The goal was for the demon master to gain power, ultimate power, over the world. The demon would use that power to open doors between worlds. That was what the demon claimed he could do once the blood power was his.
As for him, the mortal servant, loyal, loving, fervent in his service, he was promised demonhood himself. His mortal body would be peeled away. His soul would be clothed in immortal demon skin.
And the effects of dark magic had begun to grow in him, change him. He was becoming purified—
Then that interfering bastard came along and unceremoniously killed him. Just like that. There’d been no meaning to it, no purpose. Just—death.
“Darkness. For so long.”
Even this new body and new purpose did little to help the pain of being lost in the void, growing colder and colder as the dark magic faded. The Master had gotten to him just in time. He lived again, but the pain was still fresh enough to make his throat so tight with anguish he could barely speak.
The remembered darkness was around him even though he knew he was seated in a town-house living room. Alone, even though he was surrounded by others.
The demon put a hand briefly on his shoulder. He gasped and opened his eyes. The impression of fingers burning into his skin would show up as red marks on his shoulder. Marks of ownership, marks of belonging. The touch of pain broke him out of the darkness.
“Focus,” his Master said. “You were flashing, weren’t you? It happens to all of us, even me. It’s all right. We must remember who we were before we took over these forms.”
“I—yes. Back then—I failed you.”
“No. Your body was murdered.”
He shook his head. “I failed you last night, and tonight.” He’d been so certain, so confident, happy when he went on the hunt. “She wasn’t at home, or anywhere else I searched for her. I don’t know what happened to the bitch. But I did something that will scare her,” he added. “The fear will grow in her, give the kill a stronger burst of energy when the time comes.”
“You came back clean-handed, didn’t you, Jack?” Ted asked. “It’s so easy to sulk when we haven’t made a kill.”
“I know I do,” John said. He rubbed his flabby belly. “I eat too much, too.”
Dick just laughed. He laughed too easily, stupidly. He slapped John on the back. They were seated close together on the couch. “You’re funny.”
John certainly liked to think he was. He and Dick had bonded, called themselves local boys. It was because this pair had terrorized Chicago at different times that the Master had the idea to reanimate their lost souls into modern bodies. For the irony of it as much as the terror potential, the Master said.
All four of them came out of a database the Master’s human host had compiled. Technology combined with magic. He’d studied to find the perfect tools. Their souls were conjured back to the world, into host bodies, bound to serve the Master who’d made them again, as the Master’s host body also served the demon spirit.
Jack was the only one who had served the Master before.
The other three claimed they looked up to Jack. Jack was their role model, their hero, even though they each had more kills to their credit than he had during his original efforts. The pair of local boys resented Ted. He was an outsider. But then, Ted was smart, handsome, charming. At least Ted claimed he was charming.
Jack didn’t see it. He didn’t trust Ted. Ted was sneaky and ambitious and selfish. He’d warned the Master about Ted.
The answer had been a laugh, and a reassuring burning touch. He’s a tool. It’s always going to be just you and me, Jack.
His name wasn’t Jack. It had never been Jack, but there was no fighting the history of the name, the reputation equaled by no one else. In his nineteenth-century life, he had worn the sobriquet with pride. Jack the Ripper.
“Too bad you aren’t living up to your reputation lately,” Ted said.
Once again, Jack was drawn out of black reverie. He hated that the other murderer was right.
“No teasing, boys,” Master said. “There’s a ceremony to perform. Go wait in the basement.”
John, Dick, and Ted left the living room. Downstairs, the altar waited, the tools for warding the place for privacy were laid out. So were the vessels waiting to be filled with the death energy the demon’s servants had gathered from their recent kills. The demon would drink that energy. His power would grow. But some of the energy would be set aside for the great purpose that only the Master and Jack knew about.
Jack waited at the Master’s side while the Master watched the trio go.
The demon sighed. It was an odd, haunting sound. The Master shook his head. “I wish some of Manson’s kids were available. Think what we could be doing with that crew if California hadn’t changed the death penalty law?” He walked toward the basement stairs, graceful and beautiful. “Time to feed my soul. Don’t worry, my friend,” he added with a backward glance. “You’ll bring me your special offering tomorrow.”
chapter eight
Christopher was totally surprised when his pert little prisoner recognized where they were in that vast city the instant he led her out of the front door of the empty building.
He watched as she looked the place up and down and gave a short laugh. “I remember when this used to be a second-run movie theater. The place is haunted,” she added with a look at him.
“I didn’t notice,” he answered.
“Me, either. But maybe the vampire in the room scared the ghosts off.”
“Most ghosts are people’s overactive imaginations,” he scoffed. He looked her over critically. “Although I’ve heard tales of very bad witches conjuring souls up out of the pits of hell.”
Someone who possessed an athame such as this young woman carried might be a very bad witch indeed. It was hard to believe that someone who appeared so delicate and cute and had a mind strong enough to fight strigoi control could be counted among the black ones. Then again, being able to fight him was a clue, wasn’t it?
“Do you know many ghosts?” he asked her.
“Not a one,” she replied. “Besides, you don’t know ghosts. Most apparitions are just traumatic energy imprinted on a place—ghost appearances are only endless reruns. Like the History Channel.”
“I know,” he said. “I saw the ghost of Catherine Howard at Hampton Court Palace once, poor scared girl running down a hallway over and over. Very sad.”
The girl looked at him with new interest. “Were you a member of the Tudor court?”
“Nope. Just part of a midnight tour group.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “What do you think of Midnight Tourist for the name of a band?”
She put her free hand on her hip. “You’re chattering to distract me, trying to get into my head again. Give it up. It won’t work.”
It would if he tried harder, but he wasn’t ready to cause her that sort of pain yet. Or he could bite her, claim her as his own, and get whatever he wanted out of her.
He smiled at the idea.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You know why,” he told her.
“You said you wanted breakfast, and I’m not on the menu.” She tugged him up the sidewalk. “Come on. I know a place that’s open all night.”
“You’re going to be fun.”
Fun, or would it be too much trouble to claim her? Trouble and fun, he decided. But he didn’t have time for breaking in a new pet right now.
Still, the heat of her body registered as lilacs and electric blue against his senses one moment, red as burning roses the next. The swift changes of her moods and body reactions were enticing. He breathed in her growing awareness of him, the slight attraction mixed with defiance and fear. She aroused so many of his senses at once that the notion of claiming her grew more remote with each step. At least, he tried to make his awareness of this enemy of the strigoi remote, aloof, while his body kept telling him, You know, mate, it’s been a while since anyone interesting has come along…
He did enjoy thinking about all the many possibilities as he let her lead him along the empty street. He stopped arguing with himself and greatly enjoyed the time it took to walk several blocks to the one source of light spilling out into the late-night darkness.
Christopher looked around carefully before going inside the all-night diner, appreciating the long winter night as well as making sure they hadn’t been followed. He hadn’t let her distract his senses entirely.
No one had followed them, and it was about two hours before he had to find shelter.
Ivy was aware of the vampire looking her over for the entire walk. It felt like that saying about someone’s undressing you with his eyes, only real. Somehow, feeling his attention on her so intently had done things to her, made her feel more vulnerable, more female. She’d found her body swaying sensually every now and then as she walked.
Okay, she thought, I’m naked under my clothes. You don’t have to be so obvious about your interest.
It was a ploy to rattle her, right? And this form of telepathically tactile attention did rattle her from head to toe to her inner workings. It made her breasts feel heavy and her insides curl with heat.
I can smell you, he whispered inside her head. Delicious.
With a nose like that, you better be able to.
“Just leave me alone,” she grumbled when they reached the door of Theo’s Diner.
He laughed softly in her ear, making her do that shiver thing again, and insisted on opening the door for her and bowing slightly as she went in ahead of him.
“Oh, you’re a real gentleman,” she said.
“I’ve had lessons.”
“Night school?”
He gave her that infectious grin again. And seeing it in full light for the first time, Ivy’s knees almost buckled. Shock stopped her as she realized that not only had he spoken in her head, but that she had easily replied. How could that have happened? How had he done that? Why could she talk to him, like he was somehow special?
She stumbled forward as he dragged her all the way to the booth at the back, on the side away from the kitchen doors.
“We’ll be lucky if a waitress even finds us back here,” she said.
“Shove over,” he said, and sat down close beside her.
She was pinned between him and the wall. His broad shoulders took up a lot of room in the small booth, his thigh was pressed against hers. He plucked his leather coat off her shoulders and tossed it onto the seat opposite. She was still wearing her own coat but didn’t bother trying to wiggle out of it.
Naked under her clothes. It was stupid, but it still felt safer to have on as many layers as possible. The body against hers was hot and hard-muscled and—
“Damn it,” she grumbled.
“Am I making it hard for you to think? Or are you thinking too much about—?”
“Bugger off,” she said.
He chuckled, in a most satisfied way.
A waiter came up with two steaming mugs and set them on the table, and he was gone in an instant.
Ivy glanced at the mug in front of the vampire.
“Is that tea?”
“Very refreshing before bedtime,” he said.
“Stop trying to act English,” she said. “I know you can’t be.”
Oh, Goddess, that was a mistake!
He knew it, and chuckled. It was the scariest sound she’d ever heard. “And who told you that?” He pinched her chin between his fingers quicker than she could see. His eyes had gone a fierce, feral red. Every bit of amusement had left him. He was nothing but hardness now, radiating threat. “Tell me how you know. Tell me!”
His whisper sent painful cold terror through her head, into her soul. “H-hunters.” She was squeaking like a terrified little mouse-girl! But at least she was able to keep up the lie. “It’s vampire-hunter knowledge.”
“No, it is not,” he answered. “No mortal has ever lived long enough to pass on that information.”
Your kind really know nothing of our secrets; the thought hissed through her.
Fine. Right then, that was just fine with her.
“There are no vampire secrets,” she said in a rush. Please don’t kill me, she thought. “There’s no such thing as a vampire. Can I go now?”
“Don’t pretend to be afraid of me.” After his gaze bored into hers a moment longer, he said, “You’re not pretending, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then I’ll let you live until I’m done with you.”
All she wanted at that moment was to get away from those angry red eyes. She wanted more than anything else to get out alive. But she couldn’t help but point out, “Of course you’ll let me live until you’re done with me. You don’t kill someone before you’re done with them.”
“Point taken. How about, I won’t cause you undue pain?”
“Define un—”
“Hush.”
She closed her mouth and nodded.
Oh. His eyes were blue again. They were still looking angrily into her own, but he once more looked like a man instead of a monster.
He let her go as the waiter came back and put down two plates of eggs, bacon, and hash browns. The waiter asked if they needed anything else. How about tea refills? The vampire murmured no thanks at him.
Ivy sat looking down, her fingers tightly gripping the edge of the table. All her bravado evaporated as his threats sank in. She was shaking again. This time with soul-wounding fear. She wanted to howl with it, like a beaten animal. She’d begged a moment ago! Maybe she’d recovered from it, but she shouldn’t have begged at all.
She’d never really been afraid of a vampire before encountering this one. Now she was sick with it. Now she knew what normal people felt like when they came face-to-face with these monsters.
“Eat up,” the English vampire said. He held a fork out to her, then pried her hand away from the table and wrapped her fingers around the utensil. He sounded perfectly cheerful again. “You’re going to need to keep up your strength. Stop thinking of me as the English vampire. It’s getting tedious. My name is Christopher. Call me that from now on. Since you belong to me now.”
chapter nine
The vampire—Christopher—looked critically around her living room, then looked down his long nose at her. “Are you always so messy?”
He’d made her bring him home with her. “Tourists don’t have lairs,” he’d pointed out to her.
She’d given the address on her driver’s license to the cab waiting outside Theo’s a half hour before dawn. But Christopher wasn’t having any deception on her part and gave her the distinct impression that the cab driver might be the one who suffered for her lie. So Ivy did what she had to do to keep a fellow mortal safe.
By the time they reached her door, she’d gotten over her initial scare. It had to have been because she’d never been so eye-to-eye close with a strigged-out vampire—or was it vamped-out strigoi—before.
Honestly, the worst thing this guy could do to her was kill her. Not a pleasant prospect, of course, but fear of her demise had faded. He could hurt her, but he couldn’t make her into a slave or companion. Bad blood had its uses.
Ivy managed to look away from Christopher’s sneer and gasped as she saw what he was talking about. “What the hell?” She walked to the center of the room, having to kick through a pile from an overturned bookcase to get there. Shock and outrage raced through her.
The vampire had scared her, but this, this—
“Violation?” he suggested.
She whirled to glare at him. His defining her reaction sickened her more. “You didn’t do this,” she said. “You’ve been with me—”
Not all evening. What about the time she’d been at her aunt’s? Maybe Christopher had found her place, ransacked it, brought her back to reinforce her fear. But—
Then she saw the word written large and bright red on the clean white paint of the wall over the couch. Four awful, ugly letters: Mine.
“Son of a bitch! You did do this!”
Ivy launched herself at him.
Ivy tripped over the piled books, and Christopher swooped close to catch her before she fell. “Not I,” he told her. “Don’t you blame me for this.”
This didn’t stop her from slapping him.
He was oddly pleased that she wasn’t scared of him anymore. Her fury rang like loud silver bells in his mind, full of a thousand different tones. The layered sound was pleasant, bracing, a glimpse of the real woman. He appreciated her strength for a moment, but time was getting on. The sun was on the way.
Christopher held Ivy out at arm’s length. “I did not do this. I do not like that someone did do this. We will do something about it. Tonight.”
“What do you mean tonight. It is night—oh.” Ivy glanced toward the window. He meant tomorrow night. “Oh, no, you are not staying here!”
“Dawn’s coming.”
She looked back at him, a fierce smile on her face. Pert and perky turned predatory. He liked it.
She said, “You should have had the cab wait. Leave now.”
“We both know how this is going to end,” he said. “Let’s go see if the bedroom is a wreck, too.”
He took Ivy by the hand and led her through her own flat like he was the one giving the guided tour. “No one’s thoughts singing in my head,” he said as he opened the living-room coat closet first. “Nothing and no one.” He checked the front door. “No emotional color here. He didn’t break in this way.”
“I did unlock the door for us to come in,” Ivy said.
“Which raises the question, did he have a key? Or did he come in some other way? Not by magic,” he went on.
Ivy didn’t offer any comment because he was talking out loud but not to her. She went along passively as he walked from room to room. Unless she wanted to somehow rip her hand off at the wrist, she had no choice but to tag along.
Personal Demon Page 6