“And the boundaries surround them all.” Airie’s lovely face, normally all smiles, was unusually pensive. “The world is a very small place.”
“Only what we know of it today. Before the immortals it was much larger, and given time, it will be again.” Desire did not doubt that, but it was difficult to explain to Airie when she had never traveled beyond the mountain, nor studied the buried ruins of a very different civilization from the one she lived in.
“What brought them here?” Airie shifted to look at Desire as she asked the question. “If they’re immortal, they have no need for a physical world to live in.”
Desire did not like discussing this subject with Airie. She did not want her choosing sides between her two birth parents. She had tried hard over the years not to influence her with natural mortal prejudice. But Airie deserved at least some of the truth, and she would not deny it to her. Not as long as it did her no harm.
“Time,” Desire said simply. “To the immortals it has no meaning, and the knowledge it can run out makes everything they experience within it that much more exciting.” She paused, weighing her next words with even more care. “For the goddesses,” she continued, “this world also provided a chance to escape. They came first, a dozen of them, a long time ago. They traveled the old world in its entirety, bringing life and prosperity with them, and it brought them great pleasure in return. Then the demons arrived, numbering in the thousands, to scour the world with demon fire in their hunt for the goddesses. Mortals tried to protect the goddesses from them, and fought back with fire of their own. Before they fell, they decreased demon numbers to the hundred or so that we know of today.”
Airie did not look satisfied. “Demons make no secret of the fact that they hate mortal men, so why would they choose to remain?”
“They have no choice,” Desire replied. “They follow the goddesses, and the goddesses, stronger against a hundred than a thousand, built the boundaries beyond which no demon can cross, confining them to the desert. No one knows what exists beyond those boundaries anymore, or if anything of the old world’s past life remains. All we have of it in the new world are ruins.”
Desire believed people were stronger and more resilient than the immortals gave them credit for. Someday, curiosity was going to win out over fear of the unknown, and those boundaries would fall.
Pensiveness touched Airie’s tone. “If the goddesses protected mortals from demons, why did they abandon the world to them?”
This part was too close to Airie’s story for Desire to be truly comfortable. “The immortals have always been at war,” she said. “The goddesses did the best they could, but were too few in number. They came here to escape demons, and they left to escape them again.”
Airie tipped her head to the side, still deep in thought. “I often dream of the desert, even though I have never seen it. It’s a vast place filled with heat and sand, and holds the most beautiful sculptures carved from the earth.” Desire caught her breath at the unexpected and unwelcome revelation that Airie had not outgrown her childhood dreams. Then she shifted their conversation yet again. “Do the goddesses mind me being here? In their temple?”
“You are my daughter,” Desire said simply, evading the true question. “They watch over us both. Your talent for healing comes from them.”
Airie plucked a slender blade of dew-slickened grass, twisting it around her fingers. “Tell me about my father.”
This was the one topic Desire had never openly discussed with her. Always, when asked, she had told Airie that she’d been created out of love, which was all that mattered. That answer had satisfied her in the past.
But not tonight.
“I have a right to know,” Airie said.
“But why do you want to know now?” Desire asked. Suddenly, she had a lot of questions she knew she should have asked Airie sooner. “What has happened to make you so interested?”
“Nothing,” Airie replied, and Desire let it drop, but only because they both had secrets they did not want to share.
Sooner or later, however, they both would need answers. Desire intended to have hers. Ill health aside, the next time Airie went to collect the offerings, she would follow.
…
The Demon Lord came to rest on desert sand still scorching hot though the sun had set many hours before. He balanced his weight on thickset demon legs, furled his wings between powerfully muscled shoulders, and with a grinding of bones and joints, shifted into his mortal form. Plain cotton breeches were all he wore. Most times, he wore nothing. For this meeting, he preferred the priestess’s eyes on his face. He was not blind to the way she watched him.
The winds were high, which did not surprise him. On nights like this one—when the stars and the moon shone their light on the world and the west winds blew—demons called to mortal women, beckoning them into the desert for games of pleasure. Few women who had been chosen to play could resist the call.
He no longer prowled for either women or pleasure. The game had been ruined for him. He came here now only because the priestess had summoned him.
He sniffed the air and caught a faint whiff of blood, the coppery tang unmistakable. Excitement curled in the pit of his belly. He followed the scent, striding easily across the sands and past plush cacti, the desert wind tangling his hair. Nightlife, both predator and prey, scurried away at his approach.
The woman was not quite dead by the time he reached her. Her skin was yet warm to the touch, and her lips gaped in a soundless scream. Long, sand-clumped fair hair, damp with sweat, pooled beneath her head.
She’d been pretty once, which did not surprise him. Demons hunted only the best. Now, however, swelling distorted her face and limbs, her distended belly ripped open wide.
The smell of fresh blood ignited a reaction in the Demon Lord that at one time, he might not have been able to resist. Time, however, had affected him in many ways that immortality had not. He had learned to control the strongest of his urges.
He formed a talon from one fingernail and slit her throat to end her suffering. The talon retracted.
The true cause of her death lay next to her, panting heavily and blinking owlish eyes. Its bulbous head, too large for a long, ungainly neck, lolled to one side. Wet wings glistened in the pale moonlight, curling and uncurling with each labored breath, its clawed fingers and toes moving in unison. It lapped greedily at its mother’s blood. He did not bother to resume his demon form. It was not necessary, not with a newborn, although he did not underestimate it. Even now, mere minutes old, it held the potential to cause serious harm—and spawn were as likely to turn on their demon fathers as they were their unfortunate mothers.
He planted a slim, bare foot on the squirming body and, reaching down, ripped the head from the spawn’s scrawny neck before it could bite or scratch him. The blue-green light of demon death rising from its body was fainter than that of a true demon, but evident nonetheless.
Immortals did not die the same way mortals did, not even a monstrosity such as this.
“Nasty business,” a voice laden with distaste said from behind him.
The Demon Lord tossed the head aside and wiped his hands on the hem of the dead mother’s tattered dress. “Nastier if it had lived. Demons seek their promised mates. Reproduction is sometimes an unfortunate result of an unsuccessful hunt.” He faced her. “You summoned me. Have you learned anything?”
The priestess, Mamna, stayed well back, her hand covering her nose to filter the stench. Spawn smelled worse dead than alive.
“Nothing new. I’ve hired someone to bring her in.”
The Demon Lord stilled, instantly wary. “Who?”
She hesitated too long before responding. “The Demon Slayer.”
Anger built deep inside him, and he knew his eyes had flared with demon fire. The glow glittered off wind-polished particles of sand and shot red shards of light into the night. “You hired the Demon Slayer to do demon work?”
Mamna stood her ground beneath th
e heat of his gaze as it scorched her homely face. The goddesses had not chosen their handmaids for their beauty. If anything, the handmaids had been chosen to highlight the beauty of the goddesses. But the handicap made the priestesses safe to wander on such nights, when no other mortal woman should dare.
Mamna was safer than most, although not because of her looks. His fingers curled at his sides. If anything should happen to the protective amulet she wore, she had cause for concern. Their uneasy alliance would be finished.
The existence of that amulet, however, was a secret they both kept for now, and for their own reasons. They knew far too much of each other, and neither wished for their weaknesses to be exposed.
“The Slayer has proven himself to be more than capable of besting a demon,” she was saying, “and even though the thief might wear the form of a woman, she’s still a spawn.”
The fire in his eyes cooled at the priestess’s words. She was right. There would be a certain advantage in having the Slayer involved if the little thief should get out of hand. But if she did get out of hand and the Slayer was forced to kill her, the Demon Lord might never know for certain if she were his.
He needed to know. He needed to know if she was the reason demons could no longer abandon this world and return to the heart of the universe, and to immortality. But more than that, he needed to know if she had been born to the one who had betrayed him.
Mamna claimed the spawn on the mountain was that of a priestess who had survived the fire. She said the goddesses had manipulated the spawn’s birth, and she had never been told for what purpose. She was the one who speculated that a spawn in mortal form might be the key to why demons remained trapped in the mortal world.
He did not trust Mamna. She hated the goddesses with the same passion he did himself, and if she thought this thief could be used against them in some manner, not even fear of him would stop her. By leaving Freetown under her control for all these years he had bought Mamna’s fragile loyalty, but she had her own scores to settle.
He would take no chances. “Spawn are mine,” he reminded her. “She is to be turned over to me.”
“And she will be.” The ugly little priestess did not flinch. She knew better than to show fear to a demon.
“Very well,” he said, “but make no mistake. I want her alive.”
Assuming his demon form once more, he set free his wings. They billowed like sails, catching and filling, lifting him into the starry sky. He headed for his desert home, away from the unfortunate mortal mother who had once been lovely enough to catch the interest of a demon but was now nothing more than food for scavengers.
Mortal women could be exceedingly beautiful, the Demon Lord conceded. He glided on a bank of warm air. But it was fleeting, and nothing when compared to the light and essence of an immortal goddess.
One in particular.
His memory filled with the sight of her walking across the warm desert sands toward him that final evening, a smile lighting her golden face, her translucent white gown outlining the graceful curves of her body. Light had shone from her pores, and he had known at once she was meant to be his.
The memory brought him no joy. The smile and body he’d found so irresistible had masked treachery. She had fought her battle armed with the weapons she had known would fell him, and the victory had been well and truly hers.
In the end, she had proven stronger than he. All he could do now was destroy everything she had once cherished, and hopefully, regain freedom for what remained of his followers.
Chapter Three
“What in the demons’ land would possess you to use such a mount?” Blade roared. He leaped awkwardly out of range of a sticky, razor-sharp tongue. His hat landed in the dust.
Hunter swung his saddle onto the squat-legged sand swift’s back. “Relax. Sally’s already eaten. She’s testing you.”
“Testing or tasting?” Blade grumbled. He kept a wary eye on the lizard-like creature and stooped to retrieve his hat.
Hunter drew the saddle cinch tight. He understood Blade’s suspicion. If not properly tamed, sand swifts were known to eat their riders, but Hunter had been raised in the farming region of the Borderlands. He knew how to break a sand swift, and once they’d been broken, they were fiercely loyal and protective. He never had to worry about Freetown’s murderers and thieves when he left Sally tethered at the mouth of the canyon to watch over him.
Besides, adult sand swifts were no real threat. Juveniles were another matter. They lived in these canyons, hiding from the heat among the rocks and the shrubs, and were continuously hungry because of their rapid growth rate. They were no bigger than Hunter’s fist, and their tongues contained a paralyzing protective property that adults of the species no longer required. They stunned their prey and then fed on them at leisure.
Hunter fastened down the last of his belongings and tested the straps. “Did you come out here to make fun of my mount?” he asked. He patted Sally’s scaly neck. “Because I have a thief to catch and I’d like to get started before the sun gets too high.”
The mountain beckoned him. He’d never been there, had never felt the urge before, although it loomed on the horizon, designed by the goddesses to be a constant reminder of their presence to mortals and demons alike. Probably not their smartest idea, given what the demons had done to it. And to them.
“I came to tell you I took a closer look at the money the assassin used to pay for his drink.”
Blade held something out and Hunter took it, turning the small coin over in his fingers.
At first glance it was nothing special—a thin gold coin, unrefined and common, with a few tiny threads of impurities. On closer inspection, however, the gold had an odd, fiery cast to it.
“It’s from the gold mines of the north,” Blade said.
The north was the land of the Godseekers, the goddesses’ favorites, and it was unusual for one of their assassins to be so far from home. Demons made certain any mortals who left the north did not do so through their territory.
Godseekers believed the Demon Slayer would help bring salvation to the world. Hunter believed they were all crazy.
He tossed the coin back into his friend’s outstretched palm. “Godseekers have never tried to kill me before, although I must say, it’s a nice change. I never much cared for being worshipped.”
“Don’t laugh,” Blade said.
Hunter slammed his hat onto his head. “I’m not laughing.”
…
A week later, and many miles from Freetown, Hunter still was not laughing.
Here he was, approaching a sacred mountain, hunting a woman on behalf of the very creatures he hated more than anything else in the world. He did not believe Mamna’s claim that the woman had demon blood, although part of him hoped it was true. Then he could hand her to Mamna with an easy conscience, and maybe this knot in his stomach, the one that said he’d finally gotten into something over his head, might go away.
The sand swift lashed out with its tongue and caught a saucy graybird that ventured too close, methodically grinding it to pulp before swallowing. A ripple trickled down the length of its body that Hunter could feel beneath his thighs.
“Why a bird?” he asked, patting its scaly hide. “You aren’t fussy. If you have to snack, why not on something that nobody likes?”
Once Hunter crossed the river that signaled the true end of the desert region, the land turned greener, with rolling foothills and grand trees. Here and there, thrusting through fields of long grass and overgrown brush, poked the blackened stone-and-mortar remains of burned-out settlements.
The last outpost he passed was nothing unusual, no more than a place for the poor and the greedy to congregate and moan about their lots in life.
But then came the mountain…
Sunshine saturated the surrounding air, warming the sharp scent of pine stinging his nostrils. Hunter breathed it deep into his lungs, and for the first time in many years, was stricken with a wave of homesickness. He had
grown up on a ranch at the edge of the desert, and it was not the smell of the mountain that struck him so much as the freshness of it, and the peacefulness.
He had been a small boy when the demons set fire to the goddesses’ mountain, but to this day he remembered the odd, greenish glow of the sky and the white fall of ash that had rained throughout all the lands for days.
The devastation caused here by the fire had been replaced by new forest growth, and while not as glorious as it once must have been, the mountain was recovering.
He rode up a narrow path that he guessed led to the temple. The path skirted a small lake cut from the rock, its waters clear and deep.
Movement on the other side of the path caught the sand swift’s attention. Its broad head swung around, nearly unseating Hunter. He grabbed at the reins and slid from the saddle, putting the beast between him and whatever had distracted it, his free hand dropping to his six-shooter. He swore at his own inattention. Twice now, he had been taken off guard.
He was getting too old for this business.
He scanned the scarred rocks and trees, searching for what the sand swift had seen, and caught a flash of long black hair and a filmy white sleeve buried in the dappled shadows beneath a tangle of brush.
“I know you’re there,” he called out. “Show yourself.”
The bushes rustled. “I need help,” a woman said. “I’ve injured my leg.”
Hunter, who’d bested demons in battle, was not about to fall victim to such an obvious ploy. If this was the thief he was hunting, it amazed him she had not been caught long before now.
The sand swift, however, was not showing any undue signs of alarm. When agitated, its tongue flicked whiplike back and forth, a warning for all to stand clear. Its mouth remained closed and its color stayed a steady greenish brown, not changing to the vivid purple signifying danger. His amulet, too, lay silent next to his skin.
Hunter relaxed, loosening his grip on his weapon but not on the reins. “I don’t help thieves,” he said.
Demon's Daughter (Demon Outlaws) Page 4