Demon Marked

by Meljean Brook

  The demon whipped his knife around, made a long, deep cut across Nicholas’s stomach. Oh, fuck. Painless, for an instant, and he only heard Ash’s scream, the rattle of her chains, felt the warm slide of blood. Then agony struck.

  “Do not speak to him,” the demon hissed. “He will not answer. He will not foul his mouth with a human tongue for the likes of you, Guardian. Bad enough that you foul his tower by speaking it, by the spill of your blood.”

  All right. Breathing shallowly, using the anguish tightening his muscles to still every other movement, Nicholas nodded. Best not to point out that Lucifer was the one who’d brought them here.

  But Nicholas got that now, too. This was a room intended for humans. Just like Ash’s name, to bring them here was an insult. It said they were worthless, nothing, not even strong enough to escape a torture chamber made to hold humans.

  And that was why they’d believed Ash. Halflings were stupid, incompetent. When she claimed not to have abilities, they took it as a confirmation of what they thought they already knew, compounded by their belief that a young halfling demon wouldn’t have the balls—or the skill—to lie to them. They only saw what they expected to see.

  Just like Nicholas had, when he’d believed Ash’s every action was part of a plot to destroy him. God. The irony was a killer. But at least he understood it. He could use that knowledge . . . hopefully.

  Lucifer spoke. The demon looked up at Nicholas, knife in hand. “Did Khavi ever tell you what your Gift would be?’

  “No.” He’d have answered the same, even if she had.

  The demon translated Lucifer’s words again. “Then we’ll find it.”

  Khavi had said that. He will pull it from you.

  She’d known this. She’d known. What did that mean? More than anything, Khavi wanted Michael out of the field. So what did it mean that she’d known this would happen—and that she’d hoped for his Gift to manifest itself?

  A Gift that he’d never have had . . . except that she’d also left him with Madelyn. So was this some kind of fucked-up plan? Was this not about an exchange or a bargain with Lucifer at all, but using Nicholas’s Gift to free Michael? She couldn’t have warned him, told him what she was looking for—or even what his Gift would be?

  And what the fuck did it mean that Lucifer would pull it from him?

  Lucifer approached him now. Ash’s expression cracked, filled with horror. She pulled at her chains. Nicholas looked across the room, held her gaze. He’d make it through this. She’d make it through this.

  He hoped his Gift would be the ability to tear demons apart with his mind.

  Her eyes narrowed, her ferocity a bite through each word. “It’ll be something you can use to kill them.”

  God, he loved her.

  Pain ripped through his chest, as if his left pectoral had been shredded. He held Ash’s gaze, refused to look down—but he could feel, could feel what Lucifer was doing: carving symbols into him.

  The demon said, “These will only encourage the Gift to come, to stay, to be easily controlled, of course. To actually manifest, we must produce trauma.” His mouth seemed to caress the word. “We must shock your body into thinking it will die, or shock you into saving someone else—”

  Lucifer spoke sharply, cut him off. The demon fell to the floor, begging. Lucifer merely looked at him. The demon nodded, stabbed himself in the gut. Staggered to his feet.

  “So,” he continued, and held up his knife. “I will create that trauma now.”

  CHAPTER 20

  She’d destroy them. With God as her witness, Ash would do everything in her power to see them dead.

  She didn’t know the demon’s name but she would hunt him through the bowels of Hell, rip him apart with her teeth. And Lucifer, Lucifer . . . oh, death would not be enough. She would see him destroyed, beaten, crawling until he begged for mercy.

  They had to be close to stopping. Nicholas couldn’t have much blood left, and if they drained it all, he would die. Lucifer still hadn’t gotten results. Just a few flares of Nicholas’s Gift, bursts of power that carried his emotions with them—pain, fear. So much fear, it sank into her mind, made her scream and scream.

  Music to their ears, no doubt.

  Finally, Lucifer stepped away. The demon cowered again—fearing that he’d be punished for the failure?—but the demon lord only turned to Ash. He towered over her even though she hung above the floor, forcing her to look up at him, allowing Lucifer to look down at her. Trembling, Ash stifled the impulse to stare defiantly into his eyes, as if to say she wasn’t afraid.

  This wasn’t the time. She was afraid, and surviving—escaping with Nicholas—was more important than defiance.

  Lucifer’s terrifying gaze raked over her body, and he spoke.

  The demon translated, “He makes an offer, halfling. He will return your pathetic human memories of your parents, your childhood. He’ll return your life to you, if you will agree to kill the Guardian. Your life in exchange for the Guardian’s, and then he will let you go.”

  Not at the price of Nicholas’s life. Never at that price.

  For a moment, however, she let herself consider the rest. Rachel’s parents, and their love for her. Oh, how she wanted to remember that. To have all of those missing pieces, filled in. But those weren’t her memories; they were Rachel’s. And if Rachel’s past returned, so would she. Ash would be lost, ripped away on an incoming flood of memories.

  Ash didn’t need her life returned to her; she had one. And she recognized the irony that, when Lucifer had been creating her from Rachel’s remains, he’d torn away the one thing that might have made her stop and reconsider, the one thing that could have left her uncertain as to whether she should sacrifice her life to save Rachel’s: guilt. She was sorry for Rachel, but Ash refused to die to bring her back, and couldn’t feel sorry for that.

  In any case, Ash didn’t believe for a moment that Rachel would make it out of here alive—or manage to save Nicholas. Whatever the reason behind Lucifer’s offer, it wasn’t to let her go. His offer had to be part of a plot.

  After all, Nicholas hadn’t been wrong about all demons. He’d just been wrong about her.

  “No,” she said.

  Terrible silence reigned for a long moment. Finally, Lucifer spoke and left.

  That was it? No gutting, no screaming? Ash couldn’t believe that Nicholas’s pain had been enough. So why not do the same to her?

  The demon waited until the door shut, and his cower became a gleeful grimace. “I’m to sew up the Guardian and wait for him to heal,” the demon said to her. “Then we start all over again. I am truly favored.”

  Ash bit her tongue. She’d seen the demon’s reaction when Nicholas had spoken of Lucifer. She wouldn’t give him any excuse.

  His eyes narrowed, and he stepped closer, examining her face. “We are not to spill your blood in this realm. Not even a drop. Do you know why? If your answer gives me power, I can reward you.”

  So that was why she wasn’t being gutted. But she would not foul her mouth by answering him.

  The demon shrugged. A roll of wire appeared in his hands—thin barbed wire. “So I’ll sew him up, then.”

  God. And Nicholas was still conscious. He couldn’t always hold her gaze; he was still awake. His jaw clenched now as the demon moved in front of him. Pain.

  She had to get free. She had to get free now, while the demon’s back was turned, while he worked. This might be their only opportunity.

  The chain was fastened to the ceiling with some kind of big bolt. She wasn’t sure she could break either, not just by swinging or moving. She’d have to brace herself, use her full strength—her feet against the wall, maybe. She couldn’t swing that far. Pull herself up the chain, then, brace her feet on the ceiling—except the manacles held her hands too far apart. She couldn’t grasp the chain between them. She already knew the steel wouldn’t break.

  . . . but her hand would.

  God. Like a wolf chewing off his leg to
get out of a trap? She would do it, she would do it.

  But she didn’t need to. She only needed her hand to fit through a hole the size of her wrist. So there was just a choice to make: What did she need more, her smaller fingers or her thumb?

  She thought of her weapons in her cache. Chose the thumb.

  The first bone snapped. Ash held in her cry, watching the demon for any sign that he’d heard it. No, she’d been making too much noise, rattling and screaming this whole time.

  And he’d never believe the halfling would get free, but she had to hurry. He’d almost finished sewing, would turn around, and the opportunity would be lost.

  Now the second bone. Snap! Oh, God. But it was working. Her hand slipped a little in the manacle. Nicholas’s head came up. His eyes opened and met hers. His Gift flared.

  The demon snipped off the end of the barbed wire and looked at him. “There is your Gift. I will tell—”

  “Don’t you want to be the first to know what it is?” Though he was barely able to speak, Nicholas’s voice covered the next snap!

  “Tell me.”

  “I see fear. Yours. It’s like a black ribbon, all around you. You fear Lucifer.”

  “As all demons do.”

  Snap!

  Her hand slipped through. The chains rattled as she swung, unbalanced.

  Nicholas smiled. “You should have feared her.”

  Ash called in her boomstick. Thumb, forefinger. That was all she fucking needed.

  The demon turned. Very close range, hellhound venom. She pulled the trigger. The boom echoed through the chamber. His face exploded.

  “Loud,” Nicholas said. “Go fast.”

  “I know.” Before the demon had even collapsed to the floor, she’d vanished the weapon again, reached up for the chain. It took one good pull to haul herself up. Bracing her feet against the ceiling, she yanked. The bolt tore from stone in a shower of chips—she fell.

  Between heartbeats, she flipped around, got her feet under her. Landed.

  “My God, you’re amazing.”

  She formed her wings, leapt for his chain. Pulled it free. He dropped—even she couldn’t outrace gravity and catch him.

  But he was sewn up, so nothing fell out.

  He stood, his hands locked together in front of him. “Manacles?”

  “No time. Here.” She placed a crossbow in his hand. It would be awkward, but he could fire it. “Come on.”

  She shifted into her demon form, vanished her clothes—and vanished the manacle and chain, too.

  Nicholas stared. “What the—”

  “They aren’t connected to the tower anymore,” she realized. “They’re ours now, so we can take them.”

  “Take mine.”

  Oh, that made it so much easier. She vanished the manacles, his chain. Facing the door, she took a deep breath. “We really need more training before we do this.”

  “We’ll get it. After we get out.”

  She shoved open the door, ducked into the corridor. No glowing red eyes. Just screams.

  A lot more screams than there had been before. The smell of ozone and charred flesh choked the air.

  She expected the charred flesh. Not the ozone.

  Oh. Oh . . . She knew who that was.

  “Open your mental shields,” she said. “Now. Let them find us.”

  Three pairs of glowing red eyes appeared in the middle of the corridor. Sir Pup. Jake stood in front of the hellhound, electricity arcing between his hands. Holding a bloodied sword, his skin blackened with soot, Hugh stared through the darkness toward them.

  “Say your names,” he said.

  She started forward. “Ash and Nicholas.”

  “Truth.”

  Jake nodded. “Then get your asses over here, hang on to me. Let’s get the fuck out of—Oh, Jesus flippin’ Christ. St. Croix, what did they do to you?”

  Nicholas took Ash’s hand, reached out to touch Jake’s arm.

  “Strangely enough, they gave me a present. And Lucifer gave more than he bargained for.”

  They found a healer first.

  Jake teleported them straight to Pim, sitting in the novice common room on the second floor of the Special Investigations warehouse. When she saw Nicholas, her “Oh, my God!” brought others running.

  “Help him,” Ash said.

  Pim recovered a moment later, knelt in front of him. “All right—”

  Nicholas shook his head. “Her hand, first.”

  “But—” Ash broke off when his mouth set. Okay. So he couldn’t bear being healed while she was hurting. One day, she’d point out that she felt exactly the same way—but not today, if agreeing meant no more delay. She held out her hand to Pim. “Go.”

  The novice touched her palm. Warmth spread through Ash’s fingers; she felt the bones shift back into place. When Pim drew her hand back, Ash bent her fingers—painlessly. Incredible. But would it be that simple for Nicholas?

  Pim looked to him. “All right. You have to give me permission to vanish this wire first. It’s yours.”

  “Then it’s yours now,” Nicholas said. He closed his eyes, clenching his teeth—bracing himself.

  Taylor appeared next to Ash, gasped. Her hands rose to cover her mouth. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I couldn’t—”

  Ash touched her shoulder, stopped her. “You tried. We appreciate it, very much.”

  “Okay, just relax. This won’t hurt a bit.” Though focused on Nicholas this time, the power of Pim’s Gift spread like warm fingers against Ash’s psyche. The wire vanished. The jagged wounds left behind smoothed into tanned skin, hard muscle. “All done.”

  Nicholas blinked his eyes open. “That’s it?”

  “Yep.” Pim nodded. “That’s it.”

  With a wild laugh, Ash threw herself at him. His arms wrapped around her, held her tight.

  “I love you,” he said against her hair. “And my God, you’re amazing.”

  Easy for her. She hadn’t been the one ripped open. Pulling back to look up at him, she made certain that everything was in place, that he hadn’t hidden any lingering pain. But, no. His eyes glowed blue, and he was just as beautiful as ever.

  She looked over at the sound of heels running up the stairs. Lilith appeared, her gaze searching for Hugh, for Sir Pup, and the tension in her face eased when she spotted them both. Her mouth softened into a smile.

  “You made it back, then?”

  “As I told you we would,” Hugh said.

  “So you did, martyr.” She said it fondly, and her brows arched when she saw Ash with her arms wrapped around Nicholas. “You made it, too. Both of you. I’m impressed. Now, can you tell us what the fuck Khavi was thinking?”

  “I think so,” Nicholas said, and Ash felt the sudden, subtle tightening of his body against hers. “Or you can ask her.”

  Heart pounding, Ash glanced around. Khavi had appeared in the common room, standing at the end of the hallway leading to the novices’ quarters.

  A gun appeared in Taylor’s hand. “Get out,” she said. “Now.”

  “What did Lucifer fear?” Khavi looked to Nicholas. “We need to know.”

  “Not much.” Nicholas surprised Ash by answering. “Not much at all. But there were two things I felt clearly: He fears Michael, and he fears that you’ll discover that Ash can free everyone in the frozen field. He didn’t intend to enter into a bargain. But he also didn’t dare to spill her blood.”

  “How?” Khavi whispered, stepping forward.

  Taylor shook her head.

  Khavi looked from Ash to Taylor’s gun. “I can’t see everything, but I can see the symbols from here, if you shift to human form again.”

  After a glance at Nicholas, who nodded, Ash shifted.

  “And she’s naked again,” Pim said.

  Ash grinned. Nicholas laughed, kissed her brow.

  “There it is,” Khavi breathed. “The symbols are necessary for her transformation, so I looked before, but I did not see them as part of this ar
rangement. The symbols are not meant to work together as they are written, but they could be put together—and if you had agreed to reverse the transformation, the proper arrangement would have been gone.”

  “He asked if I wanted to be Rachel again,” Ash said. “I think he meant to torture Nicholas until I agreed.”

  “Oh, yes. Probably so much that you would agree to kill Nicholas just to put him out of his misery. That sounds very much like Lucifer.” Khavi’s focus dropped to the symbols again. “I can make the proper spell from these, one that would free everyone in the field. But why does he fear releasing all of them so much? Michael, I can understand. But the others? I do not know.”

  Did it even matter? Lucifer feared it. That was good enough for Ash.

  “It will free everyone in the frozen field?” she asked. “Everyone? Even someone sacrificed at the same time the spell is cast?”

  “Yes,” Khavi said.

  Hugh spoke. “Truth.”

  Ash looked at Nicholas, who was shaking his head.

  “No, Ash. We can’t risk—”

  “You saw them,” she said. “You saw all of them. Tell me again that I shouldn’t risk this.”

  He couldn’t. So he tried something else. “It would free a lot of demons, too.”

  “Who are trapped behind a Gate.” Ash’s gaze searched his, saw the denial there. “In five hundred years, you can kill Madelyn again.”

  He didn’t even smile. “That’s not—”

  “I know.” She caught his face between her hands. “I know that doesn’t matter. But the others trapped there do matter—those who are like Rachel. And it will hurt Lucifer. There is such high return on this risk . . . and we know Khavi speaks the truth. I’ll be freed again, too.”

  “But you’ll return to the field first. Only for a moment, perhaps—but that is an eternity too long. You tell me that it is worth the risk. You wouldn’t do it before.”

  “Maybe,” she said, and ran her fingers over his newly healed skin. “But I have another reason now. Revenge. You got Madelyn. Let me have Lucifer. It won’t kill him, but if it hurts him, I need to do it.”