Dark Around the Edges

by Cari Z

  Rio had Steven try to pull the information from Grey’s head half a dozen times, but there was no clarity. Apart from “North” and “trees,” Steven hadn’t gotten anything out of Grey, and by the last attempt Steven’s palm was red and painful, the tattoo almost completely gone. Grey fell unconscious shortly after that, but Rio woke him up. A few minutes later Maria had rolled in, stern and disapproving and worried all at once. At first Rio had been happy to see her; when she had started treating Grey he’d even felt relieved.

  Then they’d started disagreeing, and things had gone downhill fast to where they were now.

  “He needs to be in a hospital.”

  Maria’s voice, normally terse and businesslike, was verging on a degree of coldness that Rio had never heard from her before. Her wheelchair was pushed right up next to the hotel bed, which had soaked through with so much blood that the mattress would have to be thrown out at this point. Rio didn’t care; that would be the hotel’s problem, not his. His only problem was finding Devon, and he didn’t care how far he had to go to accomplish that, but giving Porter Grey over to a hospital? That wasn’t going to happen.

  “If he goes into a hospital they’ll keep him under for hours, maybe days. We don’t have that kind of time,” Rio argued. “We need to find out where Cressidus has taken Devon, and we need to get it out of him as soon as possible.”

  “Well maybe you should have thought of that before he lost consciousness,” Maria snapped. Her white latex gloves were mostly red at this point, and wispy black strands of hair had pulled out of her hasty bun to obscure her eyes. She pursed her lips and irritably blew at the hairs. “I’ve got him stabilized, just barely, but this place is as unsanitary as some battlefields, you realize that? He’s not going to last long here.” Maria had been a field medic during her army career, and she’d brought enough supplies with her to get the bleeding under control and put some saline into Grey’s veins.

  “Pain will wake him up.” It already had, twice. Rio was good at inflicting just the right type of pain for the occasion, and he knew he could rouse Grey when he had to.

  “Over my dead body will you torture one of my patients, Rio.”

  “Get off your pedestal, Maria,” Rio told her harshly. “He was left behind for a reason. There’s a demon out there who doesn’t give a fuck about this man, a demon who left Grey specifically so we could use him to learn where it’s going. I plan on doing that.”

  “And playing right into the demon’s hands,” Maria pointed out. “Oh yeah, that’s brilliant! And idiotic! Porter Grey is worth far more to us alive than dead. He’s got information on summoners on at least two different continents, Rio. Safeguard Systems’ first priority has always been apprehension, not elimination, and you know that! We need him in a safe, stable place where we can take the time to interrogate him properly.”

  “Are you forgetting that this demon has Devon?” Rio demanded. “Because I’m not. Cressidus has Devon and she’s going to use him, and if we don’t get to him in time it’ll be almost impossible to separate the two of them.”

  Maria frowned. “And why is that?”

  “Because Cressidus is Devon’s creator. That demon made him, and it can ride him without needing a summoner to keep it around. For fuck’s sake, Porter Grey was this demon’s summoner, and it threw him away like garbage. Why? Because it doesn’t need him anymore, Maria!” How much clearer could Rio make this? “This demon is moving on to complete integration! I killed its current host, but it wasn’t that interested in her anyway; it wanted Devon. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of this, from Grey coming back to America to everything that happened tonight, wasn’t exactly Cressidus’s plan.”

  “All the more reason to step back and take a breath,” Maria said, taking off the gloves. She reached for Rio with a dry, talcum-smeared hand, but he pulled away. He wasn’t going to let her try to soothe him into changing his mind. Maria looked hurt for a moment before putting her game face back on. “Complete integration between a demon and a host requires a lot of time and energy, not to mention perfect compatibility. It’s not going to happen overnight, so we’ve got the time to do this the right way. We can get an extraction team together, call up an exorcist—Tyler’s in the area, and you know he’s the absolute best when it comes to this kind of thing.”

  “Have you ever seen a fully integrated demon?” Rio paused for a moment to let her reply, but Maria didn’t say anything. “Because I have. I’ve actually seen this happen, and it’s a fucking nightmare. You can’t take out a demon fully integrated with its host, not without a lot of bloodshed. And the longer we delay, the worse the fallout is going to be.”

  Maria narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. “When exactly did you see this happen?”

  “Years ago.” Hundreds of years before you were born.

  “And you didn’t feel like it was important to share that information with Safeguard?” she demanded. “This is something that could have consequences for every team we have in the field, and you didn’t pass on intelligence that could be vitally important? Why is that, exactly?”

  “Because I didn’t want to have to answer questions like the ones you’re thinking of right now. How, when, why—it’s not important and it’s none of your business, Maria.”

  “I already know you’re not really human.” Steven’s head jerked up when he heard that, looking warily between the two of them. The tension in the room was palpable: even Maggie’s constant growls from her spot at the foot of the bed diminished to near-silent whimpers. “How much worse than that could it be?”

  It was almost funny, how Maria thought that being something other than human was so terrible. Rio had been around for a very long time, and no matter how bad the demons were, even worse were the deluded human beings who summoned them. Stupid, short-sighted and greedy, in his mind they deserved everything they got for bringing something so completely beyond their understanding into the world. Demons were wicked because that was their design. Humans were wicked because it was their choice, and that was infinitely worse.

  “I need to be able to trust you,” Maria said beseechingly. “I want to trust you, Rio. I want to trust your judgment, but I need more from you than this. You need to tell me what you know, give me details, make your case. Then we can decide what to do with Porter Grey and how to go after Devon.”

  Rio had known Maria for a long time; she had been one of his first handlers with Safeguard, and she was the only one he liked to work with. She was effective, efficient, and smart, and she wasn’t the type of person who could be cowed into agreeing with someone just because they were stronger or more dangerous than her. Rio knew she wanted an explanation, but the more people who knew about him, the more danger it put him, and them, in.

  Rio sighed and shook his head, keeping Maria’s attention on himself. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that.”

  Her lips pulled tight and thin with disappointment, and she shook her head. “Then I’m afraid I can’t—”

  Maria suddenly collapsed forward, pushed into sleep by Steven, who had left his chair and crept up behind her while she delivered her ultimatum. He shook his hand out, inspected the palm and sighed. “I gave her all I had, mate, but the tat’s done in. She was already tired, might stay down for an hour. I don’t know what else you can do to find Devon, but you’ve got that much time to make something happen.”

  “What put you in such a helpful mood?” Rio asked. Not that he was complaining, but Steven wasn’t one of them. He was here because he’d been sent here by his boss, and he’d already gone above and beyond the call of duty as far as Rio was concerned.

  “It weren’t your charming personality, no offense,” Steven said. Rio shrugged; he knew he was being abrasive, he just couldn’t bring himself to care. “It’s for Devon’s sake. He’s a good guy, y’know, he’s…special. I want him to be okay and you’re his best bet for that actually happening.”

  Rio didn’t know everything that had passed between Dev and Steven when
they were alone together, but apparently Devon had made a rather large impression on the young man. “Thank you,” Rio told him sincerely.

  “S’not a problem, long as I’m gone before she wakes up,” Steven said with a shrug. “If you’re gonna burn a bridge, might as well burn it all the way. Now seriously, mate. How are you going to find him? I’d point you toward someone like Lynlis, ‘cept there isn’t anyone near as good as her up here.”

  “That’s okay.” Rio got out his cell phone and looked up the newest addition to his contacts. Shit, he’d have to get rid of his phone after this…he didn’t want Safeguard to be able to track him with it. It hurt, thinking about severing ties with them; they’d done good work together. But the only thing that mattered right now was Devon. Rio found the number he was looking for and called.

  Someone answered after the first ring. “Rio? What’s happening, what’s wrong? Where’s Devon?”

  “Emiel.” Just hearing the angel’s voice eased the tension in Rio’s shoulders. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Devon woke up curled on his side in a silver-threaded cage.

  “Woke up” might have been the wrong word. It wasn’t as though he’d been asleep, really. Devon had been conscious the whole time, but completely unaware of his surroundings and unable to act on them. From the moment he’d met the bright green eyes of the demon in Porter Grey’s hotel room, Devon had been…transfixed. His mind had focused down to a narrow point, all of it centered on complete obedience. A demon could affect a cambion like it could anyone else; more so even, because cambions were already disposed toward sexuality. And this one was so powerful, Devon hadn’t been able to break free. He hadn’t wanted to, not even when Rio had held him, not even when he’d begged Devon to wake up or sworn to come after him. To come here, to this place.

  Where the hell was here, anyway?

  Devon forced his stiffened limbs to relax, unclenching his hands and stomach until he could roll over flat onto his back. The thin lines of silver in the floor burned a little, but he welcomed the pain; it helped jolt him out of the dregs of his trance.

  The top of the cage was very low, less than a foot above Devon’s head when he laid on his back. The door was locked at one end, down by his feet. That meant that Devon had probably crawled in here and let the demon lock the door behind him. Fuck, he didn’t remember that. He didn’t remember anything after the helicopter ride.

  Devon was still hard. He palmed his cock and grimaced at the pain. He’d been this way for a few hours, it felt like. The easiest way to cure it would have been an orgasm, but Devon was wary of using his power here, when it could so obviously be used against him. He turned his head and looked out at his surroundings.

  The cage was at floor level, and looked out over a white marble expanse polished to a gleaming shine. The white was broken up by dark lines here and there, but from his angle Devon couldn’t make out what the design was. There were floor-to-ceiling windows all along the far wall, and Devon could hear and smell cool running water. The wall sconces were elegant and only dimly illuminated the room, and beyond all that Devon thought he could smell…evergreen? Trees of some kind. And…and there was someone else here. Devon didn’t have to use his power to discover her; she crept into his field of view, bare from the knees down, which was all her could see. He rolled over onto his stomach and shuffled closer to the grate at the end of the cage.

  “Hey,” Devon said softly. “Hey.” He didn’t want to startle her away, and waited breathlessly for the woman—no, just a girl—to lower herself so that he could see the rest of her.

  Devon had expected someone young, but this was far younger than he’d thought. She had to be less than ten years old, but the expression on her face was very adult in its absolute seriousness. She wore a thin white shift, and her thick black hair framed her face in a round bob.

  She crouched down on all fours about a meter from his cage, tense and still, like a lion stalking an antelope. “Are you Devon?” she asked warily. Her eyes wouldn’t quite settle on him, glancing around constantly.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “They talked about you,” the girl said. “Cressidus and Master Grey. You’re why we had to leave Xinyi and go find Cassandra in Rome. It was so we could all come and get you.”

  Devon’s knowledge of geography was pretty poor, but he recognized Xinyi as home to some of Taiwan’s wealthiest inhabitants. “I’m sorry you had to leave it,” Devon said a little helplessly. He was usually good at dealing with children, but this one was nothing like his foster siblings. He barely had to stretch out with his power to feel the intense anger and grief coming from her.

  “I had a temple there,” the girl continued, as if Devon hadn’t spoken at all. “Shan was teaching me how to be a god. Cressidus told us it was our destiny to be worshipped.”

  That was a too-familiar refrain to Devon’s ears. In many ways cambion were more desirable to keep and hold than their demonic parents because they had all the weaknesses of a human and didn’t require a summoner to stay in line. A person with the right knowledge in a position of power could use cambions as puppets and never need to court danger by revealing themselves.

  “Did you kill Cassandra?”

  What? “Who is she?” Devon asked.

  “Cassandra. Cressidus wore her to Seattle last night. When she left she was fine but when she came back she had a hole in her head.” The girl ducked her head and sniffled, hiding her eyes for a moment. “Cressidus is still moving her body, but I know that Cassandra is dead. And she was my favorite.” The girl looked up again. “Did you kill her?”

  “No,” Devon said. “No, I didn’t.” He’d been aware of Rio calling Grey’s bluff, but it hadn’t affected him. He could recall the horror of it though, the way the pretty girl’s head had snapped to the side, blood and brains shooting out of the hole along with the bullet. Devon shuddered slightly. “I’m sorry she’s dead, though.”

  The little girl’s brow wrinkled. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t even know her.”

  “That doesn’t mean I meant her any harm.”

  “Liar.” There was so much venom in her voice she would put a cobra to shame.

  “I’m not lying, I promise,” Devon entreated, letting the tiniest fraction of his allure color his voice a little. He tried to be subtle, but the child seemed to feel his attempt anyway, and her anger surged as she pushed his attempt away. “I had no reason to hurt her.”

  The girl shook her head. “Cressidus said you would lie. She told me you were bad, that you needed to be with her to be really good. I wanted to ask anyway, though.” Her sense of fury rose even higher. “You aren’t one of us. You shouldn’t be here with us.”

  “If you unlock my cage, I’ll leave now and you’ll never see me again,” Devon promised. “I don’t want to be here, trust me.” God, did he ever not want to be here.

  “Cressidus says we can’t trust you. Not unless she’s inside of you.” The girl’s hand twitched and a small, slender piece of metal fell into her hand. It looked like half of a pair of scissors, with the plastic handle broken in half to make it more suitable for a smaller grip. “But I don’t want to listen to Cressidus if she’s going to be you.”

  Be me? What the hell? Devon might have wondered about it longer if the little girl hadn’t suddenly closed the distance and thrust the skinny steel shiv through a hole in the grate, sending it straight at his face. He shrank back, hitting his head on the top of the cage but avoiding the sharp edge of the blade.

  The girl made a growling sound and thrust it in again. Devon dodged two more times before he got a sense of her timing, and on the fourth attempt he grabbed the blade by the dull top edge and jerked it out of the girl’s hand.

  “No!” she shrieked, beating at the grate with her fists. “That’s mine! It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine!” She reached out with her power and attacked, and fuck, it was uncanny how strong she was for such a young child. Devo
n hadn’t felt raw power like this from another cambion in years.

  But power alone wasn’t enough to overwhelm Devon’s control, and he broke his self-imposed moratorium on using his allure to slither his power like a lightning bolt through the gales of her force. It snapped her so hard she fell back onto her bottom, her dark eyes widening with shock. Her power faltered for a moment, then gathered again, even more outraged. Devon braced himself.

  “Mei,” a strange voice called out, interrupting the incipient brawl. The little girl looked up and blanched, her power draining away almost instantly. “What did I tell you about bothering our guest? Come here.”

  Mei picked herself up off the floor slowly, until all Devon could see of her again were her legs. She moved out of Devon’s field of vision, and a few moments later Devon heard the resounding slap of skin connecting too hard against skin. “Now get in your cage,” the woman said. It was definitely a woman’s voice, soft and feminine, but there was a strange echo to it, a deeper, more resonant voice beneath the first that Devon knew belonged to the demon inside.

  It was the sort of thing that Devon usually wouldn’t pick up on, but his hearing was still sharper than normal, a remnant of relying on it so much more just a few days ago. The sound he heard was disharmonic—the demon’s voice a full two octaves lower than the human’s. Devon wanted to put his fingers in his ears, but the last thing he needed was to appear any more vulnerable than he already was, so he lay there listening and tried not to tremble too badly.

  There was a shuffling sound to his right, followed by a clang. “That’s better,” the double-voice murmured before a new pair of legs appeared at the front of the cage. They were dotted here and there with reddish gore, and Devon fought the impulse to shut his eyes as the woman—no, the demon—knelt down in front of him.

  “Are you feeling better now, my son?” she asked, brushing her pale fingers along the grate. Her expression was perfectly genial, as though there wasn’t a massive hole in her current body’s head. Her eyes were solid green, from edge to edge. There was no pupil, but Devon could feel her focus on him. “A bit more yourself?”