“Oh, darling, you’re no fun.”
The demon flickered for a moment becoming the lush black-haired woman he’d seen at Samantha’s house, before she took on Leda’s lovely features again. She slid one long leg over Hunter’s thighs and slid onto his lap.
Hunter let go of his sword and fastened his grip around the demon’s throat. “My favorite method of killing demons is ripping their heads off with my bare hands.”
She laughed, a rumbling purr. “You won’t kill me, Immortal. I’m not your garden-variety demon. I’ll find one for you if you like, a lesser breed, and you can amuse yourself pulling off his head if you want.”
“But it would be more fun to rip off yours.”
Hunter knew even as he spoke that this demon possessed more power than any Hunter had ever felt. He recognized that she was the demon who’d sent the death magic storm to the island, and knew she could destroy this car, the driver, and a twenty-mile radius of freeway with the flick of a finger. She was an Old One who’d grown more powerful than any Old One Hunter had fought in his long lifetime.
“Which demon are you?” he asked.
She leaned into him, breasts in her tight satin dress pressing his chest. “Why should I tell you? So you can bind me with my name?”
“You’d never tell me your true name, any more than I’d tell you mine.”
“But I know your name, Immortal. Or I will. I have Tain as my pet, and he’ll tell me.”
Hunter gave her a fierce smile. “Then he hasn’t told you yet.”
Annoyance crossed her features. “It’s only a matter of time. You can call me Kehksut if you want. Or Amadja. Or Culsu. Whatever you please.”
“How about Get-off-me-you-bitch?”
Kehksut ran clawed fingers down Hunter’s chest, tearing the fabric of his shirt and drawing blood from his skin. “Now Hunter, honey, that’s no way to talk. I want you. I have your brother, but I want you too. What a sweet threesome we’d make.”
“I only do threesomes with women, and not demons.”
“Doesn’t matter. I will have you in the end. I seduced Tain, and I will seduce you. And then the others. I’m already working to bring in Darius and Kalen, and their witch bitches won’t stop me.” Kehksut looked momentarily frustrated, and Hunter wondered whether Kalen and Darius had found themselves women as sweet and strong as Leda. Good on them if they had. The demon smoothed her expression again. “I’ll soon have a nice collection of Immortals.”
Hunter wondered why this demon wanted—or needed—the Immortals together. Tain talked about draining the world of magic in order to die, but Hunter couldn’t imagine the powerful demon in this car sacrificing herself to ease Tain’s pain, particularly when she’d caused that pain in the first place.
So why did she want the Immortals? To make sure all the brothers died together? Or for some other purpose?
Hunter tried to slide the demon off his lap, but she clung to him, her death magic wrapping him like chains. She licked his neck. “Come with me, sweetheart. I’ll take you to a beautiful place.”
“Sorry, there’s somewhere I have to be.”
“A meeting with Septimus? He’ll get over it if you miss an appointment.”
Hunter focused on her perfect face. “Why don’t you want me to see him? Will he tell me something that will help me kill you?”
Her lip curled. “The vampire knows nothing, as much as he tries to thwart me. I am saving his death to savor as a treat. Right now, you will come with me.”
A portal opened behind Kehksut, a maw into blackness. Dark wind blew from the portal, rank and evil. Hunter called forth every bit of his magic he could, white hot fires he’d inherited from Kali, a force of destruction greater than any demon could imagine. The car rippled with white light, entwined with the dark magic of a demon who’d fed on millions of deaths. Hunter and the demon grappled in silent fury, Hunter’s sword falling unheeded to the plush carpeted floor.
The portal expanded, widening to enclose the demon, then Hunter. Hunter’s sword spun like a weathervane, coming to rest pointing where Hunter had sat. Then the portal closed, and the light winked out.
The driver, oblivious, pulled the car to a halt in front of Septimus’s club, which was quiet for the day. He looked around nervously, not quite trusting Septimus’s influence to keep demons away from the neighborhood, then got out and opened the back door for the weird being Septimus called an Immortal.
The driver gaped, then he swore. The backseat was empty except for a steel serpentine sword lying alone and forlorn on the black carpet.
Kelly and Samantha watched with interest as Leda dragged her bag of accoutrements from the bedroom and began to unpack.
“I’d have preferred to do the locator spell at your mother’s house,” Leda said as she worked, “but that’s not an option anymore.”
“Do you think you can find her?” Samantha sounded less than hopeful.
Leda began opening the windows that led to the deck overlooking the sea. “The aura of this place will help. My magic is strongest where air flows unimpeded—on top of mountains, by the sea, in the middle of the desert. Plus this place is powerfully magical. If a locator spell will work, it will work here.”
Leda hung wind chimes from a hook on the deck, letting the sea air shimmer through them, a sweet, bright sound. She set yellow pillar candles around the living room, then brought out her mortar and pestle to prepare a mixture of frankincense, sandalwood, and patchouli. This she sprinkled it into a small bowl she used as a brazier.
“Do you mind if I stay?” Kelly asked. “I find magic fascinating.”
Leda looked her over. In spite of Kelly’s relationship with a vampire, her aura was clean and strong, which would lend itself to Leda’s spell. Samantha too, had a powerful aura, and in this case, her death magic might help, since her mother had been brushed with it.
“Sure, I don’t mind. You wouldn’t happen to have a map, would you?” Leda had searched for paper maps in the house, but hadn’t found any. Adrian had a paucity of personal possessions and no maps at all. A man who always knew where he was going.
“I’ll check.” Kelly lifted her cell phone in slender, manicured fingers and called her housekeeper. Within half an hour, her housekeeper had delivered five maps—of Los Angeles, Southern California, the entire state, the western U.S., and the entire country. Manny provided sea salt and a bowl from the kitchen, along with matches to light the incense.
It had been a while since Leda had cast a circle. She’d had the habit of casting one every other day or so to do devotions or work light magic, but the increase in death magic had made her circles scary of late. Plus she’d not liked the feeling of the death magic inside her, knocking against her clean, innate air magic.
Leda regretted slacking off on circles now, because she was out of practice. She found it difficult to empty her mind and concentrate only on the circle and its magic. But drawing forth her energy now that Hunter had taken the dark magic from her heart was refreshing, exhilarating. Once again, she reflected on the gift he’d given her.
Leda opened her mind to the ley line under Adrian’s house, and at the same time reached for the fresh air that poured over the ocean. The wind filled her, power swirling through her in colored streaks of light.
She relaxed into the magic, knowing it worked best when she let the element flow through her. She asked the Goddess to enter here. Scrubbed of death magic, Leda reveled in the heady feeling of her full power.
She began looking for magic in the spaces around her. On her right she felt the drag of Samantha’s death magic, a small black taint in the otherwise bright white magic of Adrian’s home. Hunter’s power swirled through the house like golden fire. He’d reinforced Adrian’s wards, his magic and his brother’s mixing in a wild twist. Kelly was neutral, her aura touched by neither kind of magic. Septimus hadn’t marked her or made her a blood slave. Interesting.
Leda had spread a map of greater Los Angles across the table. She’d ask
ed Samantha more questions about her mother, so Leda could focus the magic on a specific person, and Samantha had provided information plus a photograph of a happy-looking woman with dark hair and brown eyes. Leda placed the photograph on the table, and held a crystal pendulum on a thin chain suspended over the map.
“By Luna and the gods of the air, reveal your sister, Joanne Taylor.” Leda closed her eyes, holding the pendulum still. She waited for it to move, to pull firmly in one direction or the other, to give her a starting point at least.
“It isn’t working,” Samantha said nervously after a few minutes. The darkness of her aura stirred, awakened by her despair.
“Give it a moment. Magic isn’t all flash and show, you know.”
“It feels good, though,” Kelly said. “Like a great meditation session.”
Leda stilled herself, trying to quiet her emotions and feel the nuances of the pendulum, but her argument this morning with Hunter had left her restless and hurt. She knew what she felt for him would only cause her more pain in the long run, and he was probably right—they should have fun and end it with a clean break.
I don’t want a clean break, her treacherous thoughts ran. I want you, Hunter. I want to get to know all of you, from your crooked smile to your beautiful body, to the way you growl before you come inside me. I want to have that for the rest of my life.
The pendulum jumped under Leda’s fingers. With effort, Leda pulled her concentration back to the crystal and Samantha’s mother. The pendulum stilled again, hanging limply. Leda thought she might have imagined the move, but she waited, trying to have patience.
The pendulum abruptly swung in a hard arc north. The incense Leda had sprinkled on the map moved with it, tracing a trail that led north beyond the Santa Monica Mountains. The trail kept going, right off the edge of the paper.
Leda smiled in excitement. “We’ll have to use a bigger map, but it’s working—”
She broke off as the black powder of incense began to swirl in circles, faster and faster. As the three women watched, eyes wide, the pendulum caught in the swirls, twisting in Leda’s hand until the chain broke.
The map exploded. Candles, brazier, and pendulum flew across the room, Leda barely letting go of the chain before it was ripped away from her. The whirling powder gathered into a point and surged to the ceiling, in an arrow of solid, dirty black. Then the incense burst apart like sand in a ferocious storm and slashed down to the three below.
Kelly screamed, and Samantha swore. Leda dove under the table, shielding her face with her arms. The powder cut and burned her skin, the black rain viciously beating on her.
Then, after one final slap, everything went still. The incense hung in midair for a silent moment, then fell in a rush to the floor.
Leda crawled shakily out from under the table. Kelly lowered her arms, her skin smeared with blood, and stared at the pile of ash that had been the map.
Samantha, breathing hard, wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth. “What the hell was that?”
“Demon,” Leda said, her voice barely working. She’d tasted the tang of death magic on the air, the bite of something intensely evil.
“Demon as in my father? And he has my mother hidden?”
“I don’t know.” Leda stared at the ash, loathe to touch it. “That was a very strong counter-spell, a hell of a shield against locators. Is your father that powerful?”
Samantha shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but I don’t really know. We never exactly had a father-daughter talk.”
“You might have your chance now,” Kelly said from the front window. She’d left the table as soon as everything had quieted, snatching up paper towels to dab off her skin. She now gazed out at the bright morning at something that had caught her interest.
Leda heard Mukasa’s rumbling before she reached Kelly’s side. The lion stood at the end of the driveway, his bulk squarely blocking a man with black hair from coming any closer to the house. The man was too far away for Leda to make out his features, but his dark aura clashed with the life magic around the house.
Beside her, Samantha growled, “That’s him all right. The demon who calls himself my father.”
“Then it couldn’t have been him doing the counter-spell,” Leda said. “If he’s strong enough to get through the wards of two Immortals to counter-spell me he wouldn’t be stuck at the end of the driveway hoping Mukasa isn’t hungry.”
Samantha gave her a surprised look before she slammed out of the house and started down the drive at a run. Leda went after her. Leda didn’t think this demon was the one who’d stopped her spell—that magic had been incredible, more like what had been thrown at them on the island before Hunter had protected them against it.
Samantha stopped at the very end of the driveway, sensibly staying inside the shield of life magic. Leda reached her the next moment, finding Samantha face to face with the demon who’d come to call.
He was handsome, like all demons, and had a muscular, honed body in ordinary human clothing. He was watching Mukasa out of the corner of his eye, even as he glared at Samantha—demons were difficult to kill, but a lion eating one would probably do the trick.
“Where is she?” he and Samantha both snarled at the same time.
“What are you talking about?” Samantha demanded. “What the hell did you do with my mother?”
The demon regarded Samantha in fury, but the look in his eyes was as worried as the one in Samantha’s. “I didn’t do anything with her,” he snapped. “Where did you hide her? I went to the house. I saw her blood.”
“You think I did that?”
“I think you never forgave your mother for falling in love with a demon.”
“In love?” Samantha yelled. “That’s a joke—”
“Stop!” Leda held up her hands and bravely stepped between them. They both turned to glare at her. “If neither of you know where she is, don’t you think we’d better figure out what happened to her?”
“He took her,” Samantha said, tears in her eyes.
Leda studied the demon. “No, I don’t think he did.”
For one thing, the worried expression. He had typical demon good looks, silky black hair, eyes that made you want to promise him your soul. Though he had a daughter in her late twenties, the demon appeared to be only about thirty himself—an illusion—he was probably in his hundreds—but a good one.
“I would never hurt your mother,” he said, tightlipped.
“You enslaved her. How is that not hurting her?”
“That was different.”
Leda held up her hands again. “All right, both of you be quiet, or I’ll let Mukasa sort this out. You obviously need to talk—with me as a referee.”
“I’m not talking to him, Leda. You have no idea . . .”
“You’re right. I don’t. But it’s more important right now to find your mother.”
“Joanne,” the demon said.
“What?” Leda blinked at him.
“She has a name. It’s Joanne.”
“I know that,” Leda said. “The idea is to find her. Like it or not, Samantha, we need to know what he knows. So we talk.”
The demon glanced impatiently upward. “Would you lower this shield? I can’t move past it.”
Leda folded her arms. “We can talk right here, and if I don’t like what you say, I’ll either pull you inside to have the life magic eat your brain, or I’ll let my lion use you as a chew toy.”
Samantha let out a laugh.
“And you,” Leda pointed at her. “Let him talk. I don’t care about your family problems; I care about finding a woman who might be hurt. All right?”
Samantha glowered, but nodded. “All right.”
“Thank you.” Leda blew out her breath. “Now, start talking.”
Samantha’s father called himself Fulton. Not his demon name, he said, which would be unpronounceable. Leda also knew he’d never tell them his deeply secret true name, because whoever wielded a demon’s tru
e name controlled him. Witches who dabbled in death magic used amulets and spells of great protection when they summoned demons, because unless the witch knew the true name of the demon who answered, he would be in control, not the witch.
Fulton was a lesser demon. He had the power to suck out a human’s life essence and make the human think it a glorious experience, but he lacked the overwhelming death magic that Old Ones possessed. Plus, he seemed genuinely concerned about Samantha’s mother.
Once Leda had him and Samantha calmed to a simmer, she asked Fulton to tell them absolutely everything he knew about Joanne’s disappearance.
Fulton didn’t know much, as it turned out. He and Joanne had planned to meet at a club downtown. She never arrived, and Joanne was never late. Fulton went to the house to see what happened, and when he got there, he found the furniture overturned and blood in the kitchen.
“Did you call the police?” Leda asked him.
“No, I called friends. I knew the paranormal police wouldn’t listen to me, and would probably arrest me instead. By the time I rounded up a few demons who could help me, Samantha showed up and called the police. I had to lie low. Then Samantha left and didn’t return, and a demon gang moved into the neighborhood. I couldn’t get inside the house again. I saw you both there yesterday and followed you here last night. But the bloody life magic around this place, not to mention the lion, kept me out.”
Samantha frowned. “I see a lot of flaws in your story. First, how could you get into my mother’s house at all? She warded it.”
“She did, but not against me. And yes, the doors were locked, before you ask. I have a key.”
Samantha stiffened. “But she hated you.”
Fulton gave her a patient look. “There’s a lot you don’t know about your mother. She knew her relationship with me upset you, so we always met in secret.”
“Relationship? You coercing her to demon clubs where you could seduce her? She was terrified of you.”
“She was at first, I admit. But when we got to know each other, it grew into something. I know you don’t approve, but that’s your problem. If you hadn’t been so disgusted at having a demon for a father, we might have been a family.”
The Gathering Page 14