by Michele Hauf
“You harm her, I’ll kill you.”
Beryth chuckled. “I would adore the pain, Jack boy. But I cannot harm the bitch so long as she wears those rings.”
Rings that were shedding from her as if layers from an onion. Did the demon know that? Was it causing them to break?
Beryth misted above him, half formed, half dark smoke. Jack grabbed the glass ball, still molten hot, and thrust it. The demon took the projectile at the back of its head. A wicked burst of brilliant white light ignited in a star design out from the target. It yowled. The ball dropped to the floor.
Beryth disappeared.
“Bloody hell,” Jack muttered.
He swiped up the ball and, now cooler, held it firmly. “There’s something to this thing that frightens demons.”
Had to be. He just felt it.
Swiping away the dribble of blood from under his chin, he then curled the ball against his chest, his fingers wrapping it securely. “Think I’ll hang on to it a while longer.”
Dashing down the hallway, Mersey headed to the Cadre archives. A vast library was housed in the center of St.Yve manor and was capped with a gorgeous stained-glass cupola that Mersey had many times climbed up into and had got lost in a book.
She knew all the volumes on demon lore and faeries—she’d developed a keen interest in the sidhe at the age of sixteen, after she had first noticed Raskin.
Now, she went directly to the volume she considered an omnibus version of some of the larger demon directories. Bound in red leather and printed with ornate gilt lettering, it contained pictures and brief descriptions of both the daemon sapiens and daemon incultus. There must be a picture of Beryth in here somewhere. Her mother had only once described the demon, but it had been a vivid description. Mersey had been nine, so she wasn’t too clear on the name, or if her mother had even named it.
Tucking the book under her arm, she walked right into Lady Aurora. Ever a shock to run into the sterner of the twins, Mersey always knew immediately it was Aurora for her straight mouth. Lady Dawn’s greetings were usually accompanied by a bright smile.
“Lady Aurora, I didn’t hear you come in. I thought I was alone.”
Taller than Mersey by a head, the auburn-haired director tilted aside the book Mersey held to read the spine. “Research?”
“Always.” She made to pass by Aurora, but the woman stepped to block her.
“You in a hurry?”
“On my way to London. Er…I think I’ve a lead on the leak at the warehouse.”
“So the retrieval is coming along well?”
“I’ve determined the passage was opened from the dark realm.”
“You’ll have to employ an adept to close it.”
“Yes, tomorrow night, the moon will be full. Perfect time to close up a passage.”
“Do you want me to do it?”
The only other option was the earl, and Mersey didn’t talk to the old man unless she met him while out jogging the trail—and then it was merely a hello and good day. “Would you?”
“I can.” The ruby-and-gold ring Aurora wore flashed as she stroked her hair away from her face. Mersey knew that ring had history, something about it containing a demon—yet she also knew Aurora hated demons.
“So, anything you want to talk about?”
Since when did she care? “Nope. I’m good.”
Still, Aurora blocked her escape. The overwhelming sensation that she was being assessed and measured spilled across Mersey like spiders creeping over her flesh. “Are you happy here, Mersey?”
Mersey toyed with the leather spine of the book. What an exact question. She’d never been close to Lady Aurora, finding her sister much more amiable and even on occasion fun during sidhe parties in the woods.
“Why do you ask?” And why now? After all this time, and when Mersey was so ready to leave this place behind.
“I sense your discontent. It waves off you like an aura.”
Mersey lifted her eyes to met Aurora’s. “Honestly? I’m not sure where I belong lately. The Cadre is my family, but…I think I want more.”
LadyAurora nodded. “More is one of those indistinct words that really means you’re not sure how to deal with what you have.”
Right then. Mersey tapped the book spine, avoiding the woman’s seeking gaze. What did she have? Besides one messed-up life?
“I’ve watched you grow up, Mersey. Your skills in the field are to be admired, and you’re smart, not about to fall to demon influence. Your contributions to the Cadre have been invaluable. We’d really hate to see you leave.”
“Oh, I…” She suspected Mersey might leave? Would she? Only if the hero snapped her up and galloped off into the sunset with her.
“Like I said, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about. Not decided, or anything. I um…should be going.”
“Tomorrow night, then?”
“Er, yes. I’ll…” Pray Jack was no longer the dread demon’s familiar by then. Which should require a bloody miracle. “See you then.”
Chapter 20
M iss Accidental Goth stood before him, wearing a tight black-and-gray striped shirt that had dangly lace stuff around the wrists, à la pirate gear, and the cargo pants were actually a skirt now he looked, though it seemed like pants that had been pulled apart and sewn open. To top it all off, she smelled like lemon pie and cozy afternoon tea. She’d come to his flat, toting along a heavy book, which she now splayed open upon her lap as she sat Indian-style on his couch.
“Ah, you pried out the ball,” she commented, tapping the glass ball that rolled to her thigh on the couch cushion. “You could hang a picture over the hole in the wall.”
“Good idea.” Jack hadn’t considered that. What a woman’s touch couldn’t do to a man’s flat. He sat on the arm of the couch next to her and kissed the crown of her head. “So you’re not angry with me today?”
“Nope. I’ve decided it’s stupid to remain angry, especially when you have every right to be cautious about me. But I do know how I feel about you, and that won’t change.”
Her smile did something to his insides. Jack felt his heart open wide and grab out for Mersey. She fit him well. They were two alike, despite working for opposing teams. This bit of all right he wanted to keep in his life.
So don’t mess it up, Jack boy.
That was not the demon’s voice. Couldn’t be. Could it? Jack searched the room, but didn’t see or smell demonic presence. But he wouldn’t let down his guard.
Wrapping an arm around Mersey’s shoulders, but keeping his senses alert, Jack leaned over the book. “So what are we looking for in the book?”
“A picture of Beryth,” she said. “These rings.” She fluttered the fingers on her right hand. “They were bespelled to specifically protect me from a demon my mother described to me when I was a child. I don’t think she ever named it, but I have a creepy feeling that your demon might be mine.”
“Slide over.” She did, and Jack settled in next to her and nudged his nose up to the sweet lemon darkness of her hair. “You always smell so good.”
“Jack, will you concentrate? Find the picture, then we’ll snog.”
“Promise?”
“You won’t be able to keep me from your lips.”
“Right then.”
While he paged through the book, Mersey tossed and caught the ball in her palm. “This is crystal, isn’t it?”
“No, just glass. A gift from my aunt when I was eight. She might have been a witch.”
“Really? Well. It’s filled with wonder.” She pressed it to her forehead and smiled. “Lots of wonder.”
Jack had to smirk at her mystical attempt at figuring the thing. “What makes you say that? You got some woo-woo powers?”
“I’m a familiar, Jack, not a witch.”
“I’m not as up on all the paranormal creep—er, sorts—as I should be. I specialize in demons and leave everything else for the gray seekers.”
“The gray seekers?” she said
in a marveled hush.
“Yeah, er, forget that. I didn’t tell you what I just told you.”
“Right. P-Cell secrets. I can play the game.”
Another toss of the ball and she held it out at arm’s length, squinting as if to peer into its center.
Wonders, indeed.
Oh, that he had ever shown her his initial reaction when learning she was a familiar. But he knew better now. And the demon was right. Belief had returned. He’d once possessed childhood marvel. Adulthood robbed a man of the mystical, the enchanted and the wondrous. Only now could Jack begin to acknowledge the wisdom of a child’s intuition.
“Mersey, I’m sorry. I know I continue to offend you, but you’ve got to understand, this is all very new to me. Until a few months ago I never believed in demons and faeries and familiars and all that woo-woo stuff.”
“That’s another lie.”
“What?”
“This,” she said, holding the ball between the two of them. “You once believed.”
“You think you know me so well?”
“Well enough. And don’t give me the ‘I’ve grown up and know better now’
response,” Mersey said. “You would have tossed this long ago if you didn’t harbor some belief.”
It wasn’t fair that she knew him better than he knew himself. But he kind of liked it. As much as he enjoyed kissing the crease of her inner elbow and nestling his body up against hers as they made love. Could they drop the pretense and the fact that they should be enemies and spend the afternoon making love between warm sheets?
“Fine. I once believed, until bad things started happening and I decided I wouldn’t believe an more. Now that I’ve been living the proof every day, it’s slowly sinking back in. I’ve got a thick skull. So forgive me for my insensitivity?”
Thrusting a finger to her lips, her all-seeing green gaze took him in. A woman ought not to pout so sweetly; she could lure in all sorts. Like a lovestruck demon hunter.
Lovestruck?
“Forgiven.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” she singsonged.
Right. But he was still stuck on the lovestruck part. Was he?
“As for this ball of wonders—” Jack leaned forward onto the open book, but didn’t touch the ball she still held “—I think it has some power.”
“I’m sure it does. It was infused with very strong childhood magic. Nothing can overcome the innocent belief of a child.”
Mersey made the strangest sense in a world of strangeness. “Whatever it was, it did a nasty to the demon Beryth,” he said.
“You saw it again?”
“It was waiting for me in my flat this morning after I woke from being lost in a snowstorm. In the middle of September. You have something to do with that?”
“There are guardians who inhabit the bordering forest and protect the Cadre from unauthorized access. I did warn you, but you had to try, didn’t you?”
“It isn’t like me to give up easily.”
“I wouldn’t expect otherwise. You’re safe though?”
“A lot better condition than my car. The front end is smashed. About the same as Beryth’s skull. I used that ball. That’s the second time I hit the thing with it.”
“Second? When was the first?”
“When I was a kid.”
Mersey tilted her head. “So, you’ve seen it before? And you know it to be the same dread demon?”
“Yep. And…” He studied the woodcut of the dread demon on the page before him. “I do believe this is the bastard, right here.”
Mersey tossed the ball to the couch and grabbed the book to twist it and inspect the photo. She ran her fingertips across the page, taking in every part of the demon’s structure, and then tapped it. “It could be the same. Red and muscled, and lots of horns. I remember my mother telling me about the horns.”
She twisted a ring on her finger. “Why are they breaking? If this is the same demon, and it’s connected to you?” She looked into his eyes. “Do I need to be wary of you, Jack?”
“Mersey, don’t say that.”
“I don’t mean it like that. I trust you. But, if this demon is attached to you, and you’ve no control over it, it could harm me?”
“I won’t let anything harm you Mersey. You can believe I won’t rest until Beryth and I have come to arms again.”
“You intend to kill it?”
“Hell, yes.”
“Bloodthirsty crew of hunters you work for.”
“Bloodthirsty is fine with me when it serves the greater good. We protect mankind from the terror of a demon invasion.”
“I do the same thing, Jack. Without violence. Besides, I can’t believe you buy into that. Demons are not going to invade. They’re simply here because they’ve been called.”
“Beryth said the same thing. That I called him here. I did no such thing.”
“It’s not as if you holler out an invite. Demons are attracted to human emotion, to a strong need, loss or desire. Dread.”
“I know that. But if your mother wanted to protect you from Beryth, then shouldn’t you be glad I’m going to take care of it?”
“At the risk to harming another? Jack! You’re the demon’s familiar. You kill it, you kill yourself.”
The silence stabbed at Jack. Hell, he hadn’t thought of it that way. His own death to set a small portion of his world right? It should make him pause, but all his life Jack had stepped to the front, determined to protect, and never mind his own life. If he could make a change, then it was all worth it.
“If it’ll save you, then that’s a risk I need to take.”
“Don’t talk like that. I don’t need you to die for me. In fact, I’d prefer you stick around. I’d miss your kisses.”
“And I’d miss the taste of you.” He kissed the side of her neck, but Mersey wasn’t into it so much.
“How to make you see the other side of the dark realm?” she said. And then her eyes alighted. “What if you met my friends? I work with a number of paras every day. They’re wonderful. They are as determined to understand their more violent counterparts as I am. If only you could come to the Cadre.”
Now there was an opening he couldn’t refuse. “So it’s a date?”
“Oh, no you don’t, hotshot. I see what you’re trying to do. I’d be expelled from the Cadre if I ever allowed P-Cell inside. It’s bad enough I’m carrying on with you.”
“Yet you want me to learn empathy toward the OEs. Well, it isn’t going to happen out here where they pop out from my walls and attack me.”
“It’s because you’re a familiar; you’re attracting them to your home.”
That had not occurred to him. He really must get Beryth off his back—
without leading him to the Cadre, where he might then go after Mersey.
“I can get you that ward,” Mersey said. “Something nonviolent to protect your flat from intrusion.”
“Of course, no violence. Invite the demon in and offer it some tea, will you? I think it’s all about perception. Trust me, if you let those OEs out into the real world, they show their real colors. And those colors are bloodred. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve watched a demon tear out your best friend’s heart and consume it before you.”
“Your best friend?”
Now he stood and paced to the window. Easier to avoid sentiment when he didn’t have to look at another person’s face. The conversation had taken a turn down a road he had tried to avoid. Did he want to pull onto it completely and make the drive?
“A buddy you worked with?” she prompted.
Buddy. Friend. Would-be lover.
If only he had been honest with her.
“My partner, Monica Price. We were together for two years at MI5. We were on a stakeout, she had insinuated herself inside. I should have gone into the building sooner. I knew something was wrong when she didn’t answer me. Bugger!”
He clamped a hand over his chest. Still he stood with
his back to Mersey. “I felt different afterward, but not as if I’d been tapped. I thought it was grief, and of course there was the whole ‘they exist’
thing to deal with. I hadn’t thought about things like that since I was a kid.”
“I’m sorry.”
From behind him, Mersey spread her hands down his arms. This touch he took easily. Or maybe resolutely. He didn’t know how to react to her anymore. Because if he followed his heart, he’d turn and pull her into an embrace, and seek to shield his dark memories by diving into her sensual pull.
“Did you love her?” she asked.
“I…respected her. Yes, I loved Monica.” Not until now had he put it out there in the open, for anyone to hear and know. It felt…odd. Was he lying to himself?
Mersey deepened the embrace and her cheek snugged against the back of his shoulder. “To be loved by a man like you must have meant the world to her.”
“I never told her.” Throat dry, Jack swallowed. This was it; he was exposing the softest part of himself to her now. “I’m such an idiot. Telling her wouldn’t have stopped her from thinking she could do the undercover assignment on her own. It wouldn’t have stopped that damned demon—I can feel Beryth in the scar on my chest. Twice now since her death, Beryth has come to me, but I’ve been literally paralyzed, so I couldn’t blast it. I’ve failed.”
“It’s an air demon. It can utilize human breath to draw in power and the human’s thoughts and emotions. You need merely breathe and you fuel Beryth.”
“So I need to stop breathing? Which could be solved with Beryth’s destruction.”
“Jack, no.”
“I want you to be safe, Mersey.”
“The hunter wants that. But what about the man? Don’t you want to be around…for me? Show me how you feel about me, Jack.” She reached for him, but he flinched and tilted his head away from her touch.
“Please?”
Indecision warred with Jack’s features.
He bowed his head and fell to his knees before Mersey, encircling her waist with his arms and pressing his head against her ribs. She smoothed her fingers over his short-cropped hair.
“This is how I feel about you, Mersey Bane,” he breathed against her body. “I want to lose myself inside you. You make me believe in good things, that maybe I should give the world a second glance.”