by Anne Malcom
I lifted my brow in warning. “Is that right? Because I don’t think I do. He should’ve told me.”
Sophie sipped from her mug. “Yes, and when do you think he should’ve told you? The first time you met, when prophecy and everything more than that told him you were everything he needed to breathe while age-old instinct urged him that you were the only thing he needed to kill? Or any of your other encounters before you got together during which, if I remember correctly, you promised you’d kill him? Or how about when the death threats stopped?”
She paused, as I sipped from my own mug, pretending that the coffee was satisfying the aching burn in my throat. Pretending that the sheer need for blood, for Thorne’s blood, for Thorne, wasn’t driving me crazy. Or crazier.
Sophie, unaware of my internal struggle, put her cup down to continue the lecture.
“Oh wait, that’s right. The death threats have yet to stop. Then there was that whole war of the worlds that you were fighting. The secrets you had to keep about your relationship in order to stop the entire warring community, both sides, from coming after you. Then you almost died, and he had to watch and feel what the world would be like if he lost you. Then he was supposed to tell you something that he most likely hasn’t told anyone but those he trusts with his life? Because such knowledge could be the thing that kills him if left in the wrong hands. And merely giving you that information was all the more fatal to him when you already hold his heart in your hands. So when do you think, between all that, it would have been the ideal time for him to let you know that he’s not just a mortal slayer but an immortal version of one who is related to the vampire king who may or may not be in love with you and has you fighting on his side in a war that may kill you all? Where you two just happened to be prophesized to bring about some kind of beginning or end along with four others.” She tapped her fingers on the table, eyeing me. “When, Isla?”
I stared at her. Sipped my coffee. Glared at her. Wished I could do some magic. Then I picked up the fork on the table, idly weighed it between my thumb and finger, contemplated spearing her with it and then put it down.
“When? Well, there was that time when we were…. Oh wait, there was a time in any of those situations when he could have slotted that in there,” I snapped. “The truth is something that can easily fit into every conversation, especially when it changes everything.” I drained my coffee and stood up from the table.
Sophie stayed sitting. “No, that’s when the truth doesn’t fit anywhere,” she muttered, her eyes faraway and yet close at the same time.
I wanted to play the counselor to my friend, I really did, but the pause I’d have to give her to talk about whatever truth lay behind her eyes meant mine might come out too. And this coffee shop, this whole fucking island wasn’t big enough to contain that particular truth.
“Whatever. I’m going to kill some things. Are you going to come?”
If there was something that worked better than shoe shopping to avoid all of life’s upsetting and rather inconvenient truths—to unintentionally quote Al Gore—it was killing things.
She stood, clearing her eyes. “I’d love to, but rain check? I’ve got to get us prepared for this fight with the witches and do some more research on them, and then I have a coven meeting.”
I screwed up my nose. “Homework and meetings with crusty old witches? Boo, you whore.”
She hefted her black studded bag onto her shoulder. “This homework might be the difference between life and death when we finally face these bitches. Do you still disapprove?”
I scowled at her. “Yes I do,” I informed her snippily, crossing my arms. “I disapprove on principle.”
It just happened to be that the lull in our plan to fight the war coincided with my vengeance mission and my little ‘let’s dodge Thorne so we don’t kill him’ game I had going on. Handy.
Sophie’s eyes went from light and teasing to inquisitive. I didn’t like the way she started to peer at me.
I self-consciously rubbed my upper lip for milk foam, even though I hadn’t had anything milky. “What?” I snapped.
“When was the last time you fed, Isla?” she asked.
I folded my arms. “Who are you, my mother? Or her opposite and slightly less evil twin?”
“Isla,” she warned. “You’re going into an uncertain situation, could be attacked at any moment, and are about to go and kill more things. You need to feed.”
“I’m on a diet. Low blood. It’s all the rage. Keeps me young,” I lied. “Plus, I’m so much more ruthless when I’m hangry that I even scare myself. It’s such fun.”
“Isla. Whatever is going on with Thorne, he is, for better or worse, what you need to survive.”
“His blood is,” I corrected. “The only other things I need to survive come in the form of television shows, a good torture every now and then and high-heeled shoes.”
She gave me a disbelieving look. “Whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the night. But promise me you’ll call him and grab a midnight snack after the latest killing.”
I crossed my fingers over the area of my chest where my heart would be. “Hope to die,” I promised. Or, more aptly, lied.
No way was I going to him for anything. Yeah, I needed his blood to survive, but I also needed my sanity. The little sliver I held onto, anyway.
She gave me another look that told me she saw right through me. “Okay, well, at least call me, or Duncan or freaking Scott if this gets more complicated than one kill,” she ordered.
I grinned. “Of course. I’ll make it a party.”
No way was I calling anyone. Plus, Duncan was taking it upon himself to fight some hybrids in Oklahoma. Coincidence? Me thinks not.
“Well kill him slowly for me, then,” she requested, leaning in to kiss my cheek.
“Now that I can promise,” I said cheerfully.
And then I darted out the door to kill things.
Like my humanity.
Like that love that seemed unable to die.
Like it might be the only part of me that was truly deathless.
Chapter 16
The info and address Sophie gave me were good. And happily enough, the demon was home.
And not expecting me.
Which was great.
Whatever the plan was, it was hopefully at the very least eschewed by the fact that I didn’t leave the human alive.
Or maybe that was the plan, to have me circling the basement where I’d chained the demon to a chair. I had Sophie send me a quick picture of how to do a rudimentary Devil’s trap—they didn’t just exist on Supernatural, one thing the producers got right. I didn’t have chalk so I’d had to use two tubes of my favorite lipstick, which was rather fucking inconvenient.
I brushed off my knees when I finished, tossing the empty tube to the side.
“You know, this was my last tube, and they discontinued this color,” I seethed. “So you just got yourself the Isla special. Being that I’ll make you hurt in so many ways even your boss downstairs might learn a few things.”
I glared at the demon who looked far too terrified. His daddy would be so disappointed. Not to mention he’d only managed to burn up my arms with his little fire trick.
They barely smarted, though the healing process was annoyingly slow considering the lack of blood in my system.
I could work around it.
It was actually rather calming and nice compared to the utter agony in my chest.
I circled him, cold and predatory. The look was freeing—welcome, in fact. Just like the killing of that human had been, letting myself out of the shackles I had been tricking myself were accessories for the past few centuries. Ones that had become tighter with Thorne in my life, tighter in a way that I thought was comforting when I was under whatever illusion had me thinking it was actually a forever kind of thing.
Nothing was forever.
Except death.
And I needed to have some fun in my life before death.
>
It was so damn boring doing this ‘proper behavior for human society’ thing.
Blah.
I embraced my true nature, smiling as I unearthed the enchanted knife that had been humming with magic in my purse. I welcomed the pain that came from holding it, shooting into my injured arms, renewing the fire within them.
The nifty thing about those enchanted blades was they worked on any supernatural creature. Kind of a blanket kill switch.
Handy.
I wondered why the slayers hadn’t been more successful at disseminating our numbers. It only took a stab in the proper organ to end an immortal with this. How had they not gained more of an upper hand?
Oh, that’s right. They were human.
Basically, at least.
Apart from one.
I didn’t swallow the rage or sorrow that came with that little thought. I embraced it, welcomed and channeled it into the stare I was aiming at the demon in front of me.
“You know,” I began, twirling the knife in my palm and puncturing the skin, just for fun. And to show my crazy. Most times I wore it like Prada, and anyone with an eye for it would see it. But sometimes I got tasteless and uncultured swine who didn’t know Tom Ford from Target and sane from… well, me. So I had to educate them.
Oh, how I’d missed educating them.
It was worth the excruciating pain that came with the cut that was so much more than just a simple cut. No, the magic in the blade was designed to leak out once blood was spilled, rendering the immortal it punctured immobile with pain.
That was unless the immortal was me. Pain was my jam.
“Someone once told me not to bite off more than I could chew.” I moved licked the blood off my palm, my eyes on the demon, who was now shaking.
Curious.
“You know what I told those people?”
I darted forward so my nails fastened around his neck, the pulsing of his artery vibrating my palm, the blood calling to me.
Not in a way that I wanted to wet my rather dry whistle, but I grinned in the face of his desperate fear nonetheless.
“I told them nothing,” I whispered. “I bit them. And reminded them that I’m a fucking vampire, and I don’t chew shit. But they got the message. You know, with their deaths.”
I leaned forward, intending to rip his throat out. For fun rather than sustenance, of course, on account of the whole vomiting blood situation should I decide to swallow.
I bet that was one of the worst reactions a girl could have to swallowing.
Fuck, why didn’t I have a pen and paper around, or at least a camera crew when I had thoughts like that, so I could look right at the camera and utter it before the kill shot.
“Please don’t kill me,” he blurted, his voice shaking.
Steam rose off the exposed skin covered in rudimentary and rather ugly ink, the little lipstick trap making it so the flames couldn’t leave his body.
“Really, dude? A tribal tattoo? Please tell me you’ve got a wallet chain and GTL is your Sunday routine. After collecting souls for the week, of course” I said, pausing from my immediate plan.
It wasn’t the bad tattoos that made me pause, though I would be removing them for him later because I was a kind vampire like that. No, it was the pleading and utter terror in his voice.
Yeah, some demons were cowards, and I would like to think I was pretty darn scary, but this was something else. This wasn’t the fear of an immortal with a very real experience of the world and the knowledge of an immortality coming to an end.
That was very different to an ignorant human’s fear, much like a little rabbit with its frantic eyes and heartbeat and not much coherent thought.
But this demon was behaving like… well, a human.
I squinted at him.
I wasn’t hot on demon lore, considering they kept their shit tight, and also because I didn’t really care where they came from, just that they poured great drinks, gave great orgasms and put up a good enough fight when I felt like killing something.
They were from the underworld, that was the one thing agreed upon. But the underworld was a tricky place. There was Hades, the original bad boy himself. Daddy to all demons and uncle to all vampires. It was certain that demons existed. Therefore the underworld existed, so therefore Hades existed.
Which, of course, gave credence to the whole prophecy thing.
And then there was the question of binary oppositions.
Because for the underworld to exist, didn’t there have to be a kingdom in the sky for all the saints to go to?
No, but then again, was there honestly such a thing as saints in this world?
A scary thought, or a comforting one for me, at least. Because there only need be one place for all the souls on this earth, since they were all depraved.
It was only a matter of how depraved.
But that was getting away from the point.
Which was that people didn’t know much about demons except that they came mostly in the same human shape, apart from ones from the deepest levels of the pit if you believed the lore.
They only resembled humans; they weren’t actually human.
Which was why I paused in the face of humanlike fear.
“I promise I’ll tell you whatever you need to know. Just don’t kill me. This isn’t what I signed up for,” he babbled, his voice increasing to a pitch that didn’t match his bulging muscles and douchey disposition. Oh, and the fact that he was a fucking demon.
“What you signed up for?” I repeated. “Well, none of us sign up to be monsters, buddy, but we are. For better or worse. I personally like worse. That’s so much more fun.” I ran my eyes over the steaming and now writhing demon. It must not have been that fun, or comfortable, having fire burning through your body when it couldn’t find release.
I wondered if it was like having ice freeze your veins in the place of the fire that had been there once before.
Nope. Couldn’t go there.
My mind was a wandering fool today.
More so than every other day.
“Run, my pretties. Be free,” I called out, gesturing with my hands.
The demon continued to shake with his fear and pain. “Who are you talking to?” His eyes darted around the empty room.
I tilted my head with a smile. “Oh, just the monsters I’m letting out to play.” I tapped the side of my head. “Sometimes it’s too depraved for even them up there.”
Then I sauntered up to him, leaning on the handles of the chair, smiling seductively at him for a moment. I locked eyes with the fire and experienced the inferno that was his skin, singeing my arms slightly but yet somehow feeling like nothing more than a small flicker of dying embers.
I stared into the flames as I plunged the dagger into his thigh.
I left it there while he screamed, checking my manicure until he calmed down.
“I was going to talk to you!” he howled. “You didn’t need to do that.”
I looked up from my nails. “Oh I know, but I brought the knife and all, and I had my heart set on at least a little torture for today.” I shrugged. “Sucks to be you, dude.”
“They didn’t tell me it was going to be like this. Immortality means not dying, right? Well I feel like I’m going to die, just like I would as a human.”
I nodded. “Well yes, you’re not as dense as your haircut and tattoo communicate you to be, but…. Wait, you were human?”
He gaped at me. “What else would I be?”
I gaped back. “Um, the demon that you are?”
I wondered if there was such a thing as mentally challenged demons.
Even the Prince of Darkness might drop the odd one on its head every now and then.
“They came to me, those women. They were beautiful. One was like you, with the fangs.” He nodded to my mouth.
“And the beauty, obviously,” I added.
He swallowed. “The other was hot, like I’d totally take her home anytime, but there was something… off
about it. Like the chicks who wear all that makeup and they’re all good to look at for a while as long as you don’t look too close and realize… you know?”
“That they’re big old uggos who perfected the art of contour?” I finished for him.
He nodded distractedly. “Well, that’s what she was. And then there was a man who was like you too, but he was a creepy dude. Cold, but empty. He’d kill me as soon as look at me.”
I gave him a once-over. “Could you blame him? He’d probably be doing humankind a favor, which was most likely why he didn’t do it. You know, since he’s trying to annihilate humankind, or use them as cattle, depending on whose war song you listen to.”
Steam continued to rise off the demon’s pain-drenched face. “Can you take that out?” he gritted out.
I nodded. “Yes, of course I can.”
He waited. I didn’t move.
“I can, but I’m not actually going to,” I clarified.
He waited, perhaps for mercy, or kindness or for me to simply be impatient enough to speed the process along.
He was sorely mistaken if he was thinking such things could be found in a vampire.
But then such things couldn’t be offered by humans either. They were only merciful when they wanted victory, kind when they wanted to be recognized, and patient when they wanted anything.
Depraved.
“We going to sit here all night? Because I’m not the one with the magical knife in my thigh, so it’s going to be a much more comfortable wait for me.” I held up my phone. “Plus, I’ve just discovered this little game called Candy Crush. It’s wonderfully addicting.”
“You’re insane,” he hissed, the fury in his voice finally resembling somewhat demonlike behavior.
I grinned. “Of course I am. But then again, crazy is relative. I consider that hairdo paired with those tattoos and that tank top to be the epitome of insanity.” I shrugged. “Fire with fire is the cliché. But I despise clichés. I do enjoy the spirit of it, though. I just prefer crazy with crazy. And honey, my crazy is so much cooler than yours.”
He eyed me again. “They just promised me eternal life,” he relented. “I didn’t know it would come to this.”