The Dark's Mistress (The Saint-Pierres)

by Hauf, Michele

  “You have violated my dark angel,” Himself said in a voice that delivered electric eel jolts to Johnny’s spine.

  With a thrust of his hand, the devil sent Johnny’s body flailing backward to mash up against the crumbled wall, pinning him as if a bug.

  “No!” Kambriel rushed from the bed—to her master’s side.

  Johnny did not miss the significance of that choice. As soon as he could peel himself away from the wall he’d show the big ugly demon what he was up against. His vampire strength could take out a dozen normal men, probably a few demons as well.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Kam pleaded.

  Himself brushed her aside and she landed on the bed, an abandoned flower in violet silk. The devil squeezed his fist and Johnny’s throat contracted inward, crushing his larynx. Bones cracked, cutting through soft, inner tissues.

  “Stop it!” Kam’s body slammed against Johnny as she rushed before him and spread her arms protectively. “He means nothing to me!”

  The truth? Or merely a desperate plea for his life? He hoped it was the latter. But in a few more seconds her pleading wouldn’t matter. His brain was fogging and his eyelids were difficult to hold open. Blood drooled out of his mouth and at his eyes. He felt as if he were chewing on his own throat.

  “He has touched you,” Himself growled.

  “As many other men have when I’ve bitten them,” Kam argued. “You’ve never had a concern before. Stop it, he’s choking to death!”

  “Vampires are difficult to kill through oxygen deprivation.”

  Oh yeah? At this moment, it sure felt as if his toes were hovering over a big, deep grave. His spine now met his voice box. He couldn’t yell out in pain. And his brain had begun to wilt inside his skull...

  “You will never have what you want from me if you kill him,” Kam defied her dark master.

  “You lie to save this insignificant longtooth’s soul?”

  “I never lie to you. You would know it.”

  “Then tell me what he means to you? Why you have allowed him into your bed when all the other bites you meet in their homes?”

  “I…”

  Kam’s fingers tangle within Johnny’s lifeless hand. She may have squeezed it, but he could barely hear their voices now. It would be easy to give in, to surrender to the agonizing pain.

  Then she won’t have the hero she asked for. And you will not have proven your worth.

  Snapping his head upright twanged at his damaged throat but Johnny managed a smirk. He thought he said, “Bring it,” but he couldn’t hear his voice.

  “He is kind to me,” Kam finally said. “And he makes me feel beautiful. Special.”

  “I give you everything you desire,” Himself said. “Is that not special? You frustrating bit of—“

  “I love him!” Kambriel suddenly cried.

  Johnny’s head twisted unnaturally to the side, unsupported by his broken neck.

  “Then you must sacrifice love for your freedom,” Himself demanded.

  “You’ll set me free if I never see Johnny again?” Kam asked.

  Himself nodded.

  He hadn’t said he would set her free, and Johnny knew that would be the sticking point when it all came down to it.

  “You’ll let him walk away from here, completely restored and whole,” Kam insisted. “You won’t ever bother him again?”

  Again, the bastard from Beneath nodded.

  Kam turned and pressed her hands aside Johnny’s cheeks and tilted his head upright. Her palms were warm against his skin. He wished now he had made love to her last night. It would be the last bliss he’d ever know, because one way or another, he wasn’t walking out of here alive.

  Hell, he was staring into bliss right now.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  He tried to speak but nothing inside his mouth or throat worked. It was a jumble of broken bones and massacred tissue. If love felt like everything and brightness and music, then he did love her. Because she was strong and she sang to his soul. Together they made a new kind of right.

  “So we’re going to do this my way,” she said. A kiss to his cheek, and then she turned to Himself. “I won’t give up! And you will not squish him like a bug because you can.”

  “I can, indeed.” Himself lifted a hand, palm out and facing Johnny.

  “No!”

  The devil curled his fingers into his palm. With a snort, he announced, “But I don’t need to go directly to the source. Family always cuts the deepest. Doesn’t it, Johnny boy?”

  Johnny gagged on his own blood. Family? It had been him. His grandmother had been compelled by Himself. And his father had surely been compelled to faery dust by the devil as well.

  If he could get away from this wall he’d rip the demon apart!

  “You’ll give him opportunity to win me from you,” Kam said, unaware of Johnny’s struggles. “Like a duel!”

  Johnny’s body dropped to the floor. Contact seemed to push his spine up to pierce his brain. He yelled, releasing the pain as he collapsed forward. His throat began to rearrange and fix itself, due to a vampire’s rapid healing process; though it was the wonkiest feeling and certainly not a picnic.

  As soon as he could stand, he’d rip out the devil’s heart.

  “As you wish,” Himself said. “I like a good challenge. If the vampire proves capable of defeating me then he most certainly deserves you.”

  Himself clapped his hands together. The room shuddered. The hellcat snarled and jumped onto the bed, whipping its tail back and forth in annoyance.

  “Tomorrow evening, beneath the full moon, we will meet for the death of this miserable vampire.”

  And Himself was gone in a shudder of chill air. The cat leaped off the bed and landed beside Johnny’s broken body. It licked the side of his face, dragging its scratchy tongue over his skin as if a demented carpenter going at him with sandpaper.

  Kam leaned over him and pushed aside his bangs. Still wearing the flimsy dress she’d worn to seduce him last night, she was his tattered angel, fallen to rescue him when he hadn’t even thought to need it.

  Her hair tumbled over her shoulders and dusted his bare chest. “I meant it,” she said. “I love you, Johnny Santiago. Don’t let me down.”

  “I won’t,” the words croaked out of his damaged throat. “I love you, too. I wish…I could have torn out his heart. He’s…Kam. He’s been manipulating my family. My G-ma. My…dad.”

  “I believe it. Oh, Johnny, I have to tell you something.”

  Pushing up with his hands, he managed to lean back against the wall—now strangely not cracked, broken or crumbled—and heaved out a sigh. He patted his chest, surprised that he, as well, was no longer cracked, broken, or crumbled.

  “That was weird. What do you want to tell me? That your boyfriend is a homicidal maniac who can kill people without touching them?”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He managed a weak smile. He may be whole again but the lingering remnants of merciless pain twanged at his nerves. And he’d not had opportunity to put his hands about the devil’s neck.

  “It’s about what you asked me in the club the other night,” Kam said. “When your grandmother was there.”

  “Himself lured her, Kam. I think he did it as a warning to me. And my dad—Vail. He did faery dust. He’s been clean for decades. The devil made him do it to get to me.”

  “He does that. I think he’s done it to my family too.”

  “Yeah.” Johnny winced, searching for the memory. “Your brother.”

  “My brother?”

  “I’m sure it was him in the club, but my brain is foggy about it. I think he was looking for you, and then, he forgot. It’s like he didn’t know you, didn’t even know he had a twin sister. You’re twins, right?”

  Kam nodded, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth. “He’s a werewolf.”

  “Yes! I remember that now.”

  “This is too much. I won’t let him harm my family, or yours. J
ohnny, that night you asked what was in my heart.”

  “Yeah. Viviane said that. She said I needed to get something out of your heart.”

  Kam laid her head on his chest and took his hand, placing it over her heart. Felt good to hold her close after he’d almost lost his life. She was worth every broken bone.

  “Every time I drink a mortal’s blood,” she said, “I take their soul into my heart.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not something I knew about until I asked Himself about it. Why my heart felt strange and fluttery all the time. It’s his means of storage. I can’t prevent it. It’s another awful part of having fallen into his clutches. I never asked for any of this, Johnny. I didn’t know who he was when I met him. I thought he was this cool, handsome guy, who did things to please me. Only after a while, I knew I wasn’t myself around him. That he controlled me subtly. And I couldn’t leave him, no matter how hard I tried.

  “I asked him who he was and he showed me his true self. I was devastated, but at the same time, I was already beguiled.”

  He kissed the crown of her head and held her tight. “You don’t have to explain to me. That bastard is too powerful for anyone to resist. It kills me that he makes you store souls like that.”

  “And I can’t stop drinking blood. You know that. Oh, Johnny, I want this all to stop. I want to keep our families safe. But I don’t want to lose you to make that happen.”

  “I’m tough. It’s our families I worry about.”

  He’d gotten the message loud and clear. If he continued to see Kam, Himself would not stop his pursuit of their families. And next time, the family member probably wouldn’t escape with a faery dust high or a night out in Crazytown.

  “I can’t ask you to do this,” Kam said. She looked aside. The cat nudged his mistress’s head with its soft velvet black nose.

  And Johnny couldn’t imagine not ever holding Kam again. If it meant his family or Kambriel, he knew the right answer was family. But his heart jumped before his brain and he said, “A duel with the devil tomorrow night? Don’t worry. I got this one.”

  Chapter Twelve

  He needed a spell. Something. Anything. Kambriel was infected with a darkness so dense and thorny its roots must coil about her soul. Johnny wasn’t sure how to fight that. So he decided to take Dante’s advice and go to a professional.

  Because he knew the inevitable showdown with Himself could not be cancelled. And did he think he stood a chance against the Prince of Darkness? Not in hell. Such poor odds meant he ultimately had to help Kam sometime before the duel to ensure her freedom. And part of helping her was freeing the trapped souls in her heart.

  Zoë Guillebeaux was a witch who knew Johnny’s father through the mutual connection of her boyfriend, Kaspar Rothstein. Kaz was a vampire hunter. And yes, Vail occasionally snitched to the hunter on his fellow vamps. He only did it when the vampire was an asshole and was causing serious harm to mortals. Like death. Death is never cool. If vamps wanted to keep a low profile they needed to play it cool, protect their fellow vamps from exposure, and not leave dead bodies with fang marks in their necks lying around.

  Knocking on the bright fuchsia door, Johnny scanned the neighborhood. A normal batch of mortal houses sprang up in the surrounding yards. Flowers growing on lawns, carved shrubbery, trees espaliered along walls as the French loved to control nature as much as possible. This made an ideal place for a witch to hunker down and hide right out in the open.

  Johnny had met Zoë once. One night when passing the witch’s bazaar with a few of his tribe mates, she had recognized him and introduced herself. She’d talked warmly about his father and had given him her address if he ever needed anything from her. He’d thought her gregarious, but decided that was who she was, and hell yeah, he’d visit if he ever needed spellwork.

  Not that he’d ever expected to need it. Who grows up believing some day they’d meet a girl, fall in love, and then have to rescue her from the devil Himself while the old bastard pummeled him to a pulp?

  “Johnny! You’re welcome in my home.”

  The witch tugged him across the threshold by his shirt front. He dodged a black cat, which she introduced as Sid, and followed the petite witch with the long violet skirt and floaty pink blouse through the house and out into a cozy three-season porch that overlooked a small yard packed to the seams with flowers, herbs, and plants of every shape and color. There were chickens clucking about, pecking at the plants too. Interesting.

  “How is your father?” Zoë asked. Her hair was half black, half white, as if someone had dumped a can of paint over the left side. It was arresting, but he liked it. A touch of goth to her bohemian look.

  “Dad’s, uh…good. I’m sure he sends a hello.”

  “And the baby?”

  “Summer is a bouncing ball of curls and spitup.”

  “Babies are so sweet! I’d like one of my own soon.” She gestured to a teapot and he nodded. “I knew you’d be stopping by within the year.”

  “Is that so?” It had been probably six months since she’d introduced herself. “Can you read the future then?”

  “Oh no, but I sensed you would be needing help someday soon. You’ve that look about you.”

  Johnny looked over his attire. Black leather pants frayed at the hem to reveal black suede boots. His tee-shirt was a classic Johnny Cash concert item he’d nicked from his dad’s closet years ago. The leather vest was worn and only a few of the studs remained around the hem.

  “What?” he asked, “the heroin rocker look? Did you think I’m a drug addict, Zoë?”

  “Oh, no. Not like your dad. Oh.” She slapped a palm over her mouth and blinked long dark lashes at him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that.”

  “It’s cool. Everyone knows my dad was a dust freak. Was being the key word. He’s been clean for ages.”

  “Oh, I know. Faery dust is nasty business.”

  Johnny squeezed his hands together before his nose, wincing. “Hell, I can’t lie. He had a relapse the other day.”

  Zoë remained silent, but her eyes widened.

  “I think the devil compelled him to it. I’ll explain it all, but it’s weird.”

  She sighed and sat across the wicker glass-topped table from him and poured tea into a tiny cup speckled with pink roses. “Do tell. The devil? Got a demon you need to get off your back? A problem with pixies? Maybe it’s—“

  “Love,” Johnny interrupted.

  Zoë sat up abruptly, setting her teacup down with a clink. Her eyes brightened and her cheeks rosed brightly. “Oh, well. Love is the most dangerous habit of them all. But please tell me it’s not a love spell you require. I don’t do those. Love that develops from a spell is false, and eventually the spell wears away. It’s never true.”

  “I’m already in love. With a vampiress. She’s a singer at Club l’Enfer.”

  Zoë mocked a shudder and sipped her tea. “Miserable place. They say the devil Himself owns that pit.”

  “He does.”

  “You say that as if you know it’s truth.”

  “Unfortunately, I do know it’s true.”

  “And that’s how your father figures into this whole weirdness?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. The devil made him take dust as a means to get to me. The old lad has also been whispering in my grandmother’s ear also. You’re familiar with Viviane?”

  Zoë nodded. “The poor soul.”

  “As well…” Johnny tilted back the whole cup of tea, which was no more than three sips anyway, and swallowed the earthy water roughly. “He owns the woman I love and I need to set her heart free of his dark influence before he kills me later tonight.”

  Zoë’s mouth fell agape.

  “He’s darkened her soul,” he continued. “Every time she’s drank blood from a mortal she’s taken their soul into her heart. Sort of like a repository for the dark prince. Her heart is black, Zoë. And it’s filled with imprisoned souls. I need to help her. She wants her
freedom. I...I love her.”

  “Reason enough for the old lad to want to go after your family in retaliation.” Zoë leaned forward and tapped his knee with her hand. “Can you tell me… Did she enter willingly into a relationship with…well…Him?”

  He nodded. “She didn’t know who he was initially, and then by the time she did…”

  “It was too late,” Zoë finished. “Poor, poor girl. Not much to do to save her. And as for you—do you know for sure he’s going to kill you?”

  Johnny nodded. “Unless I develop some super devil-fighting skills real fast, I assume that’s how the duel tonight is going down.”

  “Yes, not much a person can do if they’ve a duel against…that evil person.” Zoë shifted uncomfortably on the love seat. “As for the woman you love. Do you know if her soul belongs to the big mean guy?”

  Johnny had to chuckle at Zoë’s attempts to not name him, for fear of calling him here.

  “I think she still has her soul. I’m sure of it. It’s her heart. She can’t pull away from him. I think…” Johnny sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know what I think. That’s why I came to you for help. Is there anything I can do to save her? I love Kambriel. And I don’t want to die knowing she’s still under that bastard’s control.”

  “Kambriel? I’ve heard the name.”

  “She’s Kambriel Saint-Pierre. Her family lives in the States. Her brother, a werewolf, was here looking for her, but that damned devil can control our minds. The brother left, oblivious to his goal of finding his missing sister. I should give the family a call. But there’s no time now. Zoë, please.”

  She blew out a breath. “Whew! Well, I do love a good challenge. And I hate it when innocents get sucked in by such dastardly evil.”

  “I’ll pay you any amount. I’ll do anything. I’d sacrifice—“

  Putting up a palm, Zoë rushed out, “Don’t say it. If he hears what you may be willing to give up, he’ll be on you like a tic starved for blood. He’s already gone after your family. Save your soul, Johnny. You’ll need it to love her if we can cleanse her heart. That is, if you’re still alive tomorrow morning.”