by Stacia Kane
“Can we go now? You promised me hot buttered rum if I got the address for you.”
“Megan.” A little tug at her sleeve.
She sighed. “Yeah, I guess. At least I—”
“Megan.” Another tug, harder this time. She glanced down.
Rocturnus stood next to her on the street, his eyes wide with terror, his finger outstretched to point to another Yezer stumbling toward them in the middle of the road.
Even at a distance she knew something was wrong. It—the little demon—wasn’t walking right. Its limbs jerked oddly, as if it was trying to take bigger steps than its body would allow. The movements of its hands reminded her of Gerald and the terrible scuttling movements he’d made in the storeroom. Its skin rippled, the movements in the moonlight horribly like roaches crawling.
“Megan?” Brian sounded very far away. “What’s going on, Megan?”
She had to force her mouth to work. “A demon.”
“A—oh, damn it! I should have known. What are you mixing me up in this time? I should be—”
“Shut up, Brian.” Malleus kept trying to move in front of her, to usher her back to her car, but she resisted. The little demon kept moving, getting closer, its eyes glowing red, like the traffic light blinking on and off at the end of the deserted street.
She took a step forward. She thought she knew what was happening, was certain she knew, and resisted the urge to cringe. Any minute the explosion would come. Any minute the street would be covered in blood and body parts, steaming in the icy air.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Brian said, in a different voice. “Megan, this feels really off.”
He was right. She felt it too, even with her shields up. The temperature around them seemed to have dropped a good ten degrees. She pulled her coat closer, but took another step.
The little demon’s grin stretched across its face. Too wide, like someone had carved a bastard smile into the flesh of its cheeks. “The human.” Its voice echoed in her ears. Not a Yezer voice, but deeper, louder, with a lilt her mind identified as feminine even though she didn’t know how or why. Deep in her chest something fluttered, moved, the frantic beating of a second heart trying to burst out.
A can blew down the street, clanking against the concrete. Megan jumped. She heard Brian gasp beside her. Bless him. He probably hated her right now for dragging him into this but he was standing with her just the same, his strong upper arm pressing against her shoulder.
“Who is it, Roc?” she whispered. “Do you know?”
“Smealtus,” he replied. “I think.”
“M’lady, we need to go,” Malleus said. Megan glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at the little demon. He was looking behind him and to the left, and when Megan followed his gaze she saw two men in black coats and ski masks emerging from the apartment building they’d passed.
The apartment building whose address was on the registration of the black sedan. She lowered her shields and reached out, hoping against hope she was wrong, but she received nothing at all from them.
“Megan.” Brian grabbed her arm. “I really think we should go now.” Panic laced his voice, transmitted itself to her with her shields down.
Malleus yelled and leaped behind her, shoving Brian sideways. Brian fell on the concrete between two parked cars, his outraged curse unnaturally loud in Megan’s ears as time seemed to slow down.
The witches reached into their coats, their movements identical, and produced guns, long and black and terrible.
Megan jumped back, like trying to run through syrup, and almost stumbled over Roc.
Smealtus opened his arms wide, then wider. His head fell back, his mouth stretching in a scream she couldn’t hear.
The report of a gunshot. Megan screamed and tried to duck, her arms instinctively rising to cover her head as her knees hit the street. Pain shot up her thighs. The sound of the shot echoed off the dead buildings crouching along the street.
Another sound, a soft, wet thud, as Smealtus exploded.
Chapter Eight
Something hard slammed against Megan’s back at the same time Rocturnus gripped her hand and pulled. She ended up on her side in the middle of the road, her face turned toward the spot where Smealtus had spent the last seconds of his life.
A shape, large and black and many limbed, rose from the pavement, slithering into the air, expanding as it grew.
Megan didn’t need Malleus’s hands circling her waist to lift her or Roc’s tug to get up and move. Another gunshot rent the air. Malleus grunted but did not stop moving.
Together they dove behind a van. Blood dripped from Smealtus down Megan’s forehead and cheek. More stained her coat, made Malleus’s thick jacket slippery and Rocturnus look like an oversize newborn.
The van shook with every bullet puncturing its side, the gunshot echoed by the smaller pop of bullets against metal. The witches were coming.
“Brian’s on the other side of the road!”
Her scream was drowned out by male voices, loud, terrified. Megan tried to peek around the van. Malleus grabbed her, tried to force her back down to the grubby sidewalk, but she managed to slip away as Rocturnus disappeared.
More shots, in rapid succession. Megan peered over the hood and saw the witches, not looking at her now, but staring down the road, emptying their guns.
Brian huddled in the same spot where he’d fallen. His mouth opened, but Megan couldn’t hear him. She didn’t know if the shots had deafened her or if it was the pure, cold terror invading her body, seeping through her clothing, making that heart-which-wasn’t-hers pound and shift and writhe in her chest until it hurt.
The witches were shooting at a demon. She knew that’s what it had to be, but she’d never seen anything like this before.
It was enormous, big enough to block out the moon, to block out all hope. Arms sprouted from its body at random. It was like a Three Mile Island spider standing upright, a caricature of anything living, with a woman’s face and breasts and horrible, mottled flesh that squirmed and quaked and rippled.
Here and there bullets entered its body, leaving gaping holes that were instantly healed, each one with a faint clinking sound it took Megan a moment to realize was the bullets being ejected and hitting the street.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Her mouth fell open and cold air whistled into it, down to her lungs to freeze her chest.
The thing moved jerkily, carefully, as if each step hurt. Three legs supported it, as far as she could tell, thick dark red legs ending in clawed, pawlike feet. As she watched the feet shrank, became human. The arms were sucked back into the body—there was no other way for her to describe it—until the monstrous thing on the street was simply a woman. Only the disgustingly distorted color of its skin and the fact that it—she—was naked gave lie to her appearance.
The witches stood their ground for another moment. Megan could almost feel their shock, knew they kept shooting because their minds refused to accept that shooting didn’t work.
The demon woman’s eyes, bright green and staring, narrowed. Her head tilted to the side. Megan could barely see Brian huddled on the ground across the street, his lips moving in what she assumed was prayer. Behind him Rocturnus tugged at his coat, struggling to pull Brian into safety, out of sight—if such a thing were possible.
“We need to go,” Malleus whispered, tugging her arm almost out of its socket. “M’lady, we need to go now!”
“I can’t leave Brian!” The whisper turned into a scream, a scream she knew she shouldn’t have let out, as the demon woman leaped forward, her arms and legs somehow closing in and then expanding, and knocked the head off one of the witches with a single smooth stroke of her slender slithering arm.
The body fell. She picked up the head, looked at it thoughtfully, and dropped it on the ground with a dull thud.
The other witch screamed and tried to run, slipping in the first witch’s blood, but she caught him easily, her arms winding around him and pul
ling him close, forcing him to his knees.
“A witch,” she said, and her voice made Megan shake even harder. The demon woman sounded like…a woman. Any woman. Light and airy, as if she were asking for shoes in a different size.
Her hand stroked the witch’s face, then lifted off his ski mask. His screams grew hoarse, his eyes bulged with fear. Megan couldn’t tear her gaze away, much as she wanted to.
The man writhing on his knees on the ground had tried to kill her twice. He’d shot Greyson. But nothing, nothing in the world, meant he deserved to have the demon woman’s hand drive itself into his chest, deserved to have his still-beating heart ripped from his body and held high in the air.
She didn’t see what happened next. Malleus threw her over his shoulder and started running with his legs bent, keeping himself ducked down. How his feet managed to move so silently over the gritty pavement she didn’t know, or perhaps it was just that she couldn’t hear anything over the never-ending shrieks of terror in her head. All she knew was they rushed past the cars and started to cross the street, Malleus clearly hoping to cross back to Brian—back to her car—before the demon realized it.
Where they would go from there she had no idea. The demon hadn’t been moving very quickly, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t.
The ground shook. The demon had slammed her fist down on the street. Malleus stumbled, knocking Megan’s hip painfully against the trunk of the car they’d slipped behind. He righted himself just before they hit the ground and flipped her back over, yanking her down in the same motion so they crouched just a few cars away from Brian and Roc.
Brian seemed to have regained control of himself. He motioned her over, keeping himself in the smallest possible ball behind a beat-up Escort.
“Human,” the demon woman said. Her voice reached right into Megan’s soul and vibrated there. “You have something that belongs to me. I want it back.”
Brian shook his head. “Don’t,” he mouthed, his brows knitted. “Don’t.”
Malleus tightened his grip on her arm.
Roc’s entire body shook. His eyes were squeezed shut.
“I know you’re back there, little human.”
A creak, then the twisting crunch of metal as the demon woman picked up the Toyota Megan and Malleus hid behind and tossed it away as if it were an empty box. The car landed on another across the street with a brittle crash. Glass flew everywhere and sparkled on the street, oddly festive in the icy pale moonlight.
Megan, exposed like a child playing hide-and-seek badly, cringed into Malleus. He pushed her sideways, stepping in front of her, rising to his full height with his arms ready at his sides.
Roc took her hand, and Megan realized in that moment how stupid she’d been. She had no hope of defeating this demon by herself. Malleus didn’t either, she knew. But with Brian and the power of the Yezer behind her—the power she’d learned only days before she could still harness and reach—she had a chance.
The demon woman’s hands came toward her, the fingers still coated with witch’s blood. Megan closed her eyes against the sight, found the door inside herself, and opened it.
Power flared in her body, greenish-blue sparks that sizzled along her skin and nerve endings. But nowhere near where it had been before, nowhere near the all-consuming blast she’d felt Saturday night.
She tried again, focusing, concentrating all her might on it. Maybe she wasn’t—
“M’lady!”
A shove. She fell against a chain-link fence and shifted sideways, caught by Brian, pulled away even as Malleus rose from the pavement, hoisted by one bloody demon hand.
Megan screamed. Brian held her tighter, trying to shove her toward her car, but Megan fought him, turned the feeble energy from her opened door into a weapon and crashed it into him, tears clouding the vision of Malleus being borne into the air, of his struggles calming as she turned those mesmeric green-light eyes on him…
Brian’s arms convulsed around her as her psychic weapon made contact. “Shit!” She felt him fumble in her pocket, felt him let go, heard his footsteps as he ran away, but she couldn’t care, couldn’t even think about anything but Malleus.
At her feet rested a dusty wine bottle. She picked it up and threw it, aiming for the demon woman’s chest, knowing the chances it would inflict any damage were slim to none.
Indeed it did nothing, smashing against the rotted-looking flesh but not even making the demon woman blink.
“Ye old bitch!” Malleus shouted. Light flashed off the edge of the blade Megan hadn’t realized he had as he lifted it over his head and drove it into one of the glowing eyes.
The demon shrieked, her mouth opening impossibly wide, revealing several rows of foul teeth.
Megan picked up a brick off the ground, grateful for the first time that this street was already like a war zone, and flung it. It bounced off the demon’s teeth, but her scream grew louder in acknowledgment. Triumph like sweet blood red wine flooded Megan’s breast.
Tires squealed on the pavement. Brian spun Megan’s car around, turning the headlights on high beam, aiming them right at the demon woman.
She turned, her eyes widening as the hood of the Focus sped toward her. Malleus pulled back his knife and raised it for another strike—
And fell to the ground just as the car whizzed past. The demon woman had disappeared, leaving the street silent and empty except for the dead.
“Hot buttered rum?”
“Sure, just hold the hot and the butter,” Brian gasped, collapsing on the couch. “In fact, hold the glass and give me the whole fucking bottle.”
Megan considered it for a minute, then obeyed, grabbing a bottle of bourbon for herself and whiskey for Malleus. Roc took a shot of crème de menthe and sipped it slowly, a habit that usually made her laugh. Tonight she didn’t think she could find humor in a Chris Rock routine, let alone the curious drinking habits of a little green demon.
“M’lady.” Malleus finished swallowing and rested the bottle on his knee. He’d drunk half of it in one long gulp. “You ’ave to call Mr.—”
“Don’t even say it. Just don’t.”
His brows lowered. “You know you ’ave to tell ’im. You need to—”
“He’s right, Megan.” Rocturnus spoke so quietly she had to lean forward to hear him. “They all have to know.”
“Who all? Why does anybody need to know—”
“Because she’s hurt others, from other families.” Roc finished his glass and poured another. “Because she’ll keep doing it.”
“You know who she is?”
“And so do you. You heard her name.”
Ktana Leyak.
She opened her mouth, but Roc, eyes wide, held up a warning hand. “Don’t say it, don’t even think it.”
“Why? Who is she, who was she?”
He sighed. His eyes closed. “She’s our mother.”
The phone rang.
For a moment Megan didn’t even understand what it was. The sound, so normal, so everyday, didn’t seem to fit into this conversation; it belonged to a different life in a world that hadn’t become increasingly more insane over the last few months.
“What do you mean?” she asked Roc.
“Just what I said. She created us. She’s our mother.”
“So—”
“Are you going to answer that?” Brian’s eyes were closed as he slumped back on the couch. With the bottle in one hand and his other hand on his chest he looked like a drunken fraternity boy.
“No, I don’t think so.” The bourbon was starting to spread its heat and false comfort through her body now, taking the edge off the deep chill.
“M’lady, you should—”
“So what does that mean, your mother, Roc? Why is she killing you, why is she killing other demons?”
He shook his head. “We don’t know.”
“Is it the ones who leave she’s killing, or the ones who stay, or what? Why is she going after demons from other families?”
“We can’t tell,” Roc said. “We don’t really talk a lot as a rule, you know. It’s not like we all sit down at the end of the day to have these little meetings you humans seem to enjoy so much.”
From her purse came the sound of her cell phone. Damn it. She’d known it was him. Greyson was pretty much the only person who had that number except for Brian and Tera.
“Sorry if we try and communicate with each other,” she snapped. This was too much, all too much. She just wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep. For a week. She’d basically killed one of her clients, she’d lost her job, she’d lost another demon, from the look on Brian’s face it was possible she’d lost one of her few friends, and now her damned—well, whatever he was—wanted her to talk to him. She was going to have to tell him what happened and he was not going to be pleased, and she thought if she had to deal with one more thing tonight she was going to start screaming. And keep screaming until they put her in a nice, quiet, padded room somewhere. Hey, straightjackets probably weren’t as uncomfortable as they looked, right?
“Don’t get snippy with me. I’m trying to help you.”
Megan stared at him, trying to keep her anger from overflowing and leading her to do something she would regret. “I appreciate that, Roc,” she said, enunciating each word carefully. “But I’ve asked you to tell me what’s going on and you haven’t. So do you think I have a right to be angry?”
Now Malleus’s phone rang. Megan closed her eyes. She could refuse to answer her own phone but she couldn’t stop Malleus from answering his. He didn’t work for her. He worked for Greyson, and if he ignored Greyson’s call she had no doubt he would be punished.
With a look that was half guilty, half defiant, Malleus picked up his phone and flipped it open. “Yeh,” he said. “Yeh. Sorry, I—She’s safe, she’s right ’ere. We had a little trouble—the lady found the car, y’know, the one them witches—she wanted to—she said she’d go wifout me if I—Mr. Dante, please don’t—” He cringed and held the phone out to Megan. “He wants to talk to you.”