I coalesced at the edge of a dock or tried to. Pulling all of me back into flesh, muscle, and bone proved more difficult every time I switched from solid to air. I clumsily rebuilt my demon form, grateful I was alone when I fell to a knee, wings draped low. For the longest handful of seconds, I knew only pain. I couldn’t banish my wings, didn’t have the energy, so I gritted my teeth and embraced the waves of heat. There was no other way through it.
I had always been able to heal most wounds, but not anymore. Healing took effort, switching forms took effort, and I’d once done these things without thinking about them.
I forced myself to look at the remains of my wings. Could I lose them entirely?
Boat rigging clanged nearby. I straightened and bunched my wings close against my back so the agony wasn’t so intense. There was no need to craft my human vessel. By the amount of debris scattered around the pontoons, the marina had been abandoned for weeks.
I walked along the dock’s edge. A rotting lesser carcass baked in the sun, a white mass of maggots writhing inside its remains. Twenty more had been left to decay. The remains were too decomposed for me to ascertain what had killed them.
Why had they swarmed here?
A smattering of boats remained afloat. Some bore claw gashes in their hulls, but a couple had survived the assault unscathed. Most yachts had been covered and abandoned. Clutter and trash had collected on and around those. But one boat, a superyacht named Reely Nauti, had its rigging pulled tight and the decks cleared.
If someone was living inside, they could have witnessed the lesser swarm. I probed my element inside first, finding it empty, and boarded along the gangplank. Beyond the normal signs of habitation—discarded blankets, water bottles, even a well-read copy of Moby Dick—nothing hinted at why lessers had swarmed here.
Outside, once more at the marina’s edge, I watched the water lap serenely at the dockside wall. Between the gaps in the debris, the water darkened.
My element couldn’t breach the water’s surface. Something below the water could have drawn the lessers, but it was unlikely. It’s one thing for lessers to be driven through the veil, another for water-bound lesser-demons to swim through.
The rotting lesser carcasses, the location, the boat…
“Will you save him?” the little icy half-blood girl had asked me right before I’d said goodbye in Boston. She had meant Torrent. I had told her I would do all I could.
Nothing here suggested any of this was connected to Torrent, but nothing ruled him out either, other than the demon’s presumed death during the Santa Monica event.
Ignoring the familiar pain, I turned to air and headed back to Hollywood.
“Who doesn’t have a phone in LA?” Adam’s gruff voice traveled through the apartment.
“It has something to do with the way he travels,” came Noah’s reply, tight with anxiety.
I entered my living room, the all-over body ache and exhaustion weighing me down. The two men looked up. Relief flooded Noah’s expression, but Adam’s face only tightened into a deeper frown. I wondered if I’d let the pain show on my face and then noticed Christian out cold on the couch.
“What happened?”
They stepped back, letting me get in close. The hunter’s face was deathly pale and wet with perspiration.
“He got back early from EcoZone. As soon as he stepped inside the restaurant, he lost consciousness,” Adam explained.
Christian’s chest rose and fell. Pressing two fingers to the pulse point at his neck confirmed his heartbeat was strong but fast. I saw no signs of obvious injury. “Did he say anything?”
“No,” Noah replied. “He was out of breath. He said your name and then dropped.”
“Where’s Anna?”
“She er… she didn’t come back.”
I should have given her the feather.
“Watch him,” I told Noah, pointing at Christian.
I approached the coffee table where the maps and files were scattered and dug out the EcoZone address. By air, it would take me five minutes to reach, but the thought of dropping my vessel and rebuilding it again blurred my vision. If I rushed out there, I might not be able to turn back into something solid for hours.
“Adam, did you hire a car to get here from the airport?” I shuddered.
“I borrowed an abandoned one.”
Was I really doing this? “Let’s go.”
He knew my aversion to human vehicles, and the man was too observant to dismiss it. There would be questions. He was likely already forming a theory in his head. I was weak. It was the last thing I wanted them to know, but I had no choice.
Adam drove the borrowed rental—a compact SUV that smelled of mildew—through LA’s streets, his silence deafening. I knew all the questions burning on his tongue. He had spent his life studying demons, using them the same way he used anyone and anything as a means to an end. He had supposedly changed, but I understood humans like he believed he understood demons. Few of us changed for long.
“I should thank you,” he said, steering the car through an empty intersection.
“Yet you haven’t.” This was not the time for talking, or reconciliation, or whatever he believed he could get from me.
“No. I guess not.”
The minutes dripped by as slow and painful as molasses off a spoon. No car journey lasted forever. It would end. Everything ended eventually. Best not to think about the metal cage or about folding myself into such a tiny space.
“Gamma wouldn’t have survived without you.” And he was talking again, filling a perfectly good silence.
“You underestimate her.”
“No, I don’t think so. As tough as she is, she’s also fragile.”
“What you see as fragile, I see as strength.”
“We will have to agree to disagree.”
I chuckled dryly. “As humans go, you have the unenviable talent of being able to infuriate everyone and everything around you. How have you survived this long? I genuinely want to know.”
His lips twitched. “I know demons.”
“Maybe you should try knowing humans. You might learn a few things.”
“Ironic coming from you.”
“Isn’t it just.”
We turned at the end of the street, and up ahead, Anna’s car was parked against the curb. I was out before Adam had brought his rental to a complete stop. “Stay here.” Approaching the steel-and-glass façade of the EcoZone building, I sent my element probing ahead. Lessers were crouched out of sight nearby. Their gazes crawled over me like tiny insects. They wouldn’t approach, not without huge numbers. I sensed only lessers, no highers. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
The front doors had been jimmied open, likely Christian’s work.
“Anna?” I called.
The building was empty. From the layers of dust, it had been empty for months. I searched anyway. Why hadn’t I given her the feather? I never hesitated, but with her… Damn her and the ridiculous doubts she caused.
“Li’el?” Adam’s summons traveled through the empty hallways.
I found him in an office, rifling through paperwork. “Look, all these sheets refer to the immediate termination of something or someone called Katrina B.”
“Anna isn’t here.”
“What’s Katrina B?” he asked.
“We have other priorities.”
He set the sheets down and picked up some more. “I’m sure Ramírez is fine… Here, this spreadsheet documents increasing numbers. They were measuring the output of something in megajoules over consecutive months.”
“She’s not fine. She’s missing.”
“She’s a competent young lady.” He picked up a laptop, bundled up the files under his arm, and headed for the door. “This is important.”
Before it crossed my mind not to react, I had the man by the throat. “Anna. Is. Important.” My façade shimmered, my control waning. Teeth sharpened, their tips brushing my tongue. I snarled, showing Adam the teeth that wou
ld tear out his throat. “We aren’t leaving until we’ve found her.”
Adam glared back, disturbingly lacking in fear. He’d seen it all before. Nothing surprised him. “She’s not here,” he replied calmly. “Let’s not return empty-handed.”
It wouldn’t take much to kill him. A twitch of the wrist and he’d be gone. I wasn’t the first being—human or demon— to think about killing Adam Harper, but this man served a purpose.
“You are weak. It’s almost dusk,” Adam said. “I know you are capable of rational thoughts and actions. Don’t let Noah, Christian, and Anna down by doing something stupid because your instincts have you wrapped around your own claws. You are in no condition to fight another lesser ambush. Be smarter. Or are you just one step above the lessers hiding in the bushes?”
The itch to kill Adam Harper grew almost too acute to bear. I released him. A second longer and I would have crushed his windpipe. The insufferable Institute man was right. Anna wasn’t here. No good would come of me scouring the building for breadcrumbs. Once Christian woke, we would have a solid lead to follow. If he woke.
Adam nodded. “The information on this laptop could help us determine what weakened the veil. You understand that?”
“Don’t patronize me, human. The world won’t miss you should you experience a fatal accident.”
He pressed his lips together. “You’re probably right. But I know what to look for in these documents, and we all want the veil closed before your demon kin can come through. None of the princes like to share. In your condition, they’d kill you because they could. How many debts are outstanding? How many rivalries and battles have yet to be settled?”
Correct again. After millenia, when the veil was put right, I finally had what I’d wanted all along. This world to myself. And now, the appearance of the veil threatened all that was mine.
“I’m beginning to understand how you’ve lived this long.”
As I passed him, heading for the exit, he muttered, “By the skin of my teeth, mostly.”
Chapter 16
The ex-Institute man hurried up to my apartment with his laptop prize, eager to crack open its secrets. After checking Christian’s still comatose state, I returned alone to the bar, the city curiously silent outside, and poured myself a drink. It warmed my human vessel, filling in empty holes. I spread my hands on the bar and bowed forward, stretching the muscles in my back, my phantom wings aching. Why did I feel as though LA’s slow demise was also mine? I had been part of this city since humans had settled it. Perhaps its heartbeat was also mine?
Something was very wrong with the world, and it wasn’t just the veil or the lessers or all those obvious things. I was wrong. Inside me, in the parts that had existed since humans had huddled in straw huts, the parts that made up my immortal being, they were coming undone. This weakness, it crippled. My wilted and barren wings were just the outward symptom. Ever since the veil had been restored, trapped me on this side, I’d changed. I’d fought for the half-blood girl. I’d briefly had the strength of a Dark Court shoring me up, but without it, without my title, without my name, I was crumbling.
Was this… mortality?
What a strange feeling to have time slip through my fingers and wonder if it would stop today, tomorrow, next month. How did humans manage the impending end? How did they function knowing the next day might be their last?
No, I wasn’t dying. I was just… sick. I would get my strength back. There was always the veil. I could reach into it and tease off some power. A little wouldn’t hurt.
“Li’el?”
“Anna…” She stood on the other side of the bar as though she’d been there all along, waiting to be served. My relief at seeing her alive was short-lived. I’d seen that glassy look before, right before the reporter had pressed a gun to her head and scattered the insides of her skull all over my bar.
Anna held her rifle at her side, the barrel aimed at the floor.
“I… I feel… strange.” She cocked her head, listening to something only she could hear. Her eyes unfocused as though she were looking through me, through the walls, at someone or something else.
“Anna?”
She blinked. “Li’el, there you are. I’ve been looking for you…” She looked around. “I thought this was a party. Where is everyone?” She set the rifle down on the bar and took a seat. “Never mind. If it’s just you and me, I have a lot of questions.” She laughed easily and scooped up my drink. “While researching you, I came across an article that said you’re one of LA’s most sought-after demons. There were only two demons on the list.”
“Only two?” I settled my hand on the rifle, intending to stow it away behind the bar, but Anna placed her hand on the stock and smiled sweetly.
“That’s mine,” she warned, still smiling.
“Who was the other one?”
“Oh, he’s right over there.”
The cool, smooth crawl of a water elemental demon brushed against my air, the warning coming too late.
Torrent emerged from the back hall. His leathery wings hung partially open and relaxed as he moved between tables. Fully open, their spread would rival mine in size. Scales shimmered across patches of his armored skin. A Prince of Hell’s Firstborn, he had been honed in the netherworld where he would have used the horns sweeping from his skull to gouge his enemies for sport. As one of the finest demon specimens the netherworld had to offer, few could match him.
Torrent had never hidden his raw demon appearance, but now that the mental lies fed to him by his father, Prince Leviathan, no longer constrained him, he had embraced his demon heritage.
Anna still smiled up at me. Torrent had adopted his father’s talent for human mind control, making Anna his puppet. With a single thought, he could make her place the barrel of the rifle to my head or in her mouth. I kept my hand on the weapon, pinning it down.
The reason the reporter had killed herself was no longer a mystery.
I fought the instinct to discard my human vessel and reveal all of me. My broken wings and ragged weakness would do more harm than good. Whatever plagued me, Torrent had no such weakness.
The smile on the demon’s lips was painted with malice.
“Torrent.” Even as I said the name, I knew it was wrong by the way he held himself and his unforgiving glare. “Or should I call you Kar’ak?”
“Kar’ak.” He gestured, unfurling long black scythe-like claws. The kind familiar with gutting lessers or his higher kin if he caught them unawares. “Torrent was an inconsequential byproduct of my father’s attempts to control me.”
His invisible element probed mine for weaknesses. It was customary for elementals to feel each other out almost unconsciously, but Torrent’s—Kar’ak’s probing was deliberate. He suspected I was weak, othrwise he wouldn’t be looking for it. I held myself in check, giving nothing away. It had been months—years since I’d faced another higher in combat. Words were my usual weapons, but claws would suffice if it came to that.
“I seem to recall the mind games were punishment for trying to murder your father. He imprisoned you too. You would still be imprisoned if not for luck.”
Kar’ak’s ocean-blue eyes narrowed. No demon liked to be reminded of their failures. By mentioning it, I was also reminding him of my status as a prince alongside his father. Hopefully, it would be enough for him to submit. If it came down to a physical battle, Kar’ak was strong enough and elementally powerful enough to win. I couldn’t afford for him to realize that. He probably assumed I hadn’t dropped the human vessel because I didn’t consider him a threat, not that it cost me too much to constantly change forms.
“Is there anything of Torrent left?” I asked.
He bowed his head—the first time he had taken his eyes off me since arriving. “When my father broke and rebuilt minds, his work was designed to last.”
That was a yes and good to hear. I had told Gem I would do everything I could to save Torrent, and I’d meant it. If anything of the water demon was
left in there, I might be able to draw him out. But right now, I had more pressing concerns, like keeping myself and Anna alive.
He cruised closer like a shark drifting through its territory, and all the while, his elemental touch closed in. He would keep pushing until he broke through or I snapped.
“You killed the reporter?” I asked, keeping the strain from my voice.
Humor glittered brightly in his eyes. “Human minds are so easily molded. I had wondered what my father’s fascination was with his playthings, but they really are entertaining. Besides, what else is there to do on this side of the veil?” A snarl sneaked through, indicating he wasn’t enjoying being trapped here. Was he behind the weakening of the veil? He was powerful, all firstborns were, but he wasn’t a Court all unto himself. To bring the veil down or remake it required a Court. One demon with delusions of grandeur was not sufficient.
He placed himself behind Anna with the front entrance at his back, blocking that escape. With his wings partially open, he didn’t need to flare them wide to make his point. Unlike Christian’s posturing games, Kar’ak knew exactly the threat he presented.
“What’s your interest in this girl?” I sounded casual, though my heart pounded.
Anna’s gaze had drifted over my shoulder. She was probably unaware of anything happening around her.
He studied Anna with all the emotional attachment of a shark eyeing its next mouthful. “She has an interesting array of thoughts. Most are occupied by emotional nonsense. But when I discovered images of you inside her short-term memory, I recognized an opportunity.”
“Oh?” I closed my fingers around the stock of the rifle.
“I’ll admit to being impressed. I searched for you after Santa Monica, but you hid your presence from me and from marauding lessers. Even now, you hide your power.”
Yes, hiding it, that’s exactly what I was aiming for.
“The veil is weak,” he went on. “You feel the netherworld calling. My rightful place is among the Dark Court, as is yours. I do not know how to weaken the barrier further, but you do.”
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