Personal Demon

by Susan Sizemore

  Ivy didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She couldn’t. She’d been assigned an impossible task, but she couldn’t ask a vampire to help her. Certainly not Christopher, who was coming across as a deep-down old-school, by-the-Laws-of-the-Blood strigoi despite his being more or less nice to her.

  “Demons are none of your concern. We both know that. Why do you keep asking me about them?”

  “What concerns you now concerns me.”

  Christopher was so sincere it twisted Ivy’s soul. She still couldn’t stop the bitter laughter. “There’s not a bite mark on me,” she told him. “And there won’t be,” she added when he stood and took a step toward her. “You’ve stumbled into something that doesn’t concern you. Please stumble on out again.” She waved toward Ariel’s front door. “Go be a tourist.”

  Or an avenging angel—or whatever—was more likely. She’d finally figured out that he was in Chicago to check up on the local vampire population. Otherwise, why would he be looking for Ariel? Why the interest in the Covenants? For who? And why? Vampire politics were Selena’s expertise, more or less. What Selena actually had was a secret network of secretly rebellious companions across the country. Maybe there was a secret network of secretly rebellious vampires out there, too.

  And Christopher certainly wasn’t one of them. It was a pity she liked him so much. Even more of a pity that his attention had landed on her.

  Things were really twisted lately, weren’t they?

  “Only heartbreak can come of this,” she muttered.

  Literal heartbreak was always a possibility when dealing with a vampire. At least, having one’s heart ripped out. The fear of that froze her in place when Christopher suddenly pulled her out of her chair.

  She knew he intended to bite her. All Ivy could do was close her eyes and wait for whatever horrible thing came afterwards.

  Revulsion. Scorn. Death.

  chapter twenty-six

  She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to fight him. She welcomed the warm breath on the side of her throat, the faint sensual touch as he ran his tongue over her skin. The hot, sharp points of fangs touched her skin, poised for a long, aching moment. Began to press—

  “You’re going to throw up,” she couldn’t help but warn at the last moment.

  Christopher stepped back, swearing. Every muscle clenched in frustration. He was wracked with pain from wanting her!

  “No, really, you’re going to hurl,” he heard Ivy say over his own muttering.

  There was nothing mocking in what she said, nothing teasing, or daring. She really meant it.

  Poison Ivy.

  That was what the young strigoi had called her, wasn’t it?

  Christopher stroked her throat with two fingers, absorbed the quickness of her pulse, the rapid pounding of her heart. Her skin glowed hot to his senses.

  She was afraid. Defiant. Ashamed.

  Christopher backed away, turned to stand looking into the gas fire. He clasped his hands behind his back, waited for tension to drain from him, for the throbbing ache in his mouth to settle. He heard her move behind him, put more distance between them.

  He waited until she was almost at the doorway before going to her in a flash of movement. He did not sink his fangs into her throat, but lifted her hand to his mouth, biting into the flesh of her palm. Two drops of blood leaked out, bitter on his tongue.

  She tried to snatch her hand away when he lifted his head, but he held her wrist tightly. He kept his eyes closed while his whole being concentrated on the life on his tongue. Copper, iron, salt, bitter, bitter.

  Poison Ivy.

  He looked at her pale face, into her shining, frightened eyes. He ran a finger around her soft, full lips.

  “Just how much demon do you have in your DNA?” he finally asked.

  He let her go.

  Ivy scrambled backwards, once more heading for the door. Did she really think he was going to let her get away from him just because she tasted a bit off?

  “I like pickles,” he said.

  She whirled to face him. “What?”

  “And vinegar. Hot peppers. Curry. I love curry, the stronger the better. Not to mention Thai cooking, and Sri Lankan. All acquired tastes, but I do not like anything bland.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She really didn’t understand.

  “I hear spice,” he said. “It sings to me.”

  She took another step back. “Lovely.” A gesture toward the door. “I’ll be going now.”

  “Places to go, demons to kill. Sit down, Ivy. You know I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

  “Are you going to kill me now?”

  “Not right now.”

  She sneered. “Isn’t that a relief to know.”

  He pointed. Ivy went back to sit in her chair. She crossed her arms, and her legs, lifted her chin defiantly. She was desperately trying not to show any emotions. Trying not to feel any.

  Christopher stood behind her, put his hands on her shoulders. She shivered beneath his touch, skin burning against his palms. He leaned to speak into her ear. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  He held her still when she would have jumped away.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “Not at the moment. That’s all we have in life, moment after moment after moment. Relax for the moment.”

  “You have a lot more moments than I have, sweetheart.”

  “Trust me. For the moment.” He walked away from her and sat down opposite her again. “I’ve never had a demon lover before,” he added, smiling widely at her.

  It wasn’t amusing! What was he smiling about? “I’m poison to your kind,” she said. “Why aren’t you writhing on the floor? Or at least barfing?”

  “Would you like to see me suffer?”

  Not really. She should.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said. “Please.”

  “My grandpa’s a demon,” she spat out. “And grandma liked it, so no sympathy for the poor girl raped in a black-magic ceremony, please. They’re happily married—if you can call it that. Happily living in sin’s a better description. That woman is one dark and wicked witch. You’d like her. Their son seduced my mother when she was sixteen. My mother and father are first cousins. Incest and demon sex produced me.” She smiled. She thought all her teeth must be showing. “Now, tell me about yourself.”

  “I promise you that I will. Later. But I still want to know why you were chosen to stop the murderers. Why is it your job to save the magic?”

  “Because I’m a demon, you idiot! You’ve tasted my blood. You know what I am.”

  “You don’t look like a demon.”

  “Have you ever met a demon?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “My father is totally hot. He’s a totally unsuccessful con artist but did well as a male escort.”

  “Did?”

  “I haven’t seen him in years, and would like it to stay that way. And grandpa has a certain brutal charisma, I’m told,” she added.

  “You are mostly human. You have no idea how to use the power you have. You aren’t a trained warrior. You don’t want the job. And you aren’t certain a demon is responsible for the murders. You’re scared to death.” He ticked off facts.

  She answered. “But it’s still my job.”

  He nodded and gave her one of those bone-melting smiles. “That’s my girl.”

  She wasn’t a girl. She wasn’t his. She still glowed with pleasure and pride at his words.

  “Since you’re determined to find the killer, I have a piece of information for you. You do know that there is more than one maniac working for this demon, don’t you?”

  She hadn’t actually consciously articulated that there was a demon behind the murders. Oh, she knew there was dark magic at work. There was some very evil reason for the deaths; they couldn’t be just for the joy of killing. It had to be a demon working through humans to build energy for some very bad spell. Demons manipulated
mortals to do their dirty work whenever they could arrange it. Demons were very good at setting themselves up as leaders of fanatical religious cults. Stop the killings, stop the spell.

  “Save the cheerleader, save the world,” Christopher said.

  “What?”

  “It’s from an American television series. One you obviously never saw. How many killers do you think are working for the demon master?”

  “Selena told me there’s more than one murderer. But I’ve been having some trouble with a vampire and haven’t really had time to pursue my own investigation.” Not that detective work was something she knew much about, other than keeping tabs on the occasional horny, human-stalking strigoi.

  “Blame it on the vampire. Close your eyes,” he said. “There’s some information I want to help you remember.”

  Ivy closed her eyes, pouting as she did so. Now that he knew what she was, why didn’t Christopher let her go, or worse? Better to pout than give in to the fear he was going to murder her. Although she almost welcomed death over rejection.

  Oh, no she didn’t. Who the hell was that death-better-than-loss melodramatic?

  Eyes closed, mind shut. Meditate, Christopher added. You must have at least some rudimentary knowledge of—

  Hush! How can a person clear her head with you babbling away?

  Silence.

  Silence slowly stretched around them. Silence filled all the spaces between them. Silence flowed into them, bound them together. Two together in silence.

  Remember, Ivy.

  Remember wha— Oh…

  Three bodies appeared at her feet, two women and—and a—teenage boy. Lifeless bodies splayed out on dead autumn grass. Worse than dead. Soulless. No ghosts here.

  Remember, Ivy.

  She began to cry. No, she noticed she was crying. Her tears, but all the grief and guilt and—

  There were three bodies. Where was the other one? The one that had screamed with his own guilt? Screamed from the violation? Cried for what he’d done.

  Violation worse than physical.

  Cried for what he’d been forced to do. What had been taken from him. Cried and cried and cried.

  You cried for him, Ivy. You cried with him.

  He was one of the killers?

  Yes. His was the last soul that was taken. He’s the one that’s haunted you. Perhaps he reached out for help.

  Ivy could imagine it. Feel it. See it.

  The killer hadn’t volunteered to be a murderer. Something compelled him. A spell covered his natural instincts, changed him into a monster. Then the spell broke. The real man saw what he’d done—grief, guilt. Death.

  It poured out of him, across the kill zone, into her.

  Grief, guilt. Death.

  “He was killed, too. The demon had the killer killed.”

  A demon wouldn’t have any use for a broken tool.

  Ivy opened her eyes and looked into Christopher’s. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t think this would have occurred to me on my own.”

  “You became personally caught up in the situation. Very hard to look at something you’re inside of.”

  “But what to do about it? Goddess, what am I going to do about any of this?”

  She wasn’t going to ask Christopher for help. He’d just given her all the help he possibly could, anyway. Vampires and demons strictly stuck to the ancient treaty that kept them from interfering with each other. Vampires stuck strictly to it, at least. Demons had been known to find tricky ways around it. When that happened, vampires usually found mortals to do the dirty work of disposing of the demons for them. But vampires themselves, they never ever directly stepped in to exterminate demon vermin.

  If she was going to be cynical about it, Ivy could suppose that Christopher had fed her information so he could use her the same way Aunt Cate was using her. Ivy Bailey, demon hunter.

  A clock somewhere in the house had chimed the hour several times over the course of their conversation. It chimed again now. It was five in the morning. Sunrise soon.

  “Bedtime.” Christopher stood and held his hand out to her.

  Why would he want to share his bed with a demon?

  “If you let me leave, I can get on with finding the killers.”

  “In your exhausted state? Nonsense. Come with me and get some rest.”

  “Is rest what you have in mind?”

  “No. But the hour is late, and we don’t want a repeat of our last encounter, do we?”

  So, it didn’t feel like an erotic dream to him any more than it had to her.

  There was no getting away from him at the moment, so Ivy stood and let him take her hand. The touch of his skin against her own was deceptively reassuring. She gave in to the impulse to run her finger around the outside of his ear.

  It turned out Christopher was ticklish.

  chapter twenty-seven

  The bedroom in the basement wasn’t a thing like the romantic Victorian decor of the living room, for which Christopher was thankful. There was lots of chrome down there, with white walls, black bedclothes, touches of red and gray in the vaguely Japanese artwork and area rugs.

  Of course, the most interesting feature of the room was the bank-vault door Christopher pushed closed when they entered. He locked it using a keypad on the wall, making sure Ivy didn’t catch a look at the numbers.

  “This place has a ventilation system, right?” she asked when they were locked in. “You might not breathe much during the day, but I have no plans for holding my breath for hours.”

  “It’s fine,” Christopher assured her. He pointed at a walk-in closet and a bathroom door. “There’s even a selection of ladies’ lingerie available. I don’t know what Ariel gets up to down here, but I noticed a red silk nightie that will suit you.”

  Ivy had no interest in sexy lingerie, but she did have a use for the bathroom. She took one look at the deep marble tub and a row of fancy glass bottles and said, “Oh, hell, yes!” and ran herself a very hot bubble bath.

  Getting dragged around in the cold by a vampire was hard on a woman’s muscles. Hours of alternately arguing, making out with, and being terrified by one was equally stressful. The rose-scented soak did her a world of good.

  Afterwards, she couldn’t find anything but sexy lingerie neatly folded in a dresser drawer in the closet. She put on the red silk nightgown. Christopher was out when she got into bed, so it wasn’t like he was going to have the chance to appreciate how she looked in it or anything.

  Ivy went to sleep. Because, frankly, there wasn’t anything else she could do.

  Dream a little dream with me.

  It was a song. He was singing. The bloody vampire could sing.

  Am I in your head, or are you in mine?

  A bit of both, I reckon.

  How is this possible? How are we doing this?

  I’m a freak, you’ve got demon in you. Our energy has compatible resonance.

  You don’t know, either.

  Haven’t a clue. But here we are. You and me. Together.

  ’Til death do us part, Ivy added. Which was not a pleasant thought to resonate between them.

  Dream with me, Christopher went back to the original subject.

  Ivy had been floating around in comfortable white bubbly nothingness, all warm and rose-scented, while their thoughts communicated.

  All this beauty faded into the reality of damp, dark night. Mist scented with garbage wet her cheeks. She noticed she was dressed—

  “Like a pantomime gypsy?”

  Layer upon layer of colorful ruffled skirts; an off-the-shoulder, low-necked blouse; a multicolored scarf tied around her hair; and huge, gold hoop earrings dangling beside her cheeks. How on earth had she ended up in such a getup?

  Ivy concentrated for a moment, and her clothing morphed into—well, what she wore was still on the anachronistic side—a drab Victorian skirt and high-buttoned jacket in steampunk brown—but certainly better than that rainbow clown outfit. She kept the earrings.

>   “Your choice of clothing isn’t anachronistic, this is the Victorian era. Welcome to 1888.”

  She turned, directly into Christopher’s arms. His hair was longer, soft, silky brown. It softened the sharpness of his features, made him look younger. Too bad it was parted down the middle.

  “Dork,” she said.

  He touched the part. “The height of fashion.”

  He was also dressed in a uniform, with gold braid, and medals on his chest. Ivy recalled his telling her he was in Her Majesty’s Navy. “You look very Imperial. Rank?”

  He touched a finger to his forehead. “Captain Christopher Bell, at your service, miss.”

  He took her arm and guided her along a dark cobblestone street. Three- and four-story brick buildings leaned claustrophobically on both sides of the narrow street. She heard people talking in the distance, the metallic clop of horse hooves and the faint hiss of gaslights were also part of the background noise.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  He’d also told her he’d met Jack the Ripper, briefly. “London, Whitechapel.”

  They stopped, deep in shadows, just before the entrance to an alley. His arm was warm and protective around her waist. “Wait,” he said. “Watch.”

  Since she knew very well they were existing in a dream reality, Ivy wasn’t surprised when she saw Christopher hurry past where they were standing. He looked frantic, insane, in pain. Her heart ached at the sight of him. The man holding her pulled her closer.

  The crazed Christopher caught up with a man walking ahead of him—and broke the other man’s neck.

  “I told you it was a brief encounter,” the Christopher beside her said. Then he frowned. “Wait. I didn’t break his neck. I stabbed him.”

  “Is this a memory or a dream?” she asked. “Or the dream of a memory?”

  “Good points. Although headache inducing. Continue watching, please.”

  A woman walked out of the alley, caught the other Christopher’s attention. Her hair was light brown, masses of light brown curls. She was small-boned, delicate, regal. A vampire.