“Good.” He straightened, his jaw feathering, his brow flattening as his gaze rooted into me. “Because I have never compelled any woman to want my body against her will. That would be rape and I am not a rapist.”
He turned a shoulder on me and retreated to the wet bar.
How on earth had I come out of this conversation the bad guy?
My indignation fizzled as I watched him pour a whiskey. There was a stiffness to his movements I’d never seen on him before. He seriously thought I’d just accused him of being a rapist.
I hadn’t. As much as I deemed him capable of messing with my mind and tricking my body into uncomfortable awareness, my scorn for his devious methods didn’t extend beyond that. He’d never take it all the way through to his bed.
For all his faults, there was a dark and twisted kind of honor about Gideon.
Even I, his least likely fan, had seen some of that.
I’d gone too far. I’d been so determined to shift the blame, I hadn’t considered how deeply offensive the accusation was. Especially now, since it clearly wasn’t true. He felt too strongly about this and I believed him. He hadn’t compelled me, not in this at least.
“Gideon, I’m sorry.” I squirmed uncomfortably and shot to my feet. “I should go.”
“Sit,” he barked and I did, feeling guilty enough to give him the upper hand. He threw the whiskey down his throat, then replenished his glass and returned to the chair behind his desk.
I watched, braced for his anger, but the bristling stiffness had left him.
He pushed the chair back and brought his legs up, his feet propped on the corner of the desk. “You wouldn’t know a demon in the street. There are ley lines—streams of supernatural energy—across the globe that demons harness to cross over from their realm into ours. Their essence hitches a ride but their physical form stays behind.”
I relaxed a little, pleased we’d moved on. “So this demon that’s here, it’s just a spirit?”
“That’s one way of putting it, but don’t be fooled.” Gideon sipped on his whiskey, studying me. “The demonic spirit is flung into the first body it intercepts like a damn crash landing. The violent thrust is damaging and the demon can’t survive in that body for long. He’ll jump to a fresh host as soon as possible and in order to do that, he has to break the link with that person’s soul. Usually done by suicide, but sometimes it’s made to look like a freak accident.”
I chewed on the horror of that. Suicide? Freak accidents? “How often does he have to jump bodies?”
“After the initial thrust, the transfer is gentler. He doesn’t have to jump again. That’s not to say he won’t.” Another sip on his whiskey before he went on, “A demon topside is a very physical threat, not just a wayward spirit. They take possession of the host’s body, mind and soul. They retain the host memories, enough so to mimic the stolen life if they choose. Their essence is a powerful force that corrupts and devours. Mind control is their most dangerous weapon. What I can do with compulsion is child’s play when compared to even the lowest ranked form of demon.”
A shudder pulsed down my spine. “How do you know there’s definitely a demon here?”
“By the stench of demon that hangs over Shadow Horn.”
“You literally smell it?”
“It’s a different kind of sense, a sulfuric odor that twitches my alert signals.”
“How do we track something we can’t see?”
“You don’t,” Gideon said. “If I could get eyes on the vermin, I’d know it. My magic allows me to see its essence, it’s like a shimmer of energy. My magic protects my mind from demonic control. If you kill the host, the demon will just jump into another. My magic is the only thing that can vanquish it.”
“So who is it?” I demanded, thinking of everyone I knew in this small town, faces I passed every day, people I’d known all my life. “And why haven’t you vanquished the shit out of it yet?”
“It’s complicated.”
“So is algebra,” I snapped. “I aced it.”
His jaw edged, adding further definition to the blades of his cheekbones. “This demon is keeping an unusually low profile. I’m starting to suspect he knows I’m in town and a threat.” His gaze dropped. “And that’s impossible. Demons fresh from below know nothing about our existence.”
“Maybe you’ve crossed paths with this one before.”
His gaze lifted beneath a mocking brow. “I’ve never crossed paths with any demon that went on to live another day.”
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe he crossed paths with a lesser Eclipse Warlock.”
“Hmmm.” He kicked his feet off the desk and sat forward, cradling the glass. “My gut says otherwise.”
“And let me guess, your gut is never wrong.”
“Never,” he stated like a scientific fact. A smile thinned his mouth, as if he were laughing at his own pretentious ego although I sincerely doubted that. “The signs point to this being a fresh demon. There’s the recent suicide. And besides, what demon would come to Shadow Horn from elsewhere? They prefer cities.
Wait a freaking minute! “What are you saying? The demon crashed landed here? In Shadow Horn? Are you sure?”
He studied me, sipping on his whiskey.
“Now’s not the time to be coy, Gideon! If Shadow Horn is some sort of express stop for demons, I have a right to know.” But you already know, don’t you? Suicide. “It’s because of that guy we found out in the woods the night of my birthday, isn’t it? He hung himself.”
“That’s always the first sign,” Gideon relented and started speaking. “But not the only one. Lex mentioned some of your friends have been acting odd lately?”
I scrunched my face and pinched my fingers. “Just a wee bit.”
“And you were all at the lake that night,” Gideon said. “When a demon crosses over, there’s an expulsion of dark energy. It’s like a static charge on souls in the near vicinity. Your deepest desires and personality traits are magnified and exposed and you act on it without any hesitation or the usual civil restraint. Anger, jealousy, lust, greed, insecurities, vengeance, mostly all the bad stuff.”
My thoughts went to Grant and how he’d played Callie. He’d said he’d always had a thing for Kenzie, but he’d never acted on it. Until the night of that bonfire at the lake. Grant wasn’t that guy, callous, taking what he wanted whichever way he could.
And Kenzie. She’d always been careless with relationships and breaking hearts, but she’d never been this ruthless and cruel, dismissing anyone who got in her way—including me and Haley.
“If you’re pissed off with someone,” Gideon continued, “you don’t think twice about snapping their neck or running them down in the street. Everything is intensified, more urgent, more desperate, more infuriating. If you’re in lust with your neighbor’s wife, to get biblical—” he smirked “—it becomes a rabid hunger you can’t deny. Mindless, uncontrollable impulses .The laws of man and God no longer apply. Our scripts call it a frenzy of desire.”
Like the bolt of brainless, carnal desire that had zapped me the first time I lay eyes on Gideon. And all the times since when it felt like his pheromones came at me like an attack of frisson. A frenzy of desire.
I’d been at the lake that night.
Jeez, if it wasn’t Gideon compelling me, it was static charges messing with my soul. This was seriously turning out to be the summer from hell.
Suddenly I was examining my last few weeks in excruciating detail. I’d always been a little shy of Kenzie’s carefree attitude to dating, but this time I’d gone all judgmental bitch on her ass. I’d been so busy looking at my friends and their random nuttiness, I hadn’t taken a long hard look at myself.
What about me and Lex? That wasn’t normal for me, either. I didn’t meet a guy and throw my heart into the wind. But no, that’s where I drew the line at my self-examination. With Lex and me, it was different, there was just this connection…he was my home, my missing pieces, my anchor in the storm
of my future pressing up on me.
“Is any of it real?” I asked Gideon.
“It’s all real, just intensified until desires and emotions become all consuming, often to the exclusion of all else. It’s like being in the grip of blind rage, you don’t stop to think before you act.”
“This static charge…is it permanent?”
“No, it lasts a few days, maybe a couple of weeks. But that’s enough to change the course of a life. You can’t un-kill someone.” He grinned and shrugged. “Once you’ve tasted the dark side…? When you open Pandora’s box, you can’t shut it.”
“How many demons have come through in Shadow Horn?” More importantly, how often and how many more should I be looking forward to? “Those ley line thingies…there’s one that passes through our town?”
He looked at me, shaking his head. “No, there are no known ley lines anywhere near here.”
“But you said demons need a ley line to cross over.”
“They do.”
“Pick a lane,” I said irritably. “Either they need a ley line to cross or they don’t.”
“Now you get it.” He brought the glass to his smirking mouth. “This demon is complicated.””
17
SAGE
I’d forgotten how frustrating conversations with Gideon could be. I was, however, determined to leave all demon related horrors at home when Lex picked me up for our picnic date.
We parked at the lookout and walked along the ridge of the horn until we came across a satisfactory spot. A leafy tree with low hanging branches to ward off the gusty breeze and a clear view out over the western horizon where the sun was already dipping below a mountain range in the distance.
Lex spread the blanket and I flopped onto it, lying on my side with a hand propped to my cheek. He hadn’t asked me about my visit with Gideon and I hadn’t offered. There was no place on my normal and boring calendar for that kind of talk.
But you know that old saying? All roads lead to Rome.
Lex handed me a pear cider and delved into the hamper again, bringing out an assortment of miniature savory pies with cute handwritten labels. Chicken. Fish. Corn and Beef. Asparagus & Cheese.
“I’m starving,” I declared, picking out a chicken pie. “And this all looks amazing. I’m impressed,” I added with a smile.
He grinned. “You do know I didn’t make any of this, right?”
“I do know.” I laughed, recognizing the offerings from the home-bake country store just outside town. “I’m still impressed. Our standard picnic fare is sandwiches, apples and beer. I might just steal your idea for next week.”
“Next week?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I need to get Grant, Kenzie and Haley into a locked room, and by locked room I mean a hike to the waterfall. Hopefully that’ll exhaust them too much to fight the whole way there.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t. At least not until Gideon’s dealt with the demon.”
I sat upright and pulled my knees in. “According to him, that could take anywhere between now and never.
I didn’t have that long. I’d already decided, this morning, after a very frosty yoga session with Kenzie and Haley. I’d give everyone—including myself—a few more days to stew, then we were sorting out our shit.
Lex frowned. “That’s what you spoke to Gideon about?”
“Yes.” Amongst other things. “And it seems he’s nowhere near tracking and vanquishing it.”
“He can’t until the demon shows his face and trust me, Gideon has been looking,” Lex said. “This demon is staying out of the public eye, which is why it’s safer for you and your friends to stick close to town.”
I swigged on my cider and took another bite of pie and turned my gaze toward the trailing pinks and oranges of the sky. It was beautiful and romantic and here I was with suicides and freak accidents and other demonic mischiefs running amok inside my head. This was not how I’d wanted this date to go.
I moved us firmly in a better direction. “It’s breathtaking. Majestic and yet so quiet.”
Lex moved the hamper out the way and shifted closer, tucking an arm around me. “A graceful ending to soothe our souls after the chaos of each day.”
“There’s a poet inside you.” I turned my face up to him with a smile. “That’s what makes your art so special. You don’t just create a picture, you tell a story that slowly reveals its layers.”
“I’m not the first and I won’t be the last,” he murmured, lowering his eyes from the horizon to me. “I’m not unique.”
“You’re footprint is,” I said. “Have you ever considered showing your stuff at a gallery?”
“The Louder Than series was meant to be for a show,” he said. “Nothing big, just a young, up-and-coming talent thing in Philly.”
“That’s amazing.” I drew out from under his arm to look at him properly. “When?”
“Past tense,” he said. “Was meant.”
“The show was cancelled?”
He reached for a pie, avoiding my gaze. “I got cancelled.”
I struggled to believe that. I was no art critic, but Lex was too good. And the talent scouts must have seen that too, otherwise why had they selected him to begin with?
“You didn’t get cancelled,” I said, scrapping together the pieces of what I did know. “You dropped out of the show. Just like you dropped out of college. It’s because you’re an Eclipse Warlock, isn’t it? You’re not allowed to have your own dreams and ambitions outside the cause.”
“Yes and no,” he said around a mouthful of pie, surprising me with an answer that wasn’t wrapped inside ‘it’s complicated.’ He finished swallowing. “There’s something you need to know about me. It’s going to affect you sooner or later so long as you’re in my life.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He didn’t deny. “Remember what I said about the rift between Moon and Sun?”
“You’re mortal enemies or something.”
“I never told you why.” He put his arms out to rest back on his palms. “We can harness magic from another Moon or Sun to increase our power. It’s called Reaping. But Moon and Sun magic are like opposite poles of a magnet.”
“North and south attract,” I clarified. “North and north repel?”
He gave a nod. “Moon can Reap from Sun, and vice versa, but never from its own—the magic repels. Implodes. It kills you.”
“You hunt each other down to steal magic?”
“Not hunt exactly, more like take when a convenient moment arrives.” His mouth twitched. “And not since the Accords, a pact signed between us in 1902. But history has a long memory and…” He shrugged, as if it was nothing major “…there’s the occasional breach. The pact has broken down twice since the Accords were signed.”
I understood perfectly. Demons weren’t the only danger in Lex’s world. The fun just goes on and on. “There’ll never be true peace while one has something the other wants. That’s how every war ever started. Greed and power.”
I thought of Gideon and how powerful he was, and wondered how many of those occasional breaches he was responsible for.
“To be fair, it’s not just greed, it’s how we invoke,” Lex explained. “That first Reaping ignites our magic.”
“That’s why you won’t invoke,” I exclaimed. “It would mean breaching the pact.”
“That’s not the reason,” he said. “The Accords make provision for the Invocation, a ceremony held every five years. The Moon and Sun exchange one of their elderly, retired Warlocks for the Reaping. It’s all civilized and within the law.”
I chugged on my cider, draining the dregs from the bottle. I had a feeling this would be easier to hear if I weren’t entirely sober. “But there is a reason.”
“My mother didn’t just leave. It was a couple of months before I turned seventeen and an Invocation Ceremony was coming up. She’d never said anything about my father before but she couldn’t keep this secret any longer. He was Sun. Their relati
onship was forbidden for obvious reasons.”
My first impulse was to smile at the romance of it. His parents were Romeo and Juliet. But this wasn’t a tale of fiction and they weren’t actors who’d stand up and dust off the stage straw after the tragic ending.
“The council gave her over in the upcoming exchange,” Lex went on. “She was Reaped at the Sun Invocation Ceremony. Once her magic was gone, her mind was wiped and she was banished.”
“You never saw her again?” I asked, my heart crumbling for him. “You never looked for her?”
“Her punishment was harsh but honorable,” he said. “She wouldn’t know me and if I went looking, that would take away from her honor. I’ve already lost mine. I have both Moon and Sun blood and no one is sure how my magic will react. For me, invoking is a fucking game of Russian roulette. That’s why I dropped off the radar. There’s a ceremony coming up next year and now that I’m older, the council will dial up the pressure.”
“Not to invoke?” I gasped. “That’s a death sentence.”
“A possible death sentence,” he stressed. “My Moon magic could be dominant, or my mixed blood could allow me to harness either Moon or Sun.”
“Or you’re Sun or your mixed blood repels both.”
He grinned. “My chances are fifty-fifty either way. Those are odds our council can live with.”
A giddy laugh escaped me. I couldn’t help it. I’d only just finished school. I was supposed to be enjoying a summer of long, lazy days obsessing over the boy I was falling hopelessly in love with before starting college in the fall.
Instead I’d been lured away and threatened at knife point. My friendships were shattering around me and a warlock played fast and loose with my mind. A demon spirit was walking around in God knows whose body and now…and now I learnt a life and death decision hung over my boyfriend’s head.
It was utter madness.
The laughter dried up in my throat.
Utter madness was my new normal.
I tossed the empty cider bottle aside and crawled up to Lex, over him, straddling his legs so I could throw my arms around his neck. “Promise me you’re not thinking about invoking.”
Torment: Dark Paranormal Romance (Eclipse Warlocks Book 1) Page 20