“Or I could be trying to help like you wanted me to. Like our bargain suggests.”
“The bargain is a joke, and we both know it.”
“I keep my word.”
“Of course you do. Whatever.” He finished his third glass. I poured another. “Why did you bring me down here?”
“To ask you about the military outfit you worked for so I can determine where and when this all began. It’s difficult to get a grip on events when you sealed me away for much of it.”
“We should have put you down the second we captured you…” He scanned the abandoned restaurant floor. “Right over there, wasn’t it? A bullet to the head. PC-Eighty in your veins. You wouldn’t get up from that. Not if I had my way. Boom, dead demon. It would have been a nice demonstration to all those idiots clinging to your reputation like you were a god. You’re a killer, a predator. You can dress in human clothes all you like and talk like you’re an English movie star, but you’ll always be a demon underneath it all.”
I gently set my glass down.
“It was my job to do it,” he went on. “I could have. Could have pinned you under my boot and added you to my kill count. Maybe I’d have taken those wings of yours and hung them on my wall like a fuckin’ trophy—”
I moved in a blur. Solid one moment, air the next, and solid again with my hand around his throat, forcing him down over the bar. His arm flailed, knocking his glass to the ground. It shattered into pieces on the floor beside me. He scrabbled for his gun.
I leaned in, using my entire body to pin him down, and bowed my head so my lips touched his cheek. I could breathe in and steal the air from his lungs. He would never talk again.
“Let’s get something perfectly clear,” I whispered across his rough skin. Threats were often more dangerous when issued with perfect restraint. “I am a patient demon, probably the most patient of demons. My kin would have punched your heart through your chest and made you eat it long before now. Fortunately for you, I’m not like them. However, you need to understand this, hunter. My patience is great, but it is not infinite.”
His breaths came faster. Blood pumped hard, flushing his body with the strength it needed to fight. But he wouldn’t fight, he knew I had my prey trapped under my claws. Not so stupid now. Fighting would get him killed.
“You caught me because I allowed it. You walk freely because I allow it. You’re alive because I haven’t killed you. It’s really quite simple. I am the predator here, and you are my bitch.” I ran my tongue along his jaw and up his cheek, careful to make it slow, drawing out every shudder and pant. Tasting the heady mix of sweat, whiskey, and fear inspired the best and the worst of me. Instincts clamored. Mine. “There’s a good boy.”
“Li’el?”
Ramírez stood in the elevator car, the open doors affording her an uninterrupted view of me hunched over Christian. From her vantage point, it likely appeared as though I’d been about to eat the hunter alive. Which was, in fact, accurate. She wasn’t armed, but she’d reached for where her sidearm had once been.
I freed Christian. He sprang for his gun. I snatched it up, snapped the rifle in half, and shoved the pieces into his chest. He stumbled backward. “The words you’re looking for are, Thank you, Li’el, for you are indeed the most patient and reasonable demon I have ever met. My life is in your debt. Now you try it.”
“F-fuck you!” He stumbled, almost falling over a table, and staggered toward Ramírez. “You see… You see what he is? He could have… Jesus, he could have…” He rubbed his face where I’d licked him and hurried into the elevator car. Anna followed him moments later. I didn’t need to look to know she wore disgust on her face.
The elevator doors rumbled closed.
“In that analogy,” I told the empty room, “I was the lion.”
Anna had pushed her bed away from the windows and set up a watch point over the street outside. She glanced at her rifle, resting against the wall, the moment I stepped inside. She believed her gun could stop me should I turn on her. I had no intention of ruining that fantasy.
Words were balanced on her tongue. Accusations too, probably, but she kept them to herself and turned back to the window. From our vantage point, LA looked untouched, basking in the sunlight, until one looked closer and saw that the streets were devoid of people and cars. Above, virtually invisible behind the sunlight, the veil rippled.
“I feel like we’re all trapped here. Like the world forgot about us and left here for whatever might come through the veil.” She looked to me for answers. When I offered none, she asked, “You keep saying you’re different, but why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t.” I stopped beside her. Movement on the street caught my eye. A solitary dog snuffled down the sidewalk. Someone’s pet, lost or abandoned.
Anna’s lips turned down. “That doesn’t help.” She shook her head and faced LA once more. “He was just following orders. Don’t hate him.”
“Christian is one man. I’ve met many far worthier of hate.” She rolled her eyes at my evasive answer. “I went into that conversation with the best of intentions.”
“Unless your intentions were to terrify him, I doubt you succeeded.”
“Perfection takes a degree of trial and error.”
“Perfection, huh?” She arched an eyebrow. “I think you have a ways to go.”
I leaned a shoulder against the glass and studied Anna. She peeked at me from the corner of her eye but kept her gaze ahead. She didn’t fear me. She didn’t hate me, either. She seemed comfortable with me standing beside her, and I found myself content to be next to her.
I still had the feather I’d selected from the others. This would make a fine moment to hand it to her, but I hesitated, thoughts tripping over oddly placed doubts and concerns. What if she wouldn’t take it, and why did her response even matter to me? I brushed off the strange insecurities. “Christian will not speak with me, but he will with you. Ask him about the military outfit he worked for. Find out where they were based. I want to get to the root of our current situation, and we have little time.”
She nodded. “I will. He just needs some time alone.”
“All I did was lick him. Where I come from, that’s foreplay.”
“You traumatized him.”
“He shouldn’t have insulted me.”
She studied me the same way I had studied her. Having her gaze roam over my vessel in such a slow, deliberate manner sent a delightful thrill through me. I wanted to strip down the feeling and study it until I understood why this woman’s glances and words entranced me and muddled my thoughts. I wanted more of her looks, more of her words, more of her, but not in the way I usually sought out the company of humans. This was different in ways I had rarely experienced before.
“I almost wish I could meet another demon,” she said. “Just so I can see how different you claim to be.”
“No, you don’t.” Any other demon would have killed her and Christian as soon as they became liabilities. That thought soured my mood, reminding me how fragile human lives were. Perhaps now was the right time to offer her the feather? If she kept the feather close, I would always know where she was. I could find her, help her. Mine.
I had felt these curious emotions before. I knew these feelings for what they were, and no good could come of them.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, facing me.
I smiled, masking the crack in my expression. “Of course.”
Noah leaned into the room. “There’s a guy downstairs knocking on the shutters. Should I let him in?”
I reached out with my element and recognized the newcomer. “Yes. We’ll be right there.”
Noah disappeared while Anna continued to read through my carefully constructed exterior. She probably wasn’t aware how her gaze stripped me bare. Or maybe she was, and that made her as cool and calculating as me. What did she see when she looked at me? A demon pretending to be a man, or a demon who had learned what it meant to be human?
The feather would have to wait. I started for the door.
“Li’el…?”
I paused. “Yes?”
She swallowed her first words, then pushed away from the window. “I’m coming with you.”
The elevator carried us silently to the ground floor and opened on Noah and my guest. I approached, instinctively keeping Anna a step behind. Demons and humans alike had reason to be wary around our newcomer.
He had filled out since I had last seen him in Boston, but he still commanded a formidable presence, like he threw off his own gravity. He turned away from Noah and smiled his typical friendly smile.
“Li’el,” Adam Harper greeted. “I was surprised to hear from you.”
I offered my hand, expecting him to hesitate. He didn’t. Instead, he closed his hand around mine, giving it a firm shake.
“Anna, Noah, this is Adam Harper,” I introduced. “He’s an Institute specialist.” They exchanged puzzled expressions. “He’s here to help.”
Noah escorted Adam into the elevator as they discussed the flight over from the east coast.
Anna hung back. “You brought in another demon hunter?”
How to describe Adam Harper? He was more of a general than a hunter. At one time, he might have been Christian’s superior.
Anna caught my wayward smile before I could mask it. “What are you up to?”
“Just fulfilling my end of the deal.”
Chapter 15
Noah, Anna, Christian, and Adam Harper were positioned around a coffee table, chairs pulled in close, with an array of city maps, official-looking documents, and news articles spread in front of them.
I deliberately hung back, reining in my element to hide my presence from their senses. My participation would only distract them. They discussed the veil, the moment it became visible, the events leading up to it, the attacks, and more. Adam asked all the right questions. He kept the group on track and focused their efforts in a way I could not emulate. These people knew I was demon. Every word I said, every move I made, they had been trained to distrust. Our odd group needed Adam Harper’s people skills and experience inside the Institute.
“Li’el.” Adam lifted his head. “Looking at all the evidence, it appears there are several possible sources and a number of leads worth following, including the offices of the energy firm quoted in several press releases. I suggest we split up and investigate. Would you agree?”
Christian spoke before I could reply. “Anna and I will take the EcoZone offices—”
“I’ll investigate EcoZone,” I interrupted.
Christian bristled. “Alone?”
“I can look after myself.”
“And how are we supposed to trust the information you return with?”
“Because I’m helping you.”
“Helping me?!”
“Christian,” Adam barked in a voice familiar with issuing commands. “Trust Li’el or walk out the door right now. The veil is weakening. Demons will come. It’s those demons you need to worry about, not the one on our side.”
Annoyance flared in Christian’s eyes. “And how does a pencil pusher like you know anything about demons in the real world?”
Adam leveled his stare on the hunter. “I’ve worked with demons my entire life. I spearheaded a classified Institute program to create, raise, and train half-blood soldiers. I’ve bargained with higher demons. There are few people who know more about demon-kind than I do.”
“I worked at the Institute too. They were all accountants playing at being scientists. It was a joke.”
Adam removed his glasses and wiped them with the edge of his shirt. “I have a half-demon son and a half-demon daughter. You may have heard of them. Projects Alpha and Gamma, also known as Stefan Harper and…” He stalled, likely still getting used to the idea of Gem as his daughter. “Gemma Harper.”
Christian stilled, mouth open, grasping for a reply. “You spearheaded Project Typhon?”
Anna leaned in. “The half-blood girl is your daughter? Is she okay?”
“She’s doing fine.” Adam caught my eye, nodded once, replaced his glasses, and continued, his crowd more rapt now that they knew his credentials. “This doesn’t feel like the kind of coordinated attack Boston experienced,” he said. “Official reports around the time the lesser attacks escalated are unclear on where they came from. Most of LA’s netherworld zones collapsed months ago, so it was assumed by the Institute that the lessers must have survived the Santa Monica incident, but you only have to examine the photographs to know these lessers are stronger, hence the amount of damage they inflicted in such a short time. There’s no doubt they came from beyond the veil, but as to why or how, we don’t know. It could be demon coordinated, but if that were the case, events would have escalated by now.”
“How much more can they escalate?” Noah asked.
“Higher demons—princes—on this side, cultivating chaos. That hasn’t happened. Let’s hope it doesn’t. I believe there’s another force at work here, possibly related to the rumors of EcoZone harnessing the veil for clean energy, but at this stage, it’s pure speculation. Whatever happened, it appears to have stalled. We hopefully have time to find the fault and stop whatever is causing the imbalance before the damage becomes irreversible.”
My opinion of Adam Harper aside, he was good at his job. He looked at me, waiting for my input. There was a time when he would have gladly driven a stake through my heart and filled me full of whatever new drug the Institute had concocted. He and I were enemies, but Adam Harper had lost loved ones in the war against demons. His ambitions at the Institute had cost many lives, some of them deliberate sacrifices in his desire to win. Now, he was trying to make amends. This trip to LA was an opportunity for him to prove he could do more than screw up the lives of those around him in the name of his beloved science.
I nodded for him to continue.
“Li’el will take the EcoZone office,” he confirmed. “Anna and Christian should visit here.” He jabbed the street map. “The site of the second lesser attack. We suspect the lessers struck and killed what they saw as rival predators in LA, but let’s expand that theory by visiting this site too.”
“Where is that?” I asked.
“Marina del Rey.”
“There aren’t many predators at marinas,” I thought aloud. “Unless the lessers considered Sunseeker yachts a threat.”
Adam agreed with a nod. “Which is why we need to investigate. There’s a reason they swarmed the marina. Noah and I will stay here and search for more evidence of demon activity.”
Following the attack, the zoo remained a hot zone of lesser activity. I didn’t want Anna walking into another ambush. “I’ll take the marina.”
“Then I’m going to the offices, right?” Christian queried, happier now that he felt he had his finger on the root of the problem.
“Try not to get a paper cut. Anna, you can come with me or go with Christian to EcoZone.”
Naturally, she would choose me.
“I’ll go with Christian.”
Or not. She clearly had to make sure Christian was up to the task. What other reason could she had to choose him? The hunter’s expression warmed at her choice.
“Be careful,” I warned. “We don’t know how many lessers are out there.” I hadn’t detected the first swarm at the zoo, and my reach was thinning with each passing night. We were virtually blind.
“You too,” Anna said. “We’ll be back before dark. The lessers are worse after dusk.” She smiled, though it was tinged with sadness, or was I reading too much into it? I couldn’t read her the way I could others. Why was that?
I needed to focus on the task, not on Anna. Focus and ignore the thoughts that a demon of my caliber should not be having over a fragile human whose only interest in me was more akin to morbid fascination.
Damned humans and their distractions.
If I gave her my feather, it would keep her safe and keep me close, but she was already walking towa
rd the exit with Christian. She would be fine without it. Of course she would. Her actions at the zoo had confirmed she was more than capable and didn’t need me shadowing her. So why couldn’t I fight the urge to turn to air and ghost after her?
“What’s Project Typhon?” Noah asked Adam, drawing my attention away from Anna.
I wondered if Adam might stall there. He was protective of the Institute’s work, but the man had changed. “We—the Institute, I mean,” he began. “We wanted to raise a demon in captivity and control it, turn it into a weapon. To do that, we had to mix demon DNA with human DNA.” Adam sighed, sounding regretful, but pride gleamed in his eye. His projects had been the man’s crowning achievement. “Unfortunately, initial tests failed, and then… well…” He was likely thinking how his half-demon son had given in to his demon side, and how his daughter, Gem, would forever despise him for removing her ability to love. Yes, Adam had much to atone for. He would do everything he could for us. “The project was doomed from the beginning.”
Noah quizzed him some more. While they talked and Anna and Christian readied to depart for EcoZone, I took to the roof, where I let my vessel dissolve and lifted the ragged bones of my wings high, under the warmth of the sun. Pain crackled. It never stopped hurting. Some wounds never healed. The sooner I fixed the veil, the sooner everything would go back to the way it was before. But not for me…
I stepped to the edge of the building. My pretend life was over. The act had been exposed. I could craft another life, but not yet. This city and its people, those still inside their homes, deserved to be saved. They had lost much, and I knew loss. I felt it every time the air touched my featherless wings, and I remembered it every time I recalled the deaths among the ashes of my past. Human lives—so frustratingly short-lived.
I stepped off the rooftop.
The marina waters glistened under the sun. The sight would have been pristine if not for the masts of sunken boats protruding at odd angles from the water and the layers of bobbing trash.
chaos rises 03 - chaos falls Page 10