by Jessica Gunn
He dropped to the ground without warning. Kian’s body began shaking uncontrollably. And when he reached out to steady himself on a nearby chair leg, it snapped in half beneath his fingertips.
I yelped at the sound of the wood snapping. “That’s under control?”
“It’ll pass,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “It’s not usually like this.”
I knelt down beside him. “Yeah, because Demon Blood usually kills you when the trip’s over, Kian.”
He shook his head. “Not always. Apartment.”
I gave him a confused look. “What apartment?”
“Yours. Let’s go there until it passes,” Kian said. “No one will expect you to go back there after it’s been raided once before.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere with you while you’re like this.”
Kian reached out for me. I backed away, afraid he’d accidentally break my wrist. “Please, Ava. It’ll pass. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
He reached again, but I backed up more.
“Stop it, Kian.”
He balled his hands into fists and growled. “I’m not going to hurt you!” He turned sideways and punched into the ground. The linoleum floor burst outward with his hit. When he pulled his hand away, his knuckles were torn and bloody.
“You’re doing a great job of convincing me,” I said before thinking better of it. Egging him on would not help the situation at all.
“Ava,” he shouted. “Please.” His body shook again and he curled in on himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—Ava.” He slammed his fist into the ground again, this time angry only at himself.
I swallowed hard. Veynix had laid that trap to kill us. But Kian had jumped into it to knock me away, to save me, like he had some sort of death wish. If he’d ingested Demon’s Blood before, willingly, then maybe he did.
But Kian had saved me.
I locked my jaw. “Fine. But then you explain everything.”
He nodded. “Then we’ll go after Veynix.”
“If you can stand,” I said. “Or function.”
“I will.”
I carefully touched my hand to the back of his. “Teleportante.”
Chapter 19
After setting Kian up on the couch to continue his writhing in solitude, I made myself a warm cup of tea. I needed some kind of trip of my own to calm the hell down. And even after the tea was ready, I stood in the kitchen, away from Kian in case he lost control of himself. Which, despite his reassurances, looked likely.
But I had to wait for him to recover from this. Not just because it was awful and I didn’t want to leave him alone, but because I really, honestly didn’t want to fight Veynix alone. The closer we got to finding him, the more I couldn’t think about anything other than the night my team had died.
“I thought you said you could handle Demon’s Blood,” I said to him from the kitchen.
“This is stronger than usual,” he ground out as he righted himself and crossed his arms. “I just need an hour.”
“I don’t know if Will has another hour, Kian.” I sipped some of my tea. I should have dropped Kian here or at Headquarters and gone without him. “He’s already been gone for four hours now.”
“Do not go without me,” Kian said, offering me a hard stare. “You can’t do it alone.”
“Better than going after Veynix with you halfway to rage-mode,” I said.
“I use it… a lot,” Kian said slowly. “That’s how I know I just need an hour more.”
“You’re addicted,” I said. Figures. In fact, it explained a lot. Especially why his strength in our fights at Midnight’s ring had felt as tough as a demon’s.
Kian didn’t answer, which only confirmed my guess. So we waited. While forty-five minutes passed, I took the time to clean up my room from the Talon’s earlier raid. I even packed a bag in case this ended well and Will and I were moved a second time.
A soft knock sounded on the doorframe to my room. “Hey.”
I looked over my shoulder at Kian, who was now standing and not shaking to death. He still wore bags under his eyes, but his face wasn’t pinched in pain anymore.
“Hey. Feeling better?”
He nodded. “Thank you for believing me and not dragging me to Headquarters.”
“Going back there is sort of against my plan at the moment anyway.” I zipped up the bag on my bed and turned to him. “Ready to explain why you’re so familiar with Demon’s Blood?”
He grimaced. “Don’t suppose you’d rather just get on with killing Veynix?”
“We don’t know where he is now,” I said. “And that means we have a few minutes to spare. Spill.”
He scratched the back of his head. “Most of what I told you about my team was true.”
My eyes narrowed. “Only ‘most’?”
“They did desert me after a mission gone wrong,” he said. “We did run into a demon that scared us all half to death. And rather than deal with it and move on, the four of them hightailed it out of the Fire Circle as soon as Jaffrin let them off the hook.”
I was surprised Jaffrin, the Fire Circle’s Leader before Dacher, had let anyone off the hook back then. “And how does this lead up to Demon’s Blood? Is that what you and your team ran into that night?”
He had said Talon was after them because of what had happened on that mission. But… just now he’d only said “a demon.”
Wait a minute…
“To this day, I’m not totally sure what sort of demon we ran into that night,” Kian said. “He had this weird blue ether magik that looked different than a normal ether-shaper’s. But it wasn’t Talon-related. That part I did lie about.”
My lips pressed together. “Then why is Talon after you so badly?”
He glanced away and laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “Freelancing is hard. Fighting demons alone and without magik is hard. So I… compensate for it.”
Realization snapped across my mind. “You purposely take Demon’s Blood to make yourself powerful enough to fight demons. Are you kidding me? You’ve been using that shit to win in Crimson’s ring, and that’s why you took losing to me so badly.”
Kian frowned. “That’s not one of my better moments.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“I only fought in Crimson’s ring to make enough money to afford the Demon’s Blood,” he said.
“By the truckload, given how much champions earn,” I said. I’d be one to know.
“Well, the rest of it went to keeping myself hidden from Talon,” he said. “They found out a Hunter was buying Demon’s Blood and using it to win in Crimson’s ring. But I got addicted to it almost right away and have been an addict ever since.”
“And let me guess, they weren’t too happy about their drug being used to benefit a Hunter in that way?”
He shook his head. “No. And I sort of used it on a mission to infiltrate one of their hideouts. Alone.”
I crossed my arms. “Dacher would never assign that as a solo freelancer mission. That’d be a group assignment.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, then looked away again. “Not if it was taken off the board right after it was posted.”
The bigger the mission, the more Hunters were supposed to be assigned to it—especially for the freelancers. And for each freelance mission completed, they earned a certain amount of money. If Kian had completed a group mission alone, he’d be able to take home the whole pot.
“Do you have a death wish?” I asked him.
His expression hardened. “I figured you’d understand since we’re both pretty much alone. My team left me, and because of that, I’ll never be reassigned. And even if I am, the new team will wonder what I did wrong. You’re not so different yourself.”
“Why? Because people think I made a deal to spare my life?” I asked. “My team died. I don’t want to be reassigned. I want out.”
Kian’s eyes softened and he dropped his arms. “I don’t think you made a deal.”
He paused, staring at me without saying anything for a few long moments. “No, Ava. I know you didn’t because I was there the night your team died. At the Talon hideout.”
My eyes narrowed on him. “Excuse me?”
He shifted where he stood. “The mission that put me on Talon’s radar happened the same night Veynix killed your team. I… I made it to the hideout as he returned, broken and bloody. They were making fun of him because he couldn’t kill a group of Hunters who didn’t have magik. He admitted to you getting away. That you escaped. But not how.”
I swallowed hard. Kian had known this whole time? He was there that night? “Why the hell didn’t you say anything when the entire fucking Circle accused me of being a traitor?”
But even as I asked the question, I knew what his answer would be. When he spoke it aloud I wasn’t surprised.
“Because then I would have had to admit that I took the group job alone,” he said, his voice quiet. “And when they asked how I’d survived, they’d know about my Demon’s Blood addiction.” His eyes grew tight. “I have a problem, Ava. I don’t deny that. And you’re right—I absolutely should have said something.”
I gasped, my thoughts spinning wildly. “You think?”
He stepped toward me, his hands reaching for my shoulders. “At the time, you—you were alive. That was all that mattered, right? I mean, yeah, the Circle turned on you, but you were alive.”
I hiccupped a laugh and backed away from him. “And alone. Deserted by a Circle I’d sworn my life to. My boyfriend and some of my best friends died that night, Kian. All four of them. And then Will became a target and then suddenly we’re being whisked away to New York City to stay hidden so Veynix couldn’t come and finish the goddamn job.”
“Ava, I’m sorry,” Kian said.
I nodded. “I’m sure you are. Is that why you were so eager to help me when Ben assigned me to you? Oh, god—does Ben know? Is that why he picked you out of all the other freelancers?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “He picked me because I’m the best.”
“Because of a demon drug,” I spat.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Yeah. Because of Demon’s Blood. I realize most of my skills are a wash because of it, but it’s kept me alive and it’s kept me employed. There aren’t many places that will accept ‘demon hunter’ as a vital skill on a resume.”
I ran my hands through my hair and stared at Kian. The two of us, our situations, were laughable. Utterly, stupidly hilarious.
“I have a way we can try to locate Will,” Kian said slowly. “I don’t know how to track Veynix without something of his. But I have another friend who can work a locator magik.”
“A witch,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah. She’s an Ember witch, though, so she tries to keep that under the radar. She’ll look like a demon, but she’s not. We just need something of Will’s.”
I gestured to the kitchen through the door behind him. “Look around. Take your pick of Will’s stuff.”
Kian smiled sadly again. “You trust me enough to see this through together?”
I brushed some fallen hair out of my eyes and stared down at my hands. “You’re the only ally I have left, Kian. Or at least the only one willing to act now before it’s too late. So I guess I do trust you.”
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I’m going to make this up to you. I promise.”
I shook my head and pushed past him into the kitchen. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
On our fridge sat magnets Will and I had collected over the years. They were one of the few items Will had grabbed from his home before we’d been moved to New York City. I grabbed the one he’d gotten in Paris when his family had gone on a trip there one summer.
“Use this,” I said. “Paris was where we were trying to go after that last fight in the ring.”
Kian took the magnet from me and put it in his pocket. “Good. Just one more thing before we go.”
He dug into a jacket pocket and withdrew two small contact cases and two small vials filled with red liquid. “We each need one of these.”
I glanced at the liquid. “What’s that?”
“A gift from my Ember witch friend,” he said. “The potion hides your aura—or lack thereof—from demons by sort of giving you a bit of theirs reflected back. And the colored contact lenses obviously give you a demonic appearance.”
“Why would we need these to talk to your friend?” I asked him.
“Because she’s the bartender at a demon-owned club downtown.”
Chapter 20
Thirty minutes later, Kian held open the door to a club called Night Fire somewhere in New York City. He’d neglected to tell me the exact location, but given the mess this rescue mission was turning into, I had a sinking feeling I’d never be looking for Night Fire ever again.
The front of the brick building was unassuming. A single flame-shaped sign hung on a blacked-out window, its neon fire dancing between red and yellow. The bouncer at the door seemed to recognize Kian and let us in without trouble.
“How often do you come here?” I asked as we passed through a darkened hallway lit on each wall by a single strip of blinking neon lights.
“Enough to see Sydney for information.”
“About where to buy—”
“Anything,” he said, cutting me off. “A freelancer is only as good as the skills and information they have. And it’d be best not to mention my affliction here, if you please.”
Right. “Let’s just get this done.”
He held out his arm to me. “It’d probably be best if we appeared as a couple.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Because?”
“Then the other demons won’t try to take you away before we get what we came for.”
“I can handle myself.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Night Fire is… dizzying the first time.”
Dizzying?
Before I could ask what that meant, we reached a black door at the end of the hall. Kian turned the handle and pushed it open.
A flood of bright lights sliced through the darkness of the room beyond. Mirrors hung everywhere, from being mounted on pillars to tables. Even the floors had reflective surfaces, all of them bouncing the neon lights across the room. Heavy, bass-filled music was being filtered in through large black speakers that hung from the corners of the space along with a few that hung off the pillars scattered throughout the room. The space held several levels, each housing couches, chairs, tables, and people with drinks, even in the early afternoon.
“What time does this place open?” I asked Kian.
“It’s always open. Where Hunter’s Guild stands as a sign of neutrality, Night Fire is a source of demonic information and networking—for the elite, of course.”
My stomach dropped. “The same elite that co-manage Crimson and Midnight?”
Kian gave me a tight-lipped nod. “Sometimes. They’re usually not here right now, though.”
How the hell often did Kian come here?
“You lead, then,” I said.
“We’re fine here, Ava,” Kian said, trying to reassure me with a soft expression, but I knew the truth. We might as well have walked into another Talon hideout.
Kian led me across the club. The spinning lights disoriented me, knocking me off-balance. I grabbed Kian’s forearm to steady myself with.
“Told you.” He laughed.
I shot him a glare. “The bar, Kian.”
He nodded, still smiling, as we made our way over. A woman with platinum blonde hair stood behind the bar, grinning from ear to ear as we approached.
“Kian!” she yelled excitedly, lifting her arms as if to hug him over the bar. “It’s been too long.”
We each took a seat at the bar before Kian responded, “Definitely. Sydney, this is my new partner, Ava. Ava, this is Sydney.”
“Hi,” I said.
She returned the greeting with a nod. “Regular, Kian?”
“Sure,” he said. “What would you like, Ava?”
I lifted my hand. “Nothing, thanks. Not really in the mood.”
Sydney shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
She rushed to fix Kian’s drink, then gave it to him without asking for payment. Just how close were these two again?
Sydney leaned over the counter. “What can I do for you today, Kian?”
He glanced up at her almost regretfully. “I need to locate someone.”
“Oh? A particular demon, or…?”
“Not a demon,” Kian said.
Sydney looked from Kian to me and back again. “Why do I get the feeling I’m going to regret helping you with this?”
“Because you probably are,” I said.
Kian pulled Will’s magnet from his pocket and handed it to her. “Can you find him?”
She flipped over the magnet in her hand and pressed a painted red nail against her chin. “Probably. But my break isn’t for another hour and I’m not sure I can even get a spell done back there right now.”
“Please, Syd,” Kian said. “It’s time sensitive.”
She gave him a hard stare. “Figured it might be if you’re here so early in the day. You really don’t know how to be inconspicuous, do you?”
“Guess not.”
Sydney glanced over our shoulders, studying something behind us. “Fine. I’ll run in back now. Give me five minutes. Any longer than that and you need to leave. It’ll mean I was caught.” She pushed Kian’s drink back to him. “You’re lucky I like you a lot.”
As soon as Sydney disappeared behind the bar, I looked to Kian. “That’s one hell of a friend.”
Kian looked at the drink in his hands. “She owes me. I helped her out of a rough spot. And if I can help her keep her identity a secret, then she can help us with some quick locator magik.”
My eyes narrowed. “Identity?”
“Demon’s Blood can hide auras in small doses.” Kian took a long pull of his drink.
More of this Demon’s Blood crap again. I shook my head and wrung my hands together. Now I wished I had ordered a drink after all. If Kian had other uses for Demon’s Blood, that meant he really had been using it for quite some time and in various capacities.