of them, but they're all dead or have 'no longer suitable' next to them. I'll get to work on the rest."
"No longer suitable for what?" Jackie asked.
"My guess? Not suitable as vessels. It would make sense—the ones who are still alive either gave up abnormal life, had something happen that damaged or reduced their abilities, or they're attached elsewhere. So, no longer suitable."
Jackie raked a hand through his hair. "I need coffee." He strode off to go make it, yawning as he leaned against the counter waiting for it to finish brewing. Coffee, then a shower, and after that he'd feel a bit more like himself.
His chest throbbed and ached, and he reached up absently to rub at the mark. That was going to take getting used to—and where was Firebrand, anyway? He forced himself to wait until the coffee was done then poured a cup and returned to the living room. "Where's Firebrand?"
"The club let us borrow one of the private rooms for a holding cell," Ned replied, stealing his mug and taking a swallow of coffee.
Jackie stole it back with a look before moving to the couch and clearing a place to sit. "I think I need to work on getting a real place to live. This little apartment is getting a touch overcrowded."
Wyatt muttered something, but Jackie didn't catch a word of it. From the way Wyatt was immersed in reading and writing, he probably wasn't aware he'd spoken at all. Jackie left him to it and focused on getting caffeine back into his system. When he'd finished his coffee, he handed the mug over to Ned, who'd taken a seat on the armrest beside him. "I'm going to get cleaned up." He stood up and stretched.
"Want company?"
"Yeah, but don't," Jackie said with a smile and bent to kiss him quickly. "We got work to do."
Ned sighed, but wandered off into the kitchen.
In his bedroom, Jackie stripped off his sweatpants and threw them in the hamper, then walked into the bathroom and cranked the water as hot as he could stand it. He groaned as it hit his skin and started easing some of the aches and pains still plaguing him. Seventy was too old to get the shit kicked out of him, that was for damned sure.
He stayed in until the water started to run cool then clambered out and grabbed a towel, scrubbing himself dry as he headed for his closet. He was just pulling on his jeans when the door burst open and Wyatt tumbled in looking frantic. "Sheriff! It's Roman!"
"What about Roman?" Jackie asked, grabbing Wyatt's shoulders and making him hold still. "What's wrong?"
Wyatt waved the papers at him. "Roman's name is on this list, and it's marked as 'first choice'. He was planning to use Roman as a vessel!"
"Yeah, but he clearly can't do it anymore," Jackie replied. "Not by himself, and he's got no one left to help him."
"He's got the Kings!" Wyatt said. "We don't know how many Kings there are, but I bet you if there's even one, that one is more than happy to help with such a nasty project. Damn it, we should have thought of them sooner!"
Jackie made a face. "Ayah, that we should have. So we need more information on the Kings. But that could take weeks if we're lucky, more likely months."
"No, we have to go after Roman," Wyatt replied. "He's marked as first choice and he's close. I know how people like this think! He's angry and desperate and probably even more unstable than usual. He'll go after what he wants so it can't be taken from him like everything else. That means he's going to go after Roman!"
"Let me put clothes on," Jackie said and reached into his closet, pulling out the first shirt he touched. Yanking it on, he did up his jeans then quickly pulled on socks and boots. "Where are my—" He broke the question off as he saw Ned standing in the doorway holding his gun belt. "Thanks," he said and buckled and tied it into place. He pulled out each revolver and inspected them in turn, smiling faintly to have them back at his hips. "Let's go."
Ned took hold of their arms and they vanished, reappearing in the entryway of Roman's penthouse. The place felt familiar and strange all at once, more than it should after a few months, but then again, it had been a busy few months and Jackie had certainly left Roman well behind.
Something was off. Roman always left lights on, hating to return to a dark house. Even if he thought he'd be back in an hour and it was the middle of the day, he left lights
on. Yet the whole place was dark, the curtains drawn. Jackie's right hand strayed toward his revolver as they stepped into the living room.
"I smell blood," Wyatt said.
"Magic," Ned murmured. "Low level, like from an object."
Jackie swore softly and drew his right revolver, grateful that whoever had tended his weapons—likely his father—had put the black bullets in it. "Probably his cane. That thing is a damned nuisance." They lapsed into silence, fanning out as they pressed on. Jackie was half-tempted to go for the lights, but if they somehow hadn't been noticed yet he was all for keeping it that way.
He glanced around, taking in what he could, but with only slivers of light from cracks in the curtains, he couldn't see much. Ned, however, seemed to have no trouble, and Jackie fell back to follow him as they headed for the back rooms. "Blood," Ned said, the word so low that Jackie barely caught it. He paused in front of the first door—the spare bedroom—and touched it, then rubbed his fingers together. Ned pushed the door further open then gave a snarling yell and threw himself into the room.
Jackie bolted in after him and hit the lights. First thing that struck him was all the blood. Roman had gone down, but he sure as hell hadn't gone down easy. Jackie headed for the bed where Roman was collapsed face down, blood soaking into the bedding all around his head.
He didn't get more than a step when another yell snapped his attention back to Ned, who had Marion pinned to the wall so high his feet dangled. There was a nasty gash on Ned's head, another on his bicep, but it was clear from the limp way Marion's arm hung that he wouldn't be getting in another hit. "It's about time I caught up to you," Ned said.
"You wouldn't be here if not for me," Marion spat. "It was my theories, my work, that made you a free demon."
"Free? I've never been free. But I'll take being free of you." Before Marion could reply, Ned yanked him down from the wall and tore his throat open. He threw Marion aside and watched, expressionless, as he died.