Haunted by Shadows: Magic Wars: Demons of New Chicago Book Two

by Carpenter, Kel

  He was their bait.

  For us.

  For Nathalie.

  The wind died, and the ground settled, and all that power that she summoned without even realizing it left her at the guilty expression on his face.

  “Nat . . .” He sighed, stepping forward. “I didn’t mean . . .” She stepped back, and her bitch mother smirked. Goddamn, what I would have given to shoot it off her face.

  Parent or no parent, she was a piece of shit, and Nathalie deserved better.

  “You didn’t mean what, Barry? To betray me? Because that’s what it looks like from where I’m standing,” she said. She didn’t shout. The anger hadn’t set in yet—just that deep, cutting pain.

  “They knew I betrayed them when I helped you with Greta. They said if I left a note saying the pack took me, and then came here, those sins would be absolved. I could take my place. I could have a place. You’ve gotta understand—”

  “I understand just perfectly, Barry,” Nat said. “You sold me out for a spot with the very people that abused you.”

  “The demon found me, Nat. After that day in the club. But the Pleiades Coven knows a way out. I had to help them. You gotta believe me . . .” His words trailed off as her face closed down. I could sense the anger now rising, but it wasn’t hot like mine. Oh no, she wouldn’t burn. She went cold.

  “The demon?” I asked, drawing their attention back to me. They seemed to have forgotten that Dolores had me strung up like a pig for slaughter.

  Barry nodded. “He wanted me to—”

  “That’s enough,” Dolores said, cutting him off. “This has gone on long enough.” She snapped her fingers again, and two witches sprang forward. One grabbed Nathalie and the other pulled out a syringe.

  She opened her mouth to cast a command, but there wasn’t any time.

  The needle pierced her skin, and not even a second later, they pushed the plunger.

  She wavered, and our eyes met. I saw the helplessness there. The panic. The anger and the desperation.

  And then her eyes slanted closed, and she collapsed.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Barry said, reaching with one hand while standing still. Dolores rolled her eyes.

  “Get him out of here. Take my daughter down to the cellar to be prepped.”

  Prepped? What the fuck were they prepping her for? My stomach turned at the possibilities.

  “What about the Witch Hunter?” someone asked.

  I pressed my lips together, weighing the ballsy move it would be to light up. I could kill them all . . . but I’d probably end up killing Nat too. And on the off chance I didn’t, did I have enough juice to get us out before the crash?

  Not likely. She’d saved my ass the last couple of times I’d entered it.

  “Hmm,” she hummed, moving to stand in front of me. “I think I have just the place for you.”

  Her words might have tipped me over the edge, had she not followed them up with a sharp command in ancient Hebrew.

  Black spots appeared in my vision.

  The darkness closed in.

  But in my moment of weakness, I called out, “Ronan.”

  15

  Ronan

  I paused mid-stride.

  From the nether, out of the shadows, weak but there, my chosen name reached me.

  “Ronan,” she called. Her voice was a mere whisper on the wind.

  It had been a week since she entered stasis. Mere hours since she came out of it. Nathalie hadn’t contacted me in several days, but I felt my atma’s presence slip out of the nether. I latched onto the buzz in the back of my mind.

  The penthouse faded from me, along with her sister’s sleeping form. After the second exchange, I could feel the bond strengthening between us, taking shape. The first exchange let me visit her in her sleep, but the second went deeper. It gave me a general sense of her. A feel.

  Twenty minutes ago, panic had started to leak through.

  My connection to Nathalie went dead.

  Now she was calling to me, not in desire, not in anger, but in desperation.

  I retreated to the corners of my mind where our magics mingled. She was there in the darkness, standing strong and proud and gasping for breath.

  “Piper.”

  She wheeled around, her blue eyes tinged violet. She was close to her magic. Close to unleashing it.

  My hackles rose. She was supposed to be staying safe. Away from danger, yet here she was so close to breaking. If she did, she’d go back into stasis for even longer.

  I couldn’t allow that.

  “Are you controlling Barry?”

  Her question made me stop. The errand boy. She called out to me in a moment of weakness and was asking me about the fucking errand boy?

  “Does it matter?” I asked her instead of answering. Her lips thinned, and those violet eyes darkened to the color of mulberries. I shouldn’t goad her when she was so close, but the boy’s name on her lips incited something deep and primal in me.

  “Yes,” she snarled, taking a step forward. Her fist clenched at her side.

  “Why?” I demanded. She shook her head in anger and disgust. But instead of taking the swing, she stepped away.

  “This is a waste of time. I shouldn’t have called.”

  Her words cut deeper than her hate.

  The hate, I understood. It wasn’t for me, not truly. But this . . . this disappointment . . . no. That wouldn’t do.

  I grabbed her arm, caging it with my fingers around her wrist. She paused for half a second, then pivoted and swung.

  I could have stopped her. If she were anyone else, I would have.

  Instead, I took the punch aimed square at my jaw.

  A lesser man would have been knocked unconscious.

  A lesser demon would have yielded, as Aeshma and Lucifer had.

  But I was not lesser to anyone, not even my atma. I was her equal in every fucking way, so I took the hit, and I didn’t let go.

  The impact was a mere pinprick compared to what she did to me every day. Her eyes lightened as she assessed me with an inch more respect.

  I’d take it.

  “Feel better?” I asked her, yanking her arm and pulling her in. Her eyes dropped a fraction, toward my lips, and I smirked.

  “I’d feel better if you told me why you’re controlling Barry. I don’t even know the guy. What purpose does that—”

  “His job was to keep tabs on you and the witch. To let me know where you went. To run my errands when I asked. That was it.” It was an effort to keep the growl out of my tone, but I did. For her sake.

  “Errands?” she scoffed. “What errands does a demon have?”

  My smirk turned wolfish. She was curious about me. About my world. About who I was. She just didn’t want to admit it. Slowly but surely, she was coming to me. Just as I said she would.

  “Did you think that I would wait around all day for you to do something stupid and enter stasis?” I asked. She blinked once and scowled, pulling a dark chuckle from me. “You brought me to this world, Piper. I intend to make it mine, but to do that, I have to understand more about it and its occupants. The humans, the supernaturals, my other brethren that have crossed over already . . .” I trailed, my thoughts turning to another problem I’d yet to solve: my brother.

  “Make it yours,” she repeated. Those damning eyes dropped to my lips again, tugging on my fragile self-control when it came to her.

  I lifted my hand to her cheek and ran my thumb over her bottom lip.

  Beautiful as they were, I preferred it when my blood was smeared on them.

  “You’ll come to learn, Piper, that our territorial instincts run very deep. The stronger the demon, the deeper they are. I need to establish myself here and start claiming territory. Your home is New Chicago, so that is where I’ll start.”

  She blinked in surprise, then masked it behind apathy. “Not if I send you back to Hell first.”

  Her reply was forced. Weak. There was a time not so long ago she threatened
me with conviction, but that desire was fading. The blood exchanges, and her own mercurial emotions, were wearing her down.

  “Why did you call for me, Piper?” I asked her, grabbing her other shoulder.

  She turned her chin, seeming to consider what to say—as though she were deciding whether or not to tell me at all. I wanted to shake her for her stubbornness, but it would do me no good.

  “Because I had no one else to call,” she said eventually. “Barry betrayed us to the witches. They want Nat for some reason I’ve yet to figure out. They also have Lucifer, and I suspect they are the ones who’ve been trying to kill me. But that also doesn’t make sense because I’m still here. If they wanted me dead, I would be.”

  She looked off into the void surrounding us, not seeming to realize that I stiffened or what it meant.

  “The witches have you?” I asked softly.

  She nodded. “And Nat, and Lucifer. He’s in a pentagram. I think they plan to use him to do some kind of black magic siphoning spell.”

  If they did, that explained some of why I couldn’t find him, but not all.

  “How did they subdue him?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. Her words sounded right, but there was something subtle underneath it. Something almost imperceptible.

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  “I have suspicions, that’s not the same.”

  I grabbed her chin and turned her face back to me. “Tell me.”

  “No,” she said. “Some truths you have to earn. So piss off, or better yet, figure out a way to find us and stop the coven. Can’t you use Barry for that?”

  I sighed. “The boy dropped off my radar shortly after our second exchange. I’ve been too preoccupied to consider why.”

  Piper didn’t respond at first, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. “He said the witches knew a way out. I’m guessing whatever you did to Greta McArthur you also did to him?”

  It was odd to see her question and yet not accuse.

  “Yes, but the boy had fewer restrictions. Greta and the Antares Coven were given orders to kill themselves if they talked or tried to escape. The boy wasn’t as resistant. He bargained for power.”

  She nodded once, no doubt reminded of a younger version of herself and the choices she’d made. There was just one difference.

  Barry McArthur did it for his ambitions.

  Piper did it to protect the very family she lost.

  She viewed herself as the villain of her own story, but she was closer to a dark knight. Even after her loss, she tried to protect the humans of this world in her own way. All she knew was violence and death, and she used it to right wrongs—not make them.

  “It’s not the same,” I murmured after a moment of no response. She didn’t ask what I meant. We both knew.

  “It’s close enough,” she replied. “I’m waking up. Find Nathalie and figure out what the Pleiades Coven is up to.”

  “If you think I’m leaving you with them—” I began.

  Piper chuckled. “By all means, Ronan, try to find me, but I’m known as the Witch Hunter in certain circles. I suspect whatever they have planned might kill me. Odds are I’ll need to save myself first.”

  Her eyes were still that lilac tint when she faded from the void.

  My hands dropped to my sides and curled into fists.

  Piper thought she was alone. That I couldn’t find her before whatever end the witches had planned.

  But I’d found her across worlds. Across dimensions.

  I had once said there was nowhere she could hide that I would not follow.

  The same was true if she were hidden from me.

  The witches didn’t know who they were messing with. They didn’t understand the power they were testing.

  This world feared my brother because he was the devil, but soon they were going to find out that there are worse things to face. Worse fates than being damned.

  They took my atma. If they hurt her, they would pay the price.

  16

  The cold touched me before anything else. I rolled over, and my stiff muscles protested.

  “Son of a bitch,” I grumbled, still half-asleep.

  “Wakey wakey,” a voice I vaguely recognized said, just moments before the freezing water hit me.

  I sat up straight as a board, spluttering frigid water from my lips. I coughed, and it came out my nose. The cold intensified. My button-down shirt and slacks I’d worn to Nathalie’s family mansion now soaked through with water.

  “What the fuck?” I groused, peering through narrowed eyes. The lighting was dim. That was good. Made it easier to make out the woman that stood in front of me holding a bucket. My lips pressed together when I noticed her twin at the door, hands on her hips.

  Sasha and Sienna.

  Great.

  It would be just my luck that wherever I was, the first people I woke up to were ones who’d already betrayed me once before.

  Fire sparked in my chest as anger took hold. Like a lover cast aside, it was never far from me. Always waiting in the wings for that moment that I would slip and go back to it.

  I clenched my fists in the wet sheets as I got a hold on that anger and weighed my options.

  “Rise and shine, Piper,” Sienna sang in a mocking voice. “You need to get ready.”

  “Ready?” I repeated, a little of that anger slipping, giving way to surprise. “Get ready for what? Last thing I remember, Dolores Le Fay used a sleeping spell on me. Where’s Nat? The coven? And why are you two here? Don’t you have a dick to suck?”

  Sasha narrowed her eyes. Clearly not amused by my succubus quip.

  “The witches sold you. Or more accurately, handed you over,” Sienna said slowly. “You’re in the pits.”

  The pits . . .

  “But Lucifer—”

  “Was taken. You should know that, given you’re the one that took his power,” Sasha said in a snarky and slightly bitter tone.

  “I . . .” Was at a loss for words, apparently.

  When the witches knocked me out, I half expected not to wake up. Or if I did, the hundred scenarios that ran through my mind didn’t include being back in the pits of the Underworld.

  “Get up. We don’t have long, and I don’t want to be at the end of another punishment because a fighter wasn’t ready on time,” Sasha said with a roll of her dolled-up eyes.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “In case you forgot, you both lied to me. I really don’t give a shit what happens to you, so if you want me to get up, you best start explaining a few things.”

  Sienna sighed. “Sasha, go get Dannika ready.”

  “Dannika doesn't need help—” the succubus cat shifter started.

  “She does now,” Sienna replied in a harder tone. She lifted one eyebrow and jutted her chin toward the door. Sasha looked between us before huffing a muttered insult under her breath and leaving.

  The metal door slammed shut, ringing in my ears. I didn’t need to look around to figure out I was in some sort of cement cell. There were bars over the tiny window in the door, for fuck’s sake.

  “Start talking,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

  She silently set the bucket down and grabbed a thin piece of black material.

  “Whatever happened between you and Lucifer crippled him. He could barely open his eyes, let alone walk. When the witches came, he was defenseless. They took him, and then they took over the Underworld,” she said, speaking low, as if worried someone might hear. “Sasha and I couldn’t protect him. We couldn’t even protect ourselves. We’ve had to adapt. Because we were already looked at as objects, it was simply a change of hands.”

  “So the witches own the pits now?” I asked.

  It made sense at least. It was just a form of punishment I hadn’t considered.

  “More or less,” she said. I lifted an eyebrow, silently prompting her. Sienna sighed. “The witches took over the Underworld, but it was gifted to the Morrigan. She owns the pits, and from what I coul
d hear when they brought you in, she asked for you specifically. Do you know why she wants you?”

  Shit.

  The Morrigan, otherwise known as Morgan Le Fay, was no joke. Witches had mortal life spans, but not her. Rumor had it she sacrificed other witches to stay young and beautiful throughout the centuries. She didn’t rule the Le Fay line in the traditional sense, but she was highly regarded among all witches and warlocks.

  Mostly because she was batshit crazy and extremely powerful.

  The latter mostly came about from being the first witch to possess black magic. Her line spawned from tricking her own brother—dear Arthur—into impregnating her, creating the first bloodline of black magic.

  “I would assume it’s because of my reputation with witches, but I’m pretty sure she’s killed more than I have throughout history.”

  Sienna nodded slowly. “Well, whatever the reason, you likely won’t have to wait long. You’re up next, per the Morrigan’s request.”

  I pressed my lips together as she extended the black bundle of fabric.

  I eyed her wearily.

  “I don’t trust you.” Even as I said it, I took the fabric.

  She snorted. “I would be surprised if you did. If it makes you feel better, though, you certainly weren’t the first to fall for that act. That was our actual job. Spying, not fucking. Lucifer bought us when we were thirteen, but he didn’t touch us until we came of age and we asked for it. A succubus’ first feed is very intimate. We trusted him more than anything and wanted to go through it together. After some convincing, he agreed.” She laughed under her breath, a little bitter as she seemed to recall something. “Everyone assumed the worst of him, but they were supposed to. Including you. We knew who you were before we entered that room. What you were. I didn’t want to perpetuate his image that way with you, but it was Lucifer’s decision. He said you expected the worst and wouldn’t believe it if we told you it was all a front. He said it was best to give you the worst version of him so that when he didn’t fuck up, it was a pleasant surprise.”

  I frowned. Part of me didn’t want to know this. Didn’t want to humanize him like this. He was the devil, and I was the one that made him vulnerable. Somehow.