Green Agate Pretender (Demon Lord Book 9)

by Morgan Blade

  Orin strutted, a man undaunted. “I am not dissuaded. There are some experiences worth dying for. And death itself can be as attractive as a beautiful woman.”

  Selene frowned. “Now I feel like you’d just be using me. Just go accidently fall on you dagger a few times.”

  “Don’t think ill of me,” Orin said. “Death has always been my first love.”

  We entered a bustling kitchen. The head cook intercepted us. “My lords, lady, can I be of service?”

  “Wine. Several bottles, cheese, and bread.”

  She bowed. “Yes, my noble masters.” She hurried away as we waited.

  “I called after her. Chez-wiz if you have it.”

  The woman paused to stare back in confusion.

  I waved her on. “Never mind.”

  “What is Chez-wiz?” Orin asked.

  “An aphrodisiac from Earth,” I said. “It’s good on stone-ground wheat crackers.”

  “Ah,” Orin nodded. “You must get me both.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Promises are important;

  the currency of dreams.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  Grace was in the isolation booth when I got inside the recording studio. I walked into the control room and saw her through the glass. She huddled in consultation with Lindsey and two musicians I didn’t know. One was a cute black girl in pigtails, with a white guitar. The other looked Latina, and despite her small size, easily manhandled a heavy bass guitar. They had a hungry look to them. They’d need that hunger.

  On my side of the glass, a sound engineer fussed with sliders and dials on a mixing board.

  Sitting on a leather couch by a wall, I saw Gloria. Her eyes red coals displaying irritation with the man seated next to her. He was her son, Adrian, self-proclaimed Vampire Master of L.A., a position I totally disputed. As resident Demon Lord, this was obviously my city. A position he disputed.

  I’d have killed him off decades ago, but Gloria was my friend and would take it badly.

  “I can see why you’re interested in these girls. They’re rough, but show great potential, but you’re an outsider to the music business. You should just let me take over. I’m sure my lawyers can break them free of their contract to this dump,” Adrian said.

  The engineer turned to face them. “Dump? This place is my life!”

  “You’re being rude, Adrian, dear. And this is something I want to try. Can’t you understand how I might feel about a new challenge?”

  “I certainly can,” I said. “Gloria, you have my full support.”

  Adrian sneered at me. “Caine, I thought I smelled demon scum.”

  The engineer pushed back from the board, hurrying over to me. “Mr. Deathwalker! A pleasure, sir. I’m the manager here, the sound engineer, and I do whatever else is necessary. I’m happy to meet you at last. This new band you’ve brought in—Shadowfox—they’re phenomenal!” He pumped my hand.

  I got it loose and counted. Yes, I had all my fingers.

  “They’re just tolerable.” Adrian adjusted his black tie. His shirt was pale blue, his suit also black. He had 90’s hair that was gelled back, and a cold, clammy look that said he avoided sunlight religiously. He also looked like he’d bitten into something sour. “This is your studio, Caine? I should have known. You’re leading my mother astray again.”

  I glowered. “Behave, or I’ll sic Tukka on you.”

  “What’s a Tukka? Some kind of parrot?”

  Grace spoke into her microphone; her voice came out a speaker. “Peter? I think we’re ready to run through the new song again.”

  “Duty calls. Excuse me.” He returned to the mixing board and messed with it. “Okay positions, everyone. I’ll count you in.” He lifted a hand and one by one, folded down his fingers until he had a fist. We stood still, quietly listening. The music ran through an intro that could have used some synth. Grace sang:

  We dance where the wind is silver.

  Blue shadows on the snow.

  By the light of inner vision,

  we walk a spirit road.

  Time is a coiled serpent

  that never dares to strike.

  Conjure your hearts desires

  and change them if you like.

  The drumbeats rolled. The lead guitarist riffed up a minor pentatonic scale. The bass player continued to thump away, a bridge into the chorus. The song was about conjuring desires, and the things we pretend to be in order to one day stop pretending. Dragon-born, I had pretended to be a demon-lord all my life. For better or worse, that was the face under the mask now.

  Grace’s killer vocals had laid out a few measures. Now, they came punching in with soaring power.

  “Where’s all that reverb coming from?” Peter asked himself. “It’s not the board.”

  Choose the mask you wear carefully—

  For we are what we pretend to be.

  There’s nothing so real as fantasy—

  In the secret heart of the night.

  In the secret heart of the night.

  In the secret heart of the night, the major supernatural communities struggled against one another for supremacy; vampires, demons, shifters, and fey, oh my! And secretly fighting for humanity’s interests, to keep from being eaten, were the Slayers, human soldiers of fortune that I would one day have to absorb into my own organization.

  The biggest secret in the night was that ultimate evil was coming at the end of time, the Unzar. I had a name for them now. The flawless enemy. I’d have to prove that name a lie to beat them. I had blood on my hands. There would be more, getting the multi-verse ready to survive the coming war. I needed to gather and nurture people like Grace, people who cared about little boys, who’d cry over a child and go screaming into battle because someone with a heart had to care.

  I had no heart. Not really, I was just good fooling some people. Therefore, I gathered those that had enough heart to spare.

  Maybe, if I pretend long enough, one day I will care. Nah, probably not.

  The music coiled upon itself. Softening her tone, Grace launched into the second verse:

  We wear the moon’s cold fire.

  The bright stars fill our eyes.

  We hang like a constellation,

  alone within the sky.

  You pull me down, to the ground

  and gently steal my breath.

  To awaken from this dream

  is another name for death.

  The dream is all, everything. I would become the Master of Worlds. I would fight until that dream became reality for everyone. I dared not relent or awake, or every dream would die—leaving the Unzar supreme in a lifeless multi-verse.

  It was a bitch of a destiny, not just for me, but for us all, but the only one we had.

  Snowflakes need not apply; there’s no hope for you. The Unzar will not give you puppies to pet, or care about your feelings. They will simply eat you alive. Those not willing to fight for themselves were dead weight on the back of humanity—to use the term loosely.

  Choose the mask you wear carefully—

  For we are what we pretend to be.

  There’s nothing so real as fantasy—

  In the secret heart of the night.

  In the secret heart of the night.

  In the secret heart of the night—

  The song ended. We were all in our own internal world by then. It took a few moments to realize that we could talk if we wanted. I approved of Grace’s direction. Her music was thoughtful, poetic, and laced with vision not everyone would grasp.

  We’ll go platinum anyway.

  I turned back to Gloria. “Keep this going. We need more of this.”

  “My services aren’t free,” she said.

  “I should hope not,” Adrian muttered.

  I ignored the idiot, waiting.

  Gloria stood and faced me in a way that left Adrian out of this, like a slap to the face. Her voice grew centuries older, abandoning the pretend cheerleader quality that was her usual mod
e. This was the true-blood princess talking. “Our royal lord and master, Kain the First, summons you into his august presence, to attend him in two night’s time, by the stroke of midnight at his private estate. I am your escort, and the surety for your safety, though he pledges on his honor that no harm will be offered you.”

  Harm by his standard, or mine? Vampires can be as tricky as fey.

  “Will you come?” Gloria asked.

  Any game intrigues me. Kane certainly did. After he’d promised me the protection of his name, and Gloria was offering herself as a hostage, it would be a serious act of cowardice not to go, a slap in the face of the friendship Gloria and I savored between us.

  There were lines we never crossed to preserve that friendship, like sleeping together, not that I’d tell Adrian that. My friendship with his mom totally irked him. That delighted me.

  “Wait a second,” Adrian said. “He gets to go visit Kain. I’ve never even seen the outside of his estate, and this low-bred dragon is invited as a guest of honor? What mad universe is this?”

  One vote against it.

  I smiled. “I’m definitely going.”

  “Why,” Adrian whined. “Why would Kane show such interest? I thought he was mostly retired from vampire politics. The council runs things now, each member a master of a city.”

  I knew Adrian’s biggest ass-burn was the fact that as an open city to all preternaturals, no vampire could officially be appointed L.A.’s master by the vampire council, but as a demon lord, I could follow other rules, or no rules at all.

  I’ve been calling myself the Master of L.A. for so long, everybody thinks it’s true. So, it is true.

  I stared Gloria in the eyes. “Your son is too spoiled for such rarified circles. They’d eat his breakfast, and him too. You’ve shielded him too much from the reality of his world.”

  A more hurtful truth lay unspoken between Gloria and me. Adrian’s a vampire snowflake. He felt entitled to rule on the basis of inheritance alone. He didn’t have the strength to laugh—like my dragon—after being half-eaten by a shadow-beast. Adrian would never lift sword against his inner demons. He’d serve those appetites instead, which was why Kane would never let him lead the family. Gloria alone was his heir.

  And yes, I was scared to go, but I would. I needed Kane, his world, his sword—to stand with me against the Unzar. Here was another bridge I needed to build.

  “What time will you be picking me up?” I asked.

  “She’s not,” Adrian said. “I forbid it.”

  I sighed heavily, dramatically. “Gloria. You can’t protect him forever. Want me to sort him out? I’ll leave him alive.”

  “Now, I have heard entirely too much! I will not be spoken of like a little child,” Adrian roared. He came around Gloria so we had to look at him. He wanted to impress me with his vampire rage. Like red eyes could ever enthrall me.

  I lowered my voice. “Gloria.” We both knew this day was long past due.

  She sighed. “Fine. I just don’t want to see it.”

  I moved out of her way so she wouldn’t walk over me. She went out the door and closed it firmly behind her.

  Moving with dragon and Villager speed, my body blurred through a turn. My left hand palmed his face. I slammed the back of his head into the closest wall several times before Adrian even knew what was happening. No vampire had ever dared do this to him because of his mother’s wrath. And because they would have been too slow. A few years ago, I would have been too slow to catch him by surprise. Things change.

  Hearing the loud thudda-a-thuds, Peter Grimm turned from his precious sound board. “Hey! What’s going on? Cut it out!”

  “Ignore the mess,” I said. “I’ll buy you a new wall, and a better soundboard.”

  “Okay.” He quickly turned back to queuing up the last song, playing it so Grace and the girls could hear it.

  I let go of Adrian’s face, allowing him to collapse to the floor. He moaned and coughed blood. His skull was very fractured, his brain concussed, but vampire healing would soon fix that.

  “All your life, you’ve been hiding behind your mother. No one has every cared enough about you to point this out. You are not man enough to stand alone. Kane understands that a wolf that is too weak to run alone is too weak to run a pack. If you want to stand up to me in the future, or to earn Kane’s respect, get stronger. A lot stronger.”

  I looked over at Peter. He was very carefully ignoring us. He worked for me. He was my responsibility. I looked back to Adrian. “This is my place. These are my people. They are under my protection. Touch any of them, and I will find a way to end you without it ever coming back to me. Gloria won’t know.”

  I’ll give the job to Orin.

  “When you can stand again, leave right away, and don’t come back.”

  I left Adrian there. I walked down a hallway, out a lobby, and found Gloria haunting the night. She hadn’t gone far. Cars rushed by. Light pollution hid the stars.

  She turned as I appeared. “I only let you do that because I love him.”

  “I know. I only hurt him because I like it.”

  “I know you want me to believe that. But even though you say you hate all people equally, you’re still going to drag us all into a future where we can have our dreams.”

  I shrugged. “It’s something to do.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  “I trust people half as

  far as I can kill them.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  Entering the Clan House on Santa Catalina Island didn’t feel like coming home, not with the Old Man still off on his honeymoon. Even having demons walking around out of disguise didn’t feel special. I’d gotten used to stranger things on Fairy, and downtown L.A. Yeah, I’d been raised here on the island, but that felt like a lost childhood, not my current reality. I couldn’t say I belonged here more than the Red Moon, or Fairy, or L.A. itself. Nothing could specifically be mine, because everything was like mine.

  I felt strange, like a team of ninjas had poured a pitcher of maturity into me when I wasn’t looking. Bastards!

  Military, crisp, the guards saluted as I entered the Great Hall. It no longer felt like I was filling in for the Old Man. This was my clan now. They’d come when I’d called. They’d fought to protect my family. And, Old Man in the picture or not, I knew they’d do so again. They were family, too. Misfit demons kicked out of more traditional clans around the world and out of assorted hell dimensions. They’d gathered under Lauphram, and stayed with me. I sometimes wondered if the Old Man had paid them more for that before I took over. It was hard to feel they truly wanted me when my own family had kicked me to the curb as a child. I mean, what kind of self-respecting demon clan has a non-demon as CEO anyway?

  Ours, I guess.

  I passed under a massive chandelier on the way to my throne. A pair of demons blocked my way. One was yellow and scaled with snake characteristics mixed into her human form. She wore jeans and a black tee. Her hinging fangs weren’t visible, but her gold eyes with the red-stripe pupils were. In place of hair, she had iridescent blue and green feathers edged with sulfur yellow. Her companion looked entirely human, a big, buff male. He trailed water with every step and his casual clothes were sodden. Not every demon had full control of elemental magic.

  The woman blinked transparent eyelids. “The little boy, he’s all right?”

  They meant Colt. Not that many of my people had interacted with him in Las Vega. He was mostly an unknown factor, but they knew I claimed him as my son.

  I made a guess. “You two were on the rescue team, in the water?”

  “I took out the dome,” Buff Guy said.

  “I got the boy out,” the woman said. “The fey queen didn’t need our help, once the knife-fighter was taken from the child’s throat. She killed the guards with spears of ice. Fast, clean work.”

  “We had friends that got the pooka in the water, so they couldn’t interfere,” Buff Guy said. “Team effort.”

  “The ch
ild vanished after I got him to the surface,” Snake Girl said. “Burst into light, and was gone!”

  I nodded. “Yeah, he does that a lot. Your team did good work. Expect bonuses in your paychecks this month.”

  “I thought fey valued children. To threaten one ssso…” Snake girl hissed her disgust.

  I sighed. “Not every creature out there has the fine moral sensibility of we demons.”

  “True!” Buff Guy said.

  They parted, letting me through.

  I continued across the vast room, a space designed for staging our clan’s military force, and having serious parties. Reaching my throne, I sat down. An on-duty attendant rushed out of nowhere, stopping in front of me to offer a fluid bow. There were delicate white wings protruding from her temples that could never have lifted her. She smiled with brightly painted pink lips, a wind-mage; currents of air flapped her loose Asian robes, playing with tassels and the ends of her brocaded sash. Her thick, black braid whipped gently, the wind taking care so the red ribbon on the end didn’t blow away.

  “How may Shui be of use, noble lord?”

  “Bring me a fine malt scotch, and send word to Imari that I require her presence.”

  “Yes, my lord.” She hurried away.

  Being familiar with my priorities, she got the drink to me first, fast. I sipped, and held it in my hands as I waited. I knew word would spread that I was on the throne. According to Clan by-laws, that meant any demon could approach and petition me. This was a counter-balance to those on the bottom getting too oppressed by their superiors. Of course, if someone wasted my time with bullshit, they wouldn’t do it again.

  A weed-demon approached, branches growing out of the sides of her head. Her skin was a pale green, her hair nutmeg brown. Saw-toothed leaves and white flowers covered her private areas. She wore sandals that clacked on the parquet floor, wore rubber gloves, and carried a steel bucket with cleaning supplies in it.