by Elena Lawson
19
We go on like that for days.
They all start to meld together. If it weren’t for my counting the hours since Kincaid left, I wouldn’t even know that it’d been precisely four and a half days now. Hedging on four.
Training keeps me busy, but not busy enough to forget that someone out there is stripping souls from the bodies of ancient demon lords. That Kincaid could already be a soulless corpse somewhere before I even had the chance to do a damned thing about it.
I convince myself it isn’t true, that I would feel it somehow if anything happened to him, but I know that’s probably not true.
“Quit sulking,” Lady Devereaux chastises at dinner. Artemis has become quite the little cook this week, having found a few dusty cookbooks in the cupboard above the fridge. I think he’s happy to have something to keep him busy aside from watching the training sessions.
I also think he really likes demanding all manner of different ingredients from Kincaid’s henchmen outside, casually mentioning that their lord wouldn’t be pleased if they didn’t get what he asked.
We’ve had mostly burnt lasagna, a horribly overcooked turkey, and a runny quiche, but the meals were all better than our usual cold canned goods and crackers. Tonight, though, he’s really outdone himself, and I wish I had the stomach to enjoy it because the spaghetti and meatballs are likely the best I’ve ever tasted, and it was one of Ford’s usual meals.
“Is it that bad?” Artemis asks, and I look up to find him watching me. I stop pushing the bits of beef and noodles around on my plate and lay my fork down.
“No, Art, it’s actually really good. I’m just…not that hungry, I guess.”
“You’re always hungry,” he argues, and he isn’t wrong, except for right now.
Tori’s words replay in my mind. They’ve been my mantra since he left. He always comes back.
He always comes back.
All I can do is wait.
I sequester myself in the basement after dinner, needing the cool solitude of thick cement and stone walls. My mind is too tired to bother trying to ward off the spirits that now stay clustered around the property at all hours of the day and night. The bracelets help, but it’s still tiresome trying to ignore them.
There must be some otherworldly gossip mill churning out there. Either that or they’re simply drawn to my power. Perhaps it’s both. I make a mental note to ask Devereaux about it tomorrow and yawn, stretching out my neck and shoulders in the recliner and jostling Casper in the process.
“See,” I tell him, pointing a finger to the screen. “That’s who I named you after. Isn’t he cute?”
Casper makes a noncommittal sound and drops his head once more, nuzzling his little pink nose into his paws on my knee. “Come on,” I tell him through another yawn, scooching him off my lap since he likes to hiss at me when I lift him up. “We should go to bed.”
It’s easy to lose time down here where there isn’t a single window to let in natural light. For all I know it could already be the wee hours of the morning, and I’ll have to get up after only a few hours of rest. My Diablim blood makes that more easily possible, but Lady Devereaux’s all-day-long lessons would wear out even a full-blooded demon, I think.
Casper pauses on the stairs, his body going rigid while only his tail twitches in the air.
“Casper?”
His hackles rise, and he launches himself out of the basement, making my heart leap into my throat. A flood of power reserves leak into my veins and I feel the rush of spirit energy chase away the ice biting at the tips of my fingers.
I rush to chase him, praying that Artemis is safely tucked into his bed with the door locked. Praying that it’s only a rat or that one of the henchmen has come too close to the house.
But then I sense him. His soul a speck of growing dark in a bright sky.
“Kincaid!” I call, rushing through the kitchen, the dining room, the library and through to the sitting room.
A strange scent permeates the air and for a heart-stopping second I think it’s not him after all. That it’s someone else. Someone very unwelcome.
But then I see him. He kneels in the entryway, steam rising from his shoulders. His face and clothing coated in a fine grayish dust. He lays down a long stone coffin on the marble tile to the staccato sound of hastening footsteps upstairs.
My shouts obviously woke the others.
“Kincaid?” I venture, coming to kneel down in front of him on the other side of the strange coffin hewn of ivory stone.
He looks up and it takes a minute for his eyes to focus on me—for him to see me. His brows unfurl and his lips part as recognition dawns.
“Na’vazēm.”
“What happened?”
“About time you returned,” Lady Devereaux tuts from the base of the stairs, clinging a fluffy emerald robe around her frail bones.
Kincaid shakes his head and brushes a hand over the coffin, his fingers tremble slightly, and I grip his hand, forcing him to look at me.
“What happened?” I urge again, looking between him and the stone box. “Is this…is this Dantalion?”
His lips tighten. “Someone tried to take his body.”
Devereaux and I share a look. I wonder if she’s thinking what I am. That they didn’t mean to take it. They meant to destroy it.
“They fled when I arrived at HighTower. If I went after them, I would’ve risked someone finishing the job.”
“HighTower? Who was it? Did you see?”
Kincaid slides his hand out of mine and pushes up from his knees to stand, watching the coffin with a wary eye. “No. But only us three and the soul of my brother knew I interned it there.”
His ochre eyes lift to mine, and in them I see barely restrained rage. “You’ve been to HighTower before,” he adds in a deadpan monotone. “It’s my fortress.”
In Hell.
That was where he transported us from the Midnight Court.
His gaze slides to Artemis and Lady Devereaux, and a sneer curls his lips back from clenched teeth.
“Kincaid,” I gasp, stepping over the coffin to block him. “They didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Artemis goes whiter than the sheet he has clenched around his middle, and Lady Devereaux folds her arms over her chest, clearly not at all impressed by his insinuation. She obviously doesn’t know him well enough to know that the look on his face right now spells only one word: murder.
When he doesn’t back down, I try another tactic. “Wouldn’t that be where anyone would expect you to keep it?”
He falters, some of the tension leaving his jaw.
“I mean, where else would you keep it? And how do you know whoever it was didn’t look in a hundred other places first before finding it at HighTower? Besides, they were here with me the whole time.”
He holds up a hand to stop me, and I shut up, dropping my hands from his overheated chest.
He pulls in a shaky breath and rolls his shoulders.
“It’s someone from Hell, then?” I muse, trying to make sense of it myself.
“Or someone who can travel there,” he says in a growl, and I hate how he isn’t looking at me. He can’t possibly think that I…
No.
That’s ridiculous.
“Okay,” I say, beginning to pace the small space between Kincaid and the others. “So, one of your other brothers then? They’re the only ones who can, right?”
He shakes his head. “It can’t be them. I’ve had tails on all of them since Malphas.”
There may be a lot of love between Kincaid and his brothers, but I was starting to understand that love didn’t mean there was also trust. I suppose a millennium of life could really create a layered and very chaotic relationship.
“Besides, none of them wield spirit magic.”
“With an accomplice, then?” Devereaux rasps, clearing her throat.
Kincaid pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment before lifting Dantalion in his stone box from t
he floor with ease, hefting the long slender piece onto his shoulder before striding from the room.
“I think maybe I’ll just go back to bed,” Artemis mutters, and I give him a little nod before he goes.
Lady Devereaux follows me as I follow Kincaid through to the dining room where he has laid Dantalion’s coffin atop the dining room table, scuffing the surface irreparably by the look of it.
He shakily pours a glass of amber liquid, though he does not drain it, just takes a few small swallows as he watches the coffin as though it will grow jaws and spill all of the secrets he wishes to know.
“Powerful spirit workers are extremely rare,” he says, his gaze never leaving his brother. “I can think of only three even possibly powerful enough to accomplish this, and two of them are here already.”
Is it weird that I should feel pride at his offhanded compliment when there’s a corpse between us?
“With an amplifier, perhaps,” Devereaux offers. “Something like the Spirit Scepter could bestow enough additional power on the wielder to—”
“There is nothing like the Scepter.”
“Except for its twin, of course,” she argues. “They were forged in Hell for Lucifer himself half a millennium ago. I haven’t the faintest idea how one could have wound up here, but if one has, then you can be sure it’s possible the other one is on this earth as well.”
I lick my dry lips and sit carefully at the head of the table, near the head of Dantalion’s corpse. “You said you knew of three who were powerful enough. That leaves one who could be responsible. Maybe they have the other Scepter?”
“It’s still doubtful. His power doesn’t compare to yours, and I’m not even certain you would be strong enough to pull a demon’s soul from his body.”
I don’t disagree with him even though I think he might be wrong. I’ve only just begun my training. I don’t say so, but I have no doubt that with enough years of practice, I would be able to do just that.
I’m not sure how he would feel to know that.
Devereaux lifts her chin. “With enough vigorous training and a great many years, anything is possible, especially with a tool as robust as one of the twinned Scepters.”
“Do you know where I might find him?”
Devereaux snorts, and I get the sense she knows exactly who he’s referring to. Did all Necromancers know each other, then?
“Well, normally, I’d say drowned in liquor at one of the pubs in Aetherium, but, if he truly is to blame for this, then I don’t know.”
Kincaid dumps the rest of his drink down his throat and sets the heavy glass down on the liquor cabinet. “I cannot keep leaving. It isn’t safe,” he grunts.
I go to his side and refill his glass for him, taking a small sip before pressing it into his hand. “If you don’t, then it’s only a matter of time until one of your other brothers fall.”
The pain in his gaze tells me it was both the right thing—and the wrong thing—to say. What I’ve left unsaid hovers there, too; it could be him that’s next.
“You have to do this.”
…because I can’t lose you.
I’ve never had anything or anyone to lose before. It’s a terrifying thing—caring for another living being. I’m not sure I like it.
Devereaux wanders over and digs out Kincaid’s Port, unstoppering the bottle by yanking the cork out with her yellowed teeth.
“She’s right, you know.”
She takes a long pull and swipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. “If you lose any more lords, it’ll all fall to shit. We’ll all be sent straight back to the pit we came from. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not commingle with all the souls I sent back there over the last four-hundred years.”
She takes the bottle with her as she goes and we hear the stairs creak and groan under her weight a couple moments later.
“Will you go then?” I ask when Kincaid makes no move to leave or speak.
“Tomorrow,” he decides. “I’ll have Tori stay here with you until I return. And I’ll double the guards on the property. You’ll be safe.”
“It isn’t me I’m worried about.”
Without warning, he sets down his glass and hauls me to him, burying his face in my hair. Small bits of rock and plaster dust fall onto my nose and cheeks, but I don’t care.
“Just eleven more days. I need your help, Na’vazēm. Just a little longer and I’ll see you home. You’ll be safer there.”
I move to pull away, confused at his meaning, but he just holds me tighter, his grip near crushing as he shakily sighs against my temple. I’m going to ask him what he means when he pulls away, but all rational thought abandons my mind as he presses his mouth to mine in a tender kiss that sends shivers skating down my spine and makes my toes curl.
“To bed?” he whispers against my lips, and it’s my turn to shut him up, kissing him again, harder this time, making his chest rise sharply with a lustful intake of breath.
He passes me the remnants of his drink and then scoops me up into his arms, almost making me spill its contents all over the both of us. He spares a glance for his brother before carrying me from the room.
“Will he be safe here? Shouldn’t we bring him with us?”
A muscle in his jaw jumps, and I smooth it back to resting with the brush of my palm. He presses into my touch, grip tightening on the back of my knees. “As safe as he can be,” he purrs. “And soulless or not, I’ll not have my brother’s corpse bear witness to the things I intend to do to you.”
20
“Did someone say there was a party at this address?” Tori asks when I open the door to her grinning face the next day.
“There will be no such thing,” Kincaid warns, appearing at the top of the stairs. His voice alone is enough to trigger a visceral response in my body, and I press my legs together, clearing my throat and dropping my gaze as I wave Tori inside.
She sets down two grocery bags with a cheeky smirk and shrugs. “Party for two will have to do, I suppose,” she relents.
“Hi,” I say, breathing in her lavender when she wraps her slender arms around me.
“Hey, kitten, how you holding up?”
“Fine.” I try for nonchalance, but I can tell right away she isn’t buying it. “You know you don’t have to bring groceries every time you come, right?”
“If I didn’t, who would make sure there’s food in this house?”
“Artemis has gotten surprisingly good at ordering Kincaid’s henchmen around. We have more than can fit in the fridge at this point.”
“I’m making steak and roasted sweet potato wedges tonight,” Artemis says with a prideful grin, rushing past Kincaid to bound down the steps. “You eat meat, right?”
Tori tugs him in for a sideways hug and fluffs up his hair, messing it up even more than it’d already been.
He detangles himself from her with an indignant chuckle, blushing like the boy I sometimes forget he is.
“Yes, I eat meat,” she laughs. “I like mine rare, though. Don’t fuck it up.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He salutes her and leaves while Kincaid makes his way down and Tori gathers up her bags from the floor again.
“It’s not just groceries by the way,” she says, holding out one of the plastic bags to me. I peer inside, seeing clear jars of something pink and purple and a roll of black material with little silver things poking out one end. “I noticed your hair was getting a little…”
I wince. “Is it that bad?”
She bites her lip and shuffles the bag to inspect my ends. “We’ll get it all fixed up.”
“Do you even know how to cut hair, Tori?” Kincaid asks, taking the bag from Tori’s hands to inspect it himself. He unrolls the thick cloth to reveal a few pairs of sharp silver scissors and clips and combs.
She snatches it back from him. “I’ll have you know I’ve been cutting my own hair for years and I’m pretty damned good at it, thank you very much.”
A small grin tugs at one cor
ner of his mouth, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He places a large hand on Tori’s shoulder and the aloofness drains from her expression. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”
Her ashen skin flexes around her temples and the conviction in her voice would convince any man of the veracity of her words. “I won’t. I promise.”
Their staredown lasts another couple of seconds before Kincaid squeezes her shoulder and then goes to retrieve his staff.
“Come on,” Tori prods me, looping her arm through mine. “Let’s go do something about that hair.”
“But…” I trail off, wanting to say goodbye. But before I can untangle myself from her, Kincaid’s staff taps twice on the tile and by the time I turn around, he’s gone.
“So is there a method to this madness?”
Tori gestures vaguely at my head, lifting a few strands of hair to get a better look at the sections beneath.
“Um,” I say, trying to relax. “More pink toward the top and purple at the ends.”
It all just kind of looks like a mess of pale grayish-pink at the moment and I don’t blame her for wondering.
“Cut?”
“Whatever,” I shrug. “It grows fast.”
She grins, and I think I should maybe take that back. Tori pulls off her short black pixie cut like a fucking supermodel. I doubt I’d get away with looking half as good in the same haircut. “Maybe…not too short though?”
She pouts. “Fine. Just a trim then.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
I take the drink she passes me. It’s a cocktail of some kind that she’s been mixing on top of my dresser. A dark pinkish liquor mixed with a vibrant blue one and topped up with something fizzy and white in a label-less bottle.
It smells like candy but with the bite of alcohol beneath all the sweet layers. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”
She twists the caps off the colored dyes and stretches gloves over her hands. “But your body might not tomorrow. Just drink lots of water before bed, yeah?”
“Thanks.” I take a sip, and the sweet artificial raspberry flavor slides down my throat with ease. “Mmmm.”