by Laken Cane
“Shut up,” I cried. “No!”
Angus went down, his body jerking from the electricity they hit him with, and when he was on the ground, they rushed him. Yelling, vicious, mean. Bloodlust had taken them, and they began kicking the shit out of him. Beating him with the butts of their shotguns. Killing him.
“Oh, you bastards.” And before Shane could stop me, I began running.
Not for Angus. I wasn’t stupid. I couldn’t help him.
I headed for Derry. I would save his child.
The cops were busy brutalizing her dad, and they weren’t even thinking of the young girl cowering against the house.
I grabbed her arm, yanked her up, and ran back the way I’d come. She sobbed, but she ran with me.
“Trinity,” she cried. “They’re hurting him.”
I didn’t try to tell her he’d be okay. I didn’t believe he would be, and neither did she. Supernaturals were well versed in the ways of the human world in which they lived.
Even if some of the younger ones had never been hurt by the violence of a human, they’d been born beneath the constant threat of it. That never went away. They knew what could happen to them. They saw what could happen to them.
So Derry didn’t flinch when she had the chance to flee. She held my hand with a strength that nearly broke my fingers, and she flew over the ground so fast that in the end, she was pulling me along.
Shane followed behind us.
We watched as more cops, dressed in riot gear, marched down the streets, broke down doors, dragged out screaming, crying, begging supernaturals. Most of the residents didn’t even try to put up a fight. They knew better.
When two cops stepped out in front of us and demanded that we stop and get down on the ground, Amias appeared suddenly behind them and ripped out their throats before they even realized what had happened.
He glanced at me, then at Shane. “Get her to the woods.”
“Doing my best,” Shane said, then shoved me away when I would have stood there staring down at the cops, frozen.
“We’re almost there,” he said, but to himself, as though he didn’t believe we’d actually make it.
But we did.
With Derry between us, we sped away from the death and destruction, grim and shocked, with the girl’s soft sobs sporadically breaking the silence.
Finally, I squeezed her hand. “Derry, where are the children?”
“They went into the tunnels with their nannies,” she whispered. “But I saw my dad running, and I didn’t want him to be alone. I wanted him to come with us.”
“Tunnels are under the house?” I asked.
She nodded. “I should’ve told you.”
“No, Derry.” I put my arm around her and drew her close. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Your dad will be okay,” Shane said, surprising me. “He’s strong.”
“The human women,” she murmured. “Things were shaky because of the women getting killed, and then when they found a pile of them, we knew what was coming. But it came so fast…”
“A demon is killing them,” I told her. “We’re going to end him tonight. Then everything will be okay.”
“No,” she said. “Nothing will ever be okay.”
I didn’t argue, because she was right.
But I was going to make sure that I helped make things as okay as I could.
Hang on, Angus.
Hang on.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“The humans will want proof,” Amias said.
We stood in a line in front of a decrepit house in the woods, watching the door as though the demon might come bursting through it at any second.
And we hoped he would.
The exorcist—a slight, balding man named Joseph—had formed an intricate demon trap outside that door, then had chanted beneath his breath for what felt like an hour as he’d sprinkled salt in a circle around every potential exit point of the house. All windows and the backdoor had been sealed. There was only one way out for the demon—through the front.
And we were waiting for him. All of us but Angus. Amias stood at my back, watching my every move, and I tried to forget he was there. The emotions were clashing and clamoring for attention, and I needed to focus on the demon, not the vampire.
Amias’s impatience was strong—in less than thirty minutes he would have to hide from the sun, and he wanted to see this through. He wanted to keep me safe.
Bastard.
I shoved the thoughts of him away.
The trap was waiting.
I was waiting.
“When a demon is sick,” Joseph told me, “and then he gorges on a human’s essence—in this case several humans—it doesn’t make him stronger. It keeps him alive, but it makes him sluggish even as it takes away the pain. Sort of like a human taking huge doses of painkillers after a trauma.”
I knew all about that.
“If he eats regular humans,” Rhys said. “If he munched on our Trinity, he’d get his power, wouldn’t he?”
“Indeed,” the exorcist agreed. “But we won’t let him have Trinity.”
“He munched on me once,” I said, shuddering. “Why is he still weak?”
“I was told he got only a small taste.” Joseph waited for my nod before continuing. “You gave him the strength to kill eight humans. You gave him the strength to continue with his quest. Nothing more.”
I stared at him. “I didn’t give him shit.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Just…” I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to kill you. Surely there’s another way.”
“You went over this with him already,” Miriam snapped. “It has to be done.”
Joseph nodded, his face serene, but his eyes…excited. Hopeful. “Don’t hesitate, Trinity. You’ll have only seven minutes before he frees himself from me—those minutes will go quickly. Aim for my heart, once he’s inside me.” He swept his gaze over all of us. “Do not go inside the circle. When the demon falls and the seven minutes are over, you’ll be safe. Not a second before.”
Apparently, when the demon possessed Joseph, the demon’s body would be left behind. Not his glamoured body, but his true demon body. That would be the proof human law enforcement would need to clear the supernaturals.
I hoped.
Joseph looked at Clayton. “Start it.”
Joseph’s one request was that the scene be recorded. He wanted the world to see his sacrifice. They wouldn’t see Seth Damon until his spirit left his body to enter the exorcist. Then it would appear, as its un-glamoured physical entity, and could be recorded.
At least that was what Joseph said when he unfolded his tripod with the camera facing the door.
I wasn’t sure I believed him.
The exorcist gave me a quick, eager nod. “Call him from his sleep, Trinity.”
The world took a deep breath, one that would not be released until this night had ended.
I stepped forward, drawing Silverlight—Joseph had salted and blessed her, and I’d been nearly certain I could hear her silently screaming—my toes at the edge of the trap. I opened my mouth to call out, but my voice wasn’t needed at all.
He didn’t need to hear my voice. He needed only to feel my presence. I was close, and I was his everything.
Silverlight burst to life, lighting the house, the sky, the ground. She wanted the demon as much as I did.
“Open yourself up, Ms. Sinclair,” Joseph screamed. “Offer yourself to the incubus!”
“How do I…I don’t know how to open myself,” I said.
But then suddenly, I did.
I dropped walls that had been built the moment I’d been born. Walls I hadn’t even been aware of. Walls I’d begun instinctively raising after the incubus had attacked me in the woods. I planted my feet, straightened my spine, and I welcomed the demon to come claim me.
And he came.
I felt his pull, now that I’d opened myself to
him, but likely not nearly as much as he felt mine. I felt his need, even through my terror. As the door flew from its hinges, the demon raced to peer through the opening, and his glowing stare found me immediately.
I felt his lust.
And I felt mine.
“Take her,” Joseph roared. “Take your whore!”
The incubus planted his stare on the exorcist, and Joseph’s thick glasses cracked. He ran his fingers over the broken lenses, laughing maniacally. For an instant, the demon wasn’t the scariest thing in our midst.
Joseph the exorcist was off his rocker. I just hoped his trap was true.
Cold terror spread through me. “What if it doesn’t hold?”
“Then he will take you with him to hell.” Joseph turned his head to look at me. “Quite possibly where you belong.”
The incubus howled, and his face began to crack as Joseph’s glasses had cracked.
Only the whites of his eyes showed, and he clung to the doorframe so hard the house creaked. But he couldn’t withstand the power the exorcist had grown, and he couldn’t fight his need for me. With a howl, he flung himself toward me and straight into the trap.
And I wasn’t the only one affected by the demon’s influence and the magic of the trap. Amias crumbled, hitting the ground with a thud, his fingers clawing at the air, his eyes wide.
He reached for me. “Trinity…”
We were all pulled toward the demon and that circle of power.
The vampire master, bleeding from his nose, his mouth, and his eyes, began to slide across the ground toward the demon trap.
Somewhere behind the trees where I’d hidden her, Derry screamed. The supernaturals with me stumbled, milling around, confused.
Even Shane dropped his shotgun and fell to his knees. Rhys stumbled back and tried to pull his gun, but his hands wouldn’t obey him. Clayton, closest to the demon trap—and to the demon—shook his head, hard, and took a halfhearted, slow swipe at the blood pouring from his eyes.
I saw everything. I felt everything.
The night was too bright, the darkness too heavy, the fear too vivid, the end too near. And the need was too, too fucking much. Lust battered me, claimed me, controlled me.
And Joseph faltered beneath the reality of the situation. His face paled, and his eyes widened behind the crack lenses. He shook his head. “What is this?” he asked. “What is this?”
Only Miriam, for whatever reason, remained unaffected by the demon magic swirling through the air. She screeched and ran at Clayton, her switchblades in her hands. “Your fault,” she screamed, and began to slash at the man she hated.
Blood flew, ribbons of red blood so thick they hung in the air before floating slowly toward the incubus, who grabbed them and shoveled them into his wide-open mouth.
Clayton, his arms raised against Miriam’s blades, fell across the invisible lines of the trap. He fell into the circle with the demon.
The incubus did not hesitate. He grabbed Clayton by the back of his head and slammed his bloody, open mouth against Clayton’s, sealing them together.
He shoved himself into Clayton. He possessed him.
Joseph crumbled, sobbing, and then began to crawl away.
I let him go. I hadn’t the strength to do otherwise, and anyway, it was too late for him to help.
Seth Damon’s physical form fell to the ground and began to change.
Devoid of his spirit and its glamour, his body was twisted and deformed, burning and red, with long, white horns and sharp, curved fingernails. Between his legs hung a swollen, jutting appendage that lay on an enormous, bloated sac.
Hooves ended his legs, and a thick tail twisted around his body. Smoke drifted from his mouth and rose lazily into the softly lightening sky.
As the magic dissipated, we all turned to stare at each other, shocked and dazed. Derry raced from the thick trees and I holstered Silverlight before catching the girl in my bloody arms.
Amias, his body beginning to burn with the imminent arrival of dawn, stumbled away. I hoped the sun would kill him before he found a place to hide, but the hope was halfhearted and meek.
I wanted to want his death more than I actually wanted his death. And that was a secret I would carry to my grave.
Too bad I couldn’t hide that fact from myself.
The trap was no more.
Clayton walked slowly from the circle, his hands to his face. The wounds Miriam had given him were visible through the tatters of his shirt, but they began to heal even as I caught sight of them.
Miriam threw herself at him. She dug her fingernails into his flesh and tried to rip it from his bones, her face a mask of agony.
“On your knees,” she screamed. “Get on your fucking knees!” She pulled one of her switchblades in such a hurry she dropped it, so she reached for the other one. She flicked it open and sliced it across his abdomen. “On your knees, Golem!”
Clayton stared down at her, motionless, and his stare was not quite his own…or maybe not just his own. There was someone else in there with him.
“Fuck you,” Miriam whispered, and began hacking at him with her knife. “Fuck you.”
He took her by the throat and she dropped the blade as she grabbed his hands, clawing, gagging, her face filling with blood.
“No more,” he said.
I set Derry away from me and ran toward them. “Clayton, no,” I cried. “Please. Let her go.”
He turned his head to look at me. He said nothing, but finally, he opened his hand and let Miriam fall to the ground. She lay there, unable even to cry.
She’d brought Clayton back from the land of the dead, had tormented and enslaved him, had never imagined she might lose him. That she might give him the gift of a second chance at life and freedom while her father rotted in the ground.
“I fucked it up,” she murmured, then fell into silence as Rhys lifted her to her feet.
Clayton watched me with a stare so…hungry, so hawkish, that I could not look away. There was a battle going on behind those eyes.
A battle between Clayton and the incubus with whom he now shared his body. The tradeoff was freedom from Miriam.
I wondered if it would be worth it.
And I was nearly certain it would be.
Rhys walked Miriam to me. “We need to get the demon’s body to the captain and calm the city the fuck down.”
I finally managed to look away from Clayton, and I nodded. “Yes.”
“And save my dad,” Derry begged. “Please save my dad.”
“I’ll get the body.” Clayton turned toward the dead demon corpse on the ground.
Shane glanced at him, then leaned forward and put his lips against my ear.
I jerked, because I knew what he would say, and I did not want to hear it.
“Kill him, Trinity. Pull your sword and kill the motherfucker.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I looked from him to Clayton and finally, I lifted my chin and shook my head. “No. Clayton will control the incubus. If there comes a day when he can’t, we’ll revisit this conversation. Right now, we’re leaving him alone.”
And I stared him down.
He shrugged. “We’ll see how it goes.”
“Everybody okay?” Rhys asked.
No one appeared to be injured too badly—Clayton had been the hardest hit, in more ways than one, but an apparent perk of having a demon inside you was the healing ability it brought along.
“Load the body into my truck,” Shane told Clayton. “I’ll take it in and test the waters.”
“We will take it in,” I said. “It’s not safe for the rest of you. We’ll report back after we’ve given the demon’s body to Crawford.”
“I have things to do,” Rhys said. “You’ll let me know how it goes with the captain.”
“Fine,” I muttered. “Clayton, you should—” But Clayton was already halfway back to our waiting vehicles, and I had no doubt that after he’d dumped the body into the back of Shane’s truck, he’
d disappear.
None of the supernats were going to hide in the woods while Shane and I tried to sort things out. I blew out a slow breath, suddenly exhausted.
“What about Derry?” I asked. “She isn’t safe in the city.”
“I want to see my dad.” Derry crossed her arms and leveled a narrow-eyed frown at me. Her resemblance to her father was unmistakable.
“No, sweetie.” Miriam took her arm. “You and I will wait out the storm together.”
“Where?” I asked her. “Will you wait here?”
She refused to look at me, and I wasn’t sure why. “No. I have a safe place prepared. Rhys will drop us there.”
“Come on, then,” Rhys said. “Let’s get you two out of here.”
I heard him asking, as they walked away, “Do you have any food in your safe place?”
“Of course I do.” And maybe there was a hint of a smile in her voice. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.
Who would Miriam be without the extension of Clayton? I wasn’t sure even she knew the answer to that. And I understood that she was grieving the loss.
“Supernaturals are complicated,” I murmured.
Shane jogged away. “Come on, baby hunter.”
“Really?” I hurried to catch up to him. “Really?”
“What?” he asked, all innocence.
“I think I’ve proven myself.”
He only grinned.
“Asshole,” I muttered, and his grin widened.
We stopped for coffee and a couple of bags of breakfast, despite the fact that a corpse lay in the back of the truck. The day ahead would be a long, hard one, and we’d need all the fortification we could get.
The city was creepily silent in the early morning light, and I wondered how many cops patrolled Bay Town, keeping the remaining supernaturals inside its borders.
I had no doubt that some of the supernats would be injured and in special holding cells—Angus, for one—and some of them would likely be in the morgue. When the day was over, if things went well and the supernaturals were cleared of the murders, their doctor was going to be one busy guy.
I couldn’t let myself think that Angus might have been killed.