The Vengeance Demons Series: Books 0-3 (The Vengeance Demons Series Boxset)

by Louisa Lo

  “So it could even be a guy,” I suggested.

  “The essence felt female, but then that could be false as well.”

  “So we got nothing.” Fir whistled.

  “No, but when I find the bitch, or the bastard, I’m going to make them pay,” Sui-Ling vowed. “Whoever jumped me has been walking around pretending to be an agent of the Condor League, wearing my clothes and mimicking me like a cheap Chinese knock-off.”

  We all just looked at her.

  “What?” She shrugged. “I’m Asian and therefore, the only one who can make that analogy without being politically incorrect.”

  I suddenly remembered what the fake Sui-Ling said about her age and being an Asian woman. Then I realized that the imposter was no cheap knock-off at all—she’d managed to copy both Sui-Ling’s appearance and personality to the tee, and knowledge, too, if her cryptic conversation with Gregory about his daddy was anything to go by. Sui-Ling had been expertly duplicated. Like an evil clone or something.

  That suggested an enemy way more sophisticated than the type who picked up their supplies and spell books from a trickster’s joke shop.

  Grandma and I exchanged a look; she had arrived at the same conclusion.

  Fir proceeded to de-activate the Blind Panic. The lawn was like a warzone, littered with shoes, trampled tents, dropped weapons, and scattered legal documents. Eldratha’s blond wig laid over a leprechaun’s green hat, with a troll’s enormous and dirty toenail poking out of it like some weird version of an English fascinator.

  During the panic, someone had thrown fairy dust toward the imaginary ogres in a futile attempt to halt their movement. As the breaking dawn began to light the street, the tiny fairy dust clouds settled, making the yard a minefield of random and spontaneous magical transformation. I couldn’t believe I’d been up all night over this whole craziness.

  Now that Eldon was gone, there was no reason to linger anymore. Greexet, Eldratha, and the Three Fates all went home; so did Gregory’s clients.

  Sui-Ling was silent as she watched Grandma lead me, Serafina, and Fir inside for a private conversation. She would be waiting.

  I pointed a finger at Gregory. “You. Stay.”

  “Is he going to listen?” Fir sounded doubtful.

  “He will.” Sometime earlier, while I watched Gregory reassuring his clients about his commitment to their contract, I had an epiphany.

  He owed me. A lot. He just didn’t know it yet. He would stay because he wanted to learn from me who had Eldon, but I just realized that I had something on him that would make him mine to use rather than the other way around.

  Grandma’s face was grave when she turned to face us in the living room. “I just received word on who has Prince Eldon.”

  “Who?” Serafina hadn’t said a word since she discovered that Eldon was taken. Her silence was more alarming than her, well, alarm.

  Grandma wove another privacy spell over the gazillion other ones we already had over the house before answering, “The Greys.”

  “What?” I shouted.

  The Greys. The secret society the Council was supposedly going after. The bane of my existence, the organization that almost succeeded in using me to bring the end of life as we knew it. They had Eldon? This was bad news.

  “They made contact with the Council soon after they snatched Eldon.” Grandma held up her phone. “They want to negotiate.”

  “The Council wouldn’t consider talking to them, would they?” I watched Grandma’s face anxiously. “I mean, come on, those bastards tried to end the world.”

  Grandma sighed and gestured for us all to sit down. She waited until everyone was seated before speaking again. “You have to understand, Megan, the Grey’s actions were only fully witnessed by you. There are those in our world who don’t put a lot of weight in the words of a, er, a…”

  “Half-breed,” I finished the sentence for her. I could feel her relief in not having to say the vile word herself.

  “The changeling prince on the other hand,” Grandma continued, “is a very seductive prize. From the Council’s point of view, he could be the key to tackling one of the oldest and continuing cases of unresolved vengeance. He could be instrumental in the greatest rallying call in history.”

  “Talk about a golden PR opportunity,” Fir muttered.

  “What do you know about PR?” I asked my half-brother. “You’re a full-blooded trickster. I thought you hated all that corporate and polite society stuff.”

  “Hey, tricksters gotta make a name for themselves, too. That’s PR in a way, you know. Megan, you have no idea how many doors opened to me after the Aequitas’ ball.”

  Grandma glared at Fir over the mention of the ball fiasco, then sighed again. “He’s not wrong. This situation is both a crisis and an opportunity for the Council. Inaction at this point could only hurt them. The cat is, as the humans would say, already out of the bag, and there’s simply too much anger stored up for the changelings throughout the Cosmic Balance for it to go away on its own.”

  “Yeah, I saw that firsthand last night,” I said darkly.

  “The Council is going to be under a lot of pressure to invade Dualsing, isn’t it?” Serafina asked, her voice catching.

  The pitying look Grandma sent her way told me what I needed to know. Serafina’s eyes filled.

  “I’m so sorry, dear. I know a part of you still considered it home, and I’m sure not everyone there is necessarily bad. I’ll do what I can to shift the focus away from Eldon, bringing attention to the fact that the Greys have blatantly taken what should’ve been left to the Council’s judgment.”

  “Appealing to the pride of the Council is good under normal circumstances, but in this case, it’s pretty weak compared to the juicy reward of bagging a changeling. You don’t hold out much hope it’ll work, do ya?” Fir asked Grandma point blank.

  “Fir!” I didn’t bother to keep the warning out of my voice. The last thing I wanted was for him to offend Grandma. We had to stick together.

  Grandma said in an even voice, “No, I expect it’s going to be an uphill battle, or even a lost cause.”

  Serafina gasped in horror. Grandma reached over, patted her hand, and continued. “The marching drum of war is in the air. Everyone is too busy sharpening their weapons to listen to reason. The prince’s kidnapping made this matter more politicalized than ever. He’s the perfect bargaining chip for the Greys.”

  “Then how about we take that bargaining chip away from them?” I heard myself say.

  “Megan,” Serafina began. “I appreciate all the help you’ve given me, but I don’t want to get you into any more trouble. This is my fight.”

  “Our fight,” I corrected. “It stopped being just your fight once the Greys came into the picture.”

  “Our fight!” Fir winked as he pumped his fist in the air. “This is going to be so much fun.”

  “Maybe for a full trickster, but not for Megan.” Grandma looked me in the eyes. “Know this, my granddaughter. The Council is already not happy with you for not going straight to them when you first realized who Prince Eldon was. They fully plan to deal with you after this is all over. You have to understand that you’ll be in an even worse position if you continue with this course.”

  Did I really want to incur the wrath of the Council? Of course not. Up until now, technically, I hadn’t been working against the governing body of my profession outright. So okay, I had played dumb; but there was a big difference between “accidental” omission and open defiance. If I went off and stole Eldon right out from under the Council, there would be hell to pay.

  But this matter was no longer about the need to help a friend or the desire to prevent someone from being punished unjustly.

  It went much beyond that.

  The Greys were now involved, and the world couldn’t afford to have them hold such a power over the Council’s head. No good could come out of that alliance.

  And I’d seen how the bitter fight over Eldon was creating div
ides among the supernaturals rather than unity. If it was bad now, it’d only be so much worse in the aftermath of a direct attack on the changeling plane. The changelings had pissed off a lot of people over countless generations. The calculations of who got what vengeance relief would be stuff of accounting nightmares. Even if the division was done as fairly as possible, nobody was going to believe it to be so. It would lead to conflicts and ill-feelings between all parties, even accusations of corruption, real or imagined, directed at the Council.

  A vengeance of that size was the last thing the world needed. If my history class—whichever part I hadn’t slept through—had taught me anything, it was that winning the war was often a very small part of the story. The aftermath was the real struggle.

  The Greys would be right there, waiting to take advantage of the resulting discord like the vultures that they were.

  The entire Cosmic Balance might not want to believe that the Greys had a twisted agenda, but I know what I saw.

  I nodded at Grandma solemnly, letting her know I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. What I stood to lose. What I stood to gain.

  Potential school suspension or further alienation from vengeance society was a small price to pay to thwart the Greys. I had no idea how to do it, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try.

  Whatever Grandma was able to read from my mind, it made her a believer. She looked at me with pride in her eyes. “If you’re going to do this, Megan, you have to hurry. Take Eldon away before formal negotiation starts between the Council and the Greys.”

  Alright, time for more information.

  I turned to Fir and Serafina. “You both mentioned something about Eldon having restrictions when it comes to cross-dimensional travels. Can you explain more?”

  I had to know what we were up against not just in regard to our enemy, but our own inherent limitations.

  Fir scratched his head. “Oh, that. Well, physically a changeling’s body just isn’t built for constant traveling across the planes. They can try, but each crossing weakens them until they can do it no more. Like when a fuse is blown and that’s it.”

  “Each changeling could endure about two round trips in a lifetime,” Serafina added.

  “That’s the reason we tricksters eventually lost touch with them. Hard to bond with someone when you only get to see them and get into trouble with them twice in your life.” Fir appeared deep in thought; it was strange to see, since he was rarely the serious type. “Come to think of it, maybe that’s why they started switching in the first place. It was before the age of the Internet and e-commerce, meaning an ordinary trade industry wouldn’t have worked with them. So they send their kids out to swindle their host families, making the most out of their lifetime travel limits right off the bat.”

  “As for Eldon,” Serafina said, “there’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip that every changeling who was never switched out into another plane takes when they come of age. That counts as one of his round trips.”

  “And being dumped onto the human plane gets it up to one and a half trips,” I concluded. Then it occurred to me. “We took him to this plane. That’s used it up already!”

  “No.” Serafina shook her head. “The earth and vengeance planes are parallel to each other and therefore don’t count as two. He still has a one-way trip left. But with his magic gone, his body won’t have enough tolerance for it.”

  “So even if we could rescue him from the Greys, and that’s a big freaking if, we could only stash him in either the human or the vengeance plane. He couldn’t go home.”

  “Exactly,” Fir confirmed.

  “We have to find a way. Somehow. And we’ll have to do it quick once we rescue him,” I decided.

  Serafina frowned. “But, Megan, I already explained it. He can’t. Besides, it may already be too late. As of now, False Sui-Ling might have taken Eldon somewhere that used up his one-way trip.”

  “He has to go back home,” I said firmly, “otherwise he’ll end up dead. Think about it. They’ll never stop hunting him. Heck, he’s probably being tortured as we speak.”

  From the way Serafina’s face paled and her body swayed, I could tell that she’d already known that was a possibility and had likely been trying hard not to think about it. But I was enough of a jerk to say it out loud to drive home my point. I needed her to understand that Eldon couldn’t possibly stick around. But seeing how she was affected by my words, I cursed myself inwardly. Causing her further stress was the last thing I wanted.

  “Look,” I gentled my voice, “as long as he remains in our world he is a catalyst for conflicts. I’m so sorry. I wish things were different, but they’re not.”

  “Serafina, dear,” Grandma’s tone was filled with sympathy, “let him go. Give him the chance to try to win back his crown. Allow nature to take its course as it’s meant to.”

  A tear rolled down Serafina’s cheek. She nodded her agreement. “As it’s meant to.”

  “Great.” Fir cracked his knuckles. “Now that we’ve decided what to do, the question is, how?”

  “Let’s start off with Serafina’s locator spell.” I didn’t have a full plan. Not yet. But finding out where they were keeping Eldon, even if we weren’t ready to go there yet, seemed like a pretty good first step.

  ***

  “Enough is enough!” I hollered at Fir. “Turn the lights back on.”

  With the return of the lights, I managed to catch an exhausted Serafina before she pitched over onto the living room carpet. Twenty minutes of non-stop locator spell had been too much for her. The bright overlapping maps had been twisting into one another rather than logically sorting themselves out like the last time. As Serafina fell, they winked out of existence.

  Serafina opened her eyes, her voice barely above a whisper; beads of sweat soaked the hair surrounding her forehead. “I can’t find Eldon. Something’s blocking our connection.”

  Looked like I would need to use another resource at my disposal. And part of me was looking forward to that.

  Chapter Eleven

  Inner Legal Bitch

  WHEN THE GOING GETS tough, the tough go ass-kicking.

  With the last of the early morning gloom chased away by what was promising to be a bright and sunny day, I closed the door to the house and walked up to Gregory. Grandma headed for Sui-Ling, most likely to sort out the political end of things, but my focus was all on Gregory. I took in his good-looking, traitorous face, and his shirt, magically mended, covering his firm and broad chest. I told myself I was disappointed that it was all covered up because I wanted another look at the symbol of his house. Some additional tool of blackmailing could come in handy one of these days.

  “You owe me,” I told him flat out.

  “Excuse me?” He frowned.

  “You owe me. A boon, a favor, a debt…whatever you want to call it—you owe me. You broke your promise to me.” I had come to realize that I needed to beat this guy at his own game. He wanted to get mighty offended when I suggested that there was no honor among thieves? He wanted to play dress up and pretend to care about formality? He dared to suggest that mercenaries have their own code of conduct? Well, then he better be prepared to meet my inner legal bitch.

  My daddy’s job as an arch vengeance demon wasn’t all about descending on serial killers all menacing-like and swooping them off to vengeance. Most of the world’s true psychopaths hid behind a façade of civility; from those causally dismissing massive chemical spills to those raging wars in the name of fantastic-sounding principles and values. Growing up I’d spent many hours at the dinner table listening, fascinated, as Dad discussed his work days of “cutting through the bullshit” and “getting the bastards where it hurt the most.” And sometimes that was done not through fists, but through paperwork and contracts.

  The little daddy’s girl in me who was weaned on such tales smelled an opportunity.

  “You promised me that what I had to do for you was legal and didn’t involve trickery,” I a
ccused.

  “And it didn’t.”

  “It’s true, the little trip to retrieve Eldon from the human alley technically didn’t,” I conceded. “But what I was forced to do after, did.”

  The discovery of Eldon had a domino effect of forcing me to open my trickster mind to sense the Blind Panic, and I sure as hell was getting myself into trouble with the Council. How did that not involve trickery? How was going against my own governing body not an illegal act? And it wasn’t like Grandma was entirely thrilled by the risky business I found myself in, even if she supported my decision given the circumstances.

  Her stamp of approval, my butt.

  I saw the moment Gregory reached the same conclusion on his own. He cursed softly.

  “The conditions by which my co-operation was initially obtained have not been met.” I sent a prayer to the universe that the Mercenary Rules of Conduct, which I’d never read and I doubted was even publicly available, agreed with me on this. “And by extension, the contracts you have drawn up with your clients, the fulfillment of which is dependent on my help, are also on shaky ground. Your only hope is to make things right with me before the Council comes up with a way to out-claim your clients. Otherwise you’ll have to redo all existing contracts and their attached claim to vengeance with the new, later date.”

  Anyone worth their legal salt knew the importance of contract dates. In this game of who-got-to-get-what-vengeance-relief, claims made with earlier dates trump those with later dates. If Gregory was able to pull off this class action vengeance, it would be one of the greatest of its kind in vengeance history, and Gregory stood to gain a lot. He would not want a legal technicality with me to derail his plan.

  I had the bastard and he knew it.

  I was never the type of girl who liked to trap a guy, but with Gregory, I was willing to make an exception.

  “What do you want?” he asked softly.

  Well, what do you know? It worked. It just occurred to me how weird it was, that a people who were considered outlaws by vengeance society had rules in place that took more care about doing things the right way than the ones in power often did. Well, since it worked to my advantage, I wasn’t complaining.