I swivelled on the desk chair, the one place in the office that wasn’t covered in bottles, jars, and books. I’d turned the place into a lab, and Rachel had backed me up, so we were perpetually surrounded by the various demonic ingredients I used to make simple charms and spells. Rachel was more skilled than I was—I still didn’t know how she’d made my super-stealth boots—but it was always good to have a few surprises up our sleeves.
“I doubt we’ll find many more sires involved, considering recent events,” Nikolas said. “From the way the virus spread, there weren’t more than a handful of higher vampires involved at the start, otherwise word would have made it to Madame White. And now they know just how deadly that virus is—and that the celestials are hunting them—nobody will decide to try the cure on a whim. Not with the source cut off.”
“For now,” I added.
We’d managed to stop the vamps from using demonglass to make a portal into the demonic realm, the source of the virus, but we’d only stalled them. But since their leader was dead, I was far less concerned with their ill-advised attempts to contact the netherworld than I was with the celestials’ new habit of murdering every vampire they came across.
My own name hadn’t yet come up in the announcements from the celestial guild, but it would. The inspector wanted me locked up because I’d committed the unforgiveable crime of insulting him, not to mention told him his former hunting partner had gone rogue in one of the nether realms. I still couldn’t wrap my head around that one. Inspector Deacon might have betrayed his friend and kicked him out of the guild to further his own ambitions, but there was a significant leap between that and turning dark, especially as a highly ranked celestial. Inspector Angler, aka the vampires’ king, had been marked the same way I was, and whatever he’d heard from the demons had been reason enough to turn his back on a lifetime as a devoted celestial soldier.
Nikolas glanced at me. “You think they have a communication line with Pandemonium.”
“That’s where all this started,” I said. “With Azurial. And Themedes.”
“The demonglass is out of commission,” Nikolas said. “Three venos demons materialised the last time Javos tried to use it.”
I grimaced. The demonglass was my one means of travelling into the demon dimensions via my own ability. “It seems like whenever we turn our backs on that place, a new demon takes over.”
“You’re not seriously thinking of going back?” My friend Fiona entered the room, bearing a plate of sandwiches. Javos had adapted surprisingly well to having a human living here, albeit one who was possessed by a demonic parasite none of us had been able to get rid of. She’d been bitten by a vampire carrying the virus, but because she hadn’t drank the blood of an infected vampire—otherwise known as the ‘cure’—she hadn’t fully turned into one of them. So she was in limbo, helping us look for a solution to the problem.
I picked up a sandwich and took a bite. “Cheers,” I said to Fiona.
“I have to be good for something, right?” She rested her hands anxiously on the desk, which was scattered with my various attempts at manufacturing a solution to the virus. Even knowing which demon it came from didn’t help me work out how to counter it. The demon was inside her head, and the one sure-fire way to rid her of it would be to use my celestial power to burn it out. And I wasn’t convinced she’d survive the process. Whenever I’d come close, she’d screamed, her skin burning, and I’d lost my nerve. I wouldn’t lose another friend to the netherworld, especially one who’d been drawn in because of me in the first place.
“You found more vampires?” she asked me.
I took another bite of the sandwich, passing the plate to the others. “Yep. They were captured on a sire’s orders, but I don’t know if he was taking orders from elsewhere. Whoever it was, they wanted an army of the new vamps. If the celestials had got there first, they’d have killed the prisoners as well.”
Fiona winced. She wasn’t actively on their hit list, as she hadn’t been a vampire to begin with. Other humans might be carrying the virus without knowing it yet, too. So far, the celestials hadn’t targeted humans like they had the vampires carrying the virus, but I wouldn’t put anything past Inspector Deacon. He wouldn’t easily give up the power he’d gained.
“What the celestials need is a proper cure,” I said. “Ideally, we need to raid the palace in Pandemonium and find more of those saphor demon eggs. There must be a store, for them to have infiltrated Haven City so quickly.” Demon eggs didn’t fall out of the sky, but we hadn’t found a secret stash in the time we’d been there. “Hasn’t Javos fixed the glass yet? He’s had enough time.”
By ‘fixed’, I meant ‘found a way to stop demons randomly spawning out of it’.
“No,” Nikolas said. “I don’t think it can be fixed. The netherworld is in chaos because of the link you formed between that realm and Babylon. It even affects me when I use my shadow-walking ability. And Babylon’s inhabitants are restless. That ability of yours, Devi—it’s drawn attention, and not in a good way.”
“Wait, Babylon too?” asked Fiona. “Are you sure going back is a good idea? Because the vampires are making enough trouble here, let alone on other worlds. DivinityWatch said the more people go into other realms, the more likely it is that this one will break.”
“You’re still on there?” DivinityWatch was a human-run site for people obsessed with uploading pictures of celestials, preternaturals, and occasionally Divinities. Not that anyone had actually seen one for real. The photos were generally fake.
She nodded. “They’re a decent source of rumours. If you know where to look. People have been speculating on where the virus actually came from. Some have actually come close to guessing.”
“That’s not a good thing, Fi. We can’t afford word to spread. The celestials’ new kill-them-all approach isn’t helping either. Because once people realise that they’re overreacting because they’re afraid of being wiped out…”
“Then they reap what they sow,” Rachel said, with a shrug. “I never liked their self-righteous bullshit. I know you used to work with them, Devi, but if they come after the warlocks…” She trailed off, and I could fill in the blanks pretty easily. We’d had this argument before. Rachel might generally be mild-mannered for a warlock, but she was hard-wired to defend herself and her fellow warlocks, and if it were up to her, we’d have gone directly up against the celestials in person.
“The inspector and his lackeys will burn before this is over,” I said. “But I don’t need to mention how bad it’ll be for the rest of us.”
“You know what to do. Kill their leader,” said Rachel.
My jaw dropped, as did Fiona’s. “Er… not that I haven’t been tempted, but that’ll open up a whole other can of worms,” I said. “There’s no backup leader in the city, and the inspector isn’t one of a kind. Not to mention the power gap will mean the celestials are doubly vulnerable to an attack from the netherworld. And there will be one.”
The arch-demons were moving. As much as the demon mark was a necessary evil in doing my job, I didn’t forget for an instant that the primary goal of the arch-demons was to bring all the realms down to their level, and flood them with the hellions of the nether realms. And I’d bet the vampires, somehow, were involved in their plan.
My phone rang, breaking the tense silence.
I rose to my feet. “I’d better answer that.” I knew the number. I’d been wondering when I’d hear from her again.
Closing the office door behind me, I walked down the corridor and tapped my phone screen. “Clover?”
“Devi,” she said. “I thought I told you to lie low. There was a raid on a vampire’s property today and the scorched remains of several vampires were found inside. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Clover was a retired celestial soldier who’d given me a lot of help, but only seemed to call me whenever it was convenient for her. There wasn’t a lot she could do to stop the celestials�
�� rampage, but she must know I wouldn’t take it lying down.
“The guild’s practically inciting a war,” I said. “Once they kill the wrong person, the vamps will retaliate. I don’t know what the inspector feels like he’s going to achieve by starting a war with the preternaturals, but it’s the demons who are supposed to be the enemy.”
“He thinks the vampires and demons are in alignment. That’s how he’s justifying it. If he finds out I’m talking to you, then I’ll be jailed.”
“Then why did you call me?”
“Because I found Damian Greenwood’s files. There are no signs he was working with demons. Either he turned recently, or he covered his tracks. And there’s no record of his history before he joined the guild at all.”
“I think it took him a while to let himself get bitten,” I said. “Because he knew having a partially demonic aura would risk one of the Grade Fours seeing him and working it out. But it’s possible he messed with his own records.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “The guild does have a history of deleting information whenever convenient. Or the inspector does, anyway. Things haven’t been right for weeks now.”
“He seemed convinced the guild was hiding information on curing vampirism,” I told her. “Not sure why he’d have a specific interest in that…”
“I do,” she said. “Seems his sister was bitten by a vamp. She died a couple of years ago… sentenced to death by the Grade Four celestials for accidentally killing a human.”
“Oh.” I swallowed. I didn’t want to feel sympathy for someone who’d wrecked so many lives, but it was a reminder that the Grade Fours’ bloodthirsty rampage wasn’t a recent development.
“Meanwhile, I did some research of my own,” she added. “It seems some demon venoms do counter vampirism, but with terrible consequences. That young man didn’t see the potential harm of his actions.”
“He was a fanatic,” I said. “Did nobody realise when they spoke to him? Because he’s been listening to the demons for a long time. And he stole the report from Rory’s death—the whole case file. Just how much info access did he have?”
“I can’t say for certain. Even I didn’t know. I was too late. I’d retired from the field long before the incident at the old guild, and after that, Gav didn’t contact me with any suspicions until a few weeks ago.”
“But you do know something.”
She paused. “There’s a chance someone might be listening to me. It’s not too risky to talk about the venom—after all, everyone is. But there are some things which aren’t meant to be discussed where we might be overheard.”
“What do you mean? Someone’s… tapping the phone lines?”
Clover cleared her throat. “I have to leave. But I’d advise you to keep your head down until we know what exactly is happening at the guild.”
And she hung up. Dammit, Clover. Cryptic to the end.
Damian Greenwood… what the hell, maybe he had been a spy. But you couldn’t fake being a celestial soldier, not when any celestial at Grade Four or higher could see auras. A demonic influence was impossible to miss, and besides, the headquarters had been entirely warded against demons until a couple of weeks ago. Damian had got away with hiding his demonic influence by pretending to have been bitten by a vampire carrying the virus.
Really, it all started four years ago when the old guild burned down. The reports said a celestial called Faye Carruthers had been the one to summon a demon, in an attack which had claimed many lives including Inspector Angler’s. But not only had he turned out to be alive, he’d insinuated the whole thing had been a setup. By the demons. I didn’t trust anyone at the guild. And I didn’t blame Clover for not trusting them either. But from the lack of background noise, she hadn’t called me from the guild itself. The way she’d paused, in fear… like she thought there was something not human listening in.
Arch-demons couldn’t tap phone lines. Right? They worked in mysterious ways, that was for sure, but that—no. Absolutely not. My life was my own business, nobody else’s. Arch-demons and gods included.
Chapter 3
“Devi?” Nikolas emerged from the lab as I slipped my phone back into my pocket. “There’s something else I should tell you.”
“Oh, boy,” I said. “You’re using your ‘major understatement’ voice.”
His brow furrowed. “I have one of those?”
I’d struggled to accept that it was in his nature to be secretive about the warlocks. After all, their survival depended on keeping secrets from demons and humans alike, including the celestials. Especially the celestials. And then I’d come along and shaken everything up. But it wasn’t unreasonable to expect a little warning before he dropped a bombshell on me.
“Go on, get on with it.”
“Zadok,” he said. “Apparently he’s told everyone in Babylon about your mark.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Oh. Shit.”
Nikolas’s demigod brother Zadok had, for some bizarre reason, elected to help us during the battle. He’d saved my life, and I’d borrowed his magic to win. But unlike his brother, he didn’t give anything without asking for a price.
“Exactly.”
“It’s not like we were subtle during the battle, anyway,” I said. “Anyone who was watching the fight would have seen me use both celestial and demon magic at once.”
“Yes, but this isn’t something I can ignore.” His brows drew together, and the golden hint to his eyes gleamed underneath the ceiling lights. “I feared word would spread after the battle. The fact is—they saw the divine fire of your battle on the bridge. And after that, there’s no chance they will let the situation slide. Unless I bring you to them myself, they’ll find a way to contact you.”
“Contact me. Wait. We’re talking warlocks… or demons?”
“Both,” he said. “Mostly warlocks. The castle essentially belongs to the surviving half demons who elected to stay in Babylon rather than relocating after my father left that realm. And while they don’t answer directly to an arch-demon, they do answer to the Castor family. That is, my brother and I.”
“So the castle is full of warlocks who do… what, exactly? Function like an army?”
“More or less. The castle is under constant siege from outside forces—the other inhabitants of Babylon. But it’s fairly stable as far as the nether realms go. You are in no danger there, as long as you watch your back.”
“Hmm. You know your brother tried to kill me the first time I went there, right? There’s no way they’ll trust a celestial. We’re extinct there, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I did anticipate that slight issue.”
“Understatement again.”
“You’re more than capable of defending yourself against them,” he said. “Few are higher than Grade Three, and there are no demigods aside from my brother and myself.”
“But I’m marked by a rival arch-demon, right? Doesn’t that make me their enemy even if you ignore the celestial part?”
He shook his head. “It’s complicated. More so because whoever marked you fell fairly recently. That makes the arch-demon a new player, and an unknown one. Not unlike yourself. They won’t strike you until they’ve got your measure, and you might make a valuable ally.”
“But that’s—” I cut off. “Look, I appreciate that this is bigger than me, but this is my home. I didn’t choose this. And I’m not picking a side until I know what I’m getting myself into. The celestial guild operates on blind faith, and look what happened to them.”
Even I’d fallen victim to it. I’d believed the gods were punishing me when Rory died. And while I trusted Nikolas, he was an exception to the rule. Most shadow demons were manipulative and considered humans tools at best.
“I’m not asking you to pick a side,” he said slowly, as though choosing his words carefully. “I’d rather you present yourself to them as a show of good faith, to prove you aren’t their enemy. Unlike the warlocks in this realm, they’re not unde
r Javos’s jurisdiction. They’re open to persuasion.”
“Hmm.”
“Relax.” He moved closer to me, taking my hand—the right, demon-marked one. “I won’t allow you to come to harm.”
His thumb stroked my palm, sending a pleasant tingle up my spine. Okay, my demon mark wanted to steal his magic—I couldn’t deny that—but the warmth that flooded me at his touch was a different kind entirely. His heated gaze swept my body, carrying promises as yet unfulfilled, and he leaned over and kissed me. His strong hands gripped my waist, pulling me against him.
“Nikolas Castor,” Javos said irritably, “It just so happens I set up the demonglass again this afternoon, and so far, nothing’s come through it. If you aren’t too busy to use it.”
Dammit. The master warlock had the worst sense of timing. I let go of Nikolas and gave him a fake smile. “We’re good.”
Javos shook his horned head. It was a testament to my level of distraction that I hadn’t heard him coming, because he was huge, muscular and seven feet tall, with a pair of iron-like horns stooped under the low ceiling. Like Nikolas, he was a demigod, but I didn’t know either the nature of his magic or his demigod parent. Unlike Nikolas, he was a bad-tempered brute with a penchant for terrifying every non-warlock he met. At least he didn’t look pissed off at having seen the two of us making out with one another, because I had no intention of stopping. It was thanks to Javos that we’d hardly had a moment alone together in weeks.
“The demonglass is open for use?” Nikolas asked. “We planned to request—”
“Rachel asked me herself, while you two were occupied.”
“We’ve been here two seconds. I was on the phone,” I said. “So you said yes?”
“With conditions,” Javos said. “I’m allowing this only because your ability allows you to use the glass even in its dormant state, reducing the risk of any demons breaking through. See to it that you don’t bring any trouble back with you.”
Celestial Ashes: The Celestial Marked Series: Book Three Page 2