Demon's Daughter (Demon Outlaws)

by Paula Altenburg

  His insides thawed a little, heated by spreading panic. The Demon Lord had too great a head start, and could travel much faster than Hunter.

  “Wait a minute.” Blade surged from his chair. He came to stand by Hunter but did not try to get in his way, which was wise given Hunter’s mood. “You need to think about this. You could be walking into a trap.”

  Or Airie could already be dead. Blade did not say it, and Hunter was grateful. No one else was to blame if she were. He should have protected her better.

  His insides thawed a little more. He had to get moving. He wanted to be alone when reality settled in. It would be better for everyone. “I’m not leaving her with demons. Do you know what they will do to her?”

  Blade’s jaw worked. “Yes. Better than most.” He scrubbed at his face. “Did you hear what Ruby said to you? Did you understand it at all? Airie’s not mortal, Hunter. Do you really want to involve yourself in this?”

  Hunter rounded on him. “I know what she is, and who. She’s Airie, and that’s all that matters to me. I can’t abandon her to demons, any more than I abandoned you—and I knew nothing at all about you.”

  There was silence. “No, you didn’t,” Blade said, his voice quiet. “She’s certainly worth no less than me.”

  Ruby inserted herself between them. “I don’t think she’s dead,” she said to Hunter. “She fought him. If he’d wanted to kill her, he could have done so then.”

  Of course she would have put up a fight. What she could not have done was kill, even to defend herself, as she should have.

  How quickly his opinion of her had changed.

  But there were other things demons could do to her that were worse than death, and thinking of those did nothing to reassure him as to her safety. As long as the Demon Lord lived, she would never be safe.

  A muscle worked at the base of Blade’s jaw. “I’m coming with you.”

  Ruby made a small sound of dismay. Her anxious eyes fixed on Blade, who refused to look at her. Hunter understood what the offer cost his friend and was moved by it.

  He would not accept it, however. “Taking a whole army of mortals deep into demon territory wouldn’t defeat them, so whether I go alone or with you, it will make no difference. I have some protection, but you have none.” He touched his amulet. He could not abandon Airie to demons, and yet here he was, abandoning an entire town. He did not say what they all knew. Come nighttime, Freetown was as good as lost. Airie, however, was not. “Take the boy, and the women, and head to my cabin,” Hunter added. “At least there, you’ll have some natural protection.”

  Blade looked from Hunter to Ruby, and nodded, yet Hunter knew what he would do without him having to say it. Blade would take Scratch and the women to Hunter’s cabin, and then he would return to fight in Freetown with the others.

  Hunter looked in on Scratch before he left. The child was asleep on the floor in Ruby’s private bedroom, snuggled into a thick nest of blankets.

  Hunter did not wake him. He could hardly explain to a child what was happening.

  He closed the door and left the saloon, then made his way out of Freetown through the tunnel. From there, he headed into the desert toward demon territory.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hunter took a short break to avoid the worst of the midday heat, and awoke to small fingers prying open one of his eyes and a solemn, accusing face staring into his.

  He shot upright in a tangle of bedding, his pistol in one hand, his sword in the other, and his heart pounding beneath his ribs like an animal intent on escape.

  Scratch.

  How on earth had the boy followed him?

  He set the weapons down. His heart rate steadied. “Sometime soon, you and I are going to have a little man-to-man talk.”

  He gave off an air of such innocent satisfaction at having found Hunter that it was impossible to be angry with him. How many people, other than Scratch and Airie, actually sought out Hunter’s company for no purpose other than to be with him?

  It warmed his heart. One companion had been returned to him. Now, he wanted the other.

  He untangled himself from the bedding and stood, tucking in his shirttail and slipping his suspenders over his shoulders as he did. A quick glance at the sky told him the afternoon was still young.

  It was too late to turn back now, and if he did, he suspected Scratch would only come after him again. Hunter had no choice but to keep going and take the boy with him. The prospect should displease him when in fact, he found just the opposite was true. The child’s presence brought calm, and Hunter had need for such companionship.

  He shielded his eyes and checked the landscape for familiar markings, squinting against the hazy heat dancing in waves off the uneven desert terrain. There were many little dips and valleys, as well as patches of low vegetation and pillars of sand and rock, and it took him a moment to place them.

  He experienced a brief moment of disorientation. He’d traveled a lot farther into the desert than should have been possible.

  “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that?” he said to the boy. Scratch sat beside a clump of sage, dribbling dirt through his fingers, and didn’t answer. Hunter rubbed the top of the boy’s head. “Of course not.”

  A few miles to their east lay a canyon cutting a deep ribbon through the desert. Its nooks and crannies would offer them hiding places from demons in the coming night. Hunter packed his bedroll and settled his hat on his head. Even though he slowed his steps to accommodate the boy’s shorter stride, they walked the few miles to the canyon’s lip and began their descent to the bottom in what seemed like no time at all.

  Midway down, a gently sloping shelf jutted out over the canyon floor far below them. When they reached it, they followed the shelf gradually downward.

  Walking was far more comfortable here than above, where they had been exposed to the full heat of the desert, but the comfort would not last.

  Late in the day, Hunter noticed that his amulet had gotten too warm against his skin. He looked up.

  They were being followed.

  He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. The canyon now had them at a disadvantage. The sheer walls at this point made climbing ill-advised, effectively boxing them in. If he’d been alone he might have tried anyway, but Scratch, agile as he was, would never make it.

  The canyon, however, was not one straight crevasse. The gorge at the bottom, where the floodwaters flowed, was fed by a number of smaller arroyos. Some were dead ends. A few led back to the desert surface.

  Hunter would feel more confident facing a demon on level ground than here, where his footing was uncertain. He took the child by the hand and headed into a passage barely wide enough for him to fit through, which would make it even more awkward for a bulkier demon.

  The skin between his shoulders prickled, as if it were shrinking.

  “We’re going back up,” he said to Scratch.

  The boy bobbed his chin up and down, his eyes widening. He knew, too, that they were being followed, and that their situation was not good.

  This was no way for a child to grow up, Hunter thought. The worst thing that had ever happened to him as a child was being forced to play dress-up with his sisters because he’d gotten caught up in some girl game.

  Running for his life from demons had come much later on.

  The arroyo he chose proved so narrow that Hunter had to turn his shoulders sideways and carry his pack in his hand at one point. It narrowed again so that the sky appeared as a thin blue sliver of ribbon above them. The temperature, however, dropped a few welcome degrees, the thick granite walls dispersing much of the heat.

  There had been a rockslide here at one time. Rubble blocked their path, and the opening was too small at the top for Hunter to climb over. The amulet around his neck grew hotter, shining in the gloom, and any hope of escape died.

  They could try to outwait the demon by staying in here and hoping it was too large to come after them,
but Hunter was not about to put much faith in that approach. Besides, there was always the danger from juvenile sand swifts. Hunter did not much care for that fate either.

  “Climb up and tell me if you can get past the rockslide,” he said to Scratch.

  The child did as he was told, climbing nimbly up the mound of rock and debris. When he reached the top he looked down at Hunter.

  “Stay up there,” Hunter said to him. “Watch out for anything that moves—and don’t touch it.” He set his pack against the rubble and withdrew his sword. “No matter what, you don’t come down from there until I tell you to.”

  Hunter tried not to think of what would become of the child—and Airie—if something should happen to him. Instead, he concentrated on the amulet, drawing as much power from it as he could. Then, he stepped back into the open.

  And discovered two demons hunting them, not one.

  They came at him on foot. Massive, with ugly heads bulging forward from bunched, rock-solid shoulders, their leathery skin and bone plating shone a dull red in the filtered light. Meaty fists hung from heavy arms, and their footsteps shook the ground when they walked. Although their wings were their main weakness in a fight, when not in use those wings furled inside the protective bony humps on their backs, as they were now.

  Hunter saw no reason to wait. At least he had the sun at his back, so it would be in their eyes, not his. He rushed forward, a move they did not anticipate, and struck the demon closest to him with an amulet-enhanced, closed-fisted blow to its throat. The demon staggered back from the force of it. Hunter ducked to the side, careful to keep the first demon between himself and the second, mindful of their talons. If blood were drawn, he did not want for it to be his.

  As the first demon choked, clawing chunks of flesh from its damaged throat, Hunter followed through with a well-placed knee to its groin. Only then did he thrust his sword into the soft point under the demon’s arm, and into its heart. The demon collapsed, then lay still.

  Hunter whirled, yanking his sword free, prepared to face bloodlust from the second demon, but this one had greater self-control than the first. That made it all the more dangerous. Regardless, now that there was only the one left to deal with, Hunter’s confidence in his chances rose.

  It was short-lived, however. A heavy fist connected with the side of his head and his thoughts splintered into pain. The ground and the sky spun together, fading to gray before righting themselves. But, rather than move in to press its advantage, the demon stepped back, looking at a point beyond Hunter’s shoulder. While Hunter knew better than to turn to look, the shadow that fell across him from behind made him do so despite his best intentions.

  This third demon was even bigger than the first two. Even though he was soon to be a dead man, Hunter refused to give up. He could take at least one more of them with him. What of Airie, he wondered. What of Scratch? Of all the years he’d hunted demons, why had his luck run out now, when others depended on him?

  He danced to the side, trying to draw the second demon between him and the third as a shield, but they both circled, flanking him. The third demon’s taloned fist shot out, and Hunter thought, This is it.

  But instead of the crush of those talons around his neck, he felt leathery knuckles brush his skin and the talons closed around the amulet instead. The demon snapped the gold chain, curling the amulet into its fist.

  It scooped Hunter up in one arm and in seconds became airborne, carrying him off into the dusky sky.

  …

  Deep in his desert stronghold, the Demon Lord held the recovered amulet in his hand, rubbing one thumb over its jagged surface. He thought of the pleasure on Allia’s face the day he gave it to her.

  He had it back, but now, it brought him no joy.

  He had the Slayer, too, imprisoned in a large metal cage that dangled from a chain in the cavern ceiling near the Demon Lord’s throne. The sight of him entertained the demons preparing for another long night of attacks against Freetown.

  With Mamna now gone, such organized attacks would not last much longer. The demons would go back to their solitary hunting patterns. And then, Freetown could genuinely begin to worry.

  “Fight me, you bastard,” the Slayer shouted at him. The cage swayed beneath his shifting weight.

  The Demon Lord smiled at the challenge. Mortals would not have the Slayer to help them, either.

  He wondered about the relationship between the Slayer and his daughter. How close it was. And if the Slayer could be used to break her.

  “You’ll get your fight.” The Demon Lord held the amulet aloft. It glittered as it spun on its chain. “But without this, what do you think your chances of victory will be?”

  “Equal to, if not better than, yours.” The Slayer’s fingers ground into the bars of his cage. “That is a toy I found as a boy. Its value to me is sentimental. Do you think I need that trinket to best you?”

  For a mortal, and a prisoner, he was arrogant. The Demon Lord enjoyed this lack of fear in the mortal. What would it take to instill some?

  “Did you think it would work against me? Did you not know it was once mine? That I crafted it?” He watched the Slayer’s expression change to one of caution, and knew he had not. “I know what it is. What it can do. And it’s not a toy.”

  “Not a toy, then,” the Slayer conceded. “But I found it in a stream, buried in the mud, so it’s something someone discarded as having no value to them, either.”

  The game lost a bit of its pleasure. The Demon Lord closed his fist around the amulet. “My daughter was discarded as well, yet you seem to find value in her. Why did you not turn her over to the priestess as you were hired to do?”

  The Slayer continued testing the bars, searching for weaknesses. “I have a liking for women. I wouldn’t turn the worst of them over to demons.”

  “She is a demon.”

  “I hear she’s as much goddess.” The Slayer’s grin filled with insolence. “Mamna likes to talk. Sometimes she even tells the truth.”

  “Not often. Besides, Mamna is dead. And we’ll see how much demon is in her when I have you torn apart in front of her eyes.” He leaned forward. “Blood tells, Slayer. In more ways than one. Do you think she can resist the smell of yours when it’s spilled?”

  The Slayer held onto his grin, but with a more visible effort. “I think,” he said, his words slow and deliberate, “that you have no idea what she is, or what she can do. You know nothing about her.”

  “I know she was born inside of time, which gives her limitations that make her of little use to me alive.” He watched the Slayer carefully. “But not, perhaps, to one of my demons.” The slight heave of the Slayer’s chest and his quickening breath gave away a satisfying depth of anger, but his ability to hide his fear was more impressive. The threat of being torn apart by demons had not caused even a minor tremor in him.

  “Ask the last demon who dared touch her what her limitations are,” the Slayer said.

  So. Agares had tried to tempt her and she had resisted.

  Unfortunately, it was impossible for the Demon Lord to kill him twice. And while the Demon Lord already owned that death, he did not plan to struggle with one over an answer he could easily find out for himself.

  “I would prefer to discover her limitations—and her strengths—on my own.” His daughter would join him, or she would die. She could not survive among demons if she could not defend herself. The Demon Lord spoke to the demon standing closest to his throne.

  “Bring my daughter to me.”

  …

  The room where Airie was imprisoned contained sparse, bulky furnishings, and no natural light. Demon fire burned in sconces carved to represent nude figures in impossible and confusing sexual positions.

  She lay on an enormous bench that doubled as a bed and stared at the stone door.

  The door opened by using a single word of command, which she had been given. It was not entirely accurate, then, to claim she was a prisoner, but the one time she had ven
tured from her room, the number of demons roaming the halls had not encouraged her to wander far. A spawn as well as a woman, she was an anomaly to them.

  None of them approached her, however, unlike the demon she had encountered outside Hunter’s cabin. These knew to whom she belonged.

  And what the Demon Lord would do to them if they touched her.

  She, on the other hand, had no idea what the Demon Lord intended to do with her. She did not expect a loving family relationship to develop, nor did she want one. She certainly did not feel safe here.

  More than anything, she felt anger and worry. Her anger came from the number of lies she had been told, particularly the ones by Hunter. He had known who—what—she was, and who had fathered her, yet he had not communicated any of it to her.

  The worry was for precisely the same reason. Hunter had known, yet he continued to protect her. By now he would have discovered she was gone, and he would come for her.

  What would the Demon Lord do to the Demon Slayer when he did?

  She tucked a hand beneath her cheek and wondered, too, if the priestess’s words were true, that she had been intended as a weapon to use against demons. Perhaps that was why the goddesses had watched over her all these years. She had hoped it was because she was loved. The possibility of being nothing more than a tool chilled her and left her feeling more alone than she had since her mother—the one who raised her—had died.

  But what of the mother who gave birth to her? What if she watched over her, too?

  Please. Airie whispered a soft prayer. If you are my mother, speak to me now.

  A soft voice whispered back. Are you ready to hear what I wish to say to you?

  The question gave Airie pause.

  She had not wanted to hear Hunter’s reasons for coming to the mountain, and he had obliged her by keeping them to himself. Desire had raised her, and would always be her mother. Airie had never wanted to know more than that, either.

  But Airie had another mother, too, and it was time to acknowledge her. She could not blame others that she had never asked enough questions or pushed for the truth.