“Do they know you’re a half demon?”
“What makes you think that I am?”
She did not think it. She knew. One of the children she had adopted in the past few months sensed others of their kind. Willow stayed clear of the ones living deep in the Godseeker Mountains. The mortal Blade, and his half demon whore Raven, had formed an alliance with the Godseekers and were too strong for her to confront on her own. She was not yet ready to raise another demon against them. Her ability to control the last one had proven too precarious.
Soon, though, when her children were grown and had learned to use their talents to defend each other, the Godseekers would die. Raven could either join her own kind or die with them. That choice was hers.
Willow gripped the bars of the cell, bringing her face between her clenched knuckles. The guard in the chair behind her remained asleep, but she had no idea for how much longer, and she was not taking unnecessary risks for someone who did not deserve it. The boy’s demon talents did not appear to be so great that she would endanger herself to have them, and the children she had already rescued became unruly if left unsupervised for too long.
“You can wait here for Godseekers to judge you, and possibly discover what you are, or you can come with me,” she said. “I won’t make this offer again.”
“I’m here for the three meals a day they bring me.” He shrugged. “When the time comes, I can save myself.”
Either he was lying, or he was not ready to reveal himself to mortals. Many of their kind, having suffered years of persecution at the hands of mortals, weren’t able to trust enough in their newfound talents to expose them. Willow wondered which it might be, and if this boy was already too old for her to have any positive influence on him.
Or perhaps he really did want those three meals a day. He was very thin.
She started to turn away. “Then by all means, do so.”
The boy rose from the cot and walked to stand in front of her. She’d been told he could shift to a partial demon form that gave him the outward appearance of one, with some added physical strength, but little else. She’d hoped his talent had grown over the past months, but it appeared that was not the case.
He blinked several times. His face broadened, flattening, and his shoulders hunched forward. Two tiny curved horns split through the skin above his temples. From the neck and cuffs of his coat, hard, red flesh encased in bone plating emerged.
She had seen real demons before. Had bound one of them to her with demon fire. So far, this child’s talent did not impress or alarm her.
“What is your name?” she asked him.
“Stone.” The word rumbled from his throat like gravel grinding sand. He thrust his shoulder at the cool black iron bars. They creaked, and a trickle of plaster sifted from the ceiling, but they did not bend.
“Fool!” Willow snapped, whirling, but there was nothing she could do to prevent what happened next.
The guard was no longer asleep. His flask clattered to the floor. The sharp smell of whiskey splintered the air, along with a few blistering words. Bleary eyes captured her, registered her presence, and shifted to Stone. Willow saw the guard’s confusion, then the dawning fear at what appeared to be a demon standing inside the cell. His chair tipped over in his scramble to get to the door.
Willow had to act quickly. She withdrew a long knife from the sheath hidden in the folds of her skirt at her hip, and ran to intercept him. She caught him by the arm, intending to drag him back, but he was larger than she was and fear gave him added strength. He swung his head out of reach when she tried to catch him by the throat, and thrust one elbow into her chest as he shook off her hand. His fingers grazed the door handle.
Willow could not allow him to escape and alert anyone else to what he had seen. She drove her knife into the soft flesh at the base of his skull. The man was too tall for the blow to do what she intended. He clawed at the knife’s handle protruding from the nape of his neck, and screamed—horrible, mewling sounds, like those of a rabbit trapped in a snare. He went to his knees. Blood bubbled from the wound. The heady smell of it made Willow shiver.
But, while she could resist it, it sent Stone into a full, blood-lusted frenzy. He threw himself against the bars, again and again, despite her sharp commands for him to calm himself.
She snatched a handful of the greasy hair of the man she had stabbed, drew back his head so that it rested against her hip, and slashed his throat from ear to ear. The screaming ended abruptly. Hot blood spurted over her wrist and gushed onto the door and wall. She brought her wrist to her lips, tasting the blood with a flick of her tongue, then dragged the wet blade of the knife across the dead man’s shirt to wipe it as clean as possible before slipping it back in its sheath.
Already, shouts echoed outside as the miners in the dozen or so surrounding shanties called out to each other, demanding for someone to check on the jail. She had only a few minutes until they became even more curious about the sudden silence.
“Shift back to your mortal form,” she commanded. “I don’t want anyone else to see you like this. If they do, I’ll leave you here for the Godseekers to deal with. Do you understand me?”
Stone gave a single, jerking nod of his head. The red bone shell he wore melted back into his body, leaving flesh in its place.
Willow reached between the bars and grabbed him by the front of his coat to shake him. He might be half demon, but he was also very stupid. She was not certain any longer that she wanted or needed him. Or even if she could manage him.
She most certainly did not need this aggravation. Outside, in the path that served as a street, the sound of men’s voices was coming closer.
If Stone could not keep up with her, she would abandon him.
She released his coat, then forced fire through her palms and into the metal lock of the cell door. The metal smoldered and smoked before turning a bright, cherry red. When it was hot and melting, she pried the lock off.
It fell to the wooden floor. The planks turned black as they charred, then smoked, and finally, dry as tinder, caught fire. The hate darkening Stone’s expression turned to grudging respect as he swung the door open and stepped from the cell.
The fire on the floor was spreading fast. Willow ran through her options in her head. Her use of demon talent, even though slight, drained her physical strength. Her real abilities lay in her instincts.
They could not go out the front door. There were too many people blocking the way. That meant they had to make a back exit for themselves.
She grabbed the lamp from the hook and smashed it against the wall. The splattered oil ignited. That would slow anyone down if they tried to enter from the front. A window at the back, low to the ground and too small for Stone to climb through, was now their only means of escape.
“Give me your coat. I’m going to break out the glass,” she said.
She wrapped the coat around her fist, and drove her hand through the glass. It shattered into glittering splinters. She tossed the coat back to him and examined the opening. She would have to make it bigger somehow.
“Let me.”
Stone took a few steps back, then, as his foot began to enlarge and his leg to lengthen, he rammed it against the wooden frame and widened the hole. Without stopping to see if she was behind him, he went over the broken ledge and vanished into the night.
Flames licked at her heels as Willow climbed from the burning jail to freedom. She followed Stone’s trail through the pines.
He could shift individual body parts. That could prove a useful talent to her, after all.
Chapter Three
The stable smelled of warm hross, and grain mixed with molasses.
It was not long past the end of winter and the few bales of dusty hay that remained in the loft were no longer fit for consumption, so Creed cut the twine on one bale and threw it down for bedding. He then fed his hross a liberal amount of feed from the well-stocked bin. Bear might not offer much by way of hospitality to peop
le, but signs indicated he was good to his animals. The other hross in the stable appeared well tended.
Bear’s sand swift, thankfully, did not share a roof with the other animals, but had been turned loose to fend for itself. Creed assumed the creature did not wander far from the ranch, and suspected the reason Bear released it was because it served as an excellent watchdog. That made Creed doubly glad he had gotten an invitation to stay. The thought of a hungry sand swift following his scent in the night held little appeal.
It also meant he was effectively trapped inside the stable until daylight. He hoped to have better luck using compulsion on Bear in the morning. Without the sand swift around, he would not hesitate to use his talents to get the information he required so he could then be on his way. This place disturbed him, leaving him restless.
He was not used to the sensation.
He spread his blankets in an empty stall and dug out some hardtack from one of his packs. It was fully dark outside now. The moon had not yet risen, and the faint light from the tiny windows beneath the rafters of one long wall was inadequate. Even so, he chose not to employ his kerosene lantern. Stable fires were too common. He planned to spend his time sleeping.
His thoughts returned to the pretty, timid young woman and the possible reasons why she had been eavesdropping on his conversation with Bear, and could only reach one conclusion. The child had to be hers. That was all he could think of that would make her so bold, because in every other respect, she gave off an air of the utterly defeated.
Raven would despise a woman like that.
Creed did not often think of his sister these days. Leaving her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, but the moment he’d met Blade, he had known that disengaging himself from her life was the right thing to do. The former assassin might have his hands full with her, but he would protect her in a way Creed could no longer do. She’d needed more. And Raven, for her part, would tear the soul from anyone who tried to harm Blade.
The two women could not be more unlike, and yet in their own way, each was equally vulnerable.
He wondered why Bear would sell off his son when it was obvious not only could he afford to keep him, but someday soon would have need of the cheap labor he would have provided.
A faint scraping noise at the front of the stable had Creed sitting upright, instantly alert. The door inched slowly back, and a thin stream of pale yellow light crept inside.
When he saw who it was, Creed could not have been more surprised. She had made it clear he frightened her to the point of incapacity.
She juggled a lantern and a large basket as she wrestled with the door. Creed took swift advantage of her distraction, and was out of the stall and across the stable in an instant to help her. He took the basket from her hand and manipulated the door, pushing it wider on its runners to let her inside before drawing it shut again behind her.
She turned her face toward the closed-off escape route, and Creed saw that he frightened her still. He put as much reassurance as he could into his manner.
“There’s a sand swift roaming free,” he said. “I’d prefer it to stay out there.”
She made an excellent attempt to return his smile. “It’s been trained to leave me alone, but I still run when I see it coming if Bear’s not around.”
Creed doubted if running would save her. Sand swifts were faster than they looked, especially when hunting, but at least she did not simply stand and do nothing to try and save herself.
“Grab a rock or whatever is handy and hit it on the snout,” he advised her. “But avoid its tongue if you can.” A sand swift’s tongue, meant to capture prey, was covered in coarse buds that could tear a woman’s delicate flesh to shreds with one flick. He looked at the basket. An enticing aroma of cooked kyson meat and vegetables wafted from it, and the hardtack he’d been planning to eat no longer held much appeal. He hefted the basket. “Is this for me?”
“Bear told me to bring you some dinner. It’s stew,” she added.
She exuded waves of discomfort at being alone with him. She shifted her eyes to the closed door, and Creed wondered why she did not leave now that the meal had been delivered.
He wondered, too, why Bear had really sent her. He was not the type of man to be concerned over the welfare of an unwelcome guest. The odds were good that she had been sent to question Creed, and there could be only one way he thought she could get information from him. Although whoring women to guests was a common enough practice, Creed’s distaste for Bear increased. A man should protect a woman under his roof, not place her in a position such as this.
Since she seemed in no hurry to leave, and he thought it likely she might have answers to some of his own questions, he tried to make himself appear as non-threatening to her as possible.
Normally that was not difficult for him to do. This wo-man, however, seemed immune to him. He found that both intriguing and a challenge. If most women loved him, and his intentions toward this one were harmless, why did she continue to shy away from him?
This one’s life was difficult enough without him adding to that. While he would like to question her about her son, he wanted to win her confidence more.
“Thank you,” he said. “Since you know my name, do you mind if I ask for yours?” He sent out a tiny bit of compulsion with the question, although not enough to do more than give her a choice as to her response. She could answer him or not, whichever she preferred.
She bit her lip. “Nieve.”
The name meant innocent. He could not imagine a more appropriate one. Except, perhaps, for Mouse.
“Well, Nieve. Would you like to sit with me while I eat, so you can take the basket back to the kitchen with you?”
She nodded, her relief at being handed a reasonable excuse to stay palpable, but she had so many other emotions swirling in her that he found them difficult to sift through. Fear was most prevalent. Almost equal was determination.
He dragged two new bales of hay from the loft above for them to sit on, and positioned them so that he faced her. Nieve said nothing as he proceeded to eat the contents of the basket.
He chewed slowly, watching her without appearing to do so. In the light from her lamp, which he’d hung from a hook on a gray-cobwebbed, dusty beam, he saw a darkening bruise spreading, finger-like, across her face. The bruise had not been there earlier.
His grip on the fork he held tightened, and he forced himself to remember that she belonged to another man. He had a duty to uphold the laws of the land, and right now, like it or not, the laws did not favor her. It was incomprehensible to him, though, how Bear could treat a sand swift with more patience and kindness than a fragile, beautiful woman such as this.
“Is it true that the Godseekers are hunting down spawn and putting them to death?” she blurted out, breaking the silence.
Creed, his mouth full of food, took his time to think about that before answering. “Yes and no. It has to be proven they’re half demon, and dangerous,” he replied. “All I’m tasked with is bringing them to justice.”
Nieve looked at her fingers, which she had twisted together in her lap, as she asked her next question. “If you’re seeking spawn, then why are a few missing children of such interest to the Godseekers?”
“It’s a matter of who they belong to that makes them of interest.” And they were not of interest to the Godseekers. Only to Creed.
“Do you believe there’s a connection between spawn and these missing children?”
The deeper Creed investigated the matter, the more certain of that he became, and while he suspected the an-swer, he could not yet say for sure. What he did know was that the questions Nieve asked were of far more importance to her than to Bear. He might have wondered if she had demon in her own background if she were not so meek. He wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin she had provided him, then packed his empty plate and his fork into the basket and closed it.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “but I know nothing of your son or what might hav
e happened to him. Bear readily admits to selling him, so he doesn’t fit the same pattern as the others who’ve disappeared. Tell me what Bear sent you to find out from me so I can help you provide him with satisfactory answers.”
Her face crumpled. Enormous tears, captured by the lamplight, tracked like melting diamonds down both of her cheeks.
Creed rubbed the back of his neck, torn between an instinct to offer comfort and use of common sense. With a faint, muttered oath, he crossed the short distance between them to sit at her side. She did not stiffen or pull away, as he’d half-expected and hoped, but lost in some private world of her own, seemed not to notice his presence at all.
She doubled over with her arms clutched tight around her waist and sucked in loud, agonized breaths that shook her slight shoulders. Hair the color of cream spilled from her bent head and over her arm to hide her face from him. Her grief, so enormous and fresh that it hurt him to be this close to her, swept over and around him.
He was at a loss for an explanation for her behavior. Something was not right. Her son had been taken from her a year ago, yet she reacted as if it had happened much more recently than that.
Again, he ran his hand along the back of his neck, and up the smooth lines of the tattoo winding from the nape of his neck to his crown. He was reacting to her as if he had never been this close to a woman before. He tried to imagine her as his sister, and how he would deal with her in this situation, but could not. Raven was fire and passion. She would be plotting a murder, not sobbing as if she had lost all reason to live.
Nieve seemed a broken woman.
Another man’s property or not, Creed could not walk away from this and ignore it. He draped an arm around her and drew her to him so that her cheek rested against his thigh. His other hand stroked the top of her head, his fingers tangling through her soft hair. He was large in comparison to her, and he did not wish for her to be frightened by him again, so he sent a faint tendril of compulsion to belay her fear while he whispered a few nonsensical words of comfort.
The Demon Creed (A Demon Outlaws Novel) (Entangled Edge) Page 4