by S. L. Wright
Glory stopped me. “Where are you going now?”
“To see Shock. I have to tell her about Ram. I don’t know what she’s going to do.”
“You should take care of yourself, Allay. I think you’re distracting yourself from what you really need to do. Worrying about Shock is a lot easier than dealing with your own problems.”
She was right. But I didn’t have to listen to her.
Glory gave me a cheery wave good-bye, completely at odds with the importance of her position and the gravity of the situation. She was timeless, that way. As if nothing could really touch her. “It’s a breath of fresh air to meet someone like you, Allay. And I’m not just talking about that lovely flavor you have. I can feel it without even touching you. No wonder you try to lie low. But I don’t think that will be possible anymore.”
Sadly, I agreed. I was quickly becoming notorious in demon circles, burning out as I was like a meteor.…
She went north, while I caught a cab going downtown. I settled into the back and took stock of my situation. Glory had given me a credit card and some cash, enough to last a few weeks. It showed her confidence that I would somehow be able to do the terrible deed. She’d advised that I get out of the city immediately to avoid Dread while the effects from Vex’s death shook down. She even gave me the locations of a few rogue demons who would be easy prey.
Shock and I should both leave, get out of New York, and disappear.
The cab pulled up on Park Avenue, across the boulevard from Revel’s place. I couldn’t sense his signature, but Shock was far up above. Surely she could feel me, too.
I was waiting on the corner for the light to cross, when someone tapped my elbow. Startled, I looked at the balding, middle-aged man. “Yes?” I asked.
“May I speak to you for a moment?”
He shielded his face with a hand, and his features morphed into Theo Ram.
I let out a screech in spite of myself.
“Allay, wait!” He grabbed on to my arm as I almost bolted away. His determination to speak to me, to explain, to make everything right again, poured into me through his touch.
It stopped me in my tracks. “What are you doing sneaking up on me? That’s not right.”
“Allay, why didn’t you take Dread’s essence?” There was anguish in his voice. “You’re dying.”
Suddenly I realized that the woman who had gotten out of the cab behind mine was now loitering by the window of the bookstore. She was young, wearing low- rise jeans and large, gold hoop earrings—like any other teenager you saw in the city. But they usually traveled in packs, not alone, and definitely not in cabs.
Glory had put a tail on me.
In a weird way, that made me feel better. Someone was watching out for me. “Come on,” I said to Ram. I took him into the Starbucks around the corner.
The strong, overlapping scents of coffee, spices, and flavorings assaulted my nose. There were strollers and moms gathered to one side, and people with open laptops seated here and there. It was late for breakfast and early for lunch, so there were empty seats.
I sat down at a table near the back. Ram kept his Theo Ram face on, which I thought was odd. If he was so keen on hiding, why was he wearing a guise that other demons would associate with him?
Ram started to reach out to me, but I pulled back. “I’d never hurt you, Allay. You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
“Are you here to kill Shock?”
He met my eyes. “No. I’m sorry, Allay. I’m sorry I hurt you. I convinced myself it was in your best interest because Shock wasn’t taking care of you properly.”
“You know how much I love her.”
“Not then, I didn’t. Not until our cab ride up to Revel’s. I could have killed Shock as I carried her up in the elevator.” My heart seized, thinking of it. “But I didn’t because I realized you would be bereft without her. I won’t try to hurt Shock again. In fact, I won’t kill any demon just because they’re fertile, if it will make you happy.”
My heart leaped. “You won’t?”
“No. That’s why I let Mystify go. I knew you wouldn’t like it if I consumed him. From now on, I’ll only target demons who hurt people.”
I frowned. “Who hasn’t hurt people? You hurt me. Who are you to judge everyone else?”
“I’m talking about Pique and Stun, the evil, vicious ones. And Dread, who’s been hurting people all along, without my knowing it. You could have put an end to that yourself.”
So casual, his talk of killing. “You’re exactly what I don’t want to become.”
Ram flinched. “If I fail, civilization will fall. I have to be this way.”
“So you’re uncivilized in defending civilization?”
“I’m fighting against the forces of chaos, imbalance, and impurity. I’ve been battling this war for eons, Allay. I was the first to spread the seeds of civilization. I left my people and my home, where I had everything, and I traveled around the world giving people the tools to band together, and the knowledge of how to create something far larger than individuals could do alone. I carried iron with me, and I lived among them, teaching them how to mine and work the iron into strong tools capable of more than bronze.
“Everywhere I went, I found demons living among the humans. I’ve seen what happens when a population is overrun by too many demons. Chaos reigns and the citizens scatter. The demons die off because there’s not enough emotional energy to go around. It proves Merge’s belief that balance is key.”
It still seemed like a massive justification for murder, but I was feeling much more relieved now that he had sworn he wouldn’t kill Shock. I wanted to be sure he would stick to his word. So I listened closely, remembering how he had blamed himself for the death of his progenitor. “What happened to Merge?”
He looked so much like the old Theo, holding back his pain by sheer will, but there was a difference. Ram was showing me his weariness, his great age. He might have looked like Theo Ram, but he wasn’t pretending to be an ordinary cabbie’s son anymore.
“By the time I had returned home, around 800 BC, the demon war had killed Merge and most of our line. I gathered the remnants together and fought to help the cities in the Fertile Crescent. But Bedlam was supporting the descendants of the Aegeans, their aggressive warrior cultures, dominated by autocrats.”
“That doesn’t make you responsible for Merge’s death.”
“I wasn’t there when he needed me.” He met my gaze. “I left because of Hope. I let her drive me away for hundreds of years, just when Merge needed me the most. He didn’t want me to go. He thought I was overreacting. But Hope and I… we never could make it right. She was a possessed human, like you.”
I felt as if I’d been pricked with a needle. Is that what I was to him? A replay of an old romance?
That certainly explains a few things.…
“There were legends about Hope; some are still known today. The maiden who lived half in the light and half in the darkness. The bride who is forced to go to the underworld for part of the year. That’s you, Allay.”
“What happened to Hope?” I asked, quickly diverting him away from me.
“She survived my absence, as I knew she would. She had taken on the guise of a goddess for too long to be anyone’s pawn. She reached out to me. I began to trust her again, to feel we might yet love each other. Then she betrayed me.” His mouth worked, as if he weren’t sure he would finish. But he went on. “I had made a map of the world with all the cities I had started, all the seeds I had planted. Hope took it from me and gave it to Bedlam.”
“Why? How could she do that to you?”
His eyes slid off mine. “She had her reasons. You might even sympathize with her. But the effect was disastrous. Bedlam set out to destroy everything I had built. He traveled with a war band and killed every demon and disrupted every civilization he could find, going to every place I had carefully marked on the map. I retaliated by killing every demon who ever worked with Bedlam.”
Ram just looked at me. He didn’t have to say it. Of course he had killed Hope. No wonder he was racked by guilt. No wonder he needed a confessor.
“We interfered in human destiny trying to destroy each other,” he admitted. “I think that’s what plunged the world into the dark age. Vex would have done the same if I hadn’t stopped him. I’m not going to let that happen again. I had to wait a long time for the Renaissance and Humanitarian movement to catch hold and flower. But humanity has been well rewarded, don’t you think? Why can’t you see that my intentions are honorable?”
“How can good come from killing someone?”
He raised his hands, as if he couldn’t understand me. “You ate meat when you were human, didn’t you? You have to kill to survive in this world. By the way, where did you get all that energy?”
I hesitated; then I was mad at myself. “Crave.”
His response was immediate and unexpected. A surge of jealousy shot orange and green spikes through his aura. Crave’s reputation was well deserved, and Ram must know that.
“Glory told Crave to feed me.” I lifted my chin. “I warned her about Goad’s horde last night, so they were prepared to fight off the demons.”
“You told Glory about me.”
“You knew I wouldn’t stay quiet and let you keep on killing people.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. I wondered if that familiar gesture was truly his or that of his persona. “That doesn’t matter. The most urgent thing is your condition, Allay. You must take another demon. Today. Now.”
“You can’t understand what I’d have to give up.” I refused to meet his eyes.
He reached out again, as if to stroke my arm. It was the last thing I expected. He had used me, been intimate with me to get where he needed to be.
His feelings were so strong because I reminded him of Hope, his one great love.
I pushed back my chair as far as I could go. I couldn’t stand it. “I don’t care what you want from me. I’m not playing that game again.”
Ram stood up. His voice was husky. “I’ll always care about you, Allay.”
Part of me thought he was telling the truth, but he had already proved that he could manipulate me into doing anything he wanted. And he had killed the last possessed human he got involved with!
Ram accepted my rebuff as if it were his due. He turned silently, and from the corner of my eye, I watched him leave and disappear down the sidewalk. It was eerie. I couldn’t feel him, so he could have been anyone—any man on the street.
“I’ll always care about you.” His voice, the way he said it so low and raw, kept repeating in my head. So he admitted he had used me, but somewhere along the way he had started to really care about me?
Could it be possible?
He was a murderer who had almost killed Shock. He was like Revel, a pathological liar who would say whatever it took to control me. The similarities were too stark to ignore. Revel had said he loved me during our summer together. But he had seduced me with an ulterior motive, just like Ram.
I sat there with my stomach churning. I should have been glad—Ram said he would stay away from Shock. But I felt too many other things to feel good.
When I finally felt Revel’s signature approaching, I was a mass of confusion. So far Revel had proved himself to me. Maybe I could trust him, and that bothered me, because a few days ago I would have sworn he was completely untrustworthy. I don’t know the truth anymore.
Revel zoomed past in a limo service car and disappeared into the parking garage by the time I got to the sidewalk. I caught the eye of the black woman at the bookstore; she nodded discreetly, returning to the shelf she was perusing. She definitely belonged to Glory—a spy keeping an eye on me, she was not someone I had to be concerned about at the moment. My life, what remained of it, was an open book. I would tell Glory later that Ram had sought me out to say he wouldn’t target Shock anymore.
I crossed the street and went into the fancy lobby of Revel’s apartment building. I gave my name and was instantly ushered to the elevator that was waiting open for me.
When I reached the penthouse, Revel was standing in the magnificent stained-glass gallery. The afternoon light cast patches of brilliant blue, green, and purple on the carved marble, making me feel as if I were underwater.
“There she is,” Revel announced, clapping his hands slowly in admiration. “The girl who toppled a power structure that’s lasted since the Roman Empire. Nice to see you looking all charged up, Allay.”
“I’m not the one who killed Vex.”
He gave me a hard look. “I can tell, or you wouldn’t be in such dire need of replenishment. But the word is you warned Glory about the strike, and they ambushed Goad’s horde.”
“Wow, you demons have this grapevine stuff down.”
“ ‘You demons,’ ” he repeated with a laugh. “Haven’t you ever heard of texting? A list of Vex demons who took part in the attack on Harlem is circulating. Some were flown in from as far away as China. Glory has demanded they return to their territories immediately. Luckily, they seem to be madder at Dread than you. They figure Dread must have made some kind of bargain with you before you ran off to warn Glory.”
“Great, so now I’m supposed to be on Dread’s side.”
“Zeal told me what happened after she found him. She was able to bring him back from the brink of death. He’s apparently still out of it.”
I raised my brows. “I didn’t know you were so close to her.”
“We aren’t. But there may be possibilities there. She owes me big-time for alerting her about Dread. Thank you very much for that, by the way.”
I rolled my eyes and headed to the stairs. But as I neared Revel, he drew back instinctively. I noticed it because he usually tried to sidle closer to me so he could touch me. That was one reason I wouldn’t let him come to the bar.
He could see how badly I needed to take another demon.
“Allay. I didn’t realize it was this critical.”
“I’m not going to attack you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He frowned. “You need to get that taken care of.”
I started down the stairs. “I’m going to assume you’re being sarcastic.”
Revel followed me. “Seriously, Allay, I can help you—”
I preferred it when he was sarcastic. “I need to talk to Shock.”
By the time I reached the bottom of the marble stairs and turned into the grand living room, Shock dashed through the door to meet me. She looked strong and well charged, with her buzzed white hair and baggy street clothes exactly the same as usual.
“Why didn’t you ring up?” she demanded. “I could feel you down there, but the stupid staff wouldn’t let me go down, not without Revel’s permission.” Shock stopped awkwardly at a distance from me, giving me her usual half smile. “Am I glad to see you!”
Then her eyes narrowed, as she sensed my dire need. “Allay! You’re about to—”
“Not here,” I warned her. I didn’t want to get into it in front of Revel.
Revel was watching us both. “I’m glad you’re here, Allay. It’s not safe out there. Goad is refusing to do as Dread says. Since Dread has contributed no offspring, Goad’s line makes up nearly one-third of the Vex demons, and he controls most of them.”
“That has nothing to do with us,” Shock said dismissively. “We’re not in Goad’s line.”
“Some are sure to hold a grudge against Allay for her part in this.”
It all seemed so minor when I wouldn’t be around to enjoy the real fireworks. “The important thing is Ram. Did Revel tell you everything, Shock?”
She nodded. “We found a lot of references to gods called ‘Ram’ or variations on that theme. You’ll have to tell us if any of it is helpful.”
I took a deep breath. “I think we’re okay now. I just saw Ram downstairs.”
Shock drew into herself, shuddering.
Revel’s lips parted, as if trying to remember feeling anything that would have tipped him off that a demon was so close. I knew how unnerving it was. Demons were their signatures; to know there was one out there who didn’t have a signature was… disconcerting.
“Ram promised he wouldn’t hurt you, Shock. He says he won’t hurt any demon for simply being fertile. But he will continue to kill the ones who hurt people.”
Shock asked me, “Do you believe him?”
“I think so, yes. There’s no reason for him to lie about it. If he wants to kill us, he could do it whenever he wants.”
“Good point.” Shock considered it briefly, coming to her decision. “I’m sick of living in fear, holed up here like a mummy stuck in a coffin. There’s nothing I can do to stop him. I have to accept that. I’m not staying here a minute longer.”
“You’re welcome,” Revel said with a huff.
Shock ignored him. “But what about you?” she asked me. “Maybe you should stay, Allay. It sounds as if you’ve made a lot of enemies.”
Revel agreed. “Vex’s order of protection is gone now that he’s dead. It’ll be open season on hybrids.”
“What I really want is to go home.” My sudden, sharp yearning to retreat to my cozy apartment and the familiar faces in the bar almost overwhelmed me. “But the bar belongs to Vex.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Shock said. “The Den belongs to you. I didn’t want Vex coercing you into something because you lived and worked in their business. So I made him put it into a trust for you. You can’t sell it, but it’s yours until you die, and then it reverts back to Michael.”
Allay turned to Revel. “You said Vex could take the bar away from me.”
“I didn’t know it was put in trust for you,” Revel said. “Shock didn’t tell me that.”
Shock grimaced. “It was my idea. I knew you would leave, Allay, if you thought you owed Vex for the bar. Putting it into a trust meant we didn’t have to involve you in the legal stuff. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to him, but I thought the bar would be the safest place for you. In hindsight, I should have told you.”