The Demon King

by Heather Killough-Walden

  “An Akyri?” he repeated, his brow furrowing. “That would explain the magic I sensed when I arrived. Was that all there was?” That hadn’t been the only thing he’d sensed.

  “No. There was a beast in the circle with her. He was furry and enormous. He looked a little like a goblin from Damon Chroi’s realm.”

  Now the idea he’d been developing solidified. “A demon.”

  She frowned. “A demon? But… you’re a demon. Right? That thing was more like an animated plushy with teeth and horns.”

  “What does a mortal look like?” he asked her.

  She pursed her lips, no doubt realizing that a mortal could look like anything from a single bacterium to a blue whale. The same went for fae. And it most likely went for demons. They came in all shapes and sizes.

  “You’ve made your point,” she admitted softly.

  “I think the man you saw was Apollyon.”

  She considered that in silence, took a swig of her beer, and then said, “That makes sense. My magic didn’t work on him.”

  Laz glanced over at her and a dark feeling grabbed hold of his gut. His instincts were telling him something he didn’t want to believe. “Now that’s interesting,” he said. “Especially when you consider why he was there in the first place.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  That feeling he had grew stronger, and now he just knew – knew – he was right. “In all honesty? I think he was there to flush you out.” He was after Dahlia. And who could blame him? If you were going to get revenge, why not do it in the most pleasurable way possible? Taking Dahlia would prevent Laz from having her, which would destroy him, and in turn destroy his kingdom.

  Fucking demon. Laz was going to rip his lungs out and play them like bagpipes.

  He turned his head, shocked at his internal thoughts. He was stunned to find his fists had clenched at his sides, and his gums had begun to ache with the need to sink his fangs into something. Christ, he thought. I’m ten seconds away from cutting someone’s heart out with a plastic serrated knife. His birth mother had been right. And Laz was going to have to be very careful with his knee-jerk reactions from now on. Lest they leave someone with a massive cavity in their chest.

  “Well, that’s not at all creepy,” Dahlia said.

  Laz blinked at first, thinking she’d been reading his thoughts. But then he realized she was referring to the fact that Apollyon had been trying to find her and had set up the situation in the warehouse just to draw her in.

  He looked back over at her as she rolled her eyes. It was the most adorable expression, and somehow, miraculously, it took hold of Laz’s anger and shaved off all of its rough edges. In fact, he suddenly felt like rolling his eyes himself.

  Dahlia Kellen was a blessing. He felt his blood pressure lowering.

  “Anyway,” she said, giving her almost empty bottle a shake and an irritated look. “Since we’re speaking of learning – you never did answer my question.”

  “What question?”

  “Well, I guess it wasn’t so much a question. I just wanted you to tell me about Boston. You’ve lived there your whole life, right?”

  Laz smiled and turned his whole body toward her, leaning on his side and sliding his hand into his jeans pocket. She was damn good at changing the subject. And he welcomed it.

  A motorcycle pulled up, its engine rumbling like thunder. The couple on the bike parked and got off, and the woman riding in the back did something on her phone before sliding it into the back pocket of her jeans. The couple nodded to Laz and Dahlia as they entered the bar.

  “You really want to know about Boston?”

  “I do. Well,” she gave it some thought. “Maybe sum up a little. The city’s more than two hundred years old.”

  “Okay... Boston is the home of the Boston Tea Party of course – you probably know all about that.” She nodded. “The Freedom Trail and Paul Revere’s house, and so forth.” Again, she nodded. He smiled. “But if you want to step out of the history books for a bit, you’ll get the real Boston. The North End? Better pizza than Manhattan. And we have the best ice cream on the planet.”

  “And donuts? I think I saw two Dunkin’ Donuts on the same city block at one point.”

  Laz laughed. “Yeah, we’ve got our donuts. And when people think of donuts, they think of cops, which is probably why you mentioned them to me.”

  She shrugged innocently, but then smiled and nodded.

  “But no one knows why,” he said.

  “Something tells me you do.”

  His grin grew. “Dunkin’ Donuts started in New England, and when they began filming cop shows, they filmed them in New York City. A cop’s schedule is brutal. We’re up early and we go home late. That requires fuel, and it requires a food selling establishment that’s actually open during those crazy hours. Hence, donuts. Since Dunkin’ Donuts was always open and always available, cops were always there fueling up. We pretty much keep those guys in business.” He chuckled, and realized a chocolate glazed donut sounded really good right about then. But he was more a fan of Krispy Kreme than Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “I like Krispy Kreme better,” said Dahlia.

  Laz stared at her. She stared back. Then he shook his head.

  “What?” she asked, eyes huge.

  “Nothing.”

  She considered him a moment, then said. “Okay. So go on.”

  “Boston’s beautiful at sunset. If you’re standing in just the right place, you see the sun shine off the gold dome of the state house, and you could swear it’s visible from Saturn. We have the oldest restaurant in the country. And we have parks with swans.”

  “And ducks, I hear.”

  “Yeah, Bostonians are crazy about ducks… and I still don’t understand that one, despite the fact that ‘Make Way for Ducks’ was one of my childhood books.” He shook his head and thought about the city he both loved and hated. “We have crazy, insane traffic and we’ve spent more money on traffic projects than you can imagine. We have crappy roads even though our tolls make four billion dollars a year. And there’s no where to park in town…. But,” he smiled. “Boston Common was the site of Connor McLeod’s famous duel in The Highlander.”

  Dahlia slowly grinned. “So it was!”

  He chuckled. “I apologize for calling your wife a bloated warthog –”

  “And I bid you good day!” they finished together.

  When their laughter died down a bit, he continued. “No one does fall like Boston. Every year when it comes around, I swear it’s where autumn was invented. The Emerald Necklace becomes one of ruby, gold and every shade in-between.”

  He blinked when he recalled his fondest Boston memory though, and in a voice filled with the tone of that recollection, he said, “And I was actually there in the stadium when the Boston Red Sox ended The Curse of the Bambino to win the World Series in 2004.” He looked up at her, wondering if she could sense what he was feeling. “There’s magic in Boston,” he told her. “If you know where to look.”

  Dahlia had fallen silent beside him, and now her eyes seemed to look right through him and into his soul. They had drawn closer as he’d spoken. They were mere inches apart.

  “So there is,” she said softly.

  Laz could almost taste her. In that moment, in that parking lot with the sound of Credence muted in the background and the scent of night blooms on the wind, Laz realized that ever since he’d walked into that warehouse in Boston, ever since he’d wrapped his arms around Dahlia and whisked her away… ever since he’d met the woman before him, he hadn’t felt lost or confused. Not like before.

  She was the calm in his storm. She was the port in a fury that rocked the seas and cracked open the skies. She was his anchor when the tornado came calling. He’d been changing, and he’d been terrified of that change. But now with her before him and that green in her eyes, he was ready for whatever might come. She was the half of him he hadn’t even known he was missing. Laz could not possibly imagine what he woul
d be without her.

  Maybe instead of killing Apollyon, he would thank him.

  At once, like fury itself, Laz wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her to him, and claimed her lips with his own. It was a sigh of fate that sounded like a roar in his head, felt like an earthquake in his heart, and tilted the entire world on its side. Her lips were petal soft, as pliable as marshmallows, and tasted like something secret and sweet.

  Dahlia had no time to react. But the moment his lips covered hers, she melted into him, allowing him the access he demanded to delve deeper and taste more. There was no breath, there was no passage of time. There was only the delicious surrender of her mouth, the clutching of her hands at his biceps, and his fingers in her hair… gods, her hair. It was like priceless Chinese silk, running cool and soft against his palm, the very sensation of beauty held in the grip of his demonic hands. He clutched it tight, tilting her head to deepen his kiss, and she made a soft sound against him. He swallowed the sound, feeling his entire body go rigid with mounting need.

  “Ninetails! There’s a Ninetails!”

  Laz heard the commotion as if it were far off. He was lost in the flower he held against him.

  But it came again, this time closer. “You guys, there’s a Ninetails!”

  The second time, he stiffened and irritation combined with curiosity ebbed its way into his circle of pleasure. He heard a low growl – realized it was his own – and felt Dahlia go still in his grip. Slowly, he pulled away, breaking the kiss. She stared up at him, her emerald eyes glassed over.

  “Apparently there’s a Ninetails,” he said softly.

  She blinked and straightened in his grip. He turned his head to glance behind him as a crowd of people continued to rush out of the bar. Every single one of them, tattooed, leather dressed, and unshaven, was staring down at their phones.

  “A Ninetails?” Dahlia asked softly.

  The group turned in circles and fanned out, and one woman looked squarely at Laz and Dahlia. “Do either of you have it on your screens? The radar says its really close!”

  Laz of course knew what they were talking about, and one day he would look back on this and realize that the woman had expected him to know what they were talking about – and that was pretty phenomenal in and of itself. They were talking about Pokémon Go.

  He let his arm slip loose from Dahlia’s waist and stepped back to pull his phone from the inner pocket of his leather jacket, but before he even had it half-way out, Dahlia was exclaiming excitedly next to him.

  “Oh my god, it’s here! It’s here! It’s right here!” There was a general shuffle of movement in the crowd nearby as they scuttled closer, their phones held up in front of them. “Holy cow, did you realize that this bar was a Pokéstop?” she asked. A Pokéstop was a location on the game’s map where players could spin for prizes that helped them get ahead in the game. And that explained why the woman on the back of the bike earlier had been doing something on her phone before putting it in her back pocket.

  Dahlia had beat him to it on every front, having already located her own phone, pulled it out, and called up the ap. She was now staring down at her phone in wonder, and Laz could see her finger shaking nervously as she went through the motions of trying to catch what was admittedly a fairly rare Pokémon.

  The crowd that had exited the bar was hurrying toward them. “Where? Where?!”

  But one by one, they stopped and froze in place as the creature appeared on their screens, gold and glowing and glorious, and they stared in awe and shook in anxiety as they attempted to capture it.

  For the first time since he’d begun playing the game, Laz slid his phone back into his pocket and simply watched those around him. Rather than join in, which he admittedly wanted to do, he stood silently and observed. It was moments like this that made an impression on a person. It was moments like this that were worth noticing. This was something to see – bikers playing Pokémon Go.

  He looked over at the beautiful fae whose cheeks were flushed and eyes were narrowed in adorable concentration. He had to agree with Dahlia’s assessment. Learning something new every day certainly made life worth living. Especially when the kiss of someone you were beginning to care deeply for was still tingling on your lips.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “Holy crap, now there’s a Jigglypuff!” someone shouted.

  Dahlia had just finished catching the Ninetails when the Jigglypuff appeared on her radar and someone in the crowd called it. This was the one she’d lost earlier when Lazarus – should she still be calling him that? She blushed and her lips tingled. When he took her phone from her.

  She really wanted this one. She looked up from her phone to find him watching her.

  “Let’s go get it,” he told her solidly as he pulled out his own phone.

  She grinned, and they broke into a run together. They’d taken all of ten running steps when like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky, an explosion rocked the parking lot behind them, the blast so large, Dahlia felt it against her body rather than heard it. She sensed an impact, as if a brick wall had slammed into her right side. Pain erupted along her spine and into her neck, but there was no time to register it fully. The world blurred past her, was turned upside down, and then something wrapped tightly around her like a cocoon.

  She felt a second impact, but this one was much less violent than the first. She couldn’t tell what it was or where she was, as everything was dark. A loud hum in her ears blocked out most of her second sense, and she was left only with touch, taste, and smell.

  Smell was the first thing she noticed. Leather and sandalwood. Smoke and gasoline or oil – she could never tell the difference between the two.

  “Dahlia!” She could dully hear someone calling her name through the humming. Hands jostled her, and she was moved again. She opened her eyes to find herself staring up into his. She read his lips when he asked, “Are you okay?” Concern etched his beautiful features – and so did blood. He’d been hit by something on the head, and a stream of red was making its way over his forehead toward his left eye.

  “What happened?” she asked. Her side was throbbing; was something broken? She couldn’t even tell where the pain was coming from. But at least the humming in her ears was fading.

  Lazarus looked from her to something up and over her head. His expression was wrought with concern, but set with determination. With a tight jaw and flashing eyes, he said, “We’ve been found.”

  Dahlia shifted beneath him, wincing as she moved. She just wanted to see what he was staring at. Thirty feet away in the parking lot of the bar, the remnants of a Mercedes lay in wreckage, sending black smoke billowing into a blacker night. The motorcycles that had been parked on either side of it were laid flat like downed Dominoes, and pieces of metal shimmered where they were strewn across the tarmac.

  “People could have been hurt,” Dahlia said, thinking of the patrons who may have been remaining in the bar. She pushed up to her elbows to see the unconscious forms of her fellow Pokémon Go players. “Oh gods, they could be dead.”

  “They’re alive.”

  “How do you know?” She tried to push him off her, but he wouldn’t budge. “I know because I can feel when someone is dead, Dahlia. I have the ability to heal, and that comes with the territory.”

  “You can heal? You need to help them!”

  “Are you hurt Dahlia?” he asked. Something in his voice drew her attention directly. Her head snapped back to him and a stillness went through her. “Tell me the truth.”

  “No,” she said honestly. Her head hurt, but nothing was broken. “Just bruised.”

  Laz nodded and got to his feet, taking her arms and pulling her up with him. “I want you to stay here.” He looked over at the smoking scene.

  “No,” she told him firmly.

  Lazarus straightened, and his head turned, his attention now completely focused on her again. It was disconcerting, that gaze. He was intense. “What?”

  But she could be
intense too. “You heard me, Detective.”

  “It’s Laz,” he said, jaw set.

  “No…” she shook her head and licked her lips, placing her hands on his arms. They’d been kissing only moments earlier. She tried to go back…. “Steven,” she said, this time just as firmly but with an undeniable note of tenderness.

  Steven Lazarus’s face changed. His jaw relaxed, and his pupils dilated. She had his attention. “You heard me,” she told him. “I’m not staying here.”

  People were now yelling at one another in the bar, and smoke was rolling up and out of its windows. Dahlia squeezed his arms where she held him, then let go and turned to run toward the building. She moved like a deer, fast and fleet, closing distance with fae grace she’d never been more grateful for.

  Laz bolted after her, “Dahlia!”

  “We don’t have time to argue!” she called back over her shoulder.

  The explosion had destroyed their vehicle. Or, rather it had destroyed Baxter’s vehicle, Steven’s partner. That was going to suck balls for Steven to explain to the shifter. It had also caused enough of an after shock that the motorcycles around it had literally been picked up and moved sideways.

  “Where did the attack come from?” Dahlia asked, turning in a circle, her gaze scanning the growing crowd of humans and the metal remnants of the car.

  “I want you to get the hell out of here, Dahlia,” Steven told her. He grabbed her by her upper arm and spun her around, forcing her to meet his gaze.

  She stilled in his embrace and her mind flashed back to their kiss. He’d been so hot, it was as if he’d had a fever, and her mind couldn’t help but wonder what other parts of him would feel like against her… in her. She was a Tuathan fae, and sex was in her blood. But now stubbornness flooded that blood and she felt her eyes turn hard as stone. “I already told you, no. You can’t deal with this alone, and we can’t keep running from it. It was a stupid idea to try to in the first place. Your cousin wants to go for a round?”