by Anna Windsor
Camille’s heart crushed inward. She lunged toward John, but she couldn’t move outside of a tiny square. The dark, twisted energy all around her felt like ten-foot sheets of metal.
No. No!
John’s fingers were growing.
His teeth extended.
White fur bristled from his cheeks and neck.
His eyes, furious, agonized—she couldn’t stand it.
Camille swore and grabbed the dinar with both hands. She jerked fire, a lot of it, power and flames and heat, and she blasted it against the energy trying to contain her. The two energies met with a thunder crack—and the dark energy shattered.
The girl on the couch screeched like she’d been punched in the gut.
Camille threw herself at the man instead of the girl, acting on instinct, ripping that tooth necklace away from his neck. The second she touched it, the bleak, suffocating energy that plastered against her skin, her face, her mind almost made her vomit. It was so dark and twisted. Not Rakshasa. Almost worse. No, definitely worse.
And then it vanished.
The girl lowered her hand and fingered her own necklace. A tooth, just like the one Camille held. The girl looked furious, but she didn’t show a hint of fear.
Camille squeezed the big tooth tight in her hand. Whatever power’s coming off this thing, it’s blocking her.
The blond man came toward Camille. From the corner of Camille’s eye, she saw John regaining control, but still feigning like he was shifting into a demon. He was easing toward his Glock, which had landed about five feet from the man, who was now completely focused on Camille.
John reached the firearm.
“You shouldn’t take what’s not yours, honey.” The man held out his hand, wiggling his fingers for the necklace—and John snatched the gun from the floor and clubbed him in the head so hard with the pistol grip the guy went staggering straight out of the room. Camille heard the thump and bang of him hitting the stairs and heading down the hard way.
The girl shrieked and her hands raised again, but Camille held up the tooth and whatever energy the girl had pitched at them ricocheted. It knocked her back to the sofa and she sat there gagging and glaring and still trying—something.
Some kind of projective energy this time.
The second it touched her, Camille knew what the energy was, but it was perverted, and didn’t have a solid base in any one of the four elements. The tooth dispersed it.
“Knock it off,” Camille told her, getting a grip on her dinar to see what she could do to contain this—this whatever she was. “I won’t hurt you if you stop.”
“Tiger,” John told her, shaking his head and rubbing his neck. “Not her. The necklaces. They’re made out of Rakshasa teeth. I think they’re queering what I can sense about this place, about them.”
The girl pointed both hands at the floor and blasted more energy through her fingertips.
Camille sent a shot of elemental energy back at her, and that’s when the floor dissolved.
She and John fell so fast, Camille didn’t even hear her own scream. Down. Straight down. Into pitch-darkness.
She hit the ground on her feet, letting her knees give to absorb the impact. The tooth necklace was still gripped in her right hand, and she managed to get out Dio’s throwing knife with her left as she got her balance and coughed from the stench.
Of sulfur.
“Basement,” John called. He had landed even better than she did, standing straight up in the middle of the room, but Camille couldn’t answer him. Her words wouldn’t work. Her brain wouldn’t work, or her heart, or her breathing.
This couldn’t be a nightmare, but it was. It was her nightmare, right here and now.
They were hulking behind John in the shadows. Three of them. Huge. Biggest she had ever seen. Giant, shifting clay-like faces gaped at her, maws open. Eyes like hell pits glared through the darkness. Blue and green fire dribbled out of their open mouths, out of their ears, out of their noses.
Asmodai, she tried to yell before it happened again, before the killing machines stole another precious life from her.
Nothing came out.
Damnit!
“Asmodai,” she croaked, raising Dio’s throwing knife in her shaking hand and trying to aim it. “Fire Asmodai, behind you!”
( 21 )
Asmodai.
John processed the word as he jumped toward Camille.
Legion demons. Made out of elements. Targeted with trash or other personal possessions. The things Camille had nightmares about.
John reached her in two leaps. If he’d had a human body, he probably would have broken both ankles in the initial fall, but thanks to Strada’s abilities and Ben’s training, he had landed like a pro, and now he had no problem putting himself between Camille and the monsters he hadn’t gotten a good look at yet.
When he did, they made his gut churn.
Mountainous. Amorphous. Wearing human clothing, but that shifted and blended, unstable, like somebody kept erasing and redrawing it. Features and gender—those changed, too. Fire came out of every opening, and they stank something godawful. His eyes watered. Rotten eggs. Rotten eggs blown up and left in the sun.
Camille had pulled out one of Dio’s throwing knives. The nearest Asmodai grabbed for her, but she dodged and hurled the wicked blade straight at the demon. The thing belched fire all over her, and the dagger went wide of its target.
The flames didn’t hurt Camille, though her dress burned to nothing in three seconds flat.
“Step back,” he said, and she did, and John put two rounds in the big bastard’s head. He didn’t waste time with the other two, drilling the next one three times in the chest, and catching the last one right between its shifting, ugly eyes.
A bomb went off in the basement then, or something like it.
Camille grabbed John and plastered herself against his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck as triple-strong waves of green, infected fire crackled and growled over both of them. John realized she was shielding him from demon fallout, or whatever he was supposed to call the release of perverted energy when Asmodai bit the dust.
Hair burned—his hair, at the tips. And his jacket and slacks smoked as she patted out what was left of the flames.
A lot of yelling kicked up outside, and John heard the distinct tones and rhythms of a police unit making entry and checking rooms upstairs. Two seconds later, three women in leather came crashing into the basement, weapons drawn. Two had on zipped face masks. The third, Maggie Cregan, landed front and center, with that big executioner’s sword flaming over her head. It lurched in her hands, pointing first at John, then at Camille, then back to John. It wanted to come for him—for them—but Maggie controlled it.
Barely.
John realized Camille was shaking all over, soot-streaked and wide-eyed and naked except for the smoldering threads of her once-beautiful dress. He holstered his weapon and yanked off his jacket, and she let him slip it over her arms and fasten it like some weird-looking giant cloak.
“It’s okay. We got this.” He squeezed her forearm to bring her back to the here and now. “We did it.”
Her eyes cleared a fraction, enough for her to focus on him, and she said, “You did it.” Her expression reflected relief and misery at the same time.
“I’d have been cooked without you. Literally.” He wouldn’t back down on that or let her minimize it. “This was a team operation.”
“Clear!” Maggie called up through the ruined basement ceiling. The stairs behind her had been burned down to the studs, too, and above their heads, a hole gaped in the floor leading to the kitchen at the back of the house, and higher, to the bedroom where the girl had been.
On the ground-level floor, four men in NYPD riot gear peered down at them. Maggie and the two other East Ranger fighters gave them a thumbs-up.
“If you find a blond-headed girl or blond-headed man, surround them and call for Sibyl backup,” Camille shouted. “Do not attempt approach
.”
“Understood,” said one of the officers, who got on his radio to spread the word.
Camille’s expression was flat and unreadable as she turned away from John to face Maggie. The flame light from Maggie’s sword played off her auburn hair, and the strange lighting made the other two members of the East Ranger group on her left and right seem to flicker in and out of existence.
“Fire Asmodai,” Camille reported. “Three of them.”
“Asmodai,” Maggie said, sounding incredulous. The flames on her sword went out, and she sheathed the monstrous thing. John kept an eye on it anyway, because he sensed it wanting to tear out of its leather prison and get another bite of him.
Sheila Gray pulled off her face mask and kicked a pile of stinking, smoking ash. “I never wanted to see another one of these bastards.”
“Are you sure they were Asmodai?” Karin Maros asked as she pulled off her mask, letting her brown hair free. John didn’t think she was questioning Camille the way Maggie had done. It was more like she was hoping Camille would take it back so she wouldn’t have to add the demons to her crap-to-worry-about list.
A small commotion ensued upstairs. John thought about drawing his Glock, but right about then, he heard Dio tell somebody, “Back off before I blow you to Jersey.”
“Camille?” Bela dropped into the basement between the East Ranger group and where Camille and John were standing. She ran to Camille, catching her up in her arms and holding on tight. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Camille’s voice came out muffled by Bela’s leather-clad shoulder. “But how the hell did you get here so fast?”
Dio dropped down next, and the East Ranger group backed up a step to give her room. “We flew,” she said as Bela turned Camille loose. “Andy’s outside puking. She says she’s never riding a fucking tornado again.”
“That was risky,” Karin said. “Making funnels in town where everyone could see.”
Dio’s glare was clearly visible in the low lighting. “Back off. When it’s one of yours, let’s see what you do.”
Karin held up both hands. “Okay, okay.”
“And, uh, thanks for getting here.” Dio directed that to all three of them, giving them each a nod.
“No problem.” Maggie had her hand on the hilt of her sword, and John could tell she was trying to keep the thing under control. “Hey!” she called to the OCU officers trundling above them. “Can we get some rope down here?”
By the time John had given his report to the OCU officers in charge and helped mark off the scene, Camille was long gone, back to the brownstone.
He was glad.
She was healthy and safe, probably needed a shower and some rest. What she didn’t need, he was now deeply certain, was him.
He stood in the ruins of the house near the kitchen, staring around as OCU crime scene techs catalogued and measured everything worth attention. Three OCU officers in NYPD uniforms formed a line outside, keeping the scene secure, though nobody on the street seemed to have any interest in coming inside. This would probably be passed off as a water heater explosion or some other understandable disaster—and people would let that happen, because way down inside, they understood that not knowing was better than knowing.
John got that. He really did, especially now.
Duncan and two big dark-headed men were still giving some instructions, moving around and pointing at burn marks and broken furniture. Creed and Nick Lowell were the big guys, twins and officers, and Curson demons who had learned to contain their supernatural aspects. They had been giving John a few lessons—not that he’d learned much, judging by tonight’s near disaster.
“You squared away?” Nick, the brother with shorter hair, came over to where John was—what? Investigating? Killing time because he didn’t want to go back to the brownstone and face what he needed to face?
“I’m fine.” John forced a smile. “This wasn’t my first demon fight. Unless Blackjack starts some shit about me not being official yet, it’s all good.”
“Blackmore won’t say anything,” Nick assured him. “Guy’s a lot more mellow since he got back from the Motherhouses.”
Duncan and Creed joined them. Creed was shaking his head as he studied the big-ass hole in the floors. “The girl who did this—what’s your take?”
“Never encountered anything like her.” John looked away from the brothers as he spoke, feeling something like shame over what the little witch had been able to do to him. “The energy she used, it was powerful. Reminded me of the stuff that comes out of those mirrors the Sibyls use to communicate.”
And it nearly stripped me down to nothing but demon in five seconds flat.
He had thought he was better than that. Stronger. Safer. But maybe he’d never been all that safe and in control. Maybe he’d just been arrogant, refusing to recognize what a huge risk he posed to Camille.
Nick gave a low grumble. “Too powerful for a human pushing the elements around. I have an idea who she was. I think that was Rebecca Kincaid, and the man who showed up had to be Samuel Griffen, her half-brother.”
John recognized the names at a lot of levels—the papers Dio had printed for him, his memories from living in Duncan’s head, and Strada’s own recall. He focused on Nick. “Griffen’s the sorcerer who runs the Coven, which helps the Rakshasa. You had to fight him and his people last year, when you first took on Strada and his boys.”
“When we hunted for them and didn’t find any hint of them, my wife swore they couldn’t be completely human, not if they were evading the Sibyls so completely.” Duncan frowned at the devastated trap-house. “I think all the Sibyls believe that.”
“She wasn’t human,” John said. “Powerful as hell, but I can’t tell you much more. I haven’t learned enough about all this body’s extra talents to get much deeper than surface smells and appearances, basic energy sensing and stuff.”
He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck as the brothers exchanged glances. As if by some preordained agreement, Creed and Duncan headed off to speak to one of the techs while Nick stayed behind and studied John.
“You doing all right with Camille? I know this whole fire Sibyl thing can be a little daunting.” Nick’s grin was friendly. “Nobody knows that better than me. I’m still amazed I survived dating Cynda, but she was more than worth it.”
“Camille’s great. She’s everything any man could want, and more.” John almost groaned saying that out loud, but it also felt good to put it into words to somebody else. “That’s the problem, see? I’m not a man. Not anymore. I got a teeth-kicking reminder of that tonight.”
Nick paused, looking thoughtful. “Whatever that girl did, she almost changed you against your will. You felt like you were going to lose control.”
John wanted to punch something, like a wall, but he held himself back because this was a paranormal crime scene. Big fist holes in the wall wouldn’t help anything. “Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”
“We’ve all been there, my brothers and me, and Duncan, too.” Nick took on a faint golden glow, and John’s instincts sensed the Curson presence lurking inside him. “We know how that feels, and it sucks.”
“So, what, you overcame it, Duncan overcame it, and so can I?” John really wanted to hit something now, maybe Nick instead of a wall. He’d shift, John would shift, and John would probably lose the fight. Suicide by demon. New concept.
“I don’t know if you can get past it or not,” Nick said, at least being honest. “That’ll depend on you and how bad you want to conquer it. When you decide, let me know, but for now, I am going to tell you one thing, even though it’s probably out of line.”
John’s fists ached from clenching, and when he answered, the word came out more like a growl. “What?”
“Go home.” Nick pointed toward the brownstone.
John’s clenched jaw went loose from surprise. “Are you nuts? I can’t. Not after—”
“Go home to Camille.” Nick’s expression was earn
est and his gaze didn’t waver. “The two of you, you’ll figure it out, but you need to do it together.”
John didn’t answer. Nothing that he wanted to say would have been friendly. The battered house seemed to creak all around them, stinking like rotten eggs each time a breeze blew. The sounds of officers walking and talking in the background seemed muffled and distant.
Nick leaned in a little closer, crowding John enough to make him pull back. “She’s a fire Sibyl. Powerful, brilliant—and loyal to her last breath. Go home, John, or you’ll regret it the rest of your life, but the worst part is, so will she.”
( 22 )
Camille paced the lab, beyond glad Ona hadn’t shown back up and that her quad had the good sense to give her space right now. The tiger tooth necklace she had taken from the scene of the demolished house had been placed in the smallest elemental stasis chamber on Bela’s tables for Bela to tackle later, when she’d had some rest. For now, though, the space belonged to Camille.
The cool, antiseptic darkness of the basement was what she needed, what she had to have, to keep from collapsing in on herself.
Asmodai. Fucking Asmodai, of all things. And that girl, what the hell was she? The smell of sulfur was still stuck in Camille’s nose even after a long, hot shower.
And John wasn’t home yet.
Camille knew it would take time, him giving his statement and walking Creed and Nick through everything that went down, but he should have been home. Camille shivered in her green cotton sweats. Comfort clothes, for all the good they were doing.
Dawn was creeping toward the brownstone. She could feel its brightness even though she couldn’t see it down here underground.
Was John staying away because of what the girl had done, almost forcing him to shift to demon form? Had that rattled his confidence?
Maybe it was me. Maybe he finally understood that I’m as much a liability as an asset in a fight, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.