Dagan lifted his binoculars. “Can’t see what’s happening.”
“Me either.”
Was that Asmodeus who’d opened the door? Frustration rushed through him like liquid fire, making him wonder if Asmodeus was playing some sort of game. But no, he couldn’t know they were out here.
Ronin reached a hand under his shirt, his fingers grazing the hilt of the dagger strapped to the small of his back. He imagined how satisfying it would feel to ram it into Asmodeus’s throat. Yeah, that’d be good.
“This is ridiculous,” Keegan said from behind them.
Ronin turned his head toward Dagan, who lifted a brow. What the hell was the Council up to now?
“It would help if we knew the whole agenda before we were given the assignment...Yes, I know that...Yeah, but we still need to...Fine.”
Keegan hung up, cursing under his breath.
“What?” Ronin asked him.
“The Council members think they figured out what Asmodeus is up to. They believe this dark fae he’s working with is manipulating the energy Asmodeus absorbs from his victims and from the succubi.”
“Okay,” Dagan said. “What’s he doing with it?”
Anger flashed in Keegan’s eyes. “They have two guesses. Either he’s using magic to store it up somewhere, or he’s changing the energy into something else.”
Either one of those would be potentially dangerous in a multitude of ways.
“But that’s not what got you so pissed,” Ronin said. “What’s the Council hiding?”
“Asmodeus is merely a pawn to them. The Council’s main concern is the dark fae. They’re using us to see what we can learn about him. According to them, the most powerful dark fae clan was wiped out years ago by a plague. One with this level of power shouldn’t exist, and they’re anxious to find out who the hell he is.”
Figured. “What does that mean for this assignment?”
Keegan fidgeted and dragged his palm through his hair. “It means the fact that he’s killing isn’t of primary concern to them. Oh, they want him brought down, all right. But not until they know more about the dark fae.”
An unpleasant blast of anger wrenched Ronin’s gut. “What about the succubi? Don’t they care that they’re being manipulated and enslaved?”
“According to the Council, they’re ‘collateral damage.’”
“Son of a bitch.”
Keegan nodded. “Exactly.”
“Well, fuck that.” Ronin wasn’t going to sit idly by while the lunatic continued his agenda of mayhem and torture.
Dagan pressed his lips into a tight line. “The Council won’t like it if you go against orders.”
“What are they gonna do? Fire me?”
“They might deport you. Hell, as little work as there’s been lately, we’re facing that anyway. If you disobey orders on top of that?”
“Or they could haul your ass in for interfering with a Council investigation,” Keegan added.
Let them try. Ronin opened his mouth to say that when a low hum of energy invaded his eardrums. He turned toward it.
“What is it?” Keegan asked him.
The hum turned into a heavy pulsing beat. Oh shit. His demon radar was going off like crazy.
“Demons,” he barked out.
His brothers tensed. In one fluid movement, the three of them dropped their binoculars and stood. Ronin unsheathed his dagger, only vaguely aware of his brothers doing the same.
“What the fuck?” Keegan said. “Where are they coming from?”
He barely even finished his words before the door leading onto the rooftop slammed open and an assorted group of demons sauntered out. Ronin counted ten of them, and they all had shit-eating grins on their faces. A few of the men were glamoured to appear human, but most of them wore their true forms, no doubt in an attempt to intimidate with their size and strength.
“These guys seem familiar to you?” Dagan asked.
Now that he mentioned it, they did. Ronin was pretty sure he’d seen at least half of them hanging at Opiate or Eros once or twice before.
“They’re thugs for hire,” Keegan said. “I’m guessing that means Asmodeus knows we’re after him.”
“Between Amara going missing and us asking questions, it was only a matter of time,” Ronin pointed out.
A heavy, flapping sound forced them to turn around, just in time to see two flying demons land on the roof. Rayamaras. Seven-foot-tall demons with gray, batlike wings and hooves for feet. They were also gifted scent-trackers. Shit. There went their escape route.
Well, Ronin didn’t know how his brothers felt about it, but a good, old-fashioned brawl didn’t sound too bad right about now, even if he wasn’t such a fan of the three-to-twelve odds.
“Fight, or run?” Dagan’s tone made it clear he was up for anything.
“They’ll track us wherever we go,” Ronin said.
Keegan motioned behind them while brandishing his dagger. “You two start on the big group. I’ll take care of these flying assholes and join you.”
Dagan shot him a grin, and that was Ronin’s cue to attack. He raced toward the group, managing to cut three of them off from the crowd. Two of them were vestags: nasty demons with sharp, retractable claws; and one was a boarg: a short, squat demon with a pig nose and curved tusks. Boargs were known for their brawn, not their brains, which was evident here. This boarg held a bat, of all things.
They waited until he was almost on them before the vestags lifted their clawed hands and aimed them at his upper body. Nothing he hadn’t expected.
With a snap, he grew wings. They came tearing out of his sweater, and he beat them hard to fly over the demons at the last second. He landed on the other side of the roof, immediately absorbing his wings back into his body. When he turned back to face them, he saw that he’d managed to attract two more demons. Davanors, horrid-smelling demons with gray skin, rhinoceros-horn noses, and five eyes instead of two. The small crowd of demons ran toward him.
This’ll be fun.
The vestags were faster than the rest. They struck at the same time, racing toward him with their claws splayed. He stayed put and, a split-second before they came down on him, he dropped his shoulders and rammed into their guts, lifting and tossing them behind him.
One of the vestags uttered a short squeal as they both went flying over the side of the roof. The five-story fall wouldn’t be enough to kill—or hell, even hurt them that badly—but they would waste precious time getting back up to the roof.
He grinned at the other three demons, who were almost upon him, before digging one of his spare, smaller daggers out of its nook in his boot. That was something they’d all added to their shoes at Maya’s urging. She’d carried daggers in her boots for years. He had to admit, the spare weaponry came in handy more often than not.
One of the davanors dropped back as the other two demons attacked. The boarg swung the baseball bat and grazed his arm before he could dodge.
Ronin grunted against the brief burst of pain and sprang forward, jamming his small dagger into the boarg’s hand. It went through both the meat of his fist and the wood of the bat, pinning his hand into place. The boarg screamed and tried to rip the bat away, but Ronin didn’t have time to admire his handiwork before the davanor sliced at him. It ripped into the arm holding the dagger. Letting out a short snort of pain, he grabbed the davanor’s arm and tried to wrestle him away.
“Hold him still,” cried the davanor who’d fallen back.
Hold still? What the hell?
The davanor reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat, disc-shaped object. He murmured something Ronin couldn’t hear, and the disc unfurled, shooting out layers of glowing blue string. They formed into a web in midair, and headed straight for him.
“Shit!” He
dropped his dagger and shoved backward, biting his lip against the pain as the davanor’s knife ripped away, taking a solid chunk of his flesh with it. The brick of the rooftop’s edge pressed against his back, but still he was too close. The gossamer strings raced toward him.
No time to let his wings loose. With inches to spare, he let his body crumple off the side of the roof. He started to fall headfirst, but one of the strings caught his ankle. It wrapped around, and for a moment Ronin feared it would pull him back up. But then the string snapped and he went zooming down. He allowed his wings to form, beating them hard to gain enough momentum that he wouldn’t splat against the ground. The movement sparked a backlash of hot air through the narrow street, but less than three feet from the bottom, he got enough propulsion to shoot back up to the roof.
The davanor was right where he’d left him. He looked down at the second davanor, now ensnared in what was clearly a magical net. He struggled to free himself, but every movement caused more of the airy threads to wind tighter around his limbs. The standing davanor snorted. “Stupid asshole.”
“You’re the one who wasted the fucking string,” the captive demon complained. “What do you think he’ll have to say about that?”
The davanor who wasn’t trapped kicked the captive one hard, and he went flying off the roof. It was then that the remaining davanor noticed Ronin. His eyes went wide and he did an about-face, racing toward the roof exit.
“Not so fast.” Ronin landed in front of him, his hand going around the davanor’s throat. He plugged his nostrils against the noxious wet-dog odor emanating from him. “What the hell is going on here?”
The davanor’s lip quivered, but he said, “Go ahead and kill me. If you don’t, he’ll do it anyway when he finds out we failed.”
“Who?” When the davanor stubbornly kept his mouth shut, Ronin squeezed. “I said, who? Asmodeus?”
Though the davanor didn’t speak, his eyes widened enough for Ronin to surmise he was dead-on.
“What’s with the nets?” he asked. “He didn’t want you to kill us?”
“N—no,” the davanor responded. “Ca—captur—”
Dagan’s voice sounded out, a hint of panic in it. “Ronin!”
His eyes traveled across the rooftop, past the felled bodies of the demons his brothers had fought. Dagan knelt on the ground over Keegan. Right beside them, the rayamaras lay caught in one of the nets, though Keegan or Dagan had managed to slit their throats first. And, shit, some of the fibers had wound themselves around Keegan’s ankle. Keegan and Dagan hacked away at them with their daggers, but every time a string snapped, more fiber snaked out to grab ahold of him.
“I’m coming!” He flung the demon away, barely noting him speed off toward the roof exit. Ronin searched out his dagger, bending down to close his fingers over it, and then raced to Dagan and Keegan. He joined in on the hacking and, after several long minutes, they managed to drag Keegan away before the net could engulf him completely.
“What the fuck?” Keegan panted as they helped him to his feet.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Dagan said.
Ronin raked a stray lock of hair from his face. “Asmodeus wanted to trap us. Apparently he knows we’re after him, and he wants us alive.”
Keegan and Dagan shot him startled glances. They’d experienced their fair share of being wanted men before. When you hunted things for a living, especially Otherworldly things, they usually hunted you back. But no one had ever wanted them alive before. Well, except for their father, and that was a whole other story.
“Let’s see if one of these fuckers can tell us why,” Keegan said.
Ronin spotted the boarg with the bat hiding a few feet away. “Over here.”
The crouching boarg whimpered as he approached, one hand clutching the hand that still held the bat.
“What are you doing? Take the damn dagger out of your hand and you’ll heal.”
“Can’t,” the boarg sniffled. “Cut through bone.”
Ronin bit back a laugh. The demon must be six and a half feet of pure muscle, and he’d let a flesh wound fell him? Ronin grabbed hold of the hilt, yanking the dagger out in one swift movement.
The boarg screamed and clutched his hand, rolling on the ground in agony.
Keegan stopped beside Ronin, exchanging a disbelieving glance with him. “Must be hypersensitive to pain.”
Ronin shrugged and brought his foot down on the boarg’s rapidly healing hand.
“Hurts,” the boarg yelled.
Keegan squatted next to the boarg. “Tell us everything you know about this job.”
“No—nothing. Wanted you alive. Too interesting to be killed.”
“Gee, a raving lunatic thinks we’re interesting.” Dagan sauntered up beside them. “I feel so special.”
Ronin took in his brother’s battered face. The cuts and scrapes were closing, and though his clothing was torn, he seemed largely unharmed. “Yeah, you’re a regular Cinderella.”
Keegan grabbed the boarg’s jaw and forced him to meet his gaze. “What did he plan on doing with us?”
When the boarg didn’t answer, Ronin pressed down on his hand. The boarg’s back arched off the ground.
“Arghh! Don’t know. Offered a fortune for your delivery.”
“How did you get the nets?” Dagan asked.
“Messenger service. Human.”
“What else can you tell us?” Ronin dug the heel of his boot into the boarg’s wound.
“Nothing! Nothing!”
Keegan sighed. “He’s telling the truth. He’s worthless.”
“I hate to interrupt this fabulous party,” Dagan drawled, “but several of the demons who fought us are missing.”
Ronin motioned toward the side of the roof. “I threw two of them off when the fight started. They must have run away.”
“In case they went for reinforcements, let’s get the hell out of here.” Keegan knelt and patted the injured boarg’s face. “Tell whoever hired you that they should have sent more men.”
They walked down the stairs, then headed toward Dagan’s car, which he’d parked around the corner.
“We’ll have to regroup and figure out where to go from here,” Keegan said.
“I know.” Ronin wiped the grime off his face. They’d gotten nowhere with today’s stakeout.
“What’s with the doom-and-gloom voice?” Dagan asked.
He rubbed at the tension knot that had formed at the back of his neck. “I’m trying to figure out how to tell Amara that the Council doesn’t give two shits about her or her mother.”
Keegan clapped him on the back. “Good luck with that, brother.”
“Hey”—Dagan nudged him with his shoulder—“we’ll figure out a way to get Amara’s mother out of there. If we could get away from Mammon, we could do anything.”
“I hope so.” For Amara’s sake, Ronin truly hoped so.
Chapter Fourteen
Asmodeus stood on his balcony and observed the surrounding buildings. The fact that he could see nothing from this vantage point rankled. When he’d ordered Gofrey to retain the services of a group of demons, he’d been sure the Detainors would be spying on him from nearby. But now the gut feeling that told him he was being watched had receded. He hoped it was because his hired goons had captured them. Perhaps they were on their way here at this very moment.
The buzz of the intercom drifted in through his partially open door. He pushed away from the balcony and went inside to press the answer button. “Yes?”
“I’ve heard back from one of the demons we hired, master.” The low tenor of Gofrey’s voice indicated something was wrong.
“What is it?”
“The Detainors have gotten away.”
Asmodeus took one long moment to pr
ocess that. When he spoke, he let all of his fury show through in his voice. “What?”
“There were twelve of them, including two raya—rayamaras,” Gofrey stuttered. “They carried the four binding nets we had sent to them. Who would imagine they’d be able to escape that?”
“You jackass. You should have hired more demons.”
“I...I didn’t know how strong they would be.”
“Don’t you think you should have checked?” Asmodeus bit out. “Surely someone would’ve been able to enlighten you.”
“M—my apologies, master. We’ll hire more demons. Better ones. We’ll get them—”
“Silence.”
Gofrey immediately quieted, and Asmodeus rubbed his chin as he considered what to do next. His element of surprise was gone now. The bounty hunters knew he was on to them. A sliver of fear pierced his gut at the thought of how strong they were. Something told him he wasn’t quite ready to take all four of them on himself yet. He would have to evaluate how best to entrap them without getting himself captured in the process.
The stress of the situation caused his stomach to churn. Instinct made him long to seek out Belpheg. The dark fae had solved so many of his problems. But Asmodeus didn’t want to risk his fury. Not after he’d assured him he would be able to catch the brothers with the binding nets Belpheg had sent him.
He couldn’t afford to upset Belpheg right now, and in all honesty, the dark fae unnerved him beyond belief. Every time he met with Belpheg, it felt like he lost some intangible part of himself. Ridiculous, but he couldn’t help the feeling. If only he could free himself from the dark fae’s clutches without suffering any consequences, but he’d agreed to allow Belpheg a one-time use of his abilities when he gained full power. If he tried to back out now, Belpheg would strip him of his powers. He couldn’t live with that.
When another spasm wrenched his gut, Asmodeus realized he was hungry. He needed to feed. And he knew exactly who he wanted.
Touch of the Angel (Demons of Infernum, #3) Page 15