by Julie Kenner
“Hey! Ugly!”
To his credit, the demon responded to his name, and when he turned, I let my blade fly. It lodged in his throat, the wound not sufficient to kill. Rose, however, didn’t waste a moment. She yanked the blade out, then plunged it back in again, this time, right into the vile beast’s heart.
The demon dropped to the ground, a bubble of black demon blood forming at its mouth.
“Shouldn’t he melt?” she asked. I took the blade, pulled it from his heart, then plunged it in one more time.
“Yeah,” I said, as the body started to ooze away—as the essence roiled through me. “He should.”
We stood there for a moment, breathing hard. Rose simply catching her breath, and me riding the high of the kill, sucking in the darkness that, I knew, gave me too much of a dark thrill.
I was like an addict, wanting the power of the hit. But how much more power would there be if I was the demon queen? I reached up and fingered the Oris Clef. I could almost feel it gathering power as the convergence drew near, and I couldn’t help but think of what it offered me. And of what I would be so horribly foolish to take. I could barely control the essence that surged through me after a kill. The power that came with being queen? I didn’t think I could handle that at all.
“Wow,” Rose said, her eyes on the dissolving body.
“Wow,” I agreed.
We started walking toward the pub.
“So, I did good, right? I mean, I’m alive, and I stabbed him and everything.”
I frowned at the idea of “good” and “I stabbed him” coexisting in my sister’s personal universe. But as I bent down to pick up the sheath and sword, I had to acknowledge that she was right. I squeezed her hand. “You did great.”
She grinned, completely proud and practically humming with energy. I couldn’t help it—I pulled her close and hugged her.
“What?” she said, hugging me back before wriggling free.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just glad we’re both safe.” But it was more than that. I thought back to the way she used to look. The paper shell that had been my sister. There was life in her now, like there had been before Lucas Johnson, and that was worth all the hell I’d been through.
“What now?” she asked, as we finally reached the back door to the pub.
“Now you sleep.”
“No way!” she protested, as I rummaged in my pocket for the key. “I mean, it’s the end of the world. Shouldn’t we sleep later?”
“You need to sleep,” I said, biting back a laugh. “And I need to think.”
“Whatever.” Frustrated, she popped a beer bottle with her toes. It went flying down the alley and disappeared into a shadow. I expected we’d hear the sharp sound of shattering glass. Instead, a low, guttural, “What the fuck?” echoed back toward us.
Immediately, I drew my blade. “Who’s there?” I demanded. “Show yourself.”
Nothing.
Behind me, I heard Rose’s soft breathing. “What is it?” she whispered.
I shook my head, trying to hear who or what was in the alley with us.
“Give me your knife,” I whispered. She did, pressing it into my waiting hand after I switched my own blade to my left hand. I closed my palm around the hilt, testing its weight, familiarizing myself with the weapon. And then I fixed my gaze on my target, hauled back, and let the blade fly.
The weapon whipped forward, tumbling hilt over blade, to disappear into the shadows in front of us. A split second later, a sharp yowl reached my ears, and a skinny, red-haired creature slumped out of the shadow, his hands closed over the hilt of Rose’s blade, which was now lodged firmly in his thigh.
“Forgive!” he yelled, his voice a deep baritone that contrasted with his skinny-kid appearance. “Forgive, mistress! Forgive!”
I looked at Rose, who’d edged up beside me to get a better look. Mistress?
“Who the hell are you?” I asked, my own blade back in my right hand.
“Morwain, mistress,” the creature said.
“You human?”
Morwain shook his head. “Demon, mistress. Your servant, mistress.”
“Servant?” Rose asked, not the least bit scared. Neither was I, for that matter. I’d met some nasty, scary demons in my life. Morwain was not one of them.
Then again, I thought, raising my knife again, appearances could be deceiving.
“I serve the queen,” Morwain said, his eyes remaining on me as he dropped to one knee, not breaking his gaze until he bent his head in supplication.
O-kay.
“I’m not your queen,” I said, even though it was probably stupid to argue with a demon who was holding back from attacking me because he had delusions about the extent of my authority.
“Perhaps not yet, mistress,” he said, reaching up to touch his own neck. “But soon, mistress. Soon.”
Ah. Well, wasn’t that special?
I thought about what I’d seen inside Gabriel’s head as I’d fought to escape him. Millions of demons down on their knees, each pledging to serve their queen—me.
The vision had come hard and fast: the demons crossing over, and me standing at the gate, the Oris Clef clutched tight between my hands.
I hadn’t actually heard what I’d said in the vision, but I knew the sound track even so. By the power of my blood, I claim my destiny as the leader of those who would pass. And then I’d slit my palm with my blade and pressed it hard against the filigree-encapsuled gemstone that I wore around my neck.
I shivered, hating the fact that the image was almost as tempting as it was disgusting. Hating that even though I loathed the demonic essence inside of me, still I craved more. Craved that ultimate hit that would come from the Oris Clef ’s power. But the part that was still me? I knew I wouldn’t be able to control it, no matter how much the demon in me whispered otherwise.
“I’m not your queen,” I said firmly to Morwain, then pulled my blade. “I’m not, and I won’t ever be.”
“But, mistress.”
I took a step toward him, leading with the knife. He was a demon, and I killed demons. It was what I was. What I did. And right then, it was what I wanted.
He backed away, the picture of contrition. “I have offended thee, mistress. Forgive. Forgive.”
Screw that. I took a step toward him, ready to fight, ready to kill, then stopped as Rose’s hand closed over my arm. “Don’t,” she said simply.
I turned to her, aghast. “He’s a demon, in case you’ve forgotten what the breed looks like.”
“He’s an ally,” she said, “in case you forgot that you might need them.”
I hesitated, debating with myself. Suffer a demon to live? Could I do that? More, could there really come a time when I would need a demon’s help?
“You haven’t killed Deacon,” said my sister, who was suddenly one hell of a lot older than fourteen.
I lowered the knife, grateful at least that I’d already nailed a hit of the dark that night.
“Very well, Morwain,” I said, my voice haughty. I shooed my hand to the side, indicating the alleyway. “Leave us.”
“Yes, mistress. Yes, yes. If you have need, you have only to call for Morwain.” And then he drew a circle in the air with his hand, creating a spinning gray-black maelstrom. He aimed one last bow in my direction, then leaned into the swirling mass.
Within seconds, he was gone, the gray swirling in on itself behind him, until there was nothing but air, and Rose and I were once again alone in the alley.
“Whoa,” Rose said.
I had to agree. Good to remember that I wasn’t the only one in this new world of mine who could call up portals and move through them.
“Come on,” I said, taking her arm and hurrying her to the pub’s back door. As weird as the whole situation had been, I had to admit that the encounter with Morwain was the most pleasant demonic run-in I’d had in this particular alley. And Rose did have a point: If I was going to be a demon magnet, better to attract demons that wanted
to worship me than demons that wanted to kill me.
I pulled the rust-covered door open, then ushered Rose inside. The place was deserted, of course, and we moved down the dank, stone corridor that was part of the building’s original construction. The pub had been around for centuries, dating back to the old witch-hunting era. The front part of the place had been renovated about a million times since then, but the back section, with its labyrinth of stone corridors and chiseled stairs leading down to musty storage rooms and mystical ceremonial chambers, had remained mostly untouched.
And, yeah, I really did mean mystical ceremonial chambers. Alice’s family had been deep into the dark arts although her mom had wanted to break free of family tradition. Alice’s uncle Egan, however, had fought his sister on that little point and ended up killing her in order to keep the pub operating on the edges of the occult. He’d welcomed demonic forces, giving them a place to gather and, more important, supplying them with a stream of victims for their demonic rituals.
One of those victims, in fact, had been Alice.
Needless to say, I hadn’t much liked Egan once I’d learned that little fact. And, yeah, I killed him.
About that, I had absolutely no guilt.
I’d asked Madame Parrish why me, and I think the same question held true for Alice. Yes, she had a closer connection to the demonic than I did, but still I couldn’t help but wonder: Why her? Why did the demons want her dead? Why did they want to put me in this particular body?
Was it because of Deacon’s vision? Because he believed that he and Alice would close the Ninth Gate together? Had the demons learned of what he’d seen, and had they been afraid?
Was there some other reason I hadn’t yet thought of?
Or was it simply a matter of being born into the wrong family? A celestial case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time?
I didn’t know, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the question was both important and relevant. I just wasn’t sure how.
I’d never been to the upstairs apartment, but the door to the staircase was located right beside the walk-in refrigerator, and although I doubted that the pub key would work, it turned out to be a moot point, as the door wasn’t locked.
The actual apartment was a different story, and as I tugged on the locked door and cursed, Rose stepped in as the voice of reason and found the key above a wall-mounted sconce.
I slid the key into the lock, turned, and the two of us stepped into the apartment.
The place was a study in contradictions, masculine, sports-related minimalism contrasting with bright colors and live flowers. And all that contrasted by exotic antiques and ancient books stacked on black-lacquered shelves. Weird, I thought, as Egan hadn’t struck me as the flower type. Much less the antique type.
“Check this out,” Rose said, poking inside an open box. “Old books and a bunch of magazines addressed to Rachel. And this box is filled with clothes,” she said, peering into another one.
Reality clicked. Sometime within the last few days, Rachel had decided to move in. I supposed it made sense. After all, we’d inherited the place, and she was determined to make a going business of it, as opposed to the always debt-ridden establishment that Egan had run, filling in the cash gaps by selling a variety of occult items to the demons. Everything from ceremonial herbs to sacrificial virgins. Quite the entrepreneur, my late, great, uncle Egan.
My revelation made the strange decorating choices in the apartment make more sense. The bright colors weren’t Egan’s; they were Rachel’s. At least, I assumed they were. The bright, happy colors were a stark contrast to the blacks and reds with which she’d decorated her previous home. But Rachel was no longer embracing her family’s dark heritage, so I supposed this divestiture was meant to reflect her new style.
“Can I have something to eat?” Rose asked.
“Sure,” I said, with absolutely no guilt. If Rachel was my sister, then she was Rose’s sister, too. More or less, anyway. Besides, I couldn’t even remember the last time we ate, so I knew Rose had to be starving.
She headed off to the kitchen, and I followed, then helped myself to a beer from the refrigerator. Rose settled at the small table with a bag of Chips Ahoy, a Diet Coke, and an apple, and I slid into a chair across from her, then reached for a cookie.
We ate in silence for a while, but not the comfortable kind. There were things unsaid, and they hung between us, breathing our air and making the space thick and murky and heavy. It was as if we had a silent competition going on, and whoever spoke first lost.
Rose decided to throw the game. “It’s going to get bad, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think it really is.” I ran my fingers through my hair, thinking about what was happening and about what Morwain represented: an out that didn’t involve pain and suffering. Demonic royalty carried its own price, sure. But one that didn’t include me burning for eternity. And had the added bonus of sycophant little demons like Morwain running around doing my bidding.
But I wasn’t tempted. Really, I wasn’t.
At least, that was what I told myself.
“Oh, hell,” I said, then scooted my chair over next to Rose. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against me, her breath coming soft and easy. A domestic scene we’d repeated dozens of times before and which should have been comforting in its familiarity but was, instead, perverse. Because there wasn’t really a damn thing familiar about it. Everything had changed. We weren’t even the same people anymore, inside or out.
But at the core of it, she was still my sister. That was my anchor. The thing I could clutch tight to counter the dark that was always trying to claw its way to the very edges of my soul.
“Try to get some sleep,” I said. “You’ll feel better.”
She protested some more but then disappeared into the single bedroom. I watched her enviously. Lord knew I wanted to slide into that peaceful oblivion, but I couldn’t. I was too hyped. Too worried—about Deacon, about Rose, about Rachel.
And let’s not forget the impending end of the world.
Deacon believed that one more key existed, and I really hoped he was right, but I had reason to doubt. For one thing, Deacon had heard only rumors. For another, we’d already tried to find the damn thing, and so far had found no hard evidence that such a key existed. Still, I had to keep looking because my other choices were vile.
In the meantime, I needed to keep the Oris Clef out of demonic hands. A talisman that gave the bearer power to rule over all demonkind was something that any demon worth his salt would want to get his hands on. Morwain’s professed loyalty was a side bonus, but not a position I suspected the majority of the demon population would share. Still, though, a good many demons might fall in behind me, believing that it made sense to get in my good graces if I was poised to be their new ruler.
More powerful demons, however, wouldn’t stand for it. So I’d have the freaks and geeks aligned with me, while the school bullies did their best to take away my lunch money.
Which meant that I could expect more and more attacks from demons with clout on earth, and also from hell-dimension dwellers like Penemue.
And wasn’t that going to be fun?
For that matter, I expected that the archdemon Kokbiel would be making an appearance soon. He and Penemue had both been searching for the Oris Clef, but Kokbiel had been incredibly sneaky about it, using Lucas Johnson to do his dirty work. And even if Kokbiel didn’t burst up through the ground like some sort of prehistoric monster, I expected that Johnson would show his ugly face. We’d saved Rose from him, but he was still out there, his demonic essence still alive in a hideous, mouthless body that would surely find and torment me soon.
I might be Lily Carlyle, Demon Assassin, but right then, I think a more accurate description would be Lily Carlyle, Demon Target with Big Red Bull’s-Eye Painted on Her Ass.
And, of course, the demons weren’t my only problem. Gabriel believed that I was going to become the demo
n queen, and he didn’t seem the type to stand idly around while he waited to see what I did come convergence day. Which meant that while I was protecting my back against demons, I also needed to be covering my ass from angels.
Between all that hiding and fighting, I had to wonder when I’d have time to search for Deacon’s mythical key.
Not to mention the fact that during all of that I needed to watch out for Rose. Because unless Gabriel and the demons were brain-dead, they had to know that the best way to get to me was to go through my sister. And I already knew that Johnson was aware of that little weakness in me. He’d exploited it twice, after all.
All in all, me and mine were basically screwed, and at the moment I was fresh out of ideas about what to do next.
I was pondering the woeful state of my plan of action when the front door pushed inward, the flat surface of the door itself blocking my view. I stood, my hand going to my blade, not knowing who was on the other side. I hoped it was Rachel, but at this point, I really wasn’t taking chances.
FIVE
“Oh my God!” Rachel cried, dropping the box she was carrying and sending papers shooting out across the floor in all directions. “What are you—? When did you—?”
I slid my knife back into the sheath as Rose appeared in the bedroom doorway, her face soft with sleep.
“We need to talk,” I said, indicating one of the chairs at the table. Rose padded to the refrigerator and helped herself to a soda, then trotted to the table as well. I wanted to tell her to head right back into the bedroom and let me handle things, but I stopped myself. She might be a kid, but she was neck deep in this mess with me, and she had a right to at least know what was going on.
“What’s going on?” Rachel asked, pulling out a chair and settling beside Rose. “Why have you guys been gone for so long? I’ve been calling your apartment every damn day.”
“Long story,” I said. “Basically, we lost about a week. And then some.”
“Excuse me?”