by Karen Chance
“It is the greatest strength humans have, and their greatest asset in the struggle to survive. Despite living far longer, other sentient species can’t touch the human reproductive rate, can’t even come close. Rosier spent centuries trying and failing to father a child with other demonic races. But it wasn’t until he switched to human partners that he managed it. And even then . . .”
Pritkin trailed off, but I knew he was thinking about the countless children Rosier had fathered on his quest and who had died—and had taken their mothers along with them. I’d never known if that was because of the terrible rate of death in childbirth among ancient and medieval women, or if it was the fact that the babies were half-incubus, a species designed to prey on human energy, that had been the cause. But none had lived. None until him.
“So he wasn’t pimping you out,” I said harshly. “He was putting you out to stud.”
“In a manner of speaking. Half demons aren’t overly fertile, either, but in comparison . . . And any demon race would give more—much more—for a power exchange, if even an outside chance of a child came with it.”
“And I thought I hated him before,” I said grimly. “How could he expect you to agree to that?”
“Because a full demon would have, without question. Would not have concerned himself with the futures of any children he helped to create, or the use Rosier was putting to the influence he gained. He would have viewed it as an honor, as a way to help the clan and to increase his own status at the same time. But needless to say, I felt differently.”
“I’d hope so!”
“My refusal caused the first major breach between us, although there had been others. But it was what finally convinced me to leave it all behind, to rejoin the human world, to build a life free of him, of the courts, of the constant scheming and power plays.”
“And he let you go?”
Pritkin finally smiled, and it wasn’t a very nice one. “I forced his hand, you might say. But in the end, it mattered little, as his ambition for me remained the same. And a monogamous marriage to a nonentity would do nothing to service it. He said he warned her, but he does nothing counter to his own interests. Nothing!”
I didn’t say anything that time, because I had finally caught on to where he was going with this. At least, I was afraid that I had. But I don’t think Pritkin noticed. He was staring at the damn paneling, but his face was . . . somewhere else.
“I will never know for certain what went on at that meeting,” he said. “I know only what she did. On our wedding night, she initiated the exchange of power. I believe she hoped it would strengthen her own magic, make her acceptable in the eyes of the courts. And had she been fully demon, even half, it may well have done so. May have given her entry into that world she wanted so badly. But she wasn’t, and she didn’t understand. . . .”
He paused, and for a moment, I thought that would be it. But then he spoke again. And it was so raw, so bitter, that the very tone hurt to hear.
“The exchange of power is designed to be exactly that. But I suppose she never wondered what would happen if one partner had no excess power to give. Had nothing but the energy she needed to live. And I was . . . distracted.... I didn’t notice what was happening, not for a moment, because incubi typically feed in those instances. But not that much, not that fully. And by the time I realized, it was too late. Before the cycle could even properly begin, she was—” His lips tightened. “She never received anything back. She never had time. She gave and gave and then it was over . . . so quickly. . . .”
He trailed off, for which I was grateful. Pritkin had described what happened once before, and I remembered the conversation in vivid detail. It was a little hard to forget, as he hadn’t spared himself. He hadn’t told me the reason his wife ended up a dried-up shell of a creature, shriveled and desiccated, barely recognizable as human. But he had made sure I knew who had been responsible, at least in his mind.
He might have hated his father because of what he knew or suspected.
But he hated himself a lot more.
Again, I didn’t know what to say. Except the obvious. “It wasn’t your fault,” I said quietly, only to have him give me a look of incredulous disbelief.
“I’ve just explained—”
“That you tried to stop it and you couldn’t. What else could you have done? You didn’t know—”
“I should have! There must have been signs, clues to what she intended—and yet I saw nothing!”
“Maybe there was nothing to see. Maybe she was careful—”
“Maybe I was a blind fool!” He got up and poured more whiskey. “I should have realized what was going on, should have noticed how giddy she suddenly was, how happy . . . but I put it down to the forthcoming wedding. Women like weddings, all the . . . the decorations and the gowns and the . . . And I was busy searching for a home for us. I’d lived in bachelor quarters until then, but they wouldn’t do for her, and—”
He broke off and went back to the sofa. He took the whiskey bottle along. I really couldn’t blame him.
“That night . . . I should have been able to shut things down before they progressed that far. But I couldn’t, because I’d refused to mate with demons, had restricted myself to humans, and therefore knew little about the process. I knew what was happening, but not how to stop it. And obviously, neither did she. I’d kept my lofty principles, thwarted my father’s wishes, and in doing so, left myself ignorant in the one area that mattered. And he knew that. Knew he had the perfect way to punish me for daring to tell him no—”
“Which is my point,” I said, leaning forward, because I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Rosier set you up. If you want to blame someone, blame him!”
“I do! But he wasn’t there. He didn’t drain her, he didn’t steal her life away, didn’t feel her crumble in his arms like—”
He cut off, breathing hard, and put his head in his hands. I went over and sat beside him, not hugging him because those moments in the shower had been an aberration, and I somehow knew he wouldn’t appreciate it now. Maybe because of the nervous energy that was thrumming through him, like a grounded lightning rod. I could feel it, just sitting there, an electric charge jumping under his skin.
I didn’t know what to say to Pritkin. When you hated and blamed yourself for something for years, it became truth, your truth, whether it actually was or not. And technically, we were in the same boat. What had happened to Eugenie wasn’t my fault, at least in the sense that I couldn’t have prevented it.
And that was exactly no fucking comfort at all.
After a while, I pulled my feet up and grabbed the whiskey, drinking straight from the bottle. My stomach wasn’t too happy about it, but my stomach could go to hell.
“The worst part,” he finally said, his voice hoarse, “was that I enjoyed it. Emotionally, mentally, I was horrified. But physically . . . it was the same as tonight. When I woke in that car, it was to terrible pain, but also to indescribable pleasure. You held nothing back, your power was right there, and I . . . I could have . . .”
“But you didn’t. You didn’t drain me.”
“I came damn close!”
I shook my head. “No, you didn’t. You took a lot, but I know drained, okay? I’ve fed ghosts, vampires and now a half demon—twice. And both times—”
“I was conscious last time!” he said savagely. “I kept control for nearly the entire process, and you had a place to run when I lost it. None of that was true tonight!” Green eyes blazed into mine. “Do you understand that? Do you realize the risk you ran? You were trapped and there was no one to help you and—”
“And nothing happened.” I didn’t even bother to get annoyed at his tone; yelling at me for saving his life was typical of the man. “Besides, there was someone to help me.”
He snorted. “Caleb? Do you have any idea how inadvisable it is to disturb a demon when it is feeding? And I am more powerful than most because of who sired me. If he’d interfered, the only d
amage would have been to him!”
“I wasn’t talking about Caleb,” I said evenly.
“You couldn’t access your power. You couldn’t have shifted—”
“Damn it! I’m not talking about me, either. And if you say Rosier, I swear I’ll hit you.”
“There was no one else there.”
I rolled my eyes. Maybe I’d hit him anyway. It was starting to look like the only viable option.
“There was you. I knew I would be okay because I was with you. I knew you wouldn’t—”
“Then you’re a fool,” he rasped. “For one moment, I didn’t know where I was, who you were—I didn’t know anything, but how good pulling on all that power felt. And a moment is all it takes!”
“But you didn’t do it,” I repeated, because he didn’t seem to get that. Which was odd, because for me, it was kind of the main point here.
“But I could have! I felt it, the hunger, the burning, the need.” His fists clenched. “I didn’t want to stop—”
“But you did. I remember when you pulled back. You’d have stopped it right then, as soon as you figured out what was happening, if your father hadn’t laid that damn spell.”
“You don’t know—”
“And even then, it’s not like you did all that much,” I said, talking over him, because it was the only way to get a word in edgeways with Pritkin sometimes.
He had filched the bottle back to take a drink, but at that he lowered it and looked at me, his eyes very green next to the amber liquor. “What?”
“I just meant, it wasn’t all that and a bag of chips. You know?”
He blinked at me.
“No offense,” I added, because he was looking kind of poleaxed. Like maybe he hadn’t had a whole lot of complaints before. Which was, frankly, pretty damn understandable. But I feigned indifference. “I mean, it couldn’t have been that bad if—”
“Bad?”
“Well, not bad bad.”
He just looked at me.
“I mean, I came and everything, so that has to count for some—”
I cut off because I was suddenly enveloped in a strong pair of arms, and my head was crushed to a hard chest. A chest that appeared to be vibrating. It took me a few moments to get it, and even then I wasn’t sure, because Pritkin’s face was buried in my hair. But I kind of thought—as impossible as it seemed—that he might be . . . laughing?
Chapter Twenty-nine
“I’m glad you two are having such a swell time,” Caleb said, slamming back in a minute later.
I barely heard him. I was too busy watching Pritkin, who had slumped over with his head on the sofa arm, shoulders shaking helplessly, and what looked suspiciously like tears leaking out from under his closed eyes. “Not that bad,” he muttered, and then he was off again.
Caleb looked at him like he thought the guy might have totally gone around the bend. I wasn’t sure he wasn’t right, because Pritkin rarely smiled, and he never laughed. But he was doing it now, and for a moment, I just absorbed the image. Of all the strange things that had happened on this very strange day, I thought that might just take the prize.
And then Caleb was jerking me out the door.
“Are you lucid?” he demanded.
“Pretty much.”
“Good. Then maybe you can tell me—” He stopped, because a door closed somewhere down the corridor. Caleb’s head whipped around like a guy’s in a spy movie, and then he hauled me across the hall and into another office.
This one had boxes lining the walls and stacks of files teetering dangerously high on the only desk. There was also a trench coat on a hook on the back of the door and he grabbed it, shoving it at me. “Do I want to know what happened to my T-shirt?”
“It was wet.”
“And why was it—No, wait. Don’t answer that.”
“Because I wore it in the shower!” I said, getting into the coat, which was about five sizes too big. “We just talked, Caleb!”
“Then talk some more. Like about what we’re supposed to do.”
“About what?”
“About the fact that John may have lost his ever-loving mind, but he’s physically doing pretty damn good for a guy who was almost dead an hour ago! And people saw, okay? And by now they’ve talked—”
“Talked to who?”
“How the hell do I know? We had maybe a couple hundred people on the ground, with most of ’em still there.”
“Why so many? Can’t you just go with ‘gas leak’ or something?” It was Dante’s default excuse for the not-sooccasional weirdness that went on.
“For the restaurant, maybe. It may even be partly true in that case. But that’s still leaves us with two wrecked buildings, a trashed parking garage and four thousand pounds of dragon flesh bleeding out in the middle of a—”
“Okay, I get it. We made a mess.”
“A mess? Do you have any idea how many memories, how many video monitors, how many—”
“I said, I get it.”
“I don’t think you do! But right now, I’m not even worried about all of that. Do you know what has me freaking the hell out? Would you care to take a wild fucking guess?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Let me give you some help,” he said savagely, beginning to pace around the tiny space between the desk and the door. “I keep going over and over it, trying to find another explanation. Telling myself I must be crazy. Telling myself I must be wrong. But two plus two equals four. And incubus plus human equals—”
“Stop right there.”
“Like hell I’ll stop!” He whipped around to face me, surprisingly fast for such a big guy. “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen when everyone else does the fucking math—”
“They’re not going to do it.”
“Oh, really? Let’s go through it, shall we? John gets hit with a crap load of dragon blood, enough to take out a fucking platoon. The usual spells for stopping shit like that aren’t worth a damn, and every single person in that car knows what’s what. I do, too, but I’ve known him a long time, so I’m gonna see to it that he gets back here, even if it’s only to have the docs hang a damn toe tag on him!”
“Caleb—”
“I figured that’s what you were doing, too, and when you ordered those men out, I guessed you just wanted to give him some privacy in his last moments. Thought that ‘if you want him to live’ shit was just to get ’em moving or to give yourself some hope or something. But lo and behold. What happens?”
“Caleb—”
“You start putting the moves on what is basically a corpse, and then talking when there’s nobody there, and then some weird-ass shit starts going down with sparkly light and heat and John comes back to life and jumps your goddamn bones—”
“Technically, he didn’t—”
“And the next thing I know, he’s doing just fine. He’s fucking dandy. And you’re the one who looks like a corpse and almost are one—”
“I was not.”
“And he’s all energized with creepy, glowing eyes and enough power radiating off him to take on an army, and there’s only one way he got it, okay?”
“He could be possessed by an incubus,” I argued. “He doesn’t actually have to be—”
Caleb looked disgusted. “Sell it somewhere else. Everyone knows John is half demon—it’s not the kind of thing you can hide from the sort of work-up the Corps does on its recruits. But we didn’t know what kind. He told us Ahhazu—”
“Imagine that.”
“—but they’re minor-level functionaries. They can’t do that kind of shit. And a demon can’t possess another demon—or a half, for that matter. So two plus two, okay? His other half ain’t Ahhazu, it’s incubus. And there’s only one half human, half incubus ever been recorded—”
“Maybe Pritkin’s birth wasn’t recorded.”
“Bullshit. You know damn well who we got—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—next door, and J
ohn Pritkin ain’t his—”
“I’m warning you.”
“—name. It’s motherfucking Mer—”
“Say it and spend the rest of your life in the Jurassic,” I hissed.
We just stood there and breathed at each other.
“You gonna tell me I’m wrong?” Caleb finally said.
“I’m not going to tell you anything. Which is exactly what you’re going to tell everyone else.”
“Okay.” He ran a hand over his buzz cut, which was too short for him to tear out. Which was probably just as well, judging from his expression. “Just for the hell of it, let’s say I don’t want to rat him out. Let’s say I’ve worked with him long enough that maybe I don’t want to see what’ll happen after everyone finds out he had another name once. Let’s say I’m on your side. What the fuck do you expect me to do? I already told you, too many people saw. And there’s gonna have to be a report, and—”
“They didn’t see what happened in the car. They only know—”
“That he’s alive when he shouldn’t be. And that’s more than enough to pique some goddamned curiosity!”
“All right!” I said. “Give me a minute.”
“I hope you don’t need much more than that,” he said grimly. “We got lucky when we came in, with almost everybody on shift called out to that disaster you left. But they’re going to be back soon, plus the first day crew is going to be coming on and—”
“How long?”
He glanced at his watch. “Less than an hour before the day crew shows up. And probably nowhere near that long before the first groups start coming back from Disaster City. They’re gonna need to make out reports before they go off the clock, and that takes—”
“So how long do we have?”
Black eyes met mine. “Minutes.”
“Then we had best make good use of them,” Pritkin said, opening the door behind us. “And you forgot a silence spell.”
Caleb cursed. “I’m losing it.”
“With cause.”
“Damn straight with cause!” Caleb gazed at his friend, his eyes scanning the familiar features, as if he expected him to have suddenly sprouted horns.