“Nadine, get off me! Let me help them!” The hunter was so damn stubborn. Whoever had decided Addison’s life was more important than anyone else’s needed some serious therapy. “Then let me up so I can run away.” Not that she was going to.
“Now!” the other woman yelled. “Close the circle.” There was more crashing, breaking, scrambling, Parker screaming some magical incantation crap, an inhuman, guttural scream, more debris raining down on top of her. Addison didn’t see any of it. Then it was quiet.
“Add, are you okay?” Parker’s voice echoed in the silence. “Add, I sent him back to hell. He’s gone. It’s safe now. Nadine? Keira?” Someone moaned across the room. “Will someone please answer me?”
“I’m okay. Might need a couple Band-Aids though.” The voice didn’t have Nadine’s subtle accent, so it had to be Keira, the hunter Addison hadn’t met yet. “I’m gonna walk it off and go see if anyone else made it out of the fire.”
Addison looked up as Parker pulled two-by-fours and part of a metal table off them, blinking the dust from her eyes. “Ouch.”
“Are you okay?”
“I will be just as soon as Nadine lets me move. Anytime now, Nadine. Really. Bad guy’s gone, all’s safe in the world. I’m ready when you…Nadine?”
The hunter didn’t move…or speak…or breathe.
“Nadine?” she asked quietly. There was no answer. Parker dragged off the other rubble that had fallen on them and carefully rolled Nadine off Addison. The hunter’s damp hair stuck to her damaged face. Only then did Addison realize she was covered in it.
Blood—the thing that made her different, special, someone seers wanted to save because according to some stupid prophecy she was their salvation. It stained her hands, neck, and chest.
Except it wasn’t hers. The blood belonged to everyone she’d been pretending to lead.
Everyone she’d failed.
One
~ Three months later ~
It had to be a hospital, didn’t it?
Keira sprinted down the frigid hallway, weaving in and out of the hospital employees and visitors as she moved. Even in her boots, she barely made a sound on the tile floor. Dainty she wasn’t. Nor was she stupid—a loud arrival meant a short stay before someone killed you.
She moved faster—probably a deep, flowery, metaphorical attempt to outrun her memories as much as to catch up with the vampire. Or… maybe she moved faster because in about five minutes the sun would go down and Lamere could phase wherever the hell he wanted. Yeah, probably closer to that one.
Sometimes being mostly human sucks. Like when you’re trying to keep up with a super. Or being shattered by one.
Humans were frail, weak in comparison. Which was why Keira had spent the last three years training to be the best she could possibly be. To be as strong, as fast, and as strategic as a seer could be. To pay back every super she could for everything that vamp had given her. The piece of shit. That her skills and dedication also helped the Rising, the closest thing she had to a family anymore, was a huge perk. Shit, it wasn’t every day you helped someone change the world.
Couldn’t happen fast enough for Keira, but after they’d lost practically all their members a few weeks after she joined up, they’d taken their efforts even further underground to reevaluate their methods and lick their wounds. She didn’t work that way—she didn’t know how to pull back.
For the last few months, all she’d done was focus on finding her enemy, spending a stupid amount of time staking out homes he never went to and following leads that led nowhere. The last time Lamere had been seen was at the demon massacre/Treaty celebration almost six months ago. And then…nothing. Until two weeks ago, when he just showed up in the city—at an art exhibit of all things. Ancient artifacts. Maybe they were his from his human days.
The vampire had a few more minutes of sunlight left before he’d be able to phase. If she missed this chance, he might disappear for another six months.
Probably hiding somewhere outside the North American zone. Why not? He’d already broken one of the Heights’ laws. There weren’t many, but if you broke one, you might as well break all of them. You can only be executed once.
Keira kicked off the far wall of a corner as she sped around it, avoiding a full-out crash. She’d only seen glimpses of him, but knew he was headed deeper into the hospital towards the administrative areas. Fewer humans around was a good thing. She wanted to focus on the hunt, not on pretending she was hurrying to the bathroom or whatever nonsense she was spouting to the people she and the vamp ran past. Even though she had no loyalty to the Heights and couldn’t give a shit about their rules, it was too dangerous to ignore the one about keeping their world hidden. Humans would die by the truckload if they ever found out the Heights existed.
“Damn it!” She stopped at a T, glancing down two empty hallways. No, she couldn’t lose him. He was—and would always be—a hundred times stronger and faster than her, but Keira was smarter and she wanted it more. And she had nothing left to lose. Everything had already been taken from her. Even her life. First by the accident that had brought her into the Heights, and then by the speedy bastard in front of her.
“Right.” She turned right. Fast. She didn’t stumble because she never stumbled. She’d prepared for this, her body an extension of her mind, focused on one goal and one goal only—to see that bloodfucker’s face when she shoved a stake into his chest.
Would that be enough to kill him? With no heart to pierce, just a black empty spot where it should be? Shit. Maybe she should rethink her plan. A bit late, but better late than the moment he dug his fangs into her neck. Again.
On that cheery note, she pushed herself to speed up. The only way she could move faster was by growing a set of wings. Unfortunately, she was no angel, and flying was something she’d never be able to do. And then suddenly she could, without the wings or any control whatsoever. Her feet left the ground, her arms hurling through space to reach for balance where there was none to be caught.
What the hell? was her last thought before she met the wall and saw the stars.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Oops, sorry,” Davyn said insincerely as he watched the hunter slide down the wall, her eyes covered by thick strands of dark hair courtesy of a cheap haircut. If someone had asked him how to describe her, he’d have told them to fuck off. But the truth was, she looked a bit like a Fosfer demon—beautiful, dark lips and hair, big, intense dark eyes, a seriously strong yet curvy body. Of course, all that was currently ruined by her angelic-looking unconsciousness.
The hunter moaned as he walked past her. She wasn’t broken, but she’d wake up bruised. Not that he cared. Or had anything against her, for that matter. She was in his way, so the easiest way to fix that was to get into hers. Turned out, he was a lot better at it.
She’d been running after the vamp for quite a while—moderately impressively, not that Davyn would’ve ever admitted that out loud. Long stretches of activity created heat in humans, enough heat to cover the sting of a demon’s touch. So even though she hadn’t felt Davyn hurl her into the wall, she’d be feeling what those hands had done to her for a few days. She’d have to buy new cargo pants, too—the area on her thigh where he’d grabbed her had completely burned away. Actually, she should probably consider that a gift. Cargo pants. Seriously?
Being hyper-focused created blinders big enough to blind her to everything but the mark the Rising had sent her after.
Lamere.
Great guy, Lamere. Fun at parties. Oh no, wait. That was Davyn. Nah, that wasn’t true either. But Lamere had been a very bad boy and needed to be taken down. Davyn would’ve bet ten tours topside it wasn’t going to be done by a seer. Especially since Davyn had gotten an extra six months above the crust to do the honors.
After Davyn passed the hunter’s unconscious body, he forgot all about her. He refocused on the one he’d come here for, the one he’d spent all those months looking for. Six fucking months. That was embarrassing.
Lamere was smart and, as a rogue, had no problem outing himself to masses of humans. That created a serious problem for everyone.
These stark hallways were identical and never-ending, intersecting with others frequently without any actual reason other than to confuse people. Disorient visitors to let them know they didn’t belong here and weren’t wanted.
Fucking place was like a maze or one of the pits in hell. Smelled revolting too. The only things that should be dirty were minds, and nothing was a bigger turnoff than the smell of disinfectant. Any situation in which someone could use the word “sterile” was something no man wanted part of. Even demons, and they didn’t reproduce.
Davyn went solid to get ready for the inevitable fight. Hopefully it wouldn’t happen in front of the group of people he sensed up ahead. Without stopping or even slowing down, he poked through their minds until he found something about Lamere.
Aaand bingo. We have a winner. He tapped into the mind of a woman with some very naughty thoughts about a tall, dark, and unholy stranger. “Holy fuck.” Those were some powerfully naughty thoughts. “You dirty, dirty girl.” A woman with a mind like that was worth getting to know.
A crowd of hospital staff stood in front of the elevators, all the women bowlegged from looking at Lamere. If they only knew. Davyn was secure enough to admit the vamp was attractive. They all were, but Lamere had that impossibly beautiful boy-next-door thing going.
Davyn didn’t have that. Davyn had that big-guy-no-one-could-ever-take-their-eyes-off thing. Men knew not to expose their backs to someone like him. Women were simpler. He was the whole bad boy fantasy. Thick, black hair, hard muscle everywhere, coloring humans referred to as ‘exotic”—whatever that meant—and just enough of his tribal markings showed to make them look like the tattoos that had suddenly become popular.
The group panicked when they saw Davyn come at them. It happened. He tried not to let it hurt his feelings. Everyone backed away, then split and ran. But Lamere kept his arm around the woman with the dirty mind who stared at him as if he were a god. Even if it hadn’t been wrong, it was just so extremely wrong.
Davyn wanted to puke when the vamp licked his fangs. “If you’re trying to turn me on, it’s not working. Those things are puny. I know people say size doesn’t matter, but let’s be honest here—a fun-sized anything isn’t nearly as fun as the king-sized version. Am I right?”
“Careful,” the vamp whispered, his accent making the word even more disturbing. “You don’t want to cause a scene, do you?” The bastard knew Davyn’s hands were somewhat tied.
“Need some help?” someone growled.
Davyn recognized the malice, the annoying bravado of one of his kind, totally different from Davyn’s own genuinely likeable bravado. Probably a newbie, first time topside would be Davyn’s bet. All fresh-faced and evil.
Eww.
Scratch the fresh-faced, because the fucker who came around the corner was unbelievably ugly. His long hook nose bent down, covering most of his dagger-like, yellowed teeth. He wasn’t Fosfer—that was for sure. Impressive, though—not many of the other breeds were strong enough or smart enough to make it all the way up to earth.
“Thanks, but I’m good,” Davyn said. “Cutting in on somebody’s job isn’t smart though.” In fact, it was about as suicidal as it got in the demon world. “Did you fall asleep during the ‘How to Play Nice Topside’ videos?”
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the vampire.”
“The vamp?” Well, that was definitely impossible to understand. Damn it, things just got a lot more serious—and a lot less fun. Davyn could take on the vamp or the demon one-handed. So two hands, two enemies, one stone was totally doable, if they weren’t in a public place. The amount of damage he would cause by taking on both of them simultaneously would have humans coming through doors faster than if he yelled, “Only one more pudding left! Who wants it?” at a retirement home.
He was going to have to figure something else out. “The Prime hired me to collect this idiot, and our boss okayed it. So if you want to stay topside, let’s pretend you didn’t say anything to either of us.”
The demon lumbered forward, his hooves unaccustomed to freshly waxed tile floor. Wait a minute. That meant he was corporeal, but not using his glamour to hide his true appearance.
“You’re not going to make it past your second week up here if you don’t cover that up. All of it.” Davyn motioned down the length of the demon’s body, and then kept his hand in front of his face to block the visual. “Seriously, man. ’Cause it’s making my eyes water. If somebody sees you, there’ll be lots of screaming.” Screaming was a lot tougher to cover up than a glimpse of a supernatural being, because everyone wanted to know what caused it.
“You’re soft.”
Davyn laughed. The newbie didn’t recognize him. Granted, there was no newspaper or internet in hell, but it chafed nonetheless. He’d gone through the gauntlet faster than any demon ever had. No losses, no draws, barely a scratch on him, physically. Emotionally, there was the same lasting damage all his kind experienced. Davyn just dealt with it differently. Not better, just differently.
“You should try moderation. Balance in all things, even us, my man.”
“I am far greater than a man.” Between his teeth and the depth of his voice, the words were near impossible to decipher. “But you, the longer you’re topside, the less evolved you become.” Yep, impossible, because no way was anyone stupid enough to say something like that to Davyn.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Because after you worked so hard to get up here, I might feel bad about shortening your tour above the crust. Maybe.”
A flicker of a smile made the demon even uglier. And made Davyn a little paranoid.
“Your grin is burning my retinas. Do you mind?”
“I am Drinod. In three earth months, I have killed more humans than you probably ever have.”
“Are you feeling okay? I know the air takes a little getting used to, but—”
“Does that not make you feel weak when standing in my presence?”
“Nope. A little nauseous maybe, but I think that’s the way you smell, not—” As soon as the words hit the oh-shit part of his brain, Davyn’s abs tightened. “You killed humans?”
The only plausible scenario was based on how fucking stupid this ugly shithead was. Since making it through the trials on all nine levels of hell took at least a little intelligence, this guy must have been summoned from a lower level and then accidentally freed. Had to be accidentally, didn’t it?
Davyn hated how smug and confident Lamere looked. What the fuck was going on? There was no reason for a vamp to summon a demon unless it was for something highly illegal, something only a demon could do. Like find someone or burn them to ash without any drama at all.
“No way you’re the demon who got to the dat vitae and took out all those rebels, along with almost every human who lived on that block.” The demon who had disappeared after the slaughter, presumably because someone in the Rising had sent him back to hell.
“My predecessor went below before he could claim his reward.” The demon glanced at Lamere. “I won’t allow that to happen to me.”
Whatever was wrong with the world, or this situation, Davyn would live through it. But a few things sucked way more than death, and he sensed things were heading that way rapidly. So Lamere was hiring illegals. Illegals with no morality or reason to follow the laws.
“I can still smell the burning of their flesh. Still see the terror in their eyes when they look upon me, a being never seen outside their nightmares.”
“What?” Davyn asked, refocusing. “Yeah, great. Nice work, lots of killing. I’ll pack up a trophy and some pom-poms for you to take back to hell.”
“I’m not going back.”
“You’re killing humans and seers who aren’t connected to the Rising, and that, my idiot friend, is against the rules.” Davyn pointed towards the floor. “
His rules.” Plus, the Heights’ council couldn’t let somebody go around setting people on fire haphazardly. It just wasn’t good for morale.
“Lamere is very powerful.”
“Uh…okay. I could try caring about your boy crush or if you guys are banging, but I’m never going to make it past the I-don’t-give-a-fuck stage.”
“He promised me freedom.”
“Yeah well, now I’m promising you a trip back to hell, and I have better follow through. You should know better than to trust a vamp. What are you, anyway? A Level Four, Five, maybe?” This thing would’ve had to work fucking hard to get up to those. Then work pretty hard to lose it all, if you considered how taxing all that murder must have been.
The demon shook his head, his lip pulling back to show more fang. “I will have complete freedom from below.”
Davyn laughed. When the demon just stared at him, Davyn realized the prick wasn’t smart enough to have meant that as a joke. “You serious? How is he going to do that?” Fear didn’t happen in Fosfer demons—call it a perk, a talent, a skill, but they didn’t feel it. They had great ability to see stupid, though. And Davyn was looking right at it.
“What’d he tell you? That he would hook you up with a pretty girl? A pay-for-services-rendered deal? Great, but her soul only gives you one human lifetime of freedom. Then you get to pay for those rendered services for the rest of eternity.”
“You do not understand,” Drinod said. “But if I tell you what Lamere promised me, you’ll want it too.”
“Nothing in hell, on earth, or anywhere else would make me want to do a deal with that vamp.”
“He has one hidden. From everyone. He said I could have all of it.”
“Her. You could have all of ‘her.’” Not that it mattered. If the demon took the woman’s soul, he’d be paying for it soon enough. Davyn sighed and decided to give it one more shot. He’d speak slower this time. “Okay, sure, let’s pretend for a minute that Lamere could actually hide her that well, and nobody but the three of us—and what was left of the woman—knew what happened. Half of her soul only gets you around fifty years up here, but you get to keep it forever when you go back to hell. And if you think having a soul down there might make it ache a little more than normal, try amping that up by a few tens of thousands. Then you’ll be closer.”
Unearthed Page 2